Doctors (98 page)

Everything seemed to come to him as easily as a coconut from a palm tree—right into his hand, opened and ready to enjoy.

His wife, Cheryl, had not been blind to her husband’s diminished affection. And from the time Hank had signed up for yet another tour of duty in Vietnam, she had sought priestly counsel. Indeed, since she faithfully attended mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, the cardinal of Boston himself became her spiritual advisor.

His Eminence felt that a pure soul like Cheryl Dwyer should not be forced to live in limbo and would better raise her Catholic children if she could be free of Hank and marry someone worthy of her goodness. And though the Vatican does not countenance divorce, there still were other measures to alleviate the situation. Perhaps there could be a Church annulment of the marriage.

And thus Hank had not had to bestir himself; he had not missed a single Sunday on the beach at Maui. The papers simply came to him to sign, which he did expeditiously and unemotionally. Actually, the only thing he felt was gratitude for His Eminence’s intervention.

*    *    *

On July twenty-sixth, 1978, a miracle occurred. In England a child named Louise Brown was born. It was an uncomplicated birth and she was normal in every possible way—except for one thing. She had been conceived not in her own mother’s womb, but in a laboratory jar.

Because of tubal blockage in the baby’s mother, the pioneering doctors Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards had introduced the father’s sperm to the mother’s egg inside a small glass dish. Only when the union had grown into a healthy blastocyst did they return it to its normal habitat, where it implanted happily in Mrs. Brown’s womb—and nine months later emerged a healthy baby.

Procreation was one of the few things for which Hank could claim more than average competence, and it seemed only logical to him that if the prizewinning doctors would allow it, he should go to England and work (unpaid) as their assistant merely to acquire the necessary expertise.

The innovating scientists looked at his records. Hank’s mediocre grades in Med School were more than counterbalanced by his medals for bravery in Southeast Asia.

Such a doctor merited a chance to learn the new technique and be one of the first to bring in vitro fertilization to America.

When Hank returned a full year later, word got out swiftly that he was setting up a clinic on the lines of those he’d seen in England. And, although he never sought publicity, the journalists went after him. Suddenly he was a household word in the fiftieth state.

In fact, when the governor of Hawaii was apprised of Hank’s plans to establish a new institute, the likes of which even California had not yet established, he arranged for a low-cost state loan for Hank to expedite his project.

Unhappy West Coast women who longed for children quickly learned that IVF was at last being done at their doorstep. They flew in droves to “The Henry Dwyer Institute.”

And yet even amid the lushness of Hawaii some vestiges of Hank’s ascetic priestly days remained: he had a regimen and certain principles by which he lived unswervingly.

For instance, he would not eat red meat, knowing, doctor that he was, that it had lately been proved dangerous for the colon, and he did not want to do anything that would impair his longevity.

He only worked three days a week.

He only drank after five o’clock.

He never—without exception—dated any girl older than twenty-five.

When Barney Livingston’s questionnaire had reached Hank’s Hawaii office, he had been in England, studying the making of babies. And his secretary, thinking it was junk mail, did not send it on.

In one sense Hank was glad, for he thought Barney’s queries were irrelevant to his own medical life.

How could he answer such a stupid document? “The tensions of the job”? “The strain of the commitment”? “Regrets”? These words meant nothing to him. So instead of filling out the form he simply wrote:

N
o child in history was more studied than little Harry Livingston.

He was also scrutinized, examined, analyzed, tested, and retested.

Since they both felt they would never know the truth about how long Harry was denied oxygen, Barney and Laura had to assume the worst. And their joy in him was tempered by a
constant apprehension that the signs of brain impairment might reveal themselves. Today. Tomorrow. Next week.

On alternating months, Laura would take Harry to be examined by the chairman of Pediatrics at Columbia, or Barney would take him to the chief at Bellevue. (They never revealed their medical bigamy to either specialist.)

The doctors did not make light of their obsession. For the Livingstons had genuine cause for concern.

“We certainly won’t be out of the woods until he’s at least two.”

This was the opinion of Professor Adam Parry of P & S, the most respected pediatrician in New York.

Laura quickly countered, “But that’s of course if there’s little damage. If not—”

“Yes,” Parry conceded, “if it’s something like cerebral palsy, we’ll know soon enough.”

“Jesus, Castellano, I wish you wouldn’t be so nervous,” Barney commented as they were coming back from their
n
th consultation. “The kid looks fine to me. I mean, I’ve kept up with my neurology. Why are we worrying so damn much?”

“You can deny it all you want, Barn. But you
know
about brain development—a third of the intercellular connections are formed
after
birth. The neural ridges are still developing in Harry’s sweet little head, and some of the pathways might have been blocked while that Iranian asshole was romancing the nurses. Now, be honest—doesn’t that make you nervous, too?”

“No,” he replied matter-of-factly.

“Are you telling the truth?”

