What I Thought I Knew: A Memoir

by Cohen, Alice Eve

  November 8 was also the day before my medical malpractice trial was to begin. Originally scheduled for September, the defendant had twice requested a postponement, and the trial—expected to last for two weeks—now coincided uncomfortably with Julia’s bat mitzvah.

  Joan Miller, my lawyer, accurately predicted when Eliana was a newborn that the case would take at least three years to come to trial. Most of the trial preparation over those three-and-a-half years happened without my involvement. Joan periodically called me with questions, or asked me to come in to her midtown office to sign dozens of release forms. Two summers ago, she and I spent long hours preparing for three grueling days of deposition. The pretty, blond court stenographer typed three hundred pages of my testimony and cried through the emotional parts, while the defense lawyer grilled me and Joan kicked me under the table whenever I hesitated on a date or sequence of events. The defense attempted several times to have the case dismissed, for bogus reasons. Joan moved aggressively forward, welcoming a fight. Jury selection was complete. She assured me that tomorrow was the real deal.

  Julia’s Torah portion was Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac. When she finished the Hebrew chanting, she launched into the speech she’d written, a critique of Abraham’s irresponsible parenting and of the political consequences of religious fanaticism.

  “Why would Abraham do it? Why would he attempt to kill his son on God’s command, without ever asking God why? How could you sacrifice your son? If you think about these people as real people, rather than just characters in a story, Abraham would probably later be filled with guilt, and Isaac would be terrified. If I had been Isaac, I wouldn’t have been able to forgive my father for attempting to kill me, even if he said God commanded it. . . .”

  While Julia calmly read her speech, Michael chased Eliana. She was so tiny and agile that he genuinely had trouble keeping up with her. She raced up and down the aisles, climbed onto my lap for a half second, then scooted through the empty rows of velvet-cushioned chairs and initiated an unauthorized game of hide-and-seek. Michael tried to entertain Eliana without disrupting the rehearsal, which he assessed by the number of times the rabbi looked up at him with pursed lips.

  “Today, I think it’s really important to question what people say are God’s commandments. When the Spanish took over Central and South America, killing thousands of people, they did it in God’s name. When suicide bombers recently attacked in Israel, they did it in God’s name. When the Crusaders slaughtered thousands of people, they did it in God’s name. When the Spanish Inquisition persecuted Jews and Protestants and Muslims, they did it in God’s name. . . .”

  Eliana wore a short, blue dress over purple sweatpants and red canvas lace-up sneakers, the right sneaker, the one with the shoe lift, two sizes smaller than the left one. She was little enough to squeeze under the auditorium seats, and she kept disappearing and reappearing several rows away, her wavy mop of golden brown hair briefly popping into view, her beautiful blue green eyes ablaze, her red-cheeked face lighting up with a smile and a squeal of pleasure when she caught sight of Michael, before vanishing under the seats again.

  “When terrorists attacked the Twin Towers on 9/11, they did it in God’s name. When George Bush invaded Iraq, he said it was his religious responsibility—he did it in God’s name. Maybe if these people had actually stopped and thought about what they were being ordered to do, the world would be a better place. . . .”

  Eliana’s dress was dustier each time she emerged from under the seats. Michael finally caught her and carried her upstairs to the playroom, when he decided that Eliana’s giggly game was trying the patience even of Julia, who was valiantly sneezing through the end of her speech.

  Eliana was enrolled in the synagogue’s preschool upstairs. Her teachers reported that she didn’t interact much with the other children and spent a lot of time playing alone in the sandbox. Eliana reported that she loved playing alone in the sandbox but that she was tired of the children pointing at her shoe lift every day and asking, “Why do you have a big shoe?” and, “Why are you so little? You look like a baby.” I tried to make play dates for her with her classmates but met with little success. The preschool director was strongly urging us to keep Eliana in preschool for an additional year, to develop her social skills. She’d be just old enough to start kindergarten at the local public school next fall, but with her December birthday she’d be the youngest in the class. Michael and I weren’t sure she’d be ready for kindergarten, nor were we convinced that this preschool was an environment where her social skills would flourish. We mulled and fretted and wondered how we’d ever decide, until Julia-the-Straightforward cut to the chase and asked her little sister, “Hey, Elbow, would you rather go to kindergarten at a new school next fall, or stay an extra year in preschool?

