“I explained that to her. I was glad her parents were there when I told her. They were gentle, but they made it clear that the healing of her leg was the most important thing she could do for the baby, you know, so she could care for her later on.”
“Did she buy it?”
“Yeah, she did, eventually. She’s a smart woman. She got it.” What Jeff omitted was the copious tears shed at the thought that she wouldn’t be able to nourish her baby from her breast; the self-recrimination at failing her baby yet another way, after not delivering her naturally, not being able to hold her right after she was born, not taking care of her on her first day of life.
Had Rick known any of that, he might not have been so relieved. “That’s good. So did she agree to the pain meds? God knows, she’s going to need them. I saw that leg last night.”
“Yeah, she’s on a self-administered morphine pump and the nurses tell me she’s using it — judiciously, but she’s using it.”
Rick stayed quiet for a minute and then he asked, “Has she seen the baby?”
“Yeah, the baby’s out of the NICU and they brought her to Sarah. They’ve also decided that as long as one of her parents stays with Sarah in her hospital room, she can keep the baby with her, provided she’s willing to pay extra for a private. Sarah and her parents agreed and they’ve already moved her to a private room. That lifted Sarah’s mood quite a bit.”
The news had a totally different effect on Rick. All he could think about was how one or the other of Sarah’s parents would always be there, making it impossible for him to see her alone.
“So her parents are with her now?” Rick asked.
“Yeah, that’s the deal I arranged with the neonatologist and the head nurse. The ortho nurses don’t want the responsibility of the baby’s care. The neonatologist said he’ll stop by twice a day for the next day or so. But after that, he feels she could be discharged to the grandparents’ care.”
“He’s probably right. Who is it, by the way?”
“Feinberg.”
“Oh, he’s a good guy. I trust his judgment. I saw the baby last night. I didn’t give her a complete exam, but she appears to be a healthy, full-term newborn.”
Jeff couldn’t believe how clinical Rick was in referring to his own child, but he figured this was not the time to call him on it. “Yeah, she looked good to me when I held her. She stared straight into my eyes, first thing. Maybe they all do that. I don’t have much experience with newborns. But she definitely looked like she was no worse for her traumatic entrance into the world.”
“Jeff?”
“Yeah?”
“You know, I met her OB last night — not Catherine Hanna. Her own OB.”
“You’re kidding. After midnight? That’s one dedicated OB.”
“He came to check on her on his way home after a delivery. He told me he’d diagnosed Sarah with primary infertility and said he had absolutely no idea how she had conceived.” Then he stopped and looked directly at his friend. “Her fallopian tubes are totally occluded, Jeff. Double hydrosalpinx. The fuckin’ tubes are completely closed. There’s no way they could allow conception to take place.”
“That’s insane. What are the chances someone like that could get pregnant without surgery or IVF?”
“The OB said that according to his tests there was no chance — same conclusion as the doc who made the original diagnosis, some guy up in Boston, where Sarah went to law school.”
“So it was a fluke?” Jeff asked.
“Yeah, a fluke that resulted in that baby girl you held. The OB said Sarah was shocked when she found out she was pregnant, but that she really wanted the baby.”
“The baby was all she talked to me about when I was trying to explain her injuries to her in the ER. She told me several times to take care of the baby first. It was like she didn’t care about her leg at all.”
“Jeff?” Rick asked, almost in a whisper.
“Yeah?”
“I’ve been trying to figure out what to do. I kept going in circles. But now I think there’s only one thing I can do, and that’s man up — you know — take responsibility for the baby. Even though she gave me a pass, seeing that baby made me realize that only a prick would leave Sarah holding the bag. There’s no way I’m gonna be a prick to Sarah. But how exactly I’m going to handle the whole thing, I haven’t worked out yet.”
“You should talk to her, you know, try to work things out.”
“I know. But now I’ll have to get past the parents.”
“Well, the parents will be there until the baby is discharged, maybe a day or two. Feinberg said as much today. I figure in the best-case scenario, Sarah will be an acute care inpatient for another week or so. Then I’ll move her to the rehab wing. That should give you plenty of time to talk to her alone.”
