Little Earthquakes

by Jennifer Weiner

  Ayinde nodded and said thank you. She fumbled Julian into his clothes and his stroller. She folded the prescription into her pocket, and walked to the parking garage where she strapped Julian into his car seat, collapsed behind the wheel, and called Becky.

  “Does your husband know any pediatric cardiologists?”

  “What’s wrong?” Becky asked instantly.

  “Julian has a heart murmur.”

  “Oh. Oh. Okay, don’t panic. Lots of babies have them.”

  “I know, but we have to see this Dr. Myerson, and he might not have appointments until next week, and Richard’s traveling—they’ve got games—and I don’t think I can wait that long.”

  “Ayinde,” Becky said. “The baby’s not going to self-destruct. But let me see if Andrew can call in a favor.”

  “Thank you,” Ayinde said. She stared at the phone in her hand for a long moment, her thoughts turning to the woman in Phoenix. She’d been forbidden from watching TV, forbidden from reading magazines—“Ignorance is bliss,” Christina Crossley had told her. “Believe me, I’ve been through this enough to know that the less you know, the better”—but Ayinde had seen the other woman’s face gazing at her from a dozen newsstands, and once, she’d bought a copy of the National Examiner and read it in the car while Julian dozed in his car seat. The girl’s name was Tiffany, and she’d been nothing but a twenty-one-year-old junior college dropout and part-time spirit dancer before Richard Towne’s affections had elevated her to an object of national scrutiny. Tiffany’s baby’s heart would be just fine.

  Ayinde put her shaking hands in her pockets, willing them to be still. Richard was in Boston, she thought—these days, she didn’t keep careful track of where he was going and who he was playing. She dialed the number she hadn’t called since she’d been in the hospital herself, nine months before. He better answer this time, she thought and felt relief course through her when the phone was picked up on the first ring.

  “Hello?”

  It wasn’t Richard. It was Christina Crossley, who’d commandeered the family’s cell phones.

  “Christina, this is Ayinde. I’m at the doctor’s office with Julian. I need to speak to Richard immediately.”

  “Why? Is something wrong?”

  Ayinde could almost hear the other woman’s mind clicking, running through possible problems, gauging their possible impact on the campaign she was waging to save Richard’s image and, by extension, his endorsement deals.

  “I need to speak to Richard,” Ayinde said. “Right now.”

  “Let me find him,” Christina Crossley said. Seconds later, Richard was on the line.

  “Ayinde? That you?”

  “I need you to come home,” she managed to choke out. “There’s something wrong with the baby.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  “Doctor, I don’t understand,” Ayinde said to Dr. Myerson, as he weighed and measured Julian. Andrew had pulled God only knew how many strings and gotten them the first appointment in the morning the next day. Richard had flown home from Boston, and they’d spent most of the night peering at Julian, who lay peacefully on the bed between them. They’d listened to his every inhalation, checking his lips to make sure they weren’t blue, until at two in the morning, Richard had tucked a blanket around his wife’s shoulders and said, “You go to sleep. I’ve got this.” It was the first time she’d shared a bed with her husband in months.

  “He was just fine when he was born, he’s been fine ever since, he eats well, he’s hit all of his developmental milestones . . .” She fumbled for the Baby Success! baby log she’d been keeping meticulously, a daily rendering of how long he’d nursed, what he’d eaten, wet diapers, dirty diapers, the time and duration of his naps.

  “Sometimes these conditions don’t present immediately,” the doctor said. Dr. Myerson was in his fifties, balding, with dandyish glossy black wingtips and short, stubby fingers that Ayinde had already decided she didn’t want anywhere near her baby’s heart, even though Andrew had assured her that he was the best. Best or not, he lacked Dr. Melendez’s nice bedside manner. Ayinde prayed that meant that he was good at his job. “Lots of surgeons are kind of arrogant,” Becky had told her once. “What about Andrew?” Ayinde asked, and Becky had shrugged and said that she hoped her husband was going to be the rare exception.

