A Minor Fall

by Price Ainsworth

  It didn’t matter whether the painting of Jesus hung in a museum or was for sale at the flea market on Interstate 20 in Abilene. If He’s praying, He’s looking up to see if a response is forthcoming. Looking up while you pray is akin to checking the number of bars on your cell phone to see if you are in a good service area. Conversely, has there ever been a radio broadcast of a Church of Christ sermon in which some hapless sinner isn’t being thrown down a bottomless stairwell into the damnation of a dimly lit, un-airconditioned—sometimes referred to as a fiery pit—basement garage?

  At some point during the elevator ride, my cell phone rang. I found it in my pocket, saw the call was from the office, and observed the scowl on the wheelchair attendant’s face as I said, “Hello?” He obviously didn’t understand why a young lawyer with a head injury on his way to see his wife who was in labor would bother to take a call from the office. Probably only a young lawyer would understand that.

  “Davy, you were right. There is something funny about this Davis video.”

  “Eileen, what are you still doing at the office?” I asked. “Hang on a second. I’m getting off an elevator.”

  When the doors opened on the maternity floor, I asked the attendant pushing the wheelchair if I could walk to Michelle’s room and tried to explain to him that I had to take this call. He agreed and pressed a button to ride the elevator back down, and I walked slowly away from the wheelchair and elevator, trying to appear as calm and casual as I could, until the doors closed behind me. “What are you talking about?” I said to Eileen.

  “I had a couple of the law clerks figure out how to hook a laptop up to the big screen TV in the large conference room. We’ve been watching the video over and over for the last hour or so.”

  I tried to picture the scene in the conference room and hoped that Mr. Peters wasn’t there to see it. Of course, Sullivan wasn’t there. Surely he must be either at the hospital or on his way with Michelle’s mom. “There is something about the timing, isn’t there?”

  “No, well there is that. It is like the doctor is deliberately trying to get caught, or at least seen by the camera. But that is not why I called,” Eileen said and paused for effect. “She smiles.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Yeah, Tamara Davis smiles. You can’t clearly see her face when the doctor leans over to kiss her because his body blocks her face from the camera. But when he stands up straight and pulls the gown and covers up over her, Tamara’s expression has changed. She has just the slightest Mona Lisa smile.”

  I had not noticed the change in expression myself even though I had looked at the video many times. But I could picture in my mind what Eileen was describing. I knew she was right. “Would she smile even if she was doped up on anesthesia?”

  “Maybe, but I think there is something else going on.”

  “I better call Tamara. Can you give me her phone number?” I stopped at a nurses’ station and asked to borrow a pen. I wrote down on my hand the phone number that Eileen gave me, hung up the phone, and then sprinted down the gleaming tiled hall.

  When I got to room 624, the door was closed. Fortunately the name “Michelle Jessie” was written on a small grease board pinned to the wall beside the door. I leaned my ear against the door, trying to listen to what was going on in the room. It sounded like a television was playing, and in a few seconds I figured out that Michelle was probably watching a “Shrek” DVD. One of the lawyers’ wives from Peters & Sullivan had given her a boxed set of the two Shrek movies, along with his-and-her stuffed green ogres, at Michelle’s baby shower a few months ago. Michelle had probably packed the two DVDs in her bag to take to the hospital so that our baby could listen to the movies while waiting to be born.

  We had both watched the movies since receiving the gift, but we had not watched them together. Michelle had seen them by herself on a rainy Saturday at our house while I was flying around the country on Sullivan’s private jet. I had watched the movies on successive nights when I woke up at about three and went downstairs to watch television. We both agreed that the first movie was the best, except we wished the cat had been introduced in the original. There was already talk of a third movie in the series. It would probably be Shrek vs. Rocky or Shrek Meets Darth Vader. After all, it was the author of Ecclesiastes that told us that “There is no new thing under the sun.”