“Yeah, but you said it made Sarah happy to have the baby with her in the room,” Rick said. “I gotta tell you, separating a mother and a baby is fighting nature.”
“But a hospital is no place for a healthy baby. The baby can visit all day long before going back home with the grandparents. I’ll let you know when the coast is clear.” Jeff got up and moved Rick’s clothes back to the chair. “Okay. I’m beat. I’m going to get the coffee ready and head to bed. Yesterday was brutal.”
“I’ll second that,” Rick said. “Thanks, Jeff. You know, for the update on Sarah. I appreciate it.”
“No problem,” Jeff said as he headed for the kitchen to grind his coffee beans before falling into bed, dead to the world.
* * *
Rick had an eventful night, a night filled with dreams so intense they woke him from a deep sleep. He dreamed first that he was swimming in the pool up at Columbia. He was all alone. There was no other swimmer, no lifeguard. He looked at the clock above the pool. It was midnight. It was a beautiful swim, peaceful and relaxing. His pace was good, too, putting him on track for his personal best. Then, as he turned his face up for a breath, he saw someone come through the women’s dressing room door. In his next breath he saw it was a tall, slim woman on crutches. When he emerged from his flip turn at the end of the lane, he saw the woman was an amputee. She walked to the lane next to Rick’s and let one crutch fall. Then, using the other crutch, she gingerly lowered herself so her one good leg dangled in the water. Just as Rick reached the end of his lap, the woman slipped into the water. She and Rick pushed off from the wall at the same moment. Swimming side by side, they kept an identical pace, lap after lap. He was amazed she could do so well with a leg that ended below the knee. He looked up at the clock on the wall. It was five o’clock in the morning. Somehow five hours had passed and they had been swimming without a break. Rick thought he had better stop so he could get to morning rounds. As he started to climb out of the pool, he felt a hand on his arm. He turned around and saw it was Sarah. “Help me out?” she asked. Just seeing Sarah, feeling her touch on his arm, excited him. He woke up hard and came almost immediately.
After that Rick didn’t want to go back to sleep. He only wanted to remember the feeling he’d had when he realized it was Sarah who had matched him stroke for stroke, lap for lap; Sarah, beautiful and lithe still, asking him for help.
He got up and used the john. Then he went into the kitchen and did what his mother had often done when he awoke from a dream when he was little. He put some milk in a mug and warmed it in the microwave. Unlike those childhood nightmares, this was a dream he wanted to burn into his mind. He feared it would recede into the netherworld that swallowed most ordinary dreams. The feelings this dream evoked — peace, synchronicity with Sarah, sexual excitement — were feelings he didn’t want to lose.
The smell and taste of the warm milk evoked memories of their own. He remembered how protected he had felt after a terrifying dream, sitting on his mother’s lap, drinking his milk with their golden retriever next to them. He remembered how his mother had told him that nothing and no one was going to hurt him, that he was the safest little boy in the whole world.
The thought of his old dog, Hercules, made him smile.
He looked at the clock on the microwave: 3:00. He could catch a few more hours of sleep if he was lucky. Even better would be to dream that dream again. He got into bed and soon was breathing slow, rhythmic breaths. The dream of swimming with Sarah came back to him just as he drifted off, but a full reprise was not to be. In its place was another dream, just as vivid as the first. In it, Rick was dressed in his white coat with a stethoscope hanging around his neck. He entered a patient’s room to find a little child dressed as a Buddhist monk. His sleeveless red-and-saffron robe covered his torso and legs, which were crossed as he sat on the hospital bed. Rick looked on the child’s chart and saw the name Gyatso, Tenzin. DOB: 07-06-35. Rick did a double take. That had to be a typo. This kid couldn’t have been more than nine years old.
”I’m Dr. Smith. I’m going to be your doctor.”
“Hello, Doctor. Very nice to meet you. I came to the hospital because I am suffering from a very bad pain in the stomach,” the little boy explained.