  Dr. Myerson listened to Julian’s heart for twenty seconds before pulling off his stethoscope, handing the diaper-clad baby back to his mother, and turning to Richard and Ayinde. Richard reached for Ayinde’s hand, and for the first time since the afternoon of Miss Phoenix, she let him take it. “Okay,” said the doctor. His voice was high and scratchy. He sounded like a cartoon character. “From what I can tell by listening, I would bet that Julian has a ventricular septal defect—a hole between the right and left sides of his heart.”

  The world swam in front of her eyes. “What does that mean?” Ayinde asked.

  “Why didn’t anybody notice this before?” asked Richard. “He’s had checkups—every month, right?”

  “Every month for the first three months and then every three months,” she said, leaving out how they’d been late for the six-month visit. “He’s been perfect.”

  “As I said, these defects don’t always present at birth. Now, to answer your question, Mrs. Towne, well, let me show you.” He picked up something from the counter, a red-and-blue plastic model of a baby’s heart. So small, Ayinde thought. “Now,” he began, “the heart has four chambers, the left and right atria and the left and right ventricles. Normally, the left and right atria are separated by the atrial septum, and . . .” he pointed, “the left and right ventricles are separated by the ventricular septum.”

  “And Julian has a hole . . .” Ayinde tightened her grip on the baby, thinking, as she’d thought all through the night, that he looked completely healthy. Tall and long-limbed, with bright brown eyes and his father’s smooth chestnut skin. Never had a cold. Not even the sniffles. Now this.

  The doctor pointed again. “Here. Between the two ventricles. It’s not an uncommon defect.”

  “You can tell that just by listening?” Richard asked.

  The doctor preened and nodded.

  “Does it . . .” Ayinde’s breath caught in her throat. “Does it hurt him?”

  The doctor shook his head. “He’s not in any pain.”

  “How do we fix it?” Richard asked. “Does he need an operation?”

  “It’s too early to say,” the doctor replied. “It could be that all we’ll need to do is keep an eye on it, and it’ll close up on its own, no muss, no fuss.”

  Richard cleared his throat. “Will he be able to run? To play sports?”

  Ayinde stared at her husband in disbelief. Richard held her hand more tightly. “I just want to know that he’ll be okay,” Richard said.

  The doctor was scribbling something on a sheet of paper. “Best-case scenario, he’s completely fine, and the hole closes up by itself. As I’ve said, this kind of disorder isn’t uncommon, and we’ll just watch him. We’ll listen to his heart every week, for starters, and then, if he remains asymptomatic, less frequently. He’ll have to take antibiotics before he goes to the dentist, and that’ll be about it. He’ll have a long, happy life. Of course, there are other possibilities, but before we discuss them, I’d like to do some more diagnostic procedures.”

  Ayinde bent her head. “Why did this happen?” she asked.

  “I wish that medicine had the answer to that, but we don’t.” The doctor’s scratchy voice became incrementally more gentle. “It’s a common birth defect. One out of every hundred babies has a problem with the heart. Sometimes it’s poor nutrition or poor prenatal care, moms who use street drugs while they’re pregnant . . .” He looked at Ayinde.

  She shook her head before he could ask her. “Nothing. I might have had a glass of wine or two before we knew . . . before we were sure . . . but . . .”

  “Don’t blame yourself,” he said. “No parent likes to hear this, but it’s . .
.” He shrugged, the starched shoulders of his lab coat rising. “Just one of those things.”

  Ayinde started to cry. Richard squeezed her hands. “It’s going to be all right,” he said.

  She felt her own heart thundering in her chest. The dizziness was getting stronger. I did something, she thought . . . but what could it have been? What could she have done to have brought this on herself, on her baby?

  She twisted away from him, moving toward the door. “I need to make some phone calls.”

  Richard tightened his grip. “Ayinde . . .”

  “Why don’t I give you a few minutes,” Dr. Myerson said, and he was out the door almost before the words were out of his mouth. Ayinde wondered how he’d ended up in this line of work, giving bad news to families day in and day out, and how he handled it. Did he want to go home every night and cry?