  “I want to go to kindergarten at a new school!” Eliana shouted, without hesitation.

  Just as Julia’s rehearsal was ending, my cell phone rang. Michael took the girls home, while I sat in the empty synagogue for the next hour talking to my lawyer. Joan quizzed me on my testimony and yelled at me for my inconsistencies.

  “Go home and reread the three-hundred-page transcript of your depositions. Make sure you memorize every word! Any inconsistency on the witness stand will throw your credibility into question and alienate the jury, if they’re not already turned off by the premise of ‘wrongful life.’ This isn’t going to be easy. Didn’t I tell you to memorize that goddamn transcript weeks ago? I warned you that I was tough, didn’t I?”

  After dinner, Michael bathed Eliana and put her to bed while I rushed Julia through her homework and into her pajamas and then sat down sleepily in the living room to review the daunting transcript.

  I paused to listen to Michael, who was in the bedroom, playing his guitar and singing. He’d been out of work for eighteen months to date. His unemployment benefits, which had been extended twice, were about to run out. The silver lining to this depressing scenario was that he had time to make music again.

  When Eliana was a year old, Michael took a full-time job with Arthur Andersen—combining a desk job in internal communications with writing and performing for their training conferences and recruiting events, as he’d done for years. We joked that he performed corporate types so persuasively that they mistook him for the real thing. Michael’s transition—from unpredictable freelance career to full-time job with benefits at one of the Big Five accounting firms—was the epitome of a safe move.

  But a year after he took the job, Arthur Andersen was indicted by the Department of Justice on charges of obstruction of justice, for shredding documents related to its audit of Enron. Suddenly, mind-blowingly, the century-old accounting behemoth fell. Nearly twenty-eight thousand employees lost their jobs. In June 2002 the company was convicted, and Andersen was out of business.

  In his unanticipated free time, Michael was working on two new solo shows: a children’s play called Beanstalk Jacques, a Cajun retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk set in the Louisiana Bayou; and a one-man musical about the downfall of Arthur Andersen, called Simple Addition: How I Brought Down a Global Accounting Firm—a dark comedy about the seductive power of money and the place of individual responsibility within a huge corporation—a satirical retelling of what Michael believed to be, with twenty-twenty hindsight, his complicity in the Andersen debacle, the small part he played in facilitating the ethical compromises that led to the company’s demise.

  His new lyrics were really good. So was his guitar playing, which I hadn’t heard for the year he was working at Andersen. I felt like the real Michael was back; supremely ethical, cynical, smart, funny, penniless (though this time not by choice) Michael was back. Unfortunately, there were bills to pay.

  Since Andersen fell, we’d gone deeply into debt. Preschool in Manhattan was insanely expensive, as were Eliana’s medical costs. My income was modest. Michael’s was nil. I had to win this case for Eliana or we would never get out of debt.

  It was nearly 10:30. I w
ould have preferred to sleep, but I hoisted the unwieldy deposition transcript into my lap.

  The phone rang.

  “Hello, this is Juan-Carlos from Café Maya. How are you? Listen, Alice, I have very bad news. A building inspector came in today to check on a leak in the basement. It turns out the whole foundation is sinking into the earth, and they have to close the building until it’s repaired. . . . I’m so sorry, but we cannot have Julia’s bat mitzvah party here next Saturday. . . . No, not for months. . . . I know, I know, I feel terrible. . . . I was looking forward to wearing—what do you call it?—yes, a yamaca. . . . But listen, I will try to help you. I have a friend with a new tapas restaurant in the neighborhood. Maybe he can help us. Can you meet me outside the café in fifteen minutes?”

  Julia’s bat mitzvah is in one week, and we suddenly have no place for the party.

  My trial for Eliana is tomorrow morning, and I have three hundred pages to memorize.

