Other random talk had begun and now meandered around the room. Dad’s devil-and-angel diagnosis didn’t raise an eyebrow.
I could have challenged Dad on his screwball theology, but I was too annoyed to bother. He would only shake off my corrections in his grandiose way. Being a poet, he was accustomed to excusing his own errors.
Mom, back from cleaning in the kitchen, circulated with the coffeepot. “Oh, Richie,” she said, “nobody cares.”
But Dad wasn’t done setting the conversational scene, and he tried one more shot.
“You!” He gestured with the stem of his pipe at a visiting young woman, a writer whose new book about the war between the sexes was high on the bestseller lists right then. She was dressed very provocatively. All the men were pretending not to notice; the women were not so pretending.
“You’re a woman,” Dad said, unnecessarily. “Why can’t two women get along?”
“What do you mean, Dick—women getting along?” She was pretty, and she winked.
“Oh, I don’t mean it that way.” Dad was having fun. “Ha-ha!”
“Then tell me, Dick, just what kind of ‘women getting along’ are you thinking about? I want to know.”
Mom, warningly, while standing in the kitchen door: “Richie.”
Dad looked at Mom. With the coffeepot in her hand and a dish towel over one shoulder, she had a cautionary eye on her husband. Dad spread out his arms innocently. “What I mean is, you never see a woman just being pals with another woman. There’s always something else going on, some emotion.” He turned to the larger group. “Isn’t that what you find too? What’s that song, Betty, ‘Why can’t a woman be more like a man?’ How’s that go?”
Instead of answering, Mom turned to an old Cold Warrior and asked him why the situation in Madagascar was so toxic just now.
Dad did not mind. All he had been trying to do was to stir the pot, to get things going, and anyway he was continuing to talk with the sex author and was enjoying her flirtation.
I sat on the old daybed in the corner next to Channa. Lena was on the floor by our knees, fascinated by the talk. James was cuddled next to Channa with his important cloth against his face, half asleep.
My annoyance at Dad’s inaccurate theological balderdash was fading. Why should I care? Wasn’t I meandering closer to a Jewish life? What did I care about fine points of Catholic doctrine or about Dad’s imputation of godliness to men? Besides, really, I was just then drifting, sun dazed from hours on the boat and from weeks and weeks of trying to wrestle my third novel out of its bloat.
My drift was interrupted by the sex author leaning over to me and asking, “Dikkon, is it true that Dylan Thomas told you bedtime stories?”
“What? Yes. Yes, sure.”
“How extraordinary! Tell me everything.”
Channa had watched the woman come close, and so she had placed her hand on my knee.
Before I could respond, Grandmother levered herself up from her rocker by the fire, “Well, my dears, I must love you and leave you.”
Dad picked up a flashlight and said, “I’ll light you out, Mother B.”
At that moment, a poet from Florida pushed in through the door, having driven all the way. “Dick! Betty! You asked us to come visit you. Well, here we are! Here we are! And we’ve brought these two pies.”
Hurrah!
The party shuffled companionably sideways, as birds do when a new member slides down the sky to land on their ridgeline and to preen among them.
“You’re Dikkon!” the poet cried, grabbing me off the daybed for a hug. “I’ve read your new novel. I loved it—sea action and all that religious power. Great stuff. Great.”
“Thank you. It was fun to—”
“Great. Just great.” And he was gone.
Channa gave me a sympathetic look.
I grimaced. I looked around the room, and suddenly I couldn’t stand to be in it any longer. I pulled away and slipped outside. I shut the door on the new poet and on the old talk. It was dark outside, and the wind had diminished off the sea.
My book?
My book?
Is there one single word in there that is about my book?
This is my father’s world, and I can’t get away from it. There’s no room left!
Why was it so hard for me to be something—of my own?
As soon as I thought I was something, I wasn’t. I thought I was a Godian, and then I wasn’t. I thought I was a novelist, and then I couldn’t finish the third one. I thought I was an academic, but I disliked academic politics and self-conceit. I thought I was a man who would speak up to save a little girl, and then I wasn’t. I thought I was a man who could charm his way out of marital jail, and then I wasn’t.
Channa stepped out of the house and found me on the beach. Her arm went through mine. “Are you okay?”
“Let’s just put the children to bed, and go to bed ourselves, and not care.”
“Shouldn’t we say good night?”
I sighed. “I will. You round up the kids.”
Channa repeated, “But are you okay?”
“It is what it is.”
We returned to the cottage, which was warm with the fire and the talk. Channa rounded up the children and led them away.
Dad, the famous lyricist, infuriatingly doltish when it came to the play of human emotion around him—for example, my emotions—tried to engage me with the Florida poet, whom I was determined to dislike. And as I usually did, I allowed myself to be drawn back into Dad’s conversation. He was my father, after all. I didn’t get away until much time had passed.
When I slid into bed, Channa was already asleep.
Dikkon, the Son of the Poet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Channa’s third pregnancy was different. The baby was in a breech position, and though attempts were made to position the little person properly, none of them worked.