“When did you start to have pain?”
“Well, I was suffering and fretting for some days and then I thought to myself, ‘What exactly is the problem? What is the cause of my suffering?’ And then I realized it was coming from my stomach. So I knew I had to get help to end my suffering.”
“You’re a smart little fellow,” Rick said to his young patient. “When you’re in pain you should seek help. That’s what we’re here for.”
“Yes, I am very lucky that I am here. It makes me happy. I am very happy now,” the little boy said.
“So your pain has gone away?” Rick asked.
“Oh, no, no. The pain is very bad.”
“Then how can you be happy?” Rick asked, perplexed.
“Oh, I am so happy because you are going to attend to the cause of my suffering. What a lucky boy I am!” the little boy chortled. “The path to happiness is within us all. Now that I have realized a way to end my pain, I am a happy boy.”
“Well, all right then. Please lay down so I can examine you,” Rick told the boy.
“Oh, yes, Doctor. Please, whatever you say,” the boy said agreeably.
Rick lifted the boy’s robe and examined his belly. The little boy cried out in pain when Rick examined his right lower quadrant. He looked at the boy’s labs. His white count was sky high. The kid likely had appendicitis.
“So, Tenzin — should I call you Tenzin?”
“Some people call me His Holiness, but you can call me Tenzin if you like.”
The kid must have a god complex, Rick thought, but he would leave that for the shrinks to deal with. “Tenzin, if you had to give your pain a score from one to ten, with ten being the worst, what score would you give the pain when I examined you?”
“Oh, yes. Ten, definitely ten,” the boy said assuredly.
“Well, I think we will have to take out your appendix. It probably has become infected,” Rick explained.
“Oh, thank you. I look forward to my operation!”
“Can I ask you another question, Tenzin?”
“Yes, of course, Doctor.”
“You have such pain, you need an operation and yet you are happy?” Rick asked his young patient.
“Decidedly so. Very happy. But I will be even happier when you cut out my miserable appendix.”
Then the young boy laughed and laughed, making even Rick laugh. He awoke smiling at six a.m. He had a smile on his face as he showered and dressed. He felt rested and ready for whatever the day would bring. Rick couldn’t get over the little boy in his dream, happy because the cause of his pain was about to be rooted out. There was a kernel of wisdom there, he thought. He’d have to try to find the time to write that dream down before he forgot it.
The dreams had a good effect on Rick. He actually whistled as he poured his cereal into the biggest bowl he could find in the cupboard. He wolfed down his breakfast and drank more than his share of the coffee, leaving Jeff scratching his head as he put a bagel in the toaster. Before they headed out for the hospital, Jeff checked the indoor/outdoor thermometer on the kitchen window: a balmy seventeen above zero. Not great, but an improvement over what had come before.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Rick had a satisfying morning. He transferred a four-year-old girl out of the PICU — a child who had been critically injured when her parents’ entertainment center fell on her as she scaled its shelves to reach a toy. It had been touch and go, but on day five after the accident, she began to rally. Now her recovery was exceeding Rick’s best hopes. She would need some physical therapy after the casts were removed, but he expected that in years to come, her accident would become part of family lore: the child so rambunctious she had risked death to retrieve a plaything. He also was happy about the two-year-old boy whose pneumonia had overwhelmed his lungs. Rick was able to wean him off the ventilator and discharge him to the peds floor.
But the most satisfying part of his morning was the epiphany he had while getting a cup of joe from the lounge. He suddenly knew he could handle whatever he had to face. So he’d been catapulted into fatherhood against his will. What did that matter now? There was a living, breathing child in the world that belonged to him and Sarah. The dream of the two of them swimming together had only served to make obvious what some part of him already knew: She was the woman for him. For years, he’d mocked the notion that everyone had a perfect soul mate. But now he wasn’t so sure something like that wasn’t at work.
