“Bring her in,” said Dr. Weeks. “I think it really is time for you to join in the treatment process. I think that if the constant insistence that Stevie demonstrate loyalty to your belief system were toned down—note that I do not say they should be stopped—he might be able to relax back into more normal strategies for dealing with these parental and societal expectations. We may be able to extinguish the hallucinations in a year or two, provided that the entire family cooperates.”
“Thank you for your willingness to tell me all of this, Dr. Weeks,” said Step. “I can see that you’ve been doing your best to understand our son’s situation.”
“Then there is hope that I can continue working with this very sweet boy?”
“I don’t know what will happen,” said Step. “As I told you from the first, money is a serious concern for us right now. But if we discontinue Stevie’s treatments, it won’t be because we think you’ve been doing less than your best with him as a doctor.”
Dr. Weeks nodded graciously. She was too professional to allow herself a smile—but Step was reasonably sure that he had left her feeling good about him and about Stevie, and good enough about the Church that she would not stop bringing Lee. Why she was bringing Lee to church, given the attitudes she had toward religion, was difficult for Step to understand. But she was doing it, and he didn’t want it to be his fault if she stopped.
At the receptionist’s desk he even confirmed next week’s appointment with Stevie. Then he walked out of the office, switched off the tape recorder, and headed home. DeAnne would listen to the tape with him tonight, and he seriously doubted that Stevie would ever go back to Dr. Weeks again.
DeAnne had a frustrating morning with the baby. He simply couldn’t be roused enough to eat anything at all. A nurse helped her pump her breasts, something that she had never done with the other three kids, and stored the milk in the freezer to feed to little Jeremy later, but it did nothing to calm DeAnne’s anxiety.
When she expressed her worries about the baby’s excessive sleepiness to the neonate, he simply nodded patiently and then said, “Of course you know that you can hardly expect a baby who’s taking seizure-control medication to be as responsive as your other children were. And until we know what is causing the seizure activity, we would be irresponsible to remove the medication. Seizures can lead to serious brain damage or even death.”
“Can’t too much phenobarbital cause problems, too?”
“It could if he were getting too much,” said Dr. Torwaldson. “But he’s not.” And that was that.
But DeAnne couldn’t get her worries out of her mind, and so when Dr. Greenwald, the pediatrician, came by, she explained it all over again. “He’s losing weight, isn’t he? More than the normal amount. Isn’t that one of the things we’re worried about? And if the pheno is making him so sleepy he won’t eat . . .”
“Well, I’ll tell you what,” said Dr. Greenwald. “Let’s just happen on down to the ICU and let me take a look at the dosage. It never hurts to doublecheck.”
So DeAnne and Vette followed him to the ICU, where he stopped and looked at several of the babies before finally getting to Jeremy. “Hey, Zap,” he said. He reached his hand into the built-in gloves in the side of the incubator and began probing a bit, touching the baby here and there, lifting his arms and legs, lifting an eyelid.
“Some of these babies here just break my heart,” said Vette. “So tiny or so—wounded.”
“Ah,” said Dr. Greenwald. “But they don’t break my heart, because on this particular day all my babies in here are doing quite well. I think we’re going to keep them all. Especially Zap here. He looks downright husky.”
DeAnne noticed with resignation that everyone was picking up the name Zap, despite her resolute use of Jeremy. But as long as he was telling her that her baby was doing well, DeAnne really didn’t care all that much what Dr. Greenwald called him.
“He’s pretty nonresponsive, isn’t he?” said Dr. Greenwald.
“Like a rag doll,” said DeAnne.
Dr. Greenwald looked at the chart. “Hmm,” he said. “Quite a dose of pheno, too.”
“Is it too much, do you think?”
“No,” said Dr. Greenwald. “It’s a normal dose.”
“Oh,” said DeAnne. “I just thought—it can’t be right that he’s so sleepy that he doesn’t eat.”
“No, it isn’t right. In fact, I’d say he’s got way to much pheno in his system right now.”
“So it isn’t a normal dose?”
