“I lie awake at night, terrified that lightning is going to strike us, like it did my family all those years ago. We all died in a way when Rose did, and it killed my parents’ marriage. My father hung around for two years waiting for my mother to get better, she never did, and I guess he couldn’t take it anymore. He left and married Pam a year later, that was the final blow for my mother. She sank even lower after that.”
“I assume you all had therapy to get through it.” She was shocked when Zoe shook her head.
“No, only my father did. He married his first therapist. Pam. She’s a nice woman. I never let myself get close to her once they were married, it upset my mom too much, so I hardly ever saw them. And they had two more kids. My mother refused to go to therapy with my father, which was why he left. He wanted them to try to recover, and my mother said she just couldn’t. And they never suggested any therapy for me. I was ten when Rose died, and by the time my mom was halfway sane again, I was in my rebellious teenage years. I’m not even sure they thought of therapy for me. They were both so wrecked after it happened, they never talked to each other or to me. The ship had gone down, and it was every man for himself. My father got out, my mother was underwater for a long time, and I just paddled along on my own, trying not to drown.”
“Did you seek therapy later on, as an adult?” Cathy had never dared to ask her these questions, but somehow in her office she felt she could, even though they were there to talk about Jaime, not about her. But they were also friends, which made it permissible in her dual role.
“I never saw the need,” Zoe answered quietly. “Eventually, I went to college. I got my life on track. Then I was busy in medical school, and came to New York after that. I was working, I met Austin, we got married and had Jaime, and now here we are. We’re happy, we get along, and Rose is a distant memory now. There’s not much left to say.”
“You had a tough childhood, Zoe, and a lonely one it sounds like. A brutal shock when Rose died. That was a lot for a kid that age to sort out, and even later, the divorce. You must have felt abandoned by everyone.” Zoe nodded but didn’t comment at first.
“It’s all water over the dam now. I’m not that sad, lost kid anymore. I’m a wife and a mom, with a child of my own. My only fear is that she’ll get leukemia like my sister, and our whole world will come crashing down.” Cathy didn’t see it the way Zoe did. The years of emotional pain Zoe had lived with had to have left deep emotional scars, and she thought therapy would have helped her at any point in time, even now, to resolve the past. She was amazed that she had never sought counseling, and had dealt with it on her own. In her opinion, performing open heart surgery on oneself would have been easier than surviving that kind of trauma without help.
“I’ll order the bloodwork on Jaime, and then you can put that fear out of your mind.” They both commented that Jaime seemed to be navigating being two better, and had had no injuries in several months.
Zoe felt so relieved after talking to Cathy that she mentioned the blood tests they were going to do on Jaime to Austin that night. The moment she said it, he looked panicked.
“Oh my God, is something wrong?”
“No, not at all. She’s fine, or she appears to be. My sister was a few months older when she got sick, with no warning. It’s always worried me, if I had a child. I just want to know concretely that she’s fine. This is about my history, not about anything Cathy or I have observed. I just want to stop worrying about it.” He looked calmer after she said it, but unhappy nonetheless.
“It’s too bad she has to get a blood test just to reassure you.” He didn’t really approve of it, but he understood. “Did Cathy think that it’s okay?” He trusted her completely with their daughter’s health.
“She said it won’t do her any harm, and it’s important to me.”
“I wish there was some other way to put your mind at ease.”
“There isn’t,” she said softly. “I want her to get the tests.” She was definite about it, and he saw that he couldn’t change her mind.
“You’re not hiding anything from me?”
“I promise I’m not.” He nodded and they finished dinner, but it preyed on Austin’s mind afterward. Getting a blood test for symptoms Jaime didn’t have, just for her mother’s comfort level, seemed unreasonable to him. But he didn’t object.
Since there was no rush, Jaime went to the lab and had the blood test two days later, and she cried when they did it, but Zoe bought her a toy afterward. She picked a baby doll with a bottle and a diaper, and its own bathtub, and she slept with it that night, after giving it a bath. She told her father all about the blood test when he came home. And when the tests came back, predictably, they were fine. Jaime was perfect, a totally healthy little girl, and Zoe slept peacefully that night, as she hadn’t in years, and dreamt of Rose.
* * *
—
Zoe was increasingly busy at the shelter in the following months. They had been able to obtain three new grants, and one large bequest from a private donor, which made life both easier and more difficult. The influx of money expanded their budget and allowed them to hire more staff, which always brought problems in its wake. Some of them were wonderful additions, others were challenging to work with. But Zoe always balanced her responsibilities at work to perfection, and had flawless judgment about people and plans. She knew how to organize, encourage, and control her staff and kept a tight grip on the reins. She spent time with each of the children who came through their doors, and worked closely with Austin on the abuse and custody cases he was handling for them, as well as the other attorneys whose services they required.
