Handle With Care (45 page)

I stilled, not sure what she was doing; this was not what we had practiced. “Charlotte, have you—”

“Please,” she said. “Let me finish. It is about cost. But not the financial kind.” She blinked back tears. “I don’t sleep at night. I feel guilty when I laugh at a joke on TV. I watch little girls the same age as Willow at the playground, and I hate them sometimes—that’s how bitterly jealous I can get when I see how easy it is for them. But the day I signed that DNR in the hospital, I made a promise to my
daughter. I said, If you fight, I will, too. If you live, I will make sure your life is the best it can possibly be. That’s what a good mother does, right?” She shook her head. “The way it usually works, the parent takes care of the child, until years later, when the roles are reversed. But with Willow and me, I’ll always be the one taking care of her. That’s why I’m here today. That’s what I want you to tell me. How am I supposed to take care of my daughter after I’m gone?”

You could have heard a pin drop, a heart beat. “Your Honor,” I said. “Nothing further.”

Sean

The sea was a monster, black and angry. You were equally terrified and fascinated by it; you’d beg to go watch the waves crash against the retaining wall, but every time they did, you shivered in my arms.

I had taken the day off work because Guy Booker had said that all witnesses had to come to the trial on the first day. But as it turned out, I couldn’t be in the courtroom anyway, until my testimony. I stayed for ten minutes—just long enough for the judge to tell me to leave.

This morning, I’d realized that Charlotte thought I was coming to court to support her. I could see why, after the night before, she would expect that. In her arms, I had been explosive, enraged, and tender by turns—as if we were playing out our feelings in a pantomime beneath the sheets. I knew she was upset when I told her I was meeting Guy Booker, but she should have understood better than anyone why I still needed to testify against her in this lawsuit: you did what you had to do to protect your child.

After leaving the courthouse, I’d driven home and told the hired nurse to take the afternoon off. Amelia would need to be picked up at school at three, but in the meantime, I asked what you wanted to do. “I can’t do anything,” you said. “Look at me.”

It was true, your entire left leg was splinted. But all the same, I didn’t see why I couldn’t get a little creative to boost your spirits. I carried you out to the car, wrapped in blankets, and tucked you sideways across the backseat so that your leg was stretched along it. You could still wear your seat belt this way, and as you began to spot the familiar landmarks that led to the ocean, you got more and more animated.

There was nobody at the beach in late September, so I could park
sideways across the lot that butted up to the retaining wall, giving you a bird’s-eye view. The truck’s cab sat high enough for you to see the waves, creeping forward and slinking backward like great gray cats. “Daddy?” you asked. “How come you can’t skate on the ocean?”

“I guess you can, way up in the Arctic, but for the most part, there’s too much salt in the water for it to freeze.”

“If it did freeze, wouldn’t it be awesome if there were still waves? Like ice sculptures?”

“That would be cool,” I agreed. I glanced over my headrest at you. “Wills? You okay?”

“My leg doesn’t hurt.”

“I wasn’t talking about your leg. I was talking about what’s going on today.”

“There were a lot of TV cameras this morning.”

“Yeah.”

“Cameras make my stomach hurt.”

I threaded my arm around the seat to reach your hand. “You know I’d never let any of those reporters bother you.”

“Mom should bake for them. If they really loved her brownies or her toffee bars, they might just say thank you and leave.”

“Maybe your mom could add arsenic to the batter,” I mused.

“What?”

“Nothing.” I shook my head. “Your mom loves you, too. You know that, right?”

Outside, the Atlantic reached a crescendo. “I think there are two different oceans—the one that plays with you in the summer, and the one that gets so mad in the winter,” you said. “It’s hard to remember what the other one’s like.”

I opened my mouth, thinking that you hadn’t heard what I said about Charlotte. And then I realized that you had.

Charlotte

Guy Booker was just the sort of person that Piper and I would have laughed at if we’d come across him at Maxie’s Pad—an attorney who had gotten so big in his own head that he had a personalized license plate which read HOTSHOT on his mint green T-Bird. “This is really about the money, isn’t it?” he said.

“No. But the money means the difference between good care and lousy care for my daughter.”

