Falling From Grace

by Ann Eriksson

  Paul moved his left forefinger.

  22

  Paul’s hand moved, a toe, a flicker of an eye, like a restless seed in his body flowering into movement, into gradual awareness of his limited world, baby steps to recovery. When he could breathe on his own, the hospital staff moved him off the ICU and lifted the visiting restrictions. I had completed my sentence and visited daily, alone or with Rainbow, or Grace when she could make it. The doctors ordered low stimulation to allow the brain to heal. The nurses said, “Nonsense” and urged us all to talk. We played music and videos, read books out loud, something Rainbow, with her new-found skill, loved to do for him. She was reading the ending of Where the Wild Things Are about a little boy who runs away to a mysterious island only to realize he misses his mother when Paul opened his eyes and gazed around the room. Rainbow and I later argued about who he focused on first. “I think it was you,” I said. “He noticed a new freckle on your nose.” “No, Dr. Faye,” Rainbow assured me. “I know it was you.” We both insisted he had an upturned curl at the corners of his mouth. His first smile in three months.

  The hospital piled on the resources. Speech therapy, occupational therapy, physiotherapy. Daniel warned us that Paul’s personality might change, a common result of head injury. “I know one couple,” he confided, “who separated three years after the husband’s injury because she claimed he wasn’t the man she married. She told me, ‘his kiss wasn’t his kiss anymore.’”

  • • •

  I stood on a kitchen chair and taped the end of a streamer to a curtain rod. Marcel, out of jail a few days, held the other end, his release ten days earlier than expected. “For my stellar behaviour,” he insisted. Grace directed the placement of the decorations from the table where she sat blowing up balloons.

  “Hurry up, you two.” She tied a knot in the end of a large blue globe with a snap. “I need help. I’m too old for this. I haven’t got the lungs. She’ll be home soon.”

  We had guessed at the date of Rainbow’s birthday based on her statement, “It’s when the leaves fall.” When asked to make a list of gifts she said, “Mary didn’t believe in presents.” I cursed the woman for the hundredth time.

  “You’re gaining weight,” Grace commented, eyeing me as I balanced on the chair.

  I gave no answer, afraid Grace would guess my secret hidden beneath the extra baggy sweatshirt I wore. I couldn’t tell her, not before I had made a decision. For Grace, abortion was a choice for everyone but her own family. A few days before my trial, I had visited a genetic counsellor.

  “There’s a simple test for mutation in the FGFR3 gene, the gene responsible for achondroplasia. This gene makes a protein involved in the development and maintenance of bone and brain tissue,” explained the clinician, a serious man in his fifties. “Is your partner a dwarf?”

  “No.”

  He went on, “Your baby has a fifty per cent chance of having achondroplasia, a fifty per cent chance of normal stature. When both parents have achondroplasia, the chance of their offspring having normal stature is twenty-five per cent; having achondroplasia, also fifty per cent. There’s a twenty-five per cent chance of occurrence of homozygous achondroplasia.”

  “What’s that?

  “Two copies of the mutated gene. It’s most always fatal.”

  “You said the test is simple?”

  “Yes, it’s a blood test. It’s best done in the first trimester. Routine periodic ultrasound can detect the bone abnormalities but not until the third trimester when it’s too late.”

  “Too late?”

  He paused. “For a termination.”

  The word settled on my shoulders like a shawl of nettles, a prickly comfort. It could be that easy. No one need know. Paul none the wiser. Life would go on. “How long do I have to decide?”

  “The turnaround time for results is three to four weeks. If you choose to abort, it’s best done by fourteen weeks, but we can push it later.” He consulted my chart. “You’re how many weeks?”

  “Almost six.”

  “Decide soon.”

  I thanked the man. “I’ll have to think about it.”

  “Don’t think too long,” he urged as I walked out the door.

  I had cried all the way home.

  I had the test a week later.

  Now at eleven weeks, I had not yet heard the result. Time was getting short.

  Grace continued talking. “And you’re pale.” She paused in the middle of ripping open a package of streamers. “Are you well?”