  How do I prioritize tomorrow’s court appearance on behalf of Eliana versus next week’s bat mitzvah for Julia? The bat mitzvah, in addition to Julia’s seven years of study and six months of intensive preparation, represents a year of research and planning, resulting in the small miracle of finding a restaurant that would have a party for seventy-five guests on our small budget. The outcome of Eliana’s medical malpractice, three years in the works, will impact Eliana’s access to medical care and our family’s quality of life.

  “Julia, wake up and get dressed. I know you just went to bed, but we’re going out.”

  It was drizzling when we met Juan-Carlos outside Café Maya. It looked so inviting through the windows, with its deep red walls and a little upstairs party space just large enough for Julia and her friends. A sign on the door read, CLOSED BY ORDER OF NYC DEPARTMENT OF BUILDINGS. Black-haired, elegant Juan-Carlos kissed me and Julia on both cheeks. “Come, my friend is expecting us.”

  We walked five blocks south on dark, rainy Columbus Avenue to a brand new tapas restaurant, an attractive, narrow café with a long wooden bar on one side, facing an intimate cluster of round wooden tables and chairs with mosaic tile seats. Pedro, the slender, sandy-haired proprietor, greeted Juan-Carlos with kisses on both cheeks.

  “Pedro, this is my friend Alice and her daughter Julia. Julia is going to have her bat mitzvah next week, and they need a place for their party. Seventy-five people. Can you do it for them?”

  “Sit, sit,” Pedro instructed us. His easy smile made me want his restaurant to work out. Pedro whispered something to a waiter. In a moment there was a glass of sangria for me and a 7-Up for Julia, and a few small plates of fish, sausages, baby eels, sautéed peppers. Twenty-two customers comfortably filled the intimate restaurant.

  “We can do this for you,” said Pedro with bravura.

  Julia whispered in my ear, “Mom, it’s too small!”

  “Um, Pedro, how will you fit seventy-five people?” I asked.

  “Easy,” said Pedro. He counted additional tables and chairs, currently in storage, and described a seating arrangement for seventy-five that, notwithstanding his confident tone, was 90 percent imagination. My skepticism was trumped by Julia’s tears.

  “It’s too small,” she whimpered.

  “You’re right, Julia,” said Pedro thoughtfully. “I have a good friend in the neighborhood with a Turkish restaurant. He might help us out.”

  Pedro, Juan-Carlos, Julia, and I walked four more blocks in the rain, till we got to a Turkish restaurant on a side street just east of Columbus. When we opened the door we were greeted by sweet smells of coriander and cumin. Behind the antique wooden bar were blue-tiled walls, copper pots, a seating area with luxurious chairs upholstered in Middle Eastern tapestries of orange and gold. This was more upscale than Juan-Carlos’s or Pedro’s restaurant. This was way out of my budget.

  Mahmood came to the door, a tall, commanding man with dark eyes and olive skin. Arms crossed over his chest, he allowed the more demonstrative Pedro and Juan-Carlos to exchange kisses with him on both cheeks. “What can I do for you?” he asked his fellow neighborhood restaurateurs, glancing at the sleepy, soggy thirteen-year-old and her bedraggled mother, whom his colleagues had dragged in from the rain. The fate of Julia’s bat mitzvah was in the hands of these three men.

  To persuade Mahmood, Juan-Carlos artfully painted his relationship with me as an enduring friendship, Pedro described Julia’s upcoming bat mitzvah as a rite of passage of epic proportions and the matter of Juan-Carlos’s sinking restaurant as a cataclysmic event. They took turns embellishing the story while they argued my case to Mahmood.

  “I made the mother a promise a year ago.”

  “A Jewish girl’s most important day.”

  “My restaurant is sinking into the very bowels of the earth.”

  “They have relatives coming from all over the world.”

  “I signed a contract with the mother.”

  “The mother is honest and honorable.”

  “She is not a rich woman.”

  “The girl has prepared for this ceremony her whole life.”

  “It is the day a girl becomes a woman.”

  “Julia’s grandparents are traveling from Israel for the occasion.”

  Where did he get this? I have no relatives in Israel. A few guests were flying in from LA and New Orleans, but the rest were local. I kept my mouth shut while they spun their tall tale, my tall tale. The highly impassioned appeal by our rescuers was making an impression. Mahmood listened to his colleagues and then silently considered.

