A Minor Fall

by Price Ainsworth

  I kept asking myself and God why this was happening. Was it the result of some fatal flaw in my character—a toxic combination of lust, pride, procrastination, avarice, envy, immoderation, and wrath that exceeded any safe-level threshold? Was it the unfortunate consequence of a series of capricious events, or the affirmative effort of a punishing God determined to rectify past wrongs? It seemed to me to be the result of fear—fear of being alone and isolated, and fear of not being capable of being the person that my wife thought I was. Maybe fear is the cause of evil. Fear begets guilt begets shame begets bad decisions begets guilt.

  Through my adultery and the compounding of the sin by my silence, I had destroyed my marriage, wrecked my wife, and injured my child. And yet, here I was, sitting on this bench by myself in some far corner of a sprawling hospital complex, asking God how He could let this happen. I wanted to shake my fist at Him, and tell Him that He was not holding up His end of the deal.

  I did think about those examples in the Bible where God’s greatest punishment, or call to sacrifice, seemed to be taking someone’s first-born child. Moses and Passover. Abraham and Isaac. Even Jesus. But to me, up to this point, those had just been Bible stories. Just like Jesus had told parables to help us understand the moral of his teachings, the Bible stories were like Aesop’s Fables to me. Similitudes. A real, loving god would never actually take a child as punishment for the child’s father, would He?

  Then it would occur to me that if at a point as low as this in my life I was choosing to argue with God, it must mean that somewhere, somehow, I still believed that He existed; and that if He could be persuaded that the situation was deserving of His intervention, He would step in and make things right. And then, I would try to begin my prayer again.

  I don’t know how long I sat there, a broken person, rocking back and forth on that bench, looking up at the ceiling and then down at the floor, alternately demanding and pleading for help. It could have been seven minutes or seven hours. I don’t think it would have mattered if I had stayed seven days in that quiet, long room with the piano playing outside the stained-glass windows because I didn’t seem to be able to get the prayer started much less finished. I wanted help, but I didn’t know how to ask for it.

  My reverie was interrupted by a knock at the doors. This time it wasn’t Jonathan who peeked inside. It was my dad, and I knew that my mother was standing behind him.

  I went out into the vestibule. I could tell they had both been crying, and I assumed that they had been there for awhile. Mom kept lifting her eyeglasses and dabbing at her eyes with a crumpled tissue. The artificial lighting in the chapel had caused me to lose track of what time of day it was. I glanced toward the area outside the chapel and next to the lobby and could tell from the light in the atrium that the sun was about to come up.

  “Davy,” Dad said, “Your Mom and I didn’t want to disturb you, but the doctors came out of the neonatal intensive care unit just a minute ago. It doesn’t look like your son Paul is going to make it. We thought you might want to see him, maybe talk to him, before anything happens. Come on, follow me.” He took off walking quickly, with one arm around my mom, who hadn’t spoken and had barely looked at me, and the other arm clutching a wrinkled, legal-sized FedEx envelope. We got on the elevator to go back up to the maternity floor.

  After the elevator ride, we got off on the maternity floor and I followed my parents around the building to another hallway. There, in front of a large glass window that began at waist level and extended to the height of the ten-foot ceiling, stood Tim, Amy, and Jonathan Sullivan. Behind them stood Tim’s friend William, wearing plaid golf pants and no shoes, Rod Day and his wife, both still in their suits from work, and my parents. All were transfixed by what was happening on the other side of the glass.

  Four tiny babies, each seeming much smaller and more frail than the babies I had remembered seeing in the infant room during the Lamaze tour of the hospital, lay in their respective plastic tubs under intense white lights. All sorts of lines and cords were coming and going from each tub. Several men and women in scrubs, with coverings over their shoes and hair, and wearing rubber gloves, moved around the room attending to the infants.

  None of the people on our side of the glass spoke. All of them, Tim included, looked like their life had been drained away; as though a crack had developed in the vessel that contained each person and their lives had gushed out onto the floor and then escaped along the seams in the tile and baseboard.

  I don’t know how long the group of them had been standing there when my parents had left to come get me, but it must have been quite some time. They were completely helpless to assist with what was happening on the other side of the glass. It was the kind of helplessness that made you wonder what, if anything, you could control on this side of the glass as well.

  My dad caught my eye, and he nodded toward the infant that was in the tub the farthest to our left. The child’s eyes were closed, and he had a thatch of burnt sienna hair on the top of his head. He gripped his little fists in convulsive jabs, trying to get comfortable in the blankets in the tub. On the end of the tub facing us was a sticker with the name “Jessie” scrawled in black ink. Several of the cords coming from his tub ran to monitors that flashed nearby, but I couldn’t see what it was that was being monitored. One attendant stood at the head of his little acrylic bed and did not leave to assist the other babies. That attendant, his face covered by a mask, his hands covered in latex gloves, kept looking back and forth from the baby to one particular monitor.

  About the time that I tried again to begin my futile prayer, I felt a tap on my elbow. It was the doctor who had delivered my son.