  “I’m fine.” I jumped to the floor with a thud to prove my robust health.

  Marcel checked the cake in the oven for the tenth time. “Ma mére’s recipe.” Gobs of batter and a dusting of flour covered his paunch.

  “The cake will fall if you open the oven one more time,” Grace warned.

  He eased the oven door closed. “I’ll make the frosting.”

  Mel sat reading in the living room. I was surprised he had made the trip with Grace, his visits rare.

  The phone rang. “Would you answer it, Grace?” I asked, my arms full of coloured napkins and paper plates decorated with comical bears in party hats.

  Grace returned from the hallway. “It’s the father who picked Rainbow up to go to the playground. She’s been fighting.” She collected her purse from the table. “I’ll bring her home.”

  Rainbow traipsed red-eyed and solemn from the car to the house, a purple bruise rising on her right cheekbone.

  “Grace told me not to fight,” she declared, plopping onto a kitchen chair with a humph. “I wanted to punch those kids.”

  “Looks like they managed to punch you. Grace is right, no fighting,” I said. “What happened?”

  Rainbow pushed out her bottom lip and refused to speak.

  “We can’t have the party until you tell us what happen,” Marcel wheedled. “My cake, he will get stale.”

  Rainbow lifted her head; her mouth dropped open at the sight of the decorations, the table set with colourful napkins and hats, the cake on the sideboard. “You made me a birthday?” she said. “With presents?”

  “Yes, and we’ll have it when you’ve explained about the fighting.”

  “I can’t.” She dropped back onto the chair and crossed her arms.

  “Yes, you can,” Grace insisted. “We’re not going to spank you. We believe in peaceful resolution to problems. We’re your friends. We want to know what’s happened.”

  Mel appeared in the doorway and leaned against the frame, his hands in his pockets.

  Rainbow swung her legs back and forth under the chair. “Freak,” she whispered.

  “What?” I said.

  “They called me a freak.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “Your mother is a midget and your dad is a giant and you are a freak,” she yelled, her face twisting with anguish before she burst into helpless sobs.

  Anger rocketed through my body. Midget. The word transported me back decades. I was nine years old, alone and on my way home from school.

  A red convertible cruised past. “Hey, midget,” a voice drawled from the open window. My guardians, Patrick and Steve, were at baseball practice, nowhere in sight.

  I walked on, feigning nonchalance, stomach churning like a wild, white river. The car did a U-turn and passed me again, then pulled into a driveway ahead, blocking the sidewalk. I stopped, heart thudding. Doors opened and four boys stepped out. I focused on the cracks in the sidewalk; I could see their legs as they walked toward me—black boots and jeans, a pair of sneakers, hairy legs with shorts. “Hey, freak. We wanna talk to you.” I didn’t wait. I turned and ran, painfully aware of each inadequate stride. I listened for footsteps, the roar of the car engine to overwhelm me, surround me like a net and lift me off the ground. The thud of my blood pulsing through my head drowned out all else. Warm pee trickled down the inside of my pants.

  Patrick and Steve lied to Mel to borrow his car. “We’re going for ice cream.” We hunted town for
the boys and their Mustang for an hour, driving every street, the back alleys. “Passing through, I guess,” Steve speculated. “Bastards.” “What’s a midget?” I had asked. My brothers exchanged glances. “A mean word for a short person,” Patrick said, staring straight ahead out the windshield.

  Grace pulled Rainbow onto her lap and wiped the child’s tears away with her apron. “They don’t know any better, sweetie. We can educate them.”

  “Bullshit.” I spat out. “They know exactly what they are doing.”

  The family looked at me in shock.

  Mel walked over and placed his hand gently on the top of Rainbow’s head. “You’re a sweet girl.”

  The jolt of his gesture, the tenderness in his words, kept me rooted to the floor.

  “Can I hit them tomorrow?” Rainbow sniffed.

  Marcel opened his mouth. “Be my g—”

  “Get the presents,” Grace interrupted. “It’s time for the party.”

