The Stork Club (31 page)

Twice a day Annie would come, and for some of the time while she was there Rick would move to a nearby waiting room and eat the meal she had brought for him from home while Annie sat with the baby, patting him and talking to him. But aside from those meal breaks, and approximately three hours a night when he went to the tiny Spartan hospital room to sleep, he never left the side of the crib where David lay motionless.

Now and then he would doze in the chair, waking suddenly at the piercing sound of a baby's cry, wishing it were David's. But, sadly for him, it was the cry of a baby across the room. Occasionally he would pick up bits and pieces of the other parents' conversations. The diagnosis of cancer in one case. The raised hopes as a baby began to show progress in another.

He watched the very California-looking couple who always wore sweatclothes and whose baby was not on a respirator so they were able to take turns holding her. He wondered about the sickly looking woman who was always dressed in a bathrobe. She was obviously coming from a wing in the hospital in which she herself was a patient. Then there was the oriental couple who were always holding hands as they stood wordlessly over their baby, who frequently cried, an inconsolable rasping cry.

Once the thought floated through his numb brain that he should call Patty Fall and tell her what was going
on, but he couldn't bring himself to get on a phone and talk to anyone, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he seemed to remember her telling him she was taking the boys to Europe for a month or two. All day every day he would read aloud quietly to David from the familiar children's books he had read to him so often in the rocking chair at home.
The Cat in the Hat, Babar, Curious George
. Silly, funny, wonderful stories, just to be certain the sound of his voice was there in case the baby, his son, could really hear him.

" 'The dolls and toys were ready to cry. But the little clown called out, "Here's another engine coming. A little blue engine, a very little one. Maybe she will help us." The very little blue engine came chugging merrily along. When she saw the toy clown's flag, she stopped. "What's the matter, my friends?" she asked kindly. The little blue engine listened to the cries of the dolls and toys. "I am very little," she said, "but I think I can, I think I can." And she hitched herself to the little train. She tugged and pulled and pulled and tugged, and slowly they started off. Puff, puff, chug, chug, went the little blue engine. "I think I can, I think I can." ' "

Rick put his thumb and forefinger under his reading glasses to wipe his tired eyes, and when he glanced up, standing in the doorway was his uncle Bobo.

"Two weeks in a row you jilt a guy and don't even tell him why? What in the hell's the matter with you?"

It was true. For the two weeks Rick had been in this room, he hadn't thought about anything or anyone but the baby. Bobo was leaning on a cane, frowning at Rick.

"Uncle B.! How did you get here?"

"I called your house twenty times. Finally I get the baby nurse, and she tells me where you are. So I hired a kid to drive me over here. One of the volunteers at the home. He's waiting for me downstairs."

"I'm sorry," Rick said. "I should have called you."

"What's that you got there?" Bobo asked.

"A storybook. The doctor said he can hear me. So I talk to him, and I read to him."

"What am
I
? Chopped liver?
I
can't talk to him?" Slowly, with the help of his cane, Bobo walked to the crib where the baby lay silently. "Davidel," the old man said, "it's your favorite relative." Bobo's own hearing problem always made him talk too loud and Rick was afraid this intrusion on the other families would be upsetting. "I'm gonna tell you a story about your daddy when he was just a baby. Not as young as you are now. Maybe two or three years old."

The oriental couple was looking over now. Bobo turned to Rick and said as an aside, albeit in the same loud voice, "Jesus Christ, he looks like hell." Then he turned back to the baby. "Your daddy was always a smart little guy. And his mommy and daddy, God rest their souls, they were
crazy
about him."

"Uncle Bobo—" Rick started to interrupt him, but Uncle Bobo lifted his cane and waved it at Rick with a gesture to remain silent.

"Well, your grandpa Jake, my brother, he was Jewish, but your grandma Janie, she was gentile. So in their home, they celebrated all the holidays. Easter and Passover, Christmas and Hanukkah."

Now Rick noticed that the sickly looking woman in the bathrobe was listening, and the round-faced redheaded day nurse had walked in carrying a chart but was now stopped in the door from the nurses' station, listening to Bobo.