  “Mr. Jessie,” Dr. Godsman said somberly. It looked to me like she was still wearing the scrubs that she must have had on during the C-section. “It’s been a while since the delivery. There has been no change for the better since his birth. I’m sorry, there has been a steady decline.”

  “Is there anything you can do?” I asked.

  “The doctors have done all they can,” she said, and I saw Amy start to lay her head on Tim’s shoulder. Without watching, I could tell that each of the couples had put their arms around their mate. “What I’d like to do is take the baby off all of the life-support equipment he’s on, and take him and you to Michelle’s room. I don’t know how long the three of you would have together. Maybe, an hour. Maybe, less. I’ve talked to Michelle, and she has given her consent. Though it’s not absolutely necessary, I thought it appropriate to ask you as well.”

  “I’ll do whatever Michelle wants to do,” I said.

  The doctor tapped once on the glass to get the attention of the male attendant standing next to Paul. He must have said something, as several of the other attendants came over to the baby and began moving around the plastic bassinet.

  The doctor took me by the elbow and directed me behind a pair of double doors at the end of the hall. I could still hear Amy and my mother crying behind us as we went through the doors and marched slowly down the otherwise quiet hallway.

  After a few steps, Dr. Godsman stopped and faced me. “I’m going to take you to Michelle’s room and the nurse will bring in the baby. It may be helpful for you to know Mr. Jessie that the hospital provides support for families that lose a baby in childbirth. Maybe we haven’t seen this exact set of circumstances before, but experience has taught us some perspective that I’d like to share with you. If the family gets a little time with the child, however brief, they will look back on that time later and it helps them with the grieving process. I know you’ve had a long night Mr. Jessie, but imagine the night that Michelle has been through. We don’t need you upsetting her more, if that’s possible. She’ll probably still be a little woozy from the anesthesia, but I can guarantee you that she and you both will remember everything that happens in the next few minutes and everything that is said and how it is said.”

  Dr. Godsman took my arm by the elbow again and resumed leading me down the hallway. It almo
st felt like I was leaning on her as we walked along. We stopped in front of a closed door that I assumed would lead to Michelle’s room. There was a plastic and metal chair placed by the door.

  “What should I say?” I asked, looking at the closed door and then at her. I could see the male nurse walking toward us down the hall. He was carrying the baby in his arms.

  “Quit worrying about what you ought to say and say what you feel,” she said softly and patted me on the chest. I took off my blazer and laid it across the back of the chair by the door.

  Dr. Godsman turned toward the nurse and left me there by myself standing. I wanted to stop the doctor and tell her that I didn’t feel anything—just numb and empty and alone.

  25

  YOU NEVER THOUGHT YOU would find yourself in a situation like this. You tell yourself that nobody ever thought that you would end up in a situation like this. You always said you enjoyed the fact that the practice of obstetrics involves constant challenges and that no two days are ever alike. There was nothing routine about this job, and you enjoyed that. Or you thought you did before tonight. You think about the coincidences that have to occur for someone to end up practicing one area of medicine instead of another. About the only area of medicine you had no interest in practicing when you started medical school was psychiatry—too unfathomable, too difficult to know if you were achieving desired results.

  Sure, back in medical school your fellow students questioned you about why you wanted to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology because of the high malpractice insurance rates and the weird hours. You laughed them off and told them that you wanted to deliver babies. That always shut them up. It seemed like such a noble calling. Nobody ever asked the follow up question: why do you want to deliver babies? Most of your friends who thought they wanted to be brain surgeons or do heart transplants or stem cell research when they started medical school were now on their way to lucrative careers as plastic surgeons or rheumatologists. They followed the money, but not you. You set your goal and stuck to it.

  Of course, your parents knew the real reason that you wanted to become an obstetrician, but even they never talked to you about it. Your parents, what made you think about them at this hour? Maybe part of you wants to call your dad, the psychiatrist, and talk to him. What good would that do? What good had it done to talk to him the one time you needed any real advice? The time for going to him for reasoned advice had come and gone. Conversations with him now were just exchanges of pleasantries.

  You could call your husband. It would be nice just to hear his voice. It was early, but he would understand. You look back over your shoulder toward the room where you left the young man and his wife and newborn child. You point to your cell phone to let the male nurse you are walking with that you need to make a call and step into an empty room and close the door behind you.

  Your husband will be sleeping and you imagine him sprawled across the bed in his boxers and that Trinity University Football T-shirt. How lucky were you to even meet this guy? What were the odds? He grew up in Dallas, went to college in San Antonio, and then attended medical school in Galveston. You grew up in Los Angeles and went to undergrad and med school at UCLA. But you both happened to do residencies in Houston, his at the prestigious Texas Institute for Rehabilitation and Research. Life has its coincidences. What were the odds of our meeting each other?