“Phenobarbital’s a funny kind of drug. Everybody’s body uses it differently. I’d say that it looks like your little boy’s system just isn’t flushing that drug out of his body as fast as most people do, and so it’s getting built up inside him. Normal dose going in, but then it’s building up, you see.”
“Can you do anything?”
“Well, it isn’t very hard. We just cut way back on the dosage until we find it maintaining at the right level in his blood. It means a few more blood tests.”
“Do they have to keep taking the blood out of his head like that?”
“Oh, don’t you like his haircut? Kind of punkish, I’d say. You see, this is a newborn baby. It isn’t like his veins are particularly big or easy to find. Heck, we’ve got needles bigger around than his finger.”
“That’s all right, I know it can’t be helped, it just looks so awful. Dr. Greenwald, would you mind telling me what his current dosage is?”
“Would the numbers mean anything to you?” asked Dr. Greenwald.
“No,” said DeAnne. “But if the number’s not lower tomorrow, that will mean something to me.”
He grinned. “You’re pretty stubborn, aren’t you?”
She didn’t smile back. “This is my baby,” she said.
“Dr. Greenwald,” said Vette. She was over at one of the other incubators. “Is it right for this one to have liquid dripping from this needle?”
Greenwald immediately went to the incubator where Vette was standing. “Not one of my babies, but I’ll say that it doesn’t look right. Hasn’t been going on long, though, the sheet’s not even marked yet. Dana!” he called.
One of the nurses immediately came toward him.
“Have a look at this while I call Dr. Yont.”
The nurse named Dana came and immediately shook her head. “Have you been a bad girl again, Marisha? Pulling out your needles. We’re going to have to staple this next one on.” She looked up at Vette. “Thank you for noticing this. We check every baby every five minutes, besides constantly checking the monitors, but every moment counts. This one is so small we have a very hard time finding a vein, don’t we, Marisha? And when she makes some sudden movement, out it comes.”
“She’s so tiny,” said Vette.
“Yes,” said Dana. “We’re probably going to lose her. She’s not getting any better, and sometimes she’s a bit worse.”
“Her poor parents,” said DeAnne, thinking of the anguish she’d feel if someone had just said that about Jeremy.
“I don’t know,” said Dana. “If Marisha lives, she’ll be severely brain damaged. Not much of a life. Sometimes God is merciful and lets them come home without going through this vale of tears.”
It was at that moment that Step came into the ICU. “Oh, good,” he said. “I hoped you’d still be here.”
“Is Mary Anne still with the children?” DeAnne asked.
“When I got home, her husband was there and he offered to come up and help me give Zap a blessing.”
She saw now that Harv Lowe was walking with awe among the incubators. “These must be some tough kids,” said Harv, “if they had to stick ’em with all these needles just to keep ’em quiet.”
Dana laughed. “Oh, they’re the toughest.”
Step asked the nurse, “Do we have to use these gloves with Zap? He’s not got a contagious disease or anything, and he’s a full-weight baby. We don’t absolutely have to touch him with our hands, but it would be better.”
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“You’ll have to clear this with Dr. Torwaldson if you’re going to break open the box,” said Dana.
At that moment Dr. Greenwald came back with, apparently, Dr. Yont, who immediately started giving orders and working on the baby whose needle had come loose. It seemed that more than a loose needle was going wrong, and all the medical people were quite intense about what they were doing. DeAnne was content to wait. There was no emergency for Jeremy, and that was good.
A few moments later, Dr. Torwaldson came in, and at that point Dr. Greenwald withdrew and came over to the Fletchers. “Not my baby,” he said, “and I’m not a neonate, so I’m one pair of hands too many, now that Tor’s here.”
“Is she going to be all right?’ asked Vette. “The little one?”
“Doesn’t look like it to me,” said Dr. Greenwald. “But sometimes they surprise you. Sometimes they really want to live.”
“Do you think they really have desires? When they’re so small?”