“Willow receives Katie Beckett monies through Healthy Kids Gold, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, but even so, that doesn’t cover all the medical expenses—and none of the out-of-pocket ones. For example, when a child’s in a spica cast, she needs a different kind of car seat. And the dental problems that are part and parcel of OI might run thousands of dollars a year.”

“If your daughter had been born a gifted pianist, would you be asking for money for a grand piano?” Booker said.

Marin had told me that he would try to get me angry, so that the jury would like me less. I took a deep breath and counted to five. “That’s comparing apples and oranges, Mr. Booker. This isn’t an arts education we’re talking about. It’s my daughter’s life.”

Booker walked toward the jury; I had to suppress an urge to check if he left a trail of oil. “You and your husband don’t see eye to eye about this lawsuit, Ms. O’Keefe, correct?”

“No, we do not.”

“Would you agree that the cause of your pending divorce is that your husband, Sean, doesn’t support this lawsuit?”

“Yes,” I said softly.

“He doesn’t believe Willow was a wrongful birth, does he?”

“Objection,” Marin called out. “You can’t ask her what his opinion is.”

“Sustained.”

Booker folded his arms. “Yet, you’re going through with the lawsuit anyway, even though it will most likely split up your family, aren’t you?”

I pictured Sean in his coat and tie this morning, that tiny lift of spirit I’d had when I thought he was coming to court with me instead of against me. “I still think it’s the right thing to do.”

“Have you had conversations with Willow about this lawsuit?” Booker asked.

“Yes,” I said. “She knows I’m doing this because I love her.”

“You think she understands that?”

I hesitated. “She’s only six. I think a lot of the mechanics of the lawsuit have gone over her head.”

“What about when she’s older?” said Booker. “I bet Willow’s pretty good when it comes to computer skills?”

“Sure.”

“Have you ever thought about the moment years from now when your daughter gets on the Internet and Googles herself? You? This case?”

“Well, God knows I’m not looking forward to that, but I hope that, if it happens, I’ll be able to explain to her why it was necessary…and that the quality of her life that day is a direct result of the lawsuit.”

“God knows,” Booker repeated. “Interesting choice of words. You’re a practicing Catholic, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“As a practicing Catholic, you’re aware that it’s a mortal sin to have an abortion?”

I swallowed. “Yes, I am.”

“Yet the premise of this lawsuit is that, if you’d known about Willow’s condition earlier, you would have terminated the pregnancy, right?”

I could feel the eyes of the jury on me. I had known that there was a point where I would be put on display—the sideshow oddity, the zoo animal—and this was it. “I know what you’re doing,” I said tightly. “But this case is about malpractice, not abortion.”

“That’s not an answer, Ms. O’Keefe. Let’s try again: if you’d found
out that you were carrying a child who was profoundly deaf and blind, would you have terminated the pregnancy?”

“Objection,” Marin cried. “That’s irrelevant. My client’s child isn’t deaf and blind.”

“It goes to the mind-set of whether or not the child’s mother could have done what she says she could,” Booker argued.

“Sidebar,” Marin said, and they both approached the bench, continuing to argue loudly in front of everyone. “Judge, this is prejudicial. He can ask what my client’s decision was regarding actual medical facts that the defendant did not share with her—”

“Don’t tell me how to try my case, sweetheart,” Booker said.

“You arrogant pig—”

“I’m going to allow the question,” the judge said slowly. “I think we all need to hear what Mrs. O’Keefe has to say.”

Marin gave me a measured look as she walked past the witness stand—a reminder that I had been called to the mat, and was expected to deliver. “Ms. O’Keefe,” Booker repeated, “would you have aborted a profoundly deaf and blind child?”

“I…I don’t know,” I said.

“Are you aware that Helen Keller was profoundly blind and deaf?” he asked. “What if you found out that the baby you were carrying was missing a hand? Would you have terminated that pregnancy?”

I kept my lips pressed tight, silent.

“Are you aware that Jim Abbott, a one-handed pitcher, pitched a no-hitter in major league baseball and won an Olympic gold medal in 1988?” Booker said.

“I’m not Jim Abbott’s mother. Or Helen Keller’s. I don’t know how difficult their childhoods were.”

“Well, then, we’re back to the original question: If you had known about Willow’s condition at eighteen weeks, would you have aborted her?”

“I was never given that option,” I said tightly.