  As I listened at the door, I could tell by the theme song playing in the background that Shrek was wandering in the wilderness on his way back to his swamp:

  I heard there was a secret chord

  That David played, and it pleased the Lord,

  But you don’t really care for music, do you?

  It goes like this: the fourth, the fifth

  The minor fall, the major lift.

  The baffled king composing hallelujah.

  I remember wondering at the time that I first saw the movie what the hell that song had to do with anything in the film.

  On the other side of the door, my wife was watching a child’s fairytale about loving somebody for who they are on the inside, rather than how they appear on the outside, while some young man with a lilting voice was singing the words of the raspy Leonard Cohen tune and changing them all around and adding verses that I didn’t remember.

  In a moment, I would go through that door and shatter Michelle’s fairytale. If I didn’t go through the door, it would probably be shattered anyway, since she would find out about it without me telling her, and I thought that was almost as bad as anything I had done to that point. She would never be able to love the inside of me again. I was a keeper of secrets that, when revealed, would make me far more repulsive than any animated, green ogre because in my mind those secrets didn’t make me more like anybody else. The princess in “Shrek” hides the fact that she turns into an ogre at night, but how is that going to be a turnoff for a fellow ogre? What I had done at night, or at least under the cover of darkness, would be completely foreign and incomprehensible to Michelle. I had to tell her now, if not for her sake, then for my sake, and, of course, for the baby’s sake.

  I knew that I should have told her earlier.

  With my arms stretched across to the framing on each side of the door, I lightly banged my head against it. I heard Michelle say from the other side, “Come in.” I paused, took a deep breath, and let out a long sigh. The door seemed extremely heavy as I pushed it open.

  As I went into Michelle’s room, I saw that she was in bed and wearing a hospital gown. There was an IV bag hanging on a metal stand beside the bed and a monitor with orange waves on the screen was positioned to one side. In one corner of the room was an upholstered wingback chair. Michelle’s bag and the little video camera were resting in the chair.

  Her mother was seated at the head of the bed watching the movie with Michelle. They were staring at the television mounted on the wall. Both were smiling and seemed glad to see me. I could tell that Michelle was worried, but I assumed that had something to do with either my head wound or the fact that her regular doctor wouldn’t be delivering the baby. So far she didn’t know that there really was something that should be causing her concern.

  The orange waves on the monitor began to change and I could tell that Michelle was gripping her mother’s hand more tightly. Michelle squeezed her eyes closed and then relaxed them open as the waves returned to their uniform pattern on the screen. Michelle’s mom looked at her watch.

  “That was a pretty good one, wasn’t it?” Amy asked trying to sound upbeat and lighthearted. “I don’t imagine it will be very long now before they give you the epidural. Are you better, now? That was a bigger one.”

  Michelle nodded and rested a moment before focusing on me. She blew three or four quick breaths like she was blowing out the candles on an invisible birthday cake. “I thought they were going to stitch you up,” she said to me, also straining to sound upbeat.

  “They did,” I said and raised my hand to my forehead. The skin was numb, but my head was throbbing with pain. War
m blood was oozing out of the stitched laceration and dribbling down toward my face. I took a tissue from a box on a bureau in the room and blotted the blood.

  “I have to talk to you,” I said. Michelle and her mom both could tell from the tone of my voice that I had something serious to say. The forced smiles disappeared from their faces and they looked at me, waiting for me to say what it was I had to say.

  “What about your head?” Michelle asked when I didn’t begin. She pointed the remote control at the television and clicked off the power. “Can it wait until you have your head looked at again?”

  “I’ll go back down to the emergency room in a minute,” I said. “I have to talk to you now.” I looked at Amy, who took her hand away from Michelle’s hand and stepped away from the bed. “Please, Amy. I’ll just be a minute.”

