by Peter Israel
“What does Craig say?”
I flare at this.
“Do you know what he says? He says I’m not keeping busy enough!”
My father smiles.
“I’m not understanding, though, Georgie,” he says. “Is it that you’re afraid something bad’s going to happen to your baby?”
“Maybe. Or already has. Or to me, or both of us.”
But that’s not it either. Sometimes I think I’m going to drop the baby any second, sometimes I think she’ll never come out, but I guess that’s normal. What I feel is more free-floating, unfocused, I can’t explain. It’s like a character in some Stephen King novel, when the bad’s right there but nobody knows it. Except I doubt my father has ever read a Stephen King novel.
He’s closed his eyes, rubs at the corners. The gesture calms me somehow. I used to tease him about it. He does it, he’s always joked, because it gives him a precious few seconds to think of something—anything—when he’s supposed to produce an insight for a patient. Only tonight there is no special insight. All he says is that I only have a few more weeks to get through and then, whatever I’m afraid of, it will be over. Meanwhile, I just have to grit my teeth. Getting through, gritting my teeth. He reminds me that I’ve never been very good in situations over which I’ve no control. He reminisces: about when I was little and just learning to talk, God help them if he or my mother didn’t understand what I was trying to say. I’ve heard this before. I remind him too that, if he’s right about me and my need to control situations, then it must be a straight gene pass-through, father to daughter.
We laugh familiarly together.
At the same time, there’s something missing. Didn’t I cry, confess? So where’s my catharsis? Instead, he looks at me, I look at him, and I realize suddenly that I’m looking at an old face, tired, distracted even. Maybe his mind is elsewhere? Well, but he is old, I think, sixty-six this year, even though he still keeps a full slate of patients. What right do I have to inflict myself on him?
I want to reach out, smooth the wrinkles on his face, check, as I once did, for places he may have missed, shaving. In the end, though, we’re just gazing at each other. A little sadly, I think. At least I feel the sadness in me.
I stand. Half-cuddling his head, I kiss him on the forehead. He stands too, and we hug awkwardly because of my girth. I feel his hand briefly in my hair, and then he’s patting me gently on the back.
Old gestures.
“I’m glad you came,” he murmurs. Then, smiling at me, “It’s a great life if you don’t weaken.”
Old line.
17 November
I sleep better than I have in months. Well, longer at least, for when I wake up, a little before ten, the taste is in my mouth again and I’m assaulted by new waves of anxiety. What am I doing here, separated from my family? Suppose something’s happened to them? That they need me? Am I so selfish—so self-absorbed, anyway—that I could just abandon them like that?
My father has already “made his escape,” on a Saturday, and my mother is fuming. According to her, he had a call early this morning. One of his patients had a crisis during the night. He left immediately, not knowing when he’d be back.
I’m just about to call home when the first stab hits me. I all but double over, but I can’t double over. The grabbing pain makes me gasp for air. I sit down. Oh, God.
It passes. I realize I’ve broken into a sweat. I try to remember the breathing exercises from Justin. I didn’t take the course this time because I didn’t think I needed to. Failing to remember, I take deep slow breaths.
I wait. Three, four minutes. My mother is somewhere else in the apartment. I’m not feeling the baby. Then—the same suddenness, no warning—it hits again.
I fight the panic, the tears that well involuntarily from the biting pain.
When it passes this time, I call home. I talk to Harriet, Justin, Larry. All of them seem strangely distant. I tell Harriet what’s happening. Justin asks, “Why are you calling, Mommy?” Struggling for calm, I tell him it’s because I miss him. Apparently this doesn’t make much of an impression—he and “’arrit” are watching Saturday morning cartoons.
I end up hollering at Larry. When I ask him to come get me, now, he hesitates. Something about some calls he has to make. The Deal. (On a Saturday?) He says he thought I was staying over till tomorrow anyway. I tell him, for Christ’s sake, I’m cramping, I think I’m going into labor! He reminds me that I’m not due for another three weeks, probably it’s a false alarm, and then my mother—she must have come in without my hearing—is shouting at me, “Just tell him to meet you at the hospital!”
The next attack is some ten minutes later, then longer, then quick, quick, three- or four-minute intervals. My mother has made me lie down. She wants to make me tea, but all I can take is water. After an hour of it, I call Dubin’s office, get the answering service, and then, a few minutes later, Dr. Orloff calls me back. He’s a partner in the practice. I don’t know him, except that he has a black mustache and an oily voice and somebody said his examinations hurt more than Dubin’s. He too mentions the hospital. He’s headed there himself, wants me to meet him there. Clearly it’s a matter of his convenience. I say back—maybe I’m shrieking—that I don’t want the hospital, and for that matter, I don’t want him, I want my own doctor. He says that’s impossible, he’s covering for all the office’s patients. Now I am shrieking—the idea of a stranger delivering my baby!—and I’ve got Dubin’s home number, and he’s always told me not to worry, any time, morning, noon or night …
I guess Orloff’s happy as not to get rid of me. Half an hour later, Dubin calls me back. Apparently he’s on a golf course somewhere in Westchester, even in November, but no matter. He listens to me, tells me to take it easy. He says what I’m describing doesn’t sound like the beginning of labor to him, but that doesn’t matter either. He’ll meet me at the office at one.