It was early December in Connecticut, and Lena and James did not yet have winter boots. One day I was at work, and Channa called. “The contractions are getting closer and more regular.”
“I’ll come home.”
When I reached home, the contractions had slowed down, but we still didn’t have the boots. Channa had a new plan. She was experienced at giving birth, and we still had the boots on our to-do list before the baby came. We had called the friends with whom Lena and James were to stay in case this was indeed the day; now we called them back and told them the baby wasn’t on the way after all. We loaded the kids into the car and drove through heavy rain to the Sears at Corbin’s Corner, which is about as far from Hartford Hospital as you can get and still be in the United States. It was early afternoon.
Apparently, every other child in the state of Connecticut had not yet gotten boots that year either. Sears was mobbed with anxious mothers and with dozens of children shrieking and running around the shoe department. Three frazzled salesladies did the best they could. We got Lena done—pink boots for her. We were working on James—and not pink boots by any means.
“Dikkon, it’s starting again.”
“How close?”
“Very close.” She had to sit down. I became even busier than I had been.
Hartford Hospital was miles away. Heavy rain; rush hour; one more pair of boots to buy; keep the kids calm but engage their help.
Bless those two little wonderful humans—they were dreams of assistance to their mother and to me.
My years of cab driving helped—just get there, it doesn’t matter how. We swung by the house of the friends who were to watch Lena and James. No one was home. “We wait,” Channa moaned, clamping an iron grip on my arm. “Five minutes.” At minute four, the husband arrived home.
Off we go—fast!
Make shortcuts—even where there isn’t one, create one!
Hope that a cop will pull us over; get his lights and siren ahead of us.
Go, go, go!
Pull with a screech into Emergency. Nurse pulls open passenger door. “
My wife,” I shout, “having a baby.” But she can see that, and the gurney is there, and Channa is swept into the hospital. I burn to the parking area, brake hard, dash back. Nurses point me the way to go. I arrive panting at the door of Emergency.
“You can’t go in.”
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t go in; it’s too late.”
“What do you mean, it’s too late! I’m her husband!”
“Just wait here, sir. Just wait.”
Sam was born eight minutes after I screeched to a stop at Emergency. In fact, his hand was already born by the time Channa was prepped for an emergency C-section. And then he was there.
A while later, I was allowed to go in. There was Channa, dear Channa, out cold—but fine.
I looked around frantically. No baby.
“You have a son, sir. He’s healthy. There’s something I need to talk with you about.”
“Where is he? What did you say? Did you say something?”
“We’re taking a look at him, sir. There’s something I need to talk with you about.”
“Is something . . . wrong?”
“Let’s go into this room over here.” When there, “Please sit down, sir. There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
Since then, often in my heart, I have blessed that doctor for what he did for me that day. I didn’t even know what Down syndrome meant. I’d heard of it, but what was it? He walked me through it with infinite patience, clarity, and calmness. The hospital would do some blood tests, of course, but they were virtually certain that Sam had Down’s.
Then I went to see my son. The room was dim. Channa was still out cold but expected back soon. Sam was wrapped in a soft blanket close beside her. I had been told that I could hold him, so I did—my new son!
Sam was asleep. I undressed him. Yes, I could see that his chest narrowed near its top. Yes, I could see that his ears were a little low on the sides of his head. Yes, I could feel that his limbs were a little slacker than I should have expected in a newborn. But he felt soft and smooth like a newborn, he smelled like a newborn, he slept deeply as a newborn will when it is full and clean and warm and safe. He was my son.
I sat in a rocker in that dim room and nuzzled him and whispered to him and said hello. I told him that I loved him. He and I sat there for about a half hour before Channa stirred.
I put Sam down at her side and leaned over. Her eyes opened. A soft, tired smile was there. “Hi,” she said.
I moved her hand so it touched Sam’s head. “That’s our son.”
“Oh, how nice.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“There’s something I need to talk with you about.”
“That’s nice, dear,” and she was gone.
About twenty minutes later, Channa emerged into consciousness again. The same thing happened. “There’s something I need to talk with you about.”
“That’s nice, dear,” and she was gone again.
And a third time. “That’s nice, dear.” And gone.
The fourth time when Channa came into consciousness, she was there to stay. This time she was able to look down at Sam and stroke his head. “Oh, how beautiful,” she said.
“There’s something I need to talk with you about.”
“Yes?”
“The doctor thinks Sam has—Down syndrome.”
I had spent more than an hour with Sam, just being there, without particular thought, just feeling contented to hold my new son. I suppose that God had just caromed our lives off in an unexpected direction, but I was not thinking about that.
Channa stroked Sam’s head for a minute or so. Then she looked at me with that deep, human, gestative wisdom that many women have, and which I don’t.
“We know what we’ve lost. We don’t know what we’ve gained.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Immediately, we were bombarded by experts—starting at the top.