"Now you probably remember that the dish I cook the best, after my famous chicken-in-a-pot, is potato latkes. Right? And as soon as you get outta this place, I swear to God I'm gonna make some for you. So every Hanukkah it was a tradition that I would come to your
grandma and grandpa's house and cook up a batch for all of us to eat."

Rick sat back in his chair now. There was no stopping Bobo from telling this story, and even the California couple, the wife holding the baby, were facing him, listening to what he was saying to the inert David.

"Anyway, this particular year, Hanukkah and Christmas came close together, so the Christmas tree was up and the menorah was lit, and your grandmother, a stunner, a gorgeous and wonderful girl, asks your dad, 'Ricky sweetheart, can you guess who's coming to our house tomorrow to make potato latkes?' And your dad looks at her with big wide eyes and asks, 'Santa Claus?' "

All the adults in the room laughed. Especially Rick. And when he looked over at the door of the room which led to the nurses' station, there were now three nurses there who had stopped to listen to the story. They were all laughing big hearty laughs that cut through the tension in that room for a much-needed respite.

Bobo. God bless him for coming here. Rick stood now to hug the old man, and when they both turned to look at David, for the first time in weeks the baby moved his free arm toward his chest.

"He moved," Rick said.

"What do you think?" the old uncle said. "I
always
keep them rolling in the aisles."

"He moved," Rick said to the nurse.

"So," Bobo said to Rick, "you'll call me tomorrow and tell me how he's doing?"

"I will," Rick said and they embraced again. Then Bobo, with a wave of the cane to his fans, went to find the driver to take him back to the home.

After that, David's progression began to be visible. Within days he was able to move his arms and legs on his own. Weakly, but Rick hung on to every shred of
hope. Rick had lost thirty pounds during the endless days of not even thinking about food, and only eating to refuel himself for more hours near his son. To be around to hear the statistics about blood oxygen, and the oxygenation of the baby's skin, and the numbers on the heart monitor, and which of the baby's veins would best hold a change in the IV tube.

The day a nurse was able to come in and briefly disconnect the baby from the respirator, Rick held him in his arms and rocked him, singing, crooning, begging him to get well. And Annie held him and told him how she missed him at home, and when they reconnected him and Annie sat down in the chair, Rick walked as far as the hospital cafeteria for dinner, realizing it was the first time in over a month that he'd left the hospital floor.

With agonizingly slow progress, David Reisman became more and more animated. There were a few days of testing the baby on what the doctors called "sprints," which were short periods of turning off the respirator, while he breathed on his own. One day they asked Rick and Annie to leave the ward while they removed the tube so the baby could begin to breathe on his own permanently.

For the next few days Rick held him close. His suck reflex was coming back, and he was able to take food from the bottle Rick fed him tenderly. Every burst of bubbles that rose in the bottle gave Rick a sense of triumph, because it meant that David was now getting sustenance from his formula.

"We're going to go home in a few days I think," he said to the tiny face. "And I'm real glad. I'm glad because it means you aren't sick anymore, and that makes me very happy . . . because I love you, little guy. I love you a lot."

The baby's little eyes blinked, and then a flicker of a smile crossed his little face, around his bottle. It made his father smile too as Dr. Weil and Dr. Solway walked into the ward to tell him that tomorrow morning they were releasing David to go home.

"There's something I'd like to suggest you look in to," the serious-faced Dr. Solway said to Rick the next morning, as he was packing the few toiletries and clothes he had kept in the hospital room. She had knocked on the door and said she wanted to come in to say good-bye. He thanked her again and again for her swift diagnosis which had saved David's life. Always her response was a slight nod and a wave of the hand to dismiss him.

"Whatever you suggest is good by me," Rick said today.

"I know about a group that's starting," she said. "A support group for families who have come by their babies in unusual ways. I think it's safe to say that you and David fall into that category."

Rick smiled. "There's an understatement."

"A very gifted child psychologist I know is organizing it, and I think you and David would benefit from it. I'd like to call her and ask her to include you."