  “I will honor the woman’s contract. Your party will be here.”

  Julia shot me a panicked look, which meant, “Mom! I haven’t even seen the restaurant yet, and isn’t this my party? Does Mahmood even know how to make bland, teen-friendly food like hamburgers and French fries?” I signaled her with the slightest lift of my eyebrows to keep her mouth shut. She made a less subtle exasperated face at me, pursing her lips and gesturing with her thick eyebrows.

  “Thank you very much, Mahmood. May I ask you a few questions?”

  Now Pedro and Juan-Carlos made urgent eyebrow gestures at me, which meant, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth!” and, “Let’s go while the going’s good.” I tried to suppress my Jewish-mother-preparing-for-her-daughter’s-bat-mitzvah instincts but couldn’t suppress it entirely. I am, after all, a Jewish mother.

  “Could we take a quick look at the restaurant?”

  Mahmood’s jaw muscles twitched, his left eyebrow raised slightly, but he led us into a beautiful octagonal dining room, which seated at least eighty.

  “Barbara Walters is having her Christmas party here,” he boasted.

  Barbara Walters could afford a party here, but I was quite certain I could not.

  “Oh, it’s beautiful. Two more things. Could we talk about costs?”

  Mahmood’s jaw muscles twitched again. “Did you not hear me? I will honor your contract.”

  “Thank you!” I could hardly believe a party at this elegant restaurant wouldn’t cost more than a party at humble Café Maya. “And could you show us the menu?”

  Mahmood’s jaw twitched again. Juan-Carlos and Pedro looked exasperated.

  “Don’t worry. I will take care of everything.”

  Urgent whisper from Julia into my ear: “Ask him if they have hamburgers.” I stepped on Julia’s foot and slowly applied pressure while I shook Mahmood’s hand.

  “Thank you so much. I, thank you, I really appreciate . . .”

  Pedro and Juan-Carlos were kissing Mahmood’s cheeks and ushering me and Julia out the door as quickly as possible, before we blew it.

  “Don’t worry. Mahmood will take care of everything.” My new mantra.

  Julia and I walked back home in the rain. She quickly fell asleep. Michael was still playing guitar. I sat down to reread the deposition but couldn’t keep my eyes open and decided it was futile anyway. I was never good at memorizing lines, but I remembered everything that happened, and would tell the story trut
hfully. I would leave it to my lawyer to artfully frame the truth in her dramatic retelling of my real-life tall tale. Like my restaurant allies tonight, I could count on her highly impassioned appeal to make the desired impression. My lawyer will take care of everything that Mahmood doesn’t take care of.

  I had erotic dreams that night about the three handsome restaurant owners, telling elaborate stories while they made love to me at once, mingling the flavors and scents of Mexican, Spanish, and Turkish food. I dreamed that Juan-Carlos was my lawyer and Mahmood was the judge and that Eliana was already a thirteen-year-old, healthy and robust and full-grown and confident and about to become a woman.

  The next morning at City Hall I waited with my lawyer’s associate outside the courtroom. Joan came out and whispered to me that the jury was ready to begin, but she was trying to negotiate a last-minute deal with the defending lawyer in the judge’s chambers. I sat on the wooden bench outside the courtroom for two hours, with instructions not to say anything to anybody but to smile politely at everyone.

  Joan had lined up two expert witnesses to speak on Eliana’s behalf. Endocrinologist Dr. Abigail Arbogast, expert on Russell-Silver syndrome, has closely monitored Eliana since she was an infant and has protected her from Russell-Silver’s most dangerous symptoms. Now she was chomping at the bit to share her expertise about Eliana’s growth disorder to a captive audience of judge and jury. Eliana’s more sedate orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Melody, has prepared a PowerPoint presentation, with compelling charts and graphs; X-rays of Eliana’s legs; a slide show illustrating the multiple, complex surgeries Eliana was likely to need to correct her asymmetry; and a summary of her anticipated, astronomical medical expenses, every bit as scary as the graphics. Drs. Arbogast and Melody were scheduled to appear in court tomorrow. Today I would be the one on the witness stand.