A little over an hour.
I lie down again. I hear my mother mobilizing Harriet, Larry. She tells them what Larry should bring. My last contraction is in the taxi heading downtown (fingernails digging into the upholstery), and then there’s Dubin, in his white coat over a V-neck sweater, rubber gloves on his hands, bending over me and saying, “Okay, Georgie, let’s check the two of you out.”
Irritable uterus.
It’s nighttime now. I’m home again; the house is quiet. Harriet has gone off, Justin’s asleep, Larry’s watching some football game downstairs. I’m on my chaise longue, writing in my diary.
Dubin gave me two choices. Either I can go into the hospital now, and stay there until the baby comes, or I can go home, but to bed. No activity and, yes, rest and relaxation.
“But what’s wrong with me?” I asked him.
“Nothing at all,” he answered. “In fact, everything looks fine. Your cervix is holding nicely and it hasn’t begun to soften. The baby’s in good position, the heartbeat regular. No fibroids. I see no reason why you shouldn’t carry to term.”
“Then why is this happening? And why do I have to go to bed?”
“Because we want to keep the uterus quiet, and I don’t want to give you anything for it, this late in the day. Too much activity has been known to stimulate early labor, and even though the baby’s already viable, we don’t want to encourage the process. Besides, what’s so bad about a couple of weeks in bed?”
Nothing. Nothing really.
My father just called. He sounds depressed. One of his patients, a reformed drug addict, tried to commit suicide last night, and right now my father can’t dispel the idea that he’d have been better off succeeding.
Unusual, I think in passing, for him to admit something like that.
I tell him about me—paltry stuff by comparison. I ask him to thank my mother again. I thank him, too, for last night. He says what’s to thank him for. For listening, I say. It did me good. We wish each other good night, and I hang up, and there we are, me and my baby, and my irritable uterus.
Still, there’s a question none of them has answered. Not Dubin, or Craig, or my father.
Why do I lie awake, so many nights, anticipating the worst?
15 December
“What do you mean precisely, that he’s out of control?”
“Call it what you want, I can’t string him out any longer.”
“Don’t say can’t. I think you’ve handled him magnificently so far, and you’re almost there, aren’t you?”
“Almost there? We’d be done if it weren’t for them! Now they’re taking off for the holidays. The bombs could be falling, and they’ve still got to have their fucking hols.”
“Well, that’s how they do things in the more civilized countries. Why can’t you go on vacation too?”
“I’ve already been on vacation as far as he’s concerned. I’ve been in Europe, Japan, you name it. I’ve been to the fucking moon. I’ve ducked, I’ve been out sick, I’ve practically gotten under my desk. Don’t forget, he still comes in almost every day.”
“So what are you telling me? That you’re the problem?”
“Come on. He’s been talking to the wrong people, for one thing.”
“What people?”
“You know who I’m talking about. Some of my oldest friends, yours too, originally. He’s been telling them that from now on they’ll be doing business with him and him alone. He’s even tried to get some of them to sign a piece of paper. No way I can let that go on.”
“Why not? Aren’t you planning on deep-sixing some of them?”
“Not all of them, for Christ’s sake. Do you want me to put us out of business? How would that look? And how would it look if the guy I’ve told them they don’t have to bother about because he’s out of the fucking business ends up with a hundred percent of our customers?”
“A slight exaggeration.”
“Even so. I’ve had to ask people to stop talking to him. It’s fucking awkward. By now he’s gotten that message, and I understand he’s more than irate … well, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Hell, he’s not that dumb. Plus his wife’s about to have a baby.”
“What on earth does that have to do with it?”
“It makes him jumpy, volatile. I hear it’s been a difficult pregnancy. Jesus Christ, I wish to hell I’d pulled the plug a couple of months ago.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Yeah. Well, it’s easy for you to say, you’re not in the fucking trenches. I tell you, I’ve had it. I’m not kidding. Finished. I can’t do it anymore. I say it’s time to bite the bullet.”
“With everything that’s at stake?”
“With everything that’s at stake.”
“All right, let’s look at that a minute. Assuming you do it, when would that be?”
“I don’t know. I thought I’d let him pick up the final paperwork tomorrow. Maybe he won’t read it right away if his wife drops her baby. The minute he does though, it’s going to get ugly.”
“What do you think he’ll do?”
“I think he’ll start screaming his head off in every direction. Unless we stop him.”
“Do you think he’ll find anyone to listen, the week before Christmas?”
“I don’t know. He might.”
“So you’re agreed there’s a risk, but you’re ready to run it?”
“What about you, partner?”
“What do you mean?”
“What about the insurance?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come on. I understand there’s some kind of insurance policy. Maybe the time’s come to cash it in, whatever it is.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Never mind. I—”
“I repeat: Where did you hear that? I want to know, and I want to know now.”