"Doctor," Rick said, "I haven't been to my office in nearly two months. My career is on a roller coaster that's frequently on the downhill slope. I have been consumed with worry and guilt and anguish and thought about nothing and nobody but this baby for so long that earlier while I was waiting to pay the exorbitant bill I owe this hospital, I discovered that I was standing there rocking back and forth, because I'm so used to doing that with the baby that now I even rock when he's not with me. And
you're
telling me you think I should take even more time away from my work to sit in a room
with some shrink and a group of other people who got their babies in strange ways and shoot the bull about problems?"

"Yes" was all the pediatrician answered.

"I'll be there with bells on," he said.

26

A
LL OF THE PARENTS in the new group were invited to sit outside and watch as their little ones dug in the sand or pushed themselves around on the rolling toys or splashed at the water table. The activities were set up in the yard adjacent to the large playroom where the adults would meet. Barbara's intern Dana was the child-care assistant.

"Looks as if your son is going to be a pulling guard," Shelly said to the familiar-looking man. He knew he'd met him before, and he was pretty sure it was at some event having to do with the business. Goddammit, he thought, why did I come here? I'm not going to sit around and participate in some kind of a true-confessions therapy group and tell everyone my problems. He wasn't ready to tell a group of strangers he was HIV-positive and watch them recoil. He would let the people who needed to have the information have it, but for now that was all.

"I'm Rick Reisman," the man said, extending a hand for Shelly to shake.

Oh, God, that's who he was. Rick Reisman, of course. Shelly had seen him earlier in the parking lot across from the building, struggling with the Aprica stroller, a moment Shelly knew only too well himself, but he hadn't been able to figure out why he looked so familiar. Now he realized they'd met at a fund-raiser at Barbra Streisand's house in Malibu.

"Shelly Milton," he said. "We've met."

"Of course, Shelly," Rick said, recognition filling his eyes. "I met you at that party. You were with your writing partner . . . "

"Me!" Ruthie said, walking over. "Ruth Zimmerman," she added, putting her hand out and shaking Rick's.

"So you adopted a baby?" Rick said, his eyes moving from Shelly to Ruthie.

"No," Shelly said. "Sid is our biological child."

Rick tried not to react. Zimmerman and Milton were a well-known comedy-writing team. But Shelly Milton was gay. Rick remembered when Davis Bergman, a married man, a law partner at a big-time entertainment firm, came out of the closet to have a long love affair with him. It was gossip all over town.

"Artificial insemination," Shelly said, knowing what Rick was thinking, and longing to grab Ruthie by the sleeve and drag her out of there. The group hadn't even started and already he was feeling defensive. No, this wasn't going to work.

"
We
did that," the pretty blond woman said. She was dressed in a chic cream-colored pantsuit and was kneeling on the ground where she diapered her baby daughter on a plastic pad. Ruthie couldn't believe that anybody who had a waist that small had ever given birth. "Only we used a surrogate." Aha! Ruthie thought. I
knew it. The blond woman's darkly handsome husband was inside the playroom looking at the children's art push-pinned on all the walls.

"Now
that's
something I want to hear more about," Ruthie announced, "because if I ever have another baby, this time I want someone else to be in labor and then tell me about it. In fact, I'd prefer that they
didn't
tell me about it."

The blond woman was unsmiling and tense. She gathered the dirty diaper and the soiled wipes, put them efficiently into a Ziploc bag and tossed the bag into a nearby trash bin, then carried her daughter over to be with the other little ones.

David dropped shovels full of sand into a yellow bucket, and Sid pushed a Tonka truck along with one hand and held his Mickey Mouse bottle in his mouth with the other. Barbara Singer came outside and sat on the side of the sandbox, watching and encouraging the play. As she saw Lainie put Rose down in the sandbox, she noticed Mitch come out to look on lovingly as Rose joined in the play.

"My daughter's a party animal," Mitch said.

Lainie felt a heaviness fill her chest. Yes, she thought. Just like her mother. Jackie.

"That little baby Rose looks like a clone of
you
," Ruthie said to Lainie, who tried to force a smile. "And not one drop like her father. What does the surrogate look like?"