“Actually, you were,” Booker countered. “At twenty-seven weeks. And by your own testimony, it wasn’t a decision you could make then. So why should a jury believe that you would have been able to make it several weeks earlier?”

Malpractice, Marin had drilled into my head, over and over. That’s why you instigated this lawsuit. No matter what else Guy Booker claims, it’s about a standard of care and a choice you weren’t offered.

I was shaking so hard that I slipped my hands beneath my thighs. “This case isn’t about what I might have done.”

“Sure it is,” Booker said. “Otherwise, it’s a waste of our time.”

“You’re wrong. This case is about what my doctor didn’t do—”

“Answer the question, Ms. O’Keefe—”

“Specifically,” I said, “she didn’t give me a choice about ending the pregnancy. She should have known something was wrong from that very first ultrasound, and she should have—”

“Ms. O’Keefe,” the lawyer yelled, “answer the question!”

I wilted against the chair and pressed my fingers to my temples. “I can’t,” I whispered. I looked down at the grain of the wood on the railing before me. “I can’t answer that question for you now, because now there is a Willow. A girl who likes pigtails but not braids, and who broke her femur this weekend, and who sleeps with a stuffed pig. A girl who’s kept me awake at night for the past six and a half years wondering how to get through the next day without an emergency, and planning, as a backup, how to go from crisis to crisis to crisis.” I looked up at the lawyer. “At eighteen weeks of pregnancy, at twenty-seven weeks of pregnancy, I didn’t know Willow like I do today. So I can’t answer your question now, Mr. Booker. But the reality is, nobody gave me a chance to answer it back then.”

“Ms. O’Keefe,” the lawyer said flatly. “I’m going to ask you one last time. Would you have aborted your daughter?”

I opened my mouth, and then I closed it.

“Nothing further,” he said.

Amelia

That night, I ate dinner alone with my parents. You were sitting on the living room couch with a tray and Jeopardy! so that your leg could stay elevated. From the kitchen, I could hear the buzzer every now and then, and Alex Trebek’s voice: Ooh, I’m sorry, that’s incorrect. As if he really gave a damn.

I sat between my mother and father, a conduit between two separate circuits. Amelia, can you pass the green beans to your mother? Amelia, pour your father a glass of lemonade. They weren’t talking to each other, and they weren’t eating—none of us were, really. “So,” I said cheerfully. “During fourth period, Jeff Congrew ordered a pizza into French class and the teacher didn’t even notice.”

“Are you going to tell me what happened today?” my father asked.

My mother lowered her eyes. “I really do not want to talk about it, Sean. It was bad enough getting through it.”

The silence was a blanket so huge, it seemed to cover the entire table. “Domino’s delivered,” I said.

My father cut two precise squares of his chicken. “Well, if you won’t tell me what happened, I guess I’ll be able to read all about it tomorrow in the paper. Or maybe, hey, it’ll be on the eleven o’clock news…”

My mother’s fork clattered against her plate. “Do you think this is easy for me?”

“Do you think this is easy for any of us?”

“How could you?” my mother exploded. “How could you act like everything was getting better between us and then…then this?”

“The difference between you and me, Charlotte, is that I’m never acting.”

“It was pepperoni,” I announced.

They both turned to me. “What?” my father said.

“It’s not important,” I muttered. Like me.

You called out from the living room. “Mom, I’m done.”

So was I. I got up and scraped the contents of my plate, which was everything, into the trash. “Amelia, aren’t you forgetting to ask something?” my mother said.

I stared at her dully. There were a thousand questions, sure, but I didn’t want to hear the answers to any of them.

“May I be excused?” my mother prompted.

“Shouldn’t you be asking Willow that?” I said sarcastically.

As I passed you in the living room, you glanced up. “Did Mom hear me?”

“Not by a long shot,” I said, and I ran up the stairs.

What was wrong with me? I had a decent life. I was healthy. I wasn’t starving or maimed by a land mine or orphaned. Yet somehow, it wasn’t enough. I had a hole in me, and everything I took for granted slipped through it like sand.

I felt like I had swallowed yeast, like whatever evil was festering inside me had doubled in size. In the bathroom, I tried to throw up, but I hadn’t eaten enough at dinner. I wanted to run barefoot till my feet bled; I wanted to scream, but I’d been silent for so long that I’d forgotten how.