Little Earthquakes (28 page)

“Sorry I’m late,” said Dr. Melendez, hurrying into the exam room. She stopped at the edge of the table and beamed at Julian, who gave her a gummy smile in return. “Oh, my,” she said. “What an angel.”

Ayinde felt her body relaxing, and she beamed down at her son. Her marriage might have been a mess, but at least she was succeeding as a mother. Well, more or less.

“Missed your six-month, huh?” the doctor chided. Ayinde looked down at her fur-lined boots.

“We were busy,” she said. Dr. Melendez merely nodded. Was it possible she didn’t know what was going on in Ayinde and Julian’s life, or was she just being polite? “I’m very sorry. We’re probably behind schedule on our shots.”

“It’s not a big deal,” the doctor said, peering into Julian’s ears. “I just don’t want to make a habit of it. Tell me how things have been,” she said, running her hands deftly over Julian’s body as the two medical students behind her watched. She wiggled his feet, squeezed his knees in until they touched, then let them slip apart. “Is he on the move yet?”

“He’s not crawling, but he’s sitting up well and reaching for things. And babbling a lot, and trying to pull himself up on the edge of the couch.” Ayinde paused for breath.

“Sounds just fine,” said the doctor, slipping the stethoscope into her ears. She listened, glanced at Julian’s chart, then slid the stethoscope’s bell to another spot on his chest and frowned. “Hmm.”

Ayinde’s breath caught in her throat. “Is everything all right?”

Dr. Melendez held up a finger for silence. Ayinde watched the second hand sweep around the clock. Ten seconds, fifteen, twenty. She closed her eyes. “Is everything all right?” she asked again.

Dr. Melendez unhooked the stethoscope and looked at Julian’s chart again. “Has Julian ever had any trouble breathing? Have you ever noticed him breathing rapidly?”

“No,” Ayinde said, shaking her head. “No, never.”

“Has anyone ever mentioned to you that Julian has a heart murmur?”

Ayinde sank onto the wheeled stool next to the examination table. “No,” she said. “No. He was perfect. He was born a few weeks early, but other than that, he was perfect.”

“Well, he’s got a little murmur, and I’d like a cardiologist to take a listen. And probably a look.”

Ayinde leaned over and lifted Julian, still clad only in a diaper, into her arms. “What’s wrong?” she asked. Her voice was rising, and her own heart was banging against her ribs. “How bad is a heart murmur?”

“Lots of times, they’re no big deal,” Dr. Melendez said, squatting so she was at eye level with Ayinde. “The murmur by itself doesn’t tell us much. Heart murmurs are very common, and frequently they’re indicative of a problem that will correct itself over time. Julian’s been healthy and thriving, as you’ve said, and his growth, well, as you can see, no problems there.”

Ayinde found herself nodding rapidly. Julian had been in the ninety-fifth percentile for height and the eightieth for weight since he’d been born.
My big man,
Richard used to call him, when they’d still been speaking.

“There’s a good chance that he might just have a condition that we’d watch as he grew or something that we can handle with medication.”

“And if not?”

“Well, there are surgical options,” Dr. Melendez said. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The first thing we need to do is find out what we’re dealing with.” She reached for her prescription pad and started writing. “I want you to see my colleague Dr. Myerson.”

Ayinde felt dizzy. She tightened her grip on Julian. “So we should make an appointment?”

“Yes,” said Dr. Melendez, handing over a prescription slip with a name, a telephone number, and an address. “He’ll probably see you next week. And I want you to keep an eye on Julian. If you notice he’s having trouble breathing—if he’s gasping, if his lips turn blue—I want you to call us immediately and take him to the nearest emergency room. I don’t think there’s much chance of that happening,” she continued, putting her hand on top of Ayinde’s forearm. “If something was going to go wrong, it would have happened by now. The chances are good that he’s fine. I just want us to be sure.”

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.”