"What's wrong, Step?" asked DeAnne.
"Nothing's wrong," said Dr. Vender. "Daddy's just being a worrywart."
"Can the babytalk," said Step, unable to endure it another moment. "DeAnne is a grownup and so am I, and we'd both like to know what's going on with the baby."
"We've already sent for a neonatal specialist," said Dr. Vender. "It appears that it may be some kind of seizure activity. There's no proximate cause. There was no oxygen deprivation and no anomaly in any of the baby's vital signs during delivery."
Step figured that what he was hearing was the standard dis claimer to avoid a malpractice suit. He also figured that it was probably true. But that still didn't answer the real question. "Is the baby going to be all right?"
"His vital signs are just fine," said Dr. Vender. "This isn't normal, but at the same time it may not be dangerous at all. Please, now, as soon as I know anything more I'll tell you, but it's time now for your wife to go into the recovery room."
Step leaned over DeAnne, kissed her, and squeezed her hand. "Can't I hold him?" she asked. "Can't I see him first?"
Step knew what she was thinking: Something is wrong with my baby. I don't want my baby to die without my having held him when he was alive. "Of course you can," said Step to DeAnne.
He looked at Dr. Vender, raised an eyebrow. She beckoned to the nurse who had the baby. The nurse brought Zap to DeAnne and laid him in the crook of her arm. DeAnne turned her head to see him. "He's beautiful," she said.
It was true. All newborns are squat and red, of course, but Zap was a genuinely pretty baby.
"He really is shivering," she said. "Don't be scared, Jeremy. We already love you. You've got a wonderful life ahead of you."
The nurse took the baby back. Another nurse wheeled DeAnne out of the delivery room, with Dr. Vender right behind.
"I'd like to hold the baby," said Step.
"The neonate's going to be here in a minute," said the nurse, "and we've got to get the measurements."
"He's not going to grow in the next thirty seconds," said Step.
"You're a feisty one," said the nurse. He could tell that she was not going to say I like that in a man.
"I'm sorry" said Step. "But this little guy is a lot more important to me than hospital routines, and there isn't a line of people waiting outside for this room."
She handed him the baby. Just like the three times before, the first thing he thought was: I never knew that babies could be so small. All his memories of the older kids were from later in their babyhood. The first minutes were always new again. "I think he's shivering a little less."
The nurse didn't say anything.
"Does this happen often?" asked Step. "This kind of seizure?"
"Everything happens," said the nurse. "And nothing's ever the same twice."
Which told Step that she had seen babies like this who died.
She was still measuring when the neonate came, a doctor named Torwaldson. "Why wasn't this already done?"
"I insisted that she let me hold the baby for thirty seconds," said Step. "I threatened to break the windshield of her car if she didn't."
"I'm done here," said the nurse. She did not think Step was at all cute.
Torwaldson started taking soundings with his stethoscope. "It's time for you to go to the waiting room, Mr .
... Fletcher."
"Tell me about this kind of seizure," said Step.
"I'll tell you about this kind of seizure when I know what kind of seizure it is," said Torwaldson. "Pheno," he said to the nurse. "Let's get this under control."
Step left. There were times to be assertive and times to get out of the way.
He did not go to the waiting room. Instead he went to recovery, and the nurses there gave him no trouble about getting in to see DeAnne. Apparently she had been asking for him.
"Is he OK?" she said.
"The neonatal physician is checking him out. He said some thing about pheno. In my mind that seems to go with barbital. I assume that's something to stop the trembling."
"Did he seem worried?" asked DeAnne.
"He seemed competent and he seemed confident," said Step. "How are you?"
"It hurts," said DeAnne, "but they're being very nice and pumping me full of drugs. I think they're going to give me a sleeping pill or something because I'm so worried about the baby. Say a prayer with me, Step.
Please?"
Step held her hand and prayed for the doctors to be able to find out what was wrong and to do whatever medical science could do to fix the problem and please let them have a long life with this little boy, they wanted him so much, but thy will be done. "I think he'll be fine," said Step. "I really do. They weren't doing anything dramatic. It wasn't an emergency."
In a little while she was asleep, and Step headed for the waiting room to start calling people. But first he saw Dr. Vender in the hall. She waved him over. "I'm sorry if I was a little short with you," she said. "I was afraid you were worrying Mrs. Fletcher."
"If I saw something wrong with the baby Dr. Vender, and I didn't tell her immediately, she would never trust me again."
"Well, some people need the truth and some people need anything but," said Dr. Vender. "I didn't know your wife or you, and so I did the safest thing. Or rather I tried to."
"Sorry," said Step. But he wasn't sorry, and she certainly knew it.
"Torwaldson is the best in Steuben," she said. "And he's on the phone right now with a neuro in Chapel Hill."
"Neuro?" asked Step.
"Neurosurgeon," she explained.
"Yeah, I know what a neuro is. I just wondered what it meant that he was calling one."
"I would guess," said Dr. Vender, "that it means he's run into something he hasn't seen before, or else he wants a corroborating opinion."
"Is the baby in danger of dying?"
"As far as I can see," said Dr. Vender, "no."
That was when Dr. Keese came bustling out into the hall. "Dr. Vender!" he called.
"This is Mr. Fletcher," said Dr. Vender.
Dr. Keese held out his hand, and Step shook it. "Nice to see you, I met you when I poked my head into the labor room, remember?"
Step shook his head. "Must have been before I got there."
"No, you were there," said Dr. Keese. "But I think you only had eyes for DeAnne. Sorry I couldn't be in there, but I can assure you that Dr. Vender did everything I would have done, and probably better."
How nice, thought Step. Doctors covering each other against a lawsuit.
"Mr. Fletcher," said Dr. Keese. "Dr. Torwaldson and I and Dr. Vender all agree that we need to stop the seizure activity, and for that we're giving your baby phenobarbital. We've given a fairly massive dose, for his body weight, but we've got to stop the seizures. Once we've got that under control, we'll step the dosage down to the minimum for maintenance. He's going into intensive care now, but I truly don't think he's in any danger of losing his life. So I urge you to go home. It's after midnight and you'll want to be up here in the morning. We'll know more then, and DeAnne will want to see you. All right?"
What choice did he have? He waited until he knew what room DeAnne was assigned to and where to find Zap the next morning, and then he went out to the car. He was just getting into the Datsun when he realized that there was no reason to leave the good car at the hospital. DeAnne wasn't going anywhere for a while. The rusty old two-door could keep its vigil here tonight. As he drove home, he couldn't stop thinking: My baby was born having a seizure and the doctors have never seen it before. Something's wrong with my youngest child, and I can't do anything but pray, and I can't think of a single reason why God should exclude the Stephen Fletcher family from the normal vicissitudes of life and so I don't think my prayers are going to be answered. Not my real prayer, anyway. The "thy will be done" part will certainly be answered, but the part about "Make this all go away so that nothing is wrong, so that the doctors say I can't understand it, there was a seizure last night but now there's not a trace of a problem, and he'll definitely be brilliant and healthy and live to a hundred and four"-I don't think God's going to adjust his plan for the universe to make room for accommodating that particular prayer.