She managed to keep all the balls of her complex job in the air, and never dropped a single one. And her relationship with the children at the shelter was compassionate and strong. She knew their histories and their names, and they all loved her. Oddly, she was always less sure of herself with her own child, which she shared with Cathy privately one day over lunch. After two and a half years of motherhood, she still questioned all of her decisions, and constantly second-guessed herself, which she never did at work.
“I think it’s harder with people’s own children. I see it all the time with my patients. Parents who run major corporations can’t decide what time their kids should go to bed, or what they should be eating. Or what school to send them to, and then they argue with each other about it.”
“At least Austin and I agree about what school we want her to go to.” Zoe had just been accepted at an excellent school, three blocks from their home, for September. It was kindergarten through twelfth grade, but had a small preschool where they accepted students who had an interest in staying on from kindergarten through the upper grades. Zoe had mixed feelings about it. Jaime still seemed too young to go to school, and Zoe hated to see her baby days end so soon. Austin felt the same way, but they both had demanding jobs, and she was at home with the nanny without them anyway. Fiona was going to become part-time in the fall, and work for another family as well.
“Get ready to see Jaime with a runny nose for the next two years,” Cathy said, laughing. “They get sick constantly when they start school.”
“Do you think we should wait another year? We don’t have to send her yet. We just thought it would be more interesting for her than going to the playground every day, and playing with Fiona at home. I think the structure will be good for her, and the challenge. She’s so bright.”
“I think school at three is fine. It’s the right age. You don’t want her to be too old or too young when she starts, and she’ll have consistent friends and a social life. And yes, they catch flus and colds, but it’ll strengthen her immune system. I think she’ll love it,” Cathy said easily, and then went on to tell Zoe about her recent breakup from a disappointing boyfriend she had just dated for six months. They had met on a dating site for people in the medical profession. He was a heart surge
on and a narcissist, according to Cathy, and he was dating a slew of women he met online and had lied to her about it. She found out from another doctor friend he was dating too. She was turning forty in a few months, and was startled at how fast time had flown.
“It feels like I was a resident just a few years ago, and now suddenly I’m old.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, you’re not old.” Zoe was about to turn thirty-seven, but it was different being single, when you hadn’t found the right man yet, and still wanted children, although Cathy always said privately to Zoe that she wasn’t sure she did.
“I give at the office. I’m not sure I need children of my own. I’m not even convinced I’d be good at it.”
“How can you say that? You’re great with kids,” Zoe said.
“They’re not mine. It’s easy to be great with other people’s kids. From where I sit, it’s not as easy to be consistent and make the right decisions with your own children. The parents do the hard part, I just take care of their kids’ health. Maybe that’s all I know how to do.” Medicine and her practice were her life. She was still close to her family in Ohio, and had three nieces and two nephews she loved. But she didn’t get home as often as she liked, and had drifted away from her old friends in Columbus. Zoe had become her closest friend in New York.
“Why don’t you figure out about having kids when you meet the right guy?” Zoe said gently, and then they talked about other things. They had a number of interests in common, art, books, movies, fashion. They really enjoyed each other when they had time to get together, which wasn’t often, but they texted and called when they could. And their daily messages to each other were fun and light, often about something silly or humorous they had seen.
* * *
—
In addition to its geographic location, the school Austin and Zoe had selected for Jaime turned out to be the perfect one for her, or so it appeared. She loved it right from the first day. She was crazy about her teacher, Mrs. Ellis, and the young teaching assistant they called Mr. Bob. The school had traditional principles and structure, but also incorporated some modern views and new techniques, which satisfied both of Jaime’s parents, and she announced with delight after the first day that they had great toys and good juice. Austin or Zoe was going to drop her off every day, and Fiona would pick her up at two.
Cathy’s prediction proved to be true. Jaime caught a cold three weeks after school started which turned into a nasty ear infection with a high fever a week later, and Jaime missed two weeks of school. Her absence didn’t matter in preschool, but Zoe hated to see her so sick, and worried that she’d have another febrile seizure when her fever went over a hundred and two. Cathy prescribed amoxicillin for the ear infection, which Jaime had never had before and turned out to be allergic to. She’d had another antibiotic, but not that one. She threw up violently for twenty-four hours, until they switched her to a different antibiotic, and five days later, she was healthy and back in school. The ear infection had been acute, and Jaime had howled in pain for two long nights before Cathy put her on the antibiotic.
Remembering what Cathy had said about Jaime being sick constantly for the first two years of school, and having taken it to heart, Zoe called an ear, nose, and throat specialist as soon as she was well. She didn’t want Jaime going through something like that again, and there were colds and coughs and earaches going around, only a month after school had started. And this was the second ear infection in her life.
They went to Dr. Parker uptown in the East Seventies, whom one of Zoe’s co-workers had recommended. She said that her son had had chronic ear infections for two years until they saw him, and she said he was a miracle worker. Zoe wanted his advice.