“Hell, don’t get your balls in an uproar. A little birdie told me.”
“Who?”
“Okay, okay. Our friendly neighborhood counselor.”
“You mean their attorney?”
“None other.”
“Have you told him I’m involved?”
“Of course not!”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure, what do you—?”
“And what precisely did he say?”
“Nothing. He just said that, if push came to shove, there was insurance. He said it showed admirable foresight on all our parts. I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.”
“Is that all he said?”
“That’s all he said.”
“I see.”
“Well?… Is that all you’re going to say? I see? What’s the insurance?”
“It’s nothing. You don’t know anything about it.”
“Oh, no? Hey, that’s great! I love being left in the dark! What the—”
“You listen to me now. Listen carefully. I’m going to take care of it. Unless you hear otherwise from me, you go ahead and do whatever you have to do.”
“But—”
“I said: I’ll take care of it.”
“Wait a minute, if you think … Hello? Hello?… Goddamn son of a bitch!”
Lawrence Elgin Coffey
17 December
When it all comes down, it all comes down.
I’m a father again. That’s what I have to keep telling myself. There I am, in the hospital this morning, holding the little bundle in my hands. A fucking miracle. Dubin has already sewed Georgie up and left, and Georgie is out like a light, but I’m holding my baby daughter, little Miss 7 lbs. 4 oz., and the tears are running down my cheeks.
Look, the whole thing’s been a little hairy. Everybody was totally convinced Georgie was going to drop the baby ahead of time. Then suddenly she’s more than a week overdue, and trying to wait it out but no sign of labor, and then Dr. Dubin starts talking C-section. This was last Friday. The next thing I know, it’s today, Monday morning, early, and I’m driving her in to the hospital.
Dubin said on Friday that the only alternative was induced labor, with a real possibility we’d end up with a C-section anyway, but in extremis. “Let’s do it now,” he recommended. “There’s nothing to be gained by waiting. I’ve got a slot open Monday morning. That way we’ll get you out before Christmas. Nobody wants to be stuck in a hospital over Christmas.”
“Including doctors?” I said.
He laughed at that, but Christmas aside, I know what it’s all about. It’s the malpractice insurance. They don’t take chances anymore. The slightest complication and it’s C-section time, and Dubin had a slot open, and he doesn’t want to be stuck over Christmas either.
“I don’t really care,” Georgie said bravely. “I’ve already had the so-called birth experience anyway, and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
Jesus, I thought, that’s major surgery and, as experienced as they are at it, it’s … well, it’s still major surgery.
“I just want it over,” Georgie said.
But the spinal doesn’t take with her. She’s sitting on a hospital table, naked except for one of those half-smocks, and these two mechanics are poking and probing at her back. She’s shivering like a leaf. It hurts, she says, plus they’ve taken all her jewelry away, even her wedding band. But the spinal doesn’t take, they end up giving her full anesthesia anyway, and she’s crying because it means she’ll miss the birth altogether. That’s how come I’m the first of our family to meet our daughter, Miss 7 lbs. 4 oz., with a hospital identification bracelet on her tiny wrist. She’s fine, they tell me. Then they take the bundle away. They tell me Georgie’s fine too but that she won’t really be coming out of it for another hour and a half.
I call downtown. According to Annabelle Morgan, my deal is ready—finally, the bastards—and I can pick it up any time. It takes all my powers of persuasion to get her to messenger the papers to the hospital. I meet the messenger at the information desk, and I’m back upstairs by the time Georgie comes out of the anesthesia.
>
That’s where I am now, in a state of shock.
Georgie looks like hell, her skin all gray, but she’s trying to smile.
“It’s a little girl, honey,” I tell her, bending over her. “We’ve got ourselves a baby daughter.”
“I know,” she answers faintly.
“How do you know that?” She made such a big deal, during all the ultrasounds, of not wanting to know.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says, trying to smile some more. “I’ve always known. Inside. I know her name too.”
“What’s her name?” I say, but even as I say it, her eyes are closed, she’s dropped off.
Her parents show up, but I’m in no shape to talk to anybody. The room is crammed with flowers, including—you want irony?—an arrangement from good old Shaw Cross. Georgie wakes up again. They want to give her Demerol. She doesn’t want Demerol, she wants her baby.
Somebody—her mother?—says to me, “Isn’t she a gorgeous baby?”
“Yeah,” I mumble. “Awfully proud too.”
I guess I am, or would be if I wasn’t in such a daze.
I’ve already read my deal.
Read it? I already know it by heart, the cocksuckers!
The operative clause anyway.
The bastards have clobbered me. They strung me out for two months—two whole months!—and now, at the end of the day, they’ve bitten me off at the knees!
For Christ’s sake, I’m out of business before I even get started!
I can’t leave the hospital, though. How can I leave?
I have to outwait everybody.
Jesus.
Finally they’re gone. I lean over Georgie, her hair dark against the pillows.
“Her name is Zoe,” she says softly, looking up at me.