  Amy looked at me in a piercing, cynical way, trying to surmise what I was about to say. Her look said that now was not the time, and this was not the place to begin any in-depth philosophical discussion. She didn’t know what I was going to say, but Amy sensed that she needed to protect her child even as Michelle was about to deliver her a grandchild. Amy smoothed her skirt as she stood up from the bed and walked across the room. She hesitated at the door behind me. I didn’t begin until I heard the heavy door close behind her.

  “I have herpes,” I blurted out and fell across the bed, talking into the mattress. It felt like I was across the room watching myself confess to my wife what had happened. In all the times I had practiced making this speech, I had never envisioned making it in Michelle’s hospital bed while we waited for our son to be delivered. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I may have given it to you. I’m worried that the baby will get it, if he’s delivered vaginally. It may already be too late. Please, have the doctor do a C-section.” I began to cry. With the back of my hands, I wiped away the tears that were streaming down my face. I tried to focus on Michelle’s eyes as she processed the information, but I couldn’t look at her.

  “What are you saying?” Michelle asked. She seemed to be measuring her words as she asked me question after question. “What do you mean, you have herpes? Are you sure? What is it? Why didn’t you tell me? Where did you get it? When did you get it? How long have you known? Why do I have to have a C-section? I don’t have it, do I? What about the baby?” She was sitting up in bed, glaring at me. “What about our baby, Davy?”

  Before I could answer any of the questions, the orange waves on the monitor began to change again by dipping higher and lower, and Michelle gripped her face in pain with the contraction. We both watched the monitor. As the contraction subsided, Michelle took a series of deliberate breaths again through her pursed lips, her hands still clenching the bed sheet on either side of her.

  “I know that I owe you answers to all of your questions. I will answer them. But right now I need you to call the doctor. Please call the doctor,” I said anxiously. “I’m sorry. Please, hurry.” Michelle reached up to a button on a call device that had been looped around the headboard of the bed. She held the button down, continued with her controlled breathing, and stared at me waiting for the answers to the questions she had asked me.

  In a moment, a female nurse came through the door. I was still lying across the foot of the bed but I had rolled over on to my back. Blood and tears were running down my face. The nurse started toward Michelle, and then stopped when she saw me. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Are you okay?” she asked, looking at me as I struggled to sit up.

  “No,” I said too loudly. “We need the delivery doctor now,” I said trying not to shout. She stepped toward me as if there was something wrong with me and she was going to examine me. “I’m fine but we need to talk to the delivery doctor immediately,” I said.

  The nurse turned on her heels and left the room.

  “Where did you get it?” Michelle asked. She didn’t wait for an answer. “How long have you known?” Again, she didn’t wait for me to respond. “What can it do to the baby?”

  Before I could answer the last question, a young woman in scrubs that I took to be Dr. Godsman burst into the room. “What can what do to the baby?” the woman demanded. She walked quickly to the side of the bed.

  “Tell her,” Michelle said sternly to me. “Tell her all of it, Davy, and don’t leave anything out.”

  “I have genital herpes, doctor. I’ve never told Michelle before now. I’m worried that I may have infected her and the child. Is it still possible to do a C-section? Is it possible to see if Michelle and the baby are okay?”

  The doctor’s eyes widened and then narrowed. In three quick steps, she moved to Michelle. I stood and stepped away from the bed as the doctor raised the sheet from the foot of the bed. “You’re only at about three centimeters, and the baby’s head has not crowned.” Dr. Godsman said as if she were going over the options in her head as she spoke. “I can’t really tell one way or the other at this point if you have herpes, or if you’re having an outbreak now. I also can’t be sure that the baby isn’t infected already. But, if you’re experiencing an outbreak, your baby could become infected, especially if he moves farther down the birth canal. I’ll order a medication that we would’ve used as a preventative measure,” she said shaking her head, “but I doubt that’ll do much good now. This kind of infection, contracted at birth, could be very dangerous for an infant. Complications include blindness, retardation, even death. Given the risks and the lack of information we have, I’d recommend that we proceed with a Cesarean section.”