“No,” he answered candidly. “But I figured I could be more supportive if I lied.”

She looked at him with grateful affection.

“You’re holding your breath, aren’t you, Barn?”

“Yeah,” he replied tersely. And after brooding for a moment he added, “It’s murder, isn’t it? That sonovabitch Muhradi handed us a bundle of joy—and a time bomb. If only he had told us the truth. I mean, however bad the truth was—but the
truth
—we could at least sleep at night. If I knew Harry would have to go to a special school or something, I wouldn’t love him any less.…”

He did not need a word from Laura to know she agreed.

“So why the hell couldn’t he be honest with us?”

“Maybe he was worried about a malpractice suit.”

“He damn well should be—he was negligent as hell. If
Harry turns out not to be okay, I’ll go back and strangle the guy.”

They rode on in silence. Laura stared blankly out of the taxi window and at last muttered, “He’s one of those holier-than-thou types.”

“What?”

“You know, the kind of doctor who thinks he’s not answerable to anybody but God—and maybe not even then. He’s not the first of that ilk that I’ve come across.”

“Me, either.”

“Are you going to write about them in your book?”

He nodded. “I’ve already outlined a chapter called ‘Doctors Who Lie.’ The only problem is I can’t write it yet.”

“How come?”

“Because I’m still too goddamn angry.”

And so they continued watching, ever on the alert for the minutest irregularity, the tiniest sign of impairment. In short, the slightest hint that Harry was not
perfect.

If nothing else, their offspring was perceptive. Through some as-yet-undiscovered baby sensory system, he seemed to know what his parents were thinking and tried to allay their fears at the earliest opportunity.

At six weeks old he smiled. They could both remember the precise circumstances. Estelle, on one of her frequent trips from Miami to dote on her grandchild, had brought Harry a multicolored “gym” to go across the top railings of his crib.

Laura shook the plastic blocks to illustrate that each was not only a different color but made a different sound.

The tinkle of the red one made him smile.

Thank God, they thought to themselves, one hurdle cleared.

The next big milestone would be when—or if—he would sit up. And Harry dutifully obliged by sitting up in his cot well before his seven-month deadline.

And then—wonder of wonders—just a week after his first birthday, he took five wobbly steps from Barney’s easy chair to Laura’s arms. The boy was indeed a champion!

All Barney could do was repeat again and again, “Thank God, Laura. Thank God, the kid’s okay.” And think to himself,
So far.

And then one evening when they both were bathing him, Barney was struck by yet another fear. “I only hope we haven’t freaked him out by letting him sense all our anxiety.”

“I don’t know, Barn,” Laura said, lifting their cherubic treasure out of the water and placing him in the towel held out by his father. “We’ve got at least another year to wait. I mean, there’s still time for all kinds of subtle cerebral abnormalities to manifest themselves.”

“Thanks, Castellano, thanks a lot,” he muttered.

“What for?”

Barney looked up from the table on which he was powdering Harry and replied, “You just gave me an incredible gift—another three hundred and sixty-five nights of worry.”

Barney’s first patient was at 7
A.M.
But he got up at five-thirty to be sure of having a few quiet moments with his son. To indulge in the joy of changing his diapers, giving him his bottle, burping him—and all the mundane things he never dreamed would bring such ineffable pleasure.

While Harry sucked his breakfast, Barney would lecture him on current events, literature, philosophy, and sports. Not because he thought this would make his son grow up to be more intellectual, but just to talk to him and hear him gurgle in response.

And he hated like hell when the unsympathetic kitchen clock told him he’d have to put Harry down again.

Laura and Barney had a serious argument. She insisted that Harry’s first spoken syllables (at eight and a half months) were “Da-da,” and he stubbornly insisted they were “Dak-ta”—which indicated his already-chosen profession.

Being a fully psychoanalyzed psychoanalyst, Barney knew enough not to put pressure on his growing son. Which is why he bought a fireman’s helmet
as well as
a doctor kit for Harry’s second birthday.

That summer they moved to Connecticut. Although it meant long train rides for both of them (Laura had cut her hospital commitments to one day a week), it would give their cherished offspring the fresh air, the greenery, the trees that had been less abundant during their own childhoods.

Overcompensating for his scarcity during the week, Barney lavished attention on Harry during weekends. Yet the boy was already showing such precocious signs of good social interaction that he sometimes preferred the company of the two toddlers from next door—who had a sandbox. Indeed, from the way their
son behaved, both Laura and Barney agreed that Harry was longing for a sibling and decided to comply.

It was, of course, a pleasure to attempt to start production. But when things did not go right for seven months, Laura went to see her gynecologist, who told her that she needed surgery that would make further children inconceivable.

Thus all they had, and ever would have, was their little Harry.

The night that Laura found out, she and Barney swore an oath to each other they would not make Harry a neurotic kid—overprotected, overwatched, and overburdened with the weight of their expectations.