She picked Jaime up at school herself and took a cab uptown the day they went to see him. He had a toy box and an aquarium in his waiting room, so he obviously had a number of children as patients in his practice. Earaches were so common in little kids. He explained why, using a plastic model, once they got to see him. He said that children’s ear passages weren’t always fully developed at Jaime’s age, and ear infections happened more easily. Zoe asked if they would damage her hearing. He was young and attractive and great with Zoe, as he answered her questions.
“Chronic infections could eventually damage her hearing, but more than likely, she’ll outgrow them. I usually put in ear tubes if it happens too often. It’s a minor surgical procedure that takes a very short time, there’s very little recovery, and it works brilliantly to avoid further infections.” It was the procedure Zoe’s co-worker said her son had had, and he’d had no problems since. “Has Jaime had frequent ear infections? Sometimes it begins as babies, or when they start school.”
“She just had a very bad one, it kept her out of school for two weeks, and she was in agony for the first two days.”
“Earaches can be very painful, in children or adults,” he said sympathetically, but she hadn’t answered his question, intentionally. Zoe didn’t want him to know that Jaime had only had two in her life. She wanted to get ear tubes for Jaime, before she had chronic infections. It seemed like a great prophylactic measure. Why wait for her to get another one, if he could prevent that from happening again? It was why she had come to see him, the procedure was a minor one and would do Jaime no harm. He had said so himself. “How many infections has she had, say in the past year?” He repeated the question, and smiled at Zoe. She was enjoying talking to him. He had already examined Jaime, who was back in the waiting room, playing in the toy box, while Zoe and Dr. Parker chatted in his office.
“I can’t remember how many,” Zoe said vaguely, “but she’s had a number of them. I’m afraid she’ll miss a lot of school if it keeps happening.”
“She sounds like a perfect candidate for tubes,” he said, making a notation on Jaime’s chart, and then he glanced up at Zoe. “Are you worried about a surgical procedure for her?”
“Not really. My co-worker says you’re a magician.” He smiled at the compliment.
“It’s really very minor. She’ll be under general anesthesia for fifteen minutes, long enough to position the tubes correctly. And then she’ll have about half an hour recovery time. We can remove them at any time, but I think you’ll find that they’ll keep her from getting the frequent ear infections she’s had till now. The tubes are the magic, not the doctor in this case. When would you like to do it? I do it at the hospital, and I can do it on a Saturday morning, if you like. That way, she won’t have to miss any school.” He picked up the phone on his desk, and asked his nurse a question about his schedule. “I can do it on Saturday, two weeks from tomorrow, if that works for you.” He was easy and accommodating, and Zoe looked pleased. She had made a decision that was going to spare Jaime years of pain from ear infections, like the misery she’d just been through. No matter that she’d only had two before, she would surely have more now that she was in school. It was good preventive medicine. The only problem was that she hadn’t mentioned it to Austin, but when she explained it to him, she was sure he would agree.
“That’s perfect,” Zoe agreed to the date he suggested. They shook hands, and he told her that the nurse at the desk would give her all the pre-surgical information she needed. And then she went to find Jaime at the toy box, she had building blocks and Legos all over the floor and a doll with tattered hair.
They went back downtown, and Zoe was satisfied with the appointment. Now all she had to do was tell Austin about the surgery, and sell him on the idea. She was certain they were doing the right thing. She hadn’t mentioned it to Cathy either but she told herself she would approve too. It was preventive medicine, after all.
Chapter 10
Zoe mentioned the ear tubes to Austin on Saturday night while they had a late dinner, after they put Jaime to bed. They’d had a busy day with her, doing errands, and Zoe took her to a birthday party for one of her new friends in school. Her social life was
about to expand exponentially with twenty children in her class, which Zoe thought was a good thing. All the more reason not to be out sick all the time, with coughs and colds and ear infections.
“I took Jaime to see an ear, nose, and throat doctor this week, by the way,” Zoe said casually.
“What for? Are her ears bothering her again?” He looked surprised.
“No, she’s fine. Just some preventive medicine before it happens again. He suggested ear tubes as a prophylactic measure. Apparently, they work brilliantly.”
“That sounds simple enough. But won’t she pull them out?”
“That’s the whole point. The doctor inserts them, and we leave them in as long as we want, until she outgrows the need for them or they fall out on their own. Cathy warned me that she’d be sick constantly for the first two years of school, from exposure to other kids. At least that would rule out ear infections. I don’t want her to go through that again, she was miserable. And I’m sure you don’t want that either.”
“The doctor puts them in? Is it a big deal?”
“He says it only takes a few minutes. They give her a general anesthetic to insert them, and a few minutes later, it’s all done.” She made it sound incredibly easy, as Austin looked at her hesitantly.
The Dark Side Page 11