  She walked quickly over to the monitor and looked at a strip of paper coming from the machine. “Your contractions are coming closer together now. We can be in the operating room and deliver the child in less than twenty minutes.”

  I walked to the side of the bed. “I’m sorry, Michelle,” I said. She took my hand, and we both started to cry. For a moment I couldn’t say anything. I was trying to think of what to say next. “I’ve tried to tell you for the last six months, but I just wouldn’t let myself. My guilt, my shame, my fear, all of it just kept me from telling you.”

  Michelle didn’t say anything, and squeezed my hand very hard. She began to shake her head from side to side and I thought that she might start screaming.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Jessie,” the doctor said. “I know you two must talk. You can do that in an hour or so. Right now, I need to get your wife to the operating room and deliver your baby.” The doctor had her hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes as she spoke. She was directing me out of the room.

  Suddenly the room was filled with nurses in scrubs busily hurrying around the room. In a synchronized, almost choreographed fashion, they transferred Michelle to a smaller bed and rolled her out the door and off to an operating room. Amy came back into the room where I was and Tim was with her. Before the doctor and I reached the door, the doctor turned to me and held my chin so that she could observe my forehead.

  “You need to have that head re-stitched,” she said. “Why don’t you run back down to the emergency room and come back after the doctor has added a stitch or two?” Dr. Godsman turned to the Sullivans. “Grandparents, I presume?” She said, trying to force a smile.

  “Parents of the bride,” Tim managed to say as he tucked his thumbs into the lapels of his sport coat and bounced up on his toes. He was beaming with pride and wanted the doctor to understand that this was his show.

  The doctor faced Tim directly while speaking to both Amy and him. The smile disappeared from his face as the doctor spoke. “I’m sure you are familiar with a C-section procedure. I think it’s necessary in this instance because of certain complications. I pray that all will go well and you can see your grandson and your daughter in a little while. The operating room is on this floor. You can wait for us here, or in the waiting area down the hall. I will find you after the procedure.” With that, Dr. Godsman was gone as quickly as she had arrived.

  I was following her out the door when Tim caught me by the arm. He glared at me.

  “What is goi
ng on?” he asked. I could see the anger rising in his face. “What is wrong with Michelle? Has something happened to the baby? Tell me what’s happening?” he demanded.

  I met his stare and tried to say in as even a tone as possible, “Michelle is going to have a C-section in order to protect the baby. I’ve got to go get this cut stitched up again. I’ll be back here in a minute.” Tim let go of my arm and looked questioningly at his wife. I walked out of the room and down the hall to the elevator.

  As the door to the room closed behind me, I heard Tim shout in my direction, “Protect the baby from what?” The words trailed off as the heavy door closed behind me, but it was clear that Sullivan’s voice was full of righteous indignation.

  23

  WHEN I GOT TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM back in the Main Building, Jonathan was already there waiting for me. I wondered how he knew to meet me there. Probably he had been upstairs, was told where I went, and had taken a more direct route to the emergency room than I, lost in my thoughts as I blindly shuffled through the corridors of the hospital. After completing some paperwork intended to have the young physician who had already attempted to stitch my head try his hand again, I was led to a room and told to lie down on a bed.

  I closed my eyes and tried to start my baseball dream. In my conscious mind, I was trying to insert rational thoughts into my dream so that if I did fall asleep maybe, for once, the dream would come out all right. I would still be waiting for the ball to come down out of the night sky, though I was thinking that maybe I could catch the ball with my throwing hand and shave a few milliseconds off to get the runner going to first. Jonathan, who had followed me into the private room, was smiling with his hand on my shoulder when I opened my eyes, unable to sleep. It was nice of him to be there, but I wondered if I closed my eyes would he go away, if all of this would go away, and I could go to sleep and get back to my baseball game. It was as futile to try to sleep as it would have been to project a favorable outcome into my dream.