  His practice was so different from yours. As a physiatrist, a physical medicine and rehabilitation physician, your husband’s job was more like that of a construction superintendent. He spent all his time overseeing workers sawing and hammering and gluing and nailing things back together. He could usually schedule when these repairs were going to take place. Sure, he had to take a call from time to time, but there were no late-night deliveries. Even in emergencies, he was usually able to get the patient stabilized and pieced back together so that more extensive work could be scheduled for later when a more thorough plan was developed. Casts and slings, exercise and strengthening, and time to heal were not the kind of tools that obstetricians utilize.

  As you dial the numbers and the phone begins to ring, you imagine him scrambling to find his cell phone on the nightstand and staring at the caller ID to see who would be calling at this hour. Eventually he answers, his voice raspy with sleep. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Sorry to wake you.”

  “That’s okay. I’m sure the Jaybird will be up in a minute anyway.” You imagine that he is looking at the clock beside the bed. “What’s going on?” he asks.

  The two of you have a four-year old boy named “Jay” that your husband insists on calling “Jaybird.” You tell others that the nickname stuck because the little boy has beautiful blue eyes, but you know that your husband compared the boy’s colic shrieks as an infant to that of a blue jay and the child was stuck with the name. You both agree that the boy is the most handsome, intelligent child in the world. You think he might cure cancer. Your husband is convinced the boy will someday quarterback the Cowboys.

  “Nothing.” You lie. “I just needed to hear your voice.” You did, and, remarkably, it is helping. The dark numbness that a moment ago seemed about to descend around you, lifts noticeably. But it is still there.

  “Is it really that bad?” he asks. You can tell that he is more awake now.

  “It’s bad.” You say, and you proceed to tell him about the emergency C-section you performed earlier, and the fact that the baby you delivered is unlikely to survive. He doesn’t ask you about the whys and wherefores, not right away. His concern at that point is you. God you love this man. You don’t really understand his fascination with sports in general or football in particular, but you know that he cares about you. And of course, he gave you the Jaybird.

  “What could go so wrong that you would be calling at this hour? Are you going to be okay?” he asks. That is part of why you love him. He can tell when something is going on with you and you don’t have to spell it out for him.

  “You are human. You can’t save every baby. You’ve lost babies before. Not many, I know, but you can deal with this. Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  You don’t want to, and probably shouldn’t from a strictly ethical standpoint, but you do tell him about what happened. The other babies you lost were expected. The pregnancies had been complicated. The fetuses had shown signs of distress prior to delivery. You even had a chance to prepare the families for a bad result, encouraging them not to let this event prevent them from trying again in the future when they were ready.

  You start with when you got the call from Dr. Nathan’s office about how one of his patients was going into labor the previous evening. You learned that Dr. Nathan, the man who had mentored you through your residency, the man whom you most wanted to emulate in your practice, the man you loved as much as any man except maybe your husband, had suffered a blinding stroke and was not doing well. The patient had gotten to the hospital before her chart had arrived at your office, and you met her there with her husband. Everything appeared to be going well until the husband unloaded the bombshell about the herpes and then the baby was so far down the birth canal that the C-section itself was risky—but you had performed it, and the mother was doing well, but not the baby. Herpes. How could herpes be responsible for killing a baby in this day and age? The things people do to each other. And apparently it all had to do with keeping secrets. The husband had not told his wife until she was in labor that he had herpes and that she might have the disease as well. Why did people continue to try to keep secrets from each other? What good ever came from that?

  “I guess we all have our secrets,” your husband says, not in a critical way, and you know what he is saying. You think back to that day in your father’s study. You were a senior in high school with good grades and a ridiculously high SAT, which even today you thought might be the result of some testing anomaly, and you had been accepted to UCLA already. Then you had become bored or maybe you were trying to get your father’s attention by dating some guy that
you knew your dad would never say anything about, but wouldn’t approve of. You were just sitting there with your mom and dad, and neither of them were saying anything. Your dad just stroked his bearded chin until you came to the conclusion on your own.

  “Do you have any idea what time you will be home?” Your husband asks. You don’t; you’re just waiting around for the inevitable, and you tell him that. He understands and yawns. “I think I may take the Jaybird over to Rice this afternoon. They are playing Tulane at one. He likes watching the guy in the owl suit.”

  You tell him that sounds like a good idea and that you’ll probably just come home in a little while and try to get some sleep. You tell him again that you are sorry for waking him, and he says that it is okay and to call back if you need to. When you hang up, you feel better and you drop the cell phone back into the front pocket of your white coat. You look around the empty room where you have been standing and wonder to yourself what events will take place there over the remainder of the day.

  26

  AS THE DOOR TO THE EMPTY HOSPITAL room closes behind you, you think back to when you left the sterile, lifeless room at the little clinic in Pasadena, a few miles from your parents’ home. That room is a little box in your memory that you keep inside the larger box, the clinic, that you keep inside a still larger box, your distant past—and you try not to open them, but sometimes they just fall open no matter how tightly you try to keep them shut. Your mom had wheeled you out in a wheelchair that the clinic had provided.