  She raised her face to her husband’s. “I want to call my friends. I want them here with me. Becky’s husband’s a doctor, and her friend Lia . . .” Her throat closed. “She had a baby . . .” And she ran out of words. She held Julian in her lap and pressed her face against her husband’s chest and sobbed.

  He cradled her head in his hands. “Shh . . . shhh, Ayinde, shh now, you’ll scare the baby.” He wrapped her body in his arms and rocked her and the baby, holding them both against his broad chest. “It’s going to be all right,” he said.

  “How do you know?” she asked.

  He gave her a crooked smile. “Because God isn’t that cruel. You’ve been through enough.”

  She wondered what Lia would say to that. Lia knew better. God was, sometimes, that cruel.

  “Let me do something for you,” he said. “Let me take care of you. I know I’ve done a pretty poor job of it lately, but I want to do better, Ayinde. If you’ll let me.”

  She found herself nodding.

  “You stay with the baby.” He reached out his hand for her cell phone. “Let me call your friends.”

  She nodded again and wiped her eyes. “Their names are . . .”

  “Becky,” Richard said. “And Kelly—that’s the little one, right, whose husband isn’t working? And who’s this other one?”

  “Lia,” Ayinde said. She was feeling both dizzy and stunned. How was it that Richard knew the names of her friends? He’d only been introduced to Becky and Kelly once, in the hospital, in the whirlwind after Julian’s arrival, and he’d never met Lia at all. “Becky will know how to reach her.”

  Richard paused. “Do you want me to call your mother?”

  Ayinde shook her head. Lolo thought that her daughter had made a mess of her life, that she’d married badly and that nothing but sadness would result from that union, and Ayinde wasn’t going to give her any ammunition or evidence to show that she was right.

  “I’ll be right back. Here.” He found a paper cup, turned on the tap, and handed Ayinde a cup of water. Then he walked out the door, a tall, broad-shouldered man moving with an athlete’s ease, drawing glances from nurses, from other worried mothers, even from other children. Ayinde lifted Julian onto the table and slowly, carefully, gently, started putting his clothes back on.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  “Hey, Ayinde.” Becky must have come right from Mas to Ayinde’s house. She was carrying two plastic bags and wearing black-and-white-checked pants, a long-sleeved T-shirt, her hair twisted on top of her head, and an apron streaked with green. Cilantro, Ayinde thought. Kelly was right behind her, in jeans and a zippered hooded sweatshirt, her hair lank around her shoulders, circles under her eyes, and Oliver in her arms. Lia came into the kitchen last, dressed in fitted black pants and a black sweater. She’d gotten her hair colored since the last time Ayinde had seen her. The dark roots and blond ends had been replaced by a rich chestnut mane that fell in waves past her shoulders. This is how she must have looked, Ayinde thought fleetingly, in her real life. Before . . .

  “I brought dinner,” Becky said, setting the fragrant bags down on the countertop. “How are things?” she asked.

  “They don’t know yet. The electrocardiogram and the X rays were inconclusive,” Ayinde recited. “Tomorrow morning he has to have something called a transesophageal echocardiogram.” Richard told her he’d explained the basics—that Julian had a hole in his heart, that the doctors were running more tests. A hole in his heart. It was almost poetic. She’d been walking around for weeks feeling like someone had torn a hole in her own. “It’s an outpatient procedure, but they do it under general anesthesia, and the doctor had an opening first thing in the morning. Where’s Ava?”

  “Day care,” Becky said, as she started unpacking the food she’d brought, opening a series of steaming Styrofoam boxes, setting out napkins and silverware. “Where’s Julian?”

  “In his room. With his father. I’m sorry to take you away from work . . .”

  “Don’t be silly,” Becky said. “Although you might have to apologize to Sarah. I think she almost fainted when Richard called. It was like God calling to see if He could get a table at seven-thirty.” She passed Ayinde a plate filled with braised pork, black beans, and saffron rice. Ayinde pushed it away. “I can’t eat anything. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep . . . I just kept thinking, you know, what if something happens, what if he stops breathing . . .” She buried her face in her hands.