  The damage was done. I kept a close eye on Rainbow during the festivities. She was a fine actress. She laughed at Marcel’s trick candles that played Happy Birthday over and over when hot. When she squeezed her eyes tight for her wish, I wondered if she was asking for a boxing glove or a slingshot. She opened each gift with care: a red and blue store-bought sweater with pockets and a zipper from Grace, an insect collection kit from me, a recorder and a stuffed animal from Marcel, and a box of chocolates from Mel. She hugged each person in turn with a polite thank you. But I knew she was play-acting for the sake of her friends, and when all the presents were open in front of her, she lowered her head and said in a small voice, “Are there any more?” We all understood. Is there anything from Mary?

  Nobody answered. I wanted to punch a wall but instead kissed Rainbow on her cheek and whispered in her ear, “You are a present for all of us.” Sparklers materialized like magic from Marcel’s coat pocket and we gathered outside where we wrote our names in fleeting script of light across the night sky. When Grace asked Rainbow what she would like to do next, she didn’t hesitate. “Go and see Paul.”

  We trooped by the nurse’s station laden with cake and ice cream, Rainbow trailing a bouquet of balloons. “What a loving family,” one of the nurses commented.

  “I got new felt pens and a hat and mitts Esther made me in jail”—Rainbow chattered on to Paul, not caring that he was unable to say more than a few words without great effort “and”—she held up a stuffed toy that filled her arms—“an old-growth bear.”

  Paul stroked the bear’s head and managed a crooked smile.

  “Marcel said he met the bear in jail,” she said. “He’s silly.” She turned and beamed at Marcel, who leaned against the door frame.

  Paul pointed at himself, his lips working to form words “No . . . present . . . from me.”

  She looped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek, giggling at the half-day growth of beard. “Know what you can give me?”

  He raised one eyebrow; his eyelid fluttered with the effort.

  “Come home.”

  I wanted to kiss her.

  23

  The baby was a dwarf, the test positive. I walked around in a stupor, unable to concentrate on anything else, the questions looming over me, time for decision short. I couldn’t tell Grace, my fears about her reaction to the pregnancy palpable. Marcel? I didn’t know him well enough. I had no close friends, except Paul. I’d done my best to alienate Bryan, the one person who might offer a unique perspective, his last few emails unanswered. I dialled his number late one night in desperation, hung up, then dialled again, hands shaking.

  “I’m pregnant, it’s a dwarf,” I blurted out before he’d said more than hello.

  He was silent for a moment, then asked cautiously, “What do you want from me?”

  I burst into tears.

  “Why don’t you join me next weekend at the Little People’s conference in Seattle,” he suggested. “I’m sure I could get you in.”

  “How would that help?”

  “There will be women you can talk to. Mothers. Doctors.”

  “I . . . I’m not sure,” I stammered.

  “Think about it,’ he said. “What have you got to lose?”

  • • •

  The mid-September sun reflected across the tops of the waves as the high-speed ferry crossed the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The snow-topped Olympic Mountains rose blue and grand above the grey haze of coastline. I scanned the water with binoculars for rare seabirds or pods of killer whales, a distraction from my nerves. I wished the boat would slow down, take a detour through the islands to the west along an unnamed channel, and help me avoid my arrival in Seattle and the reunion with Bryan. In the past twenty-four hours I had almost backed out half-a-dozen times. One more dwarf in my life had been enough of a challenge. But hundreds? After another sleepless night I’d packed my bag, left Rainbow with Marcel, and caught the boat.

  The customs officer glanced at my driver’s licence and waved me through. No short jokes. No computer probe into my criminal record. Bryan waited outside the terminal, reading a paper in the sunshine. A huge smile lit up his face when he saw me. I hoped he hadn’t misunderstood my precise words over the phone. “We’re friends, right?”

  He gave me a quick hug. “Glad you’re here.” He looked attractive, tanned, and fit, wearing a button-down shirt and dress pants, a sports jacket slung over his arm. We took a taxi to a conference centre out by the airport. “I’ve arranged for you to share a room with a friend,” he said. “Her name’s Leah.”