“It all depends,” said Dr. Greenwald, “on whether you think of them as having a soul or not. I happen to think they do, and so I think that yes, that soul can have desires even if the body isn’t yet ready to put them into words. I’ve seen babies hold on to life with all their might, and I’ve seen others just give up and slip away. They don’t talk about it, but that’s how it feels to me.”
“And is that what Jeremy is doing? Slipping away?”
“Why don’t we wait to answer that,” said Dr. Greenwald, “until we see what he’s like when he’s conscious?”
“Dr. Greenwald,” said Step. “I think you’ll understand—we want to give a blessing to my son, and we’d like to be able to lay our hands directly on him. We also anoint him with a single drop of pure olive oil, on the brow or the crown of his head. Would that be all right?”
Greenwald glanced over at Torwaldson. “Oh, I can’t see why not. Zap is really a husky little kid. Compared to these others, he’s a regular Larry Holmes.”
Dr. Greenwald opened the incubator, and Harv took the oil, anointed Jeremy’s forehead with a drop of it, and then said the short prayer that went with it. DeAnne noticed that Dr. Greenwald watched, bowing his head respectfully. Then both Step and Harv touched the baby gently, and Step sealed the anointing, which was the longer prayer, the one that changed according to the needs of the person receiving the blessing, and according to what Step felt impressed to say.
Only a couple of months ago, thought DeAnne, Step was confirming Stevie, and now he’s giving his newest son a different kind of blessing. It felt good to know that her husband was able to do this, was able to call on the powers of heaven on her children’s behalf. I can give him milk from my body, I nurtured him inside me for nine months, and Step couldn’t really share in any of that. But he can give this to our baby.
The blessing felt powerful to DeAnne as it was going on, and yet when it was done she realized that Step had said nothing about healing. He only blessed Jeremy that the doctors would recognize their own limitations and make no mistakes with him, and that he would soon be home with his mother and father and sister and brothers.
Dr. Greenwald shook Step’s hand after he had sealed up the incubator. “Are you a minister?” he asked.
“No,” said Step. “I’m a computer programmer. Harv’s an accountant.”
“Well,” said Greenwald. “It still felt good, to see a father do that with his own child. Never seen that before.”
From the other incubator, where the other doctors were gathered, they heard a voice, a soft one, but clear. “She’s gone.” And a moment later, the doctors started moving away. DeAnne heard Dr. Yont murmur, “I’ll call the parents.”
DeAnne put her arm around her mother, who seemed quite shaken by this. She noticed, too, that Dr. Greenwald took out a handkerchief and wiped his glasses, after which he also brushed at his eyes with the cloth. “I never get used to it,” he said. “Even when they’re not one of mine. Don’t like to lose ’em.” Then he visibly straightened himself. “Why don’t we step on out of the ICU. We don’t need to be part of what’s going on in there now.”
As he ushered them into the corridor, Dr. Greenwald reassured them. “Your little boy doesn’t seem to be in any danger right now, and as for that lethargy, well, I’ll have a talk with Tor this afternoon. You’ll see some improvement, I promise, once we get the dosage right for his system. Nice to meet you, Mr. Fletcher. Mrs. . . .”
“Brown,” said Vette.
“Nice to meet you,” said Harv, shaking his hand. And Greenwald was gone.
“I feel good about Zap being in his care,” said Step. “It has to help, that he really loves these babies. And that he . . . you know. That he takes us seriously.”
“Thanks for coming,” DeAnne said to Harv.
“I have an idea,” said Vette. Her tone was suddenly bright, leaving behind the somberness of the ICU. It was a gift she had, to know the right moment to turn the mood of a group of people, to get them moving again. “I’ll have Harv drive me back to the house and you two ride home together in the other car.”
“Fine,” said Harv.
“Thanks,” said Step. “I need to talk to DeAnne anyway.”
“One condition,” said Vette. “I get the Renault. Air conditioning, you know.”
“We’ll open the windows on the Datsun,” said Step. “We’ll still be just as hot, but our sweat will help water the lawns on either side of the road.”
Once they were alone in the Datsun, DeAnne asked first about the blessing. “Couldn’t you have blessed him to be healed?”