At that moment, as Rick stirred the poor excuse for coffee, he felt better than he had in months. He knew what he had to do. He was like the little monk in his dream. He’d identified the cause of his suffering. Now he would deal with it. He’d go to Sarah and level with her, tell her he wanted to be with her and their baby. He would man up, take on his new responsibilities and get on with life. Only then, like the little monk sans appendix, could he conquer the misery he’d known since leaving Sarah. He laughed out loud just at the recollection of the little boy in monk’s robes giggling through his excruciating pain. Really, he thought, he had to write that dream down.
* * *
Two floors above him, in Sarah’s seventh-floor room, happiness was in scarce supply. Sarah didn’t know which was worse, the physical agony or the crushing sense of failure as a mother.
Visitors came in a steady stream and stayed only briefly so as not to tire her out. They offered warm congratulations and promises to help in any way they could. Bob Fong and his wife Irma were first, followed by Aunt Ellen and Uncle Max, Harry and Toby Meinig, Dr. Scholl and Doris. Everyone remarked what a miracle it was that Sarah and the baby had survived the accident. But nothing about the day of Anna’s birth seemed miraculous to Sarah.
There was one visitor who provided some relief, and that was Dr. Feinberg. His twice-daily visits brought reassurance that Anna was doing well, reminding Sarah that she had succeeded in one important way: nurturing her daughter for nearly nine months.
On the third day following the accident, Dr. Feinberg came into Sarah’s room for his early morning visit. Eva was off warming Anna’s breakfast bottle and Sarah and Anna were alone in the room. It was hard for him to tell who was more distraught, his hungry patient or her mother.
“Hello, Sarah. I could hear Anna down the hall even with your door closed. I would say we don’t have to worry about her lungs. She’s clearly got a good set.”
Sarah was on the verge of wailing herself. She couldn’t see how he could make light of the baby’s distress. Raising her voice over the baby’s screams, she cried, “There’s nothing I can do for her. She doesn’t want the pacifier. I can’t nurse her. I can’t walk the floor with her. I can’t even rock her in a chair. What kind of mother does this poor baby have?”
Eva returned with the bottle in time to hear the last of Sarah’s lament. She quickly took the pacifier from Sarah’s hand and replaced it with the bottle. As soon as Sarah put the nipple to Anna’s lips, the baby began sucking heartily. A
look of contentment came over her face.
“There, that seems to be doing the trick,” Dr. Feinberg said, thinking it was time for a version of the pep talk he gave parents of his very tiny, very sick patients. “Sarah, this is your first baby. I can tell you from both personal and professional experience that even if you were fit as a fiddle, there would be times when you wouldn’t be able to comfort Anna. Babies can often be inscrutable, defying a parent’s best efforts to make them happy. I think you’ll find that parenthood makes even the most able-bodied and clever among us feel wholly inadequate at times. People wiser than I have said becoming a parent is the great leveler, reducing us all to self-doubt.”
“I’ve read the books, Dr. Feinberg. I understand there will be times I won’t be able to figure out what’s troubling her. But there was nothing in any of the books about what happened to us.”
“Fair enough. You have a unique situation to deal with. But you won’t be incapacitated forever. And while you heal, you have expert help here,” the doctor motioned to Eva, “a real pro who seems to have done an excellent job of raising you.”
Eva piggy-backed on that. “Sweetheart, Dr. Feinberg is right. I know this isn’t how any of us imagined the days surrounding Anna’s birth. But soon you’ll be up and around and you’ll be able to send me packing.”
It was all too much for Sarah. She’d indulged in such sweet expectations for the arrival of her baby. She could see now what a mistake that had been.
“I don’t think either of you can understand how awful it is to be too helpless to take care of your child,” Sarah said, trying hard not to dissolve into tears.
“Of course, you’re right about that,” Dr. Feinberg said soothingly, sensing this mother was close to her breaking point. “Forgive me if it seemed I was minimizing your problem. It’s a very real problem. But my hope and expectation is that it will be a self-limiting problem. As you heal, you will be able to do more and more for Anna. Eventually, I feel certain that you’ll be able to care for your baby without any assistance.”
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