  “Oh, Ayinde,” Becky said. Kelly covered her eyes with her hands. It was Lia who sat beside Ayinde, Lia who reached for her hands. Lia who sat quietly and let her cry.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  “Hey, little man,” Richard said.

  He was sitting in a rocking chair in the hospital’s waiting room, long legs bunched up uncomfortably, with Julian in his lap. Ayinde held her breath and paused in the hallway. She’d gone to the bathroom to splash water on her face, leaving Richard with the baby.

  “ . . . so you’re gonna be asleep for a while,” Richard said. Julian looked almost newborn-tiny again, leaning back in the crook of Richard’s arm. “And when you wake up, you might have a little sore throat, and then we’re gonna know what’s going on with your ticker.” He tapped the baby’s chest with one thick finger. “Could be, you’re just fine. Have to take it easy a little. Go on the inactive list. Or it could be you’re going to have to have a little operation to fix you up right. But whatever happens, you’re going to be just fine. Your momma loves you so much, and your daddy loves you, too. It’s all going to be all right, little man. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  He gathered the baby into his arms and rocked him. “So don’t worry,” he said. Ayinde saw that he was crying. “You don’t have to play basketball. You don’t have to do anything but just get through this all right. We’re going to love you no matter what happens.”

  She cleared her throat. Her husband looked up. “Hey, baby,” he said and wiped at his eyes.

  “I’ll take him now,” she said. She held out her arms for the baby.

  “Let me carry him for a little bit, all right?” Richard asked.

  “Okay,” she said. This time, she was the one who reached for his hand. “Okay.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  The nurse came for Julian at nine o’clock sharp. “It’ll take half an hour,” she said, lifting him into her arms. Ayinde braced herself for the baby to cry, but Julian simply looked around, then opened and closed his hand in his baby version of a wave. “Try not to worry.”

  Ayinde walked the beige-painted halls. She felt as if she’d memorized each loop of the carpet, each name on each door. Sometimes Richard walked alongside her, not touching her, not saying anything, but walking closely enough that she could feel the warmth of his body. Then he would sit down, and her friends would flank her; Becky and Kelly on one side, Lia on the other. Becky was silent. Kelly murmured under her breath. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and in the hour of our death. Hail Mary, full of grace . . .”

  Ayinde prayed her own pr
ayer, one word long, one single syllable. Please. Please, please, please, please, please, she thought, walking down the hall and back again. She would endure anything—a cheating husband, a scornful mother, public humiliation. She’d swallow it all if only her son would be healthy. “Please,” she said out loud. What would she do if she lost her baby? She’d probably end up like Lia; running like a kicked dog, trying to find someplace where things felt better, someplace that felt like home. But Philadelphia was her home now, she thought, as she turned at the end of the hallway and started back again. She had a life here, however messy it was at present. She’d had her baby in this hospital, she’d walked him on the sidewalks, sat with him in the shade of a weeping willow tree in the park. Her friends were here, and their babies were here, and Julian would grow up alongside them. If Julian got to grow up. Please, she prayed and walked with her head down, barely noticing when Lia took her hand. Please, please, please . . .

  She heard Richard before she saw him, the familiar beat of his footfalls as he came down the narrow hall. She looked up from the carpet, and there was her husband in motion: Richard running, the way she’d seen him a thousand times on basketball courts the world over. Richard snagging a rebound, sinking a layup, Richard rising into the air as if he’d willed himself to float, winning the tip-off, sending the ball flying precisely into one of his teammates’ hands while the crowd gasped in wonder. “Baby.”

  She turned and found that she could neither move nor breathe.

  “It’s okay,” Richard said. He was beaming. And suddenly she was in his arms, pressed against him, holding on tight. “There’s a hole, but it’s a small one; it’ll close up on its own. We just have to watch him closely, but he’s going to be all right.”