“You think I didn’t want to?” asked Step. “You think that wasn’t what I planned to do?”
“You were so fatalistic about him the other day,” said DeAnne. “Yesterday, I mean. Was that only yesterday? I thought maybe you’d given up on him.”
“I tried to talk about Zap getting better and having a perfectly normal healthy body and I just couldn’t say it. Maybe it’s a lack of faith on my part, or maybe I was being told not to bless him that way. Either way, what could I do? I said what I was able to say.” Then he gave one short, derisive laugh. “My atypical dissociative disorder apparently isn’t as efficient at providing me with appropriate hallucinations as Stevie’s is.”
“So,” said DeAnne. “How did it go with Dr. Weeks?”
“First tell me how you are,” said Step. “Pain still bad?”
“I had a little bleeding, too. I need to lie down more.”
“So now I’ve got you in this rattly car, vibrating you six ways from Tuesday.”
“It’s all the going back and forth to the hospital.”
“So you’re saying you should have stayed.”
“I’m not dying, Step, I just hurt and I bleed a little. Tell me about Dr. Weeks, Step. Did you quarrel?”
“Just listen to the tape,” said Step. He pulled the microcassette recorder out of his pocket and pressed the play button.
For the first while, listening to the conversation in Dr. Weeks’s office, DeAnne wanted to shout at him to stop it, he was doing it all wrong, he was deliberately provoking the doctor. But then she realized that for Step, he was actually being quite controlled. And Dr. Weeks really was resisting talking to him. So the fact that he got her to tell her speculative diagnoses was probably quite an accomplishment, as was the way he sat still and listened, so that Dr. Weeks finally did explain adjustment disorder. It sounded exactly like what was going on with Stevie.
“I can do that,” said DeAnne. “Write to friends in Indiana. The school can give me the addresses of the parents, or forward my letters to them, anyway.”
Step pressed stop. “That’s not the diagnosis she believes in,” he said. “And that’s not the condition she intends to treat.” Then he pressed play again.
She listened to the rest of the tape without comment, until it was over. “Well, Step,” she said, “I can hardly believe you didn’t say anything snotty to her at all as you left.”
“I didn’t
want to sour anything, in case you wanted to continue the treatment.”
DeAnne was startled. “You mean you think we should?”
“I didn’t know what you’d think,” said Step.
“Yes you did,” said DeAnne. “You knew perfectly well what I’d think. Here she is declaring that anybody who believes in a religion is marginally or totally insane—I mean, that’s most of human society through most of history.”
“Yes,” said Step. “But maybe true sanity didn’t exist until people like her emerged.”
“From under a rock, you mean,” said DeAnne. “We know a lot of Mormons, Step. But not many hysterical ones, and not many crazy ones, either.”
“Well, there’s Sister LeSueur.”
“She’s conniving, not crazy,” said DeAnne. “The only really crazy Mormon I’ve known recently is Dr. Weeks’s own son, and she can’t blame that on us.”
“Give her time,” said Step.
“It makes me so mad that she would dismiss what we believe as if it wasn’t even worthy of consideration.”
“Well, she believes in a competing religion,” said Step. “If ours is true, then hers is kind of silly.”
“Well, ours is true, you know,” she said.
“And hers is kind of silly.”
“As you said all along.”
Step shrugged. “This isn’t about I-told-you-so. It’s about Stevie. We can try another psychiatrist later. But I don’t think he should continue going to a psychiatrist who firmly believes that the only way to help Stevie is to cure us of our religious delusions. Even if she could succeed, it certainly wouldn’t help Stevie, since that’s not his problem.”
“I agree,” said DeAnne.
“So Dr. Weeks is toast, right?”
“Right.”
“Only for Lee’s sake we tell her that we’re going to hold off on continuing treatment for a few months, while we watch Stevie to see if he improves by himself.”
“Excellent,” said DeAnne.
The radio wasn’t on very loud, but it happened to start playing “Every Breath You Take” during a momentary pause, and they both noticed it. “They’re playing our song,” said DeAnne.
Lost Boys: A Novel Page 39