On Sam’s second day of life, none other than Dr. Robert M. Greenstein, the head of genetics at the University of Connecticut, came to see us. He had a research interest in Down syndrome and in human genetic mutations of any sort. He provided both wise and patient counsel and visited several times. We had easy access to him later, when we needed further information.
Various state social-service organizations came to assist and advise us. They would be the ones who would help us with home care while we adjusted. The father of a friend of Lena’s, who was an obstetrician whose specialty was high-risk pregnancies, made himself available (while chiding me for targeting Hartford Hospital on boot day, when his own hospital was just a few short miles in the other direction).
And we had an expert of another kind as well—Channa’s best friend came on the second day, with a bottle of champagne, and they cried.
Lena and James were delighted by their new brother, who was just an ordinary baby to them. Channa and I were delighted as well—for one thing, Sam slept through the night, contentedly, from the first night he was home.
Having been father to a newborn twice before, I had expected to be busy and to be tired after the new baby was born, but I had not expected another thing: the expert intrusions into our house—helpful, but intrusions nonetheless. There was one other thing I had not expected. Every grandparent knows how to react to the telephone call from the city where their son or their daughter lives at the time when the new baby is due. “It’s a boy!” “It’s a girl!”
“Yay!”
I encountered an extra responsibility: the responsibility to lead, and to teach.
“Dad, Mom, it’s a boy! Samuel Dryden Eberhart!”
“Yay!”
“Earlier today.”
“And Channa’s okay?”
“Yes. It was a cesarean, but she’s fine.”
“And how is darling little Samuel?”
“He’s fine—ten fingers, ten toes. But, well, the doctor says he might have Down syndrome.”
“Oh.”
Here’s where the leading, the teaching, began. Sam—Channa and I agreed—was simply one more of our children, all of them of the same status, neither higher nor lower; each of them was equal in the sight of God, who had blessed us by providing them to us in the first place, that we should raise them.
Over time, we determined that we would not become activists at raising a child with Down syndrome. Of course, we would become knowledgeable about Sam’s condition and would adjust our ways as required, but we would continue in our objective of raising children who are as different from one another as are random wildflowers in a meadow.
I was certain that I had Lena and James all figured out. Lena was six, and I knew for certain that she would be an actress. Just look at her and at the way she interacted with people around her. An actress, for sure. James was four, and I knew for certain that he would be an engineer. Just look at him and at the way he interacted with mechanical things around him. An engineer, for sure.
However, the Down syndrome experts made me furious. I quizzed them hard every time they came to our house. They gave me the same answer every time, and their answer frustrated me.
Yes, we were blessed that Sam did not have the heart problem or the digestive obstruction that sometimes characterizes babies with Down’s. But what would Sam be doing when he was four? What would Sam be doing when he was six? The experts said they did not know. What about puberty? They said they did not know.
Well, of course they knew! They were experts, weren’t they? I was Sam’s father, and I needed to know.
What would Sam be doing when he was ten? What would Sam be doing when he was fifteen? What would Sam be doing then? I insisted to know.
I had Lena and James all figured out. I needed to figure Sam out too, and the experts—the experts—wouldn’t help me.
Fie on them!
It took three months for Sam to teach me the first thing that Sam taught me. It took three months of hearing from the experts that they did not know
what Sam would be doing at any future time, and that I would need, simply, to wait to find out.
It took three months for me to calm down and to realize that, regarding Sam, there truly was no way to know.
It came into my head, thinking about my father, and about being a father, and about all that stuff, that sometimes fathers annoy their children because the fathers get it all wrong. I remembered the time when Dad told Marie Rexroth that I had moved to California to get a master’s in theology. Wrong. Also, Dad had it in his head that I don’t drink alcohol. Wrong. Where Dad had gotten that idea, I don’t know. But I do enjoy the true, the blushful Hippocrene, as Keats gracefully terms the juice. I just never liked it poured out as sluggingly as Dad poured his own.
Funny, how fathers can get it all wrong sometimes.
Lena the actress . . .
James the engineer . . .
Oh! Wait!
Take a deep breath, Dikkon—thank you, Sam.
Dear Sam, it took you only three months. I’d been a father for six years. It took you only three months, Sam, to make me a wiser father. So I backed off on the actress and the engineer bit. I had no business tying my children down in my mind at their tender ages of six and four—and of three months.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
During Channa’s and my years with young children, we were tugged in a direction opposite from the secular progressive direction that invited many around us. This was especially true as Judaism became ever more fully the definition of our relationship with the world around us and with the world’s ideas.
Channa was reconnecting with the Judaism of her extended family, and I was trying to work my way out of intellectual limbo. Both of us took Judaism—it was Reform Judaism that we practiced—seriously. There was a great deal to learn. Judaism is a religion of law, and we strove to understand what Yahweh meant by His Ten Commandments and by His Holiness Code recorded in Leviticus.
The Time Mom Met Hitler, Frost Came to Dinner, and I Heard the Greatest Story Ever Told Page 16