  I touched his sleeve in gratitude for the gesture. A true gentleman. I needn’t have worried. The cab pulled up in front of the hotel entrance. I took a deep breath and got out, my attention on the grand entrance. Other than us, no little people in sight. Bryan paid the driver and took my bag. I stood at the curb as he moved toward the revolving door. When I didn’t follow, he turned around and tilted his head quizzically. “You coming?” he said. When I didn’t answer, he returned to my side, took my hand, and together we walked through the revolving doors.

  The hotel lobby was a throng of little people milling about, chatting in circles, coffee cups and napkins of squares balanced in their hands. If Bryan hadn’t held my hand in a firm grip, I might have turned and fled. What had I expected: instant rapture, a new clan, a rare weekend of anonymity? Everywhere I turned I saw myself, the template, the repeated pattern— stunted arms and legs, broad forehead, average-sized torso, flat face—not surprising, achondroplasia the most common form of dwarfism, a spontaneous mutation on a single chromosome. I felt like a paper doll cut-out in a room full of identical paper dolls. My chest tightened, my stomach rolled. I wasn’t as unique as I’d always liked to think. Had Mel done the calculations? One in twenty thousand births. Three hundred thousand worldwide. I hurried behind Bryan, avoiding eye contact with the people we brushed past. I focused on the back of Bryan’s head as we threaded our way through the crowd toward the front desk. He collected my key and dropped me off at the room, promising to meet me in the lobby in half an hour for lunch and a lecture by a physician who specialized in people of short stature.

  Leah was not there. She’d claimed the bed by the window, her belongings neatly arranged on the dresser and side table. I slid my few items of clothing into a drawer. I hung up my coat in the closet beside a strapless evening gown. I cringed. “There’s a banquet Saturday,” Bryan had said over the phone, “Formal. Bring a dress.” I didn’t even own one. The dress was gorgeous, teal blue satin, low cut. A pair of midnight blue heels—shoes to kill, my brother Steve had always called them—on the floor below. A key turned in the door. The woman who walked in was as surprising as the dress, short-cropped red hair, green eyes that reminded me of the colour of spring buds, radiant face. She was smaller than me, legs badly twisted, her progress aided by forearm crutches. She lurched across the room, swivelling side to side; the tips of her crutches pressed small round dents into the carpet. “Hi, Faye, I’m Leah,” she said and shook my hand, crutc
h hanging loose. “Welcome.”

  Leah sat on the bed and told me she taught elementary school, Kindergarten and Grade One. She lived in Colorado and skied in a disabled program in winter, canoed in summer. “I don’t need legs for canoeing,” she said without embarrassment. “I have clubfoot, hip dysplasia, scoliosis, and hitchhiker’s thumb,” she joked, wiggling her thumb in the air to demonstrate. She’d had twelve operations since childhood to straighten her legs. “My parent’s idea”—she rolled her eyes—“I’ve had it with the surgery,” she said. “The only thing they managed to fix was my cauliflower ear.”

  “You have lovely ears,” I told her. When I described my work, she listened carefully, then asked, “Would you take me up a tree some time?”

  “Bryan’s a great guy,” she said suddenly.

  “I don’t know him very well,” I confessed.

  She studied me. “I assumed you were an item.”

  “No, just friends.”

  She paused and fingered the crutch beside her on the bed. “Did he tell you we were engaged a couple years ago?”

  “No,” I said, surprised at the disclosure. “What happened?”

  “He wanted kids, I didn’t.” She went on. “I’m with kids all day at work.”

  I turned away, aware I was blushing, aware of the elusive goldfish in my womb. Leah wasn’t going to be any help. Could she even have children?

  “I know what you’re thinking?” she said. Was I that obvious? “Could a gimp like me give birth?”

  I fumbled around for something to say.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s a logical question. Diastrophic women can have babies. Usually average height unless the father is also diastrophic. And by Caesarean section. But lots of us are mothers. I have chosen not to be.”

  I changed the subject. “Do you come to these conferences much?”