Without a word Pearson reached down and once more picked up the telephone. There was a click and then he said, “Get me Dr. Bell in Radiology.” Waiting, the old man eyed Coleman strangely. Then, covering the mouthpiece, he said with grudging admiration, “I’ll say this for you: you’re thinking—all the time.”
In the room which the hospital staff jestingly referred to as “the expectant father’s sweatbox” John Alexander butted a half-smoked cigarette into an ash stand. Then he got up from the padded leather chair where he had sat for the last hour and a half, looking up each time the door opened and someone had come in from the corridor outside. On each occasion, though, the news had been for someone else, and now, of the five men who had occupied the room ninety minutes ago, only he and one other remained.
Crossing to the big windows which looked down on the hospital forecourt and across other buildings to the industrial heart of Burlington, he saw that the streets and roofs were wet. It must have rained since he had come here without his noticing it. Now the area surrounding the hospital looked its worst—squalid and depressing, the roofs of mean houses and tenements stretching away toward the factories and grimy smokestacks lining both banks of the river. Glancing down at the street on which the hospital fronted, he saw a group of children run from an alley, nimbly dodging the pools of water left by the rain or broken sidewalks. Watching them, he saw one of the bigger boys in the group halt and put out a foot to trip a child behind. It was a small girl, probably four or five, and she fell face forward into one of the larger puddles, dirty water splashing up around her. She arose crying, wiping streaks of mud from her face and attempting pathetically to wring the water from her soiled, soaked dress. By now the others had stopped and they formed a ring around her, dancing and, from their expressions, chanting derision.
“Kids!” The disgusted voice came from alongside, and John was aware for the first time that the other occupant of the room had joined him at the window. Glancing sideways, he saw that the man was tall and pencil thin; hollow cheeks made him appear gaunt, and he was in need of a shave. Probably twenty years older than John, he wore a stained corduroy jacket with soiled coveralls beneath. With him across the room he brought an odor of grease and stale beer.
“Kids! They’re all alike!” The man turned away from the window and began fumbling in his pockets. After a moment he produced paper and tobacco and began to roll a cigarette. Looking sharply at John, he asked, “This your first?”
“Not really. It’s our second, but the first baby died.”
“We lost one like that—in between the fourth and the fifth. A good thing too.” The other man was searching his pockets. He asked, “You got a light?”
John produced a lighter and held it out. He asked, “You mean this is your sixth?”
“No—eighth.” The thin man had his cigarette going now. “Sometimes I reckon that’s eight too many.” Then he said sharply, “I suppose you wanted yours.”
“The baby, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Yes, of course.” John sounded surprised.
“We never did. Not after the first—that was more than enough for me.”
“Why did you have eight then?” John felt impelled to ask; the conversation had taken on an almost hypnotic quality.
“My wife could tell you better’n me—she’s the one with the hot pants. Give her a couple of beers, let her wiggle her behind at a dance, and she’s got to have it right there and then, and no messing around waiting to get home.” The thin man blew out smoke, then went on calmly, “I reckon all our kids have been started in queer places. Once we was shopping in Macy’s and we had it in a broom closet in the basement. That’s where our fourth came from, I reckon—Macy’s basement, but no bargain.”
For a moment John was ready to laugh aloud, then he remembered his own reason for being there and stopped. Instead he said, “I hope everything’s all right for you—this time, I mean.”
The gaunt man said gloomily, “It’s always all right; that’s our trouble.” He returned to the other side of the room and picked up a newspaper.
Left alone, John glanced at his watch again. He saw that it was an hour and three quarters since he had come here; surely there must be something soon in the way of news. He wished he had seen Elizabeth before she had gone into the delivery room, but everything had happened so quickly that there had not been time. He had been in the hospital kitchens when Carl Bannister had come to bring him the news. John had gone to the kitchens on Dr. Pearson’s instructions. Pearson had told him to take cultures from plates which had passed through the kitchen dishwashers; John gathered that the machines were suspected of being unhygienic. But he had left the work as soon as Bannister had told him about Elizabeth and had gone to Emergency, hoping to intercept her there. But by that time she had already arrived by ambulance and had gone upstairs to Obstetrics. It was after that that he had come straight here to wait.
Now the door from the corridor opened, and this time it was Dr. Dornberger. From his face John tried to read the news, but without success. He asked, “You are John Alexander?”
“Yes, sir.” Though, he had seen the elderly obstetrician several times in the hospital, this was the first time they had spoken to each other.
“Your wife is going to be all right.” Dornberger knew better than to waste time on preliminaries.
John’s first impression was of overwhelming relief. Then he asked, “The baby?”
Dornberger said quietly, “You have a boy. He was premature, of course, and I have to tell you, John—he’s very frail.”
“Will he live?” Only when he had asked the question did it occur to him how much depended on the answer.
Dornberger had taken out his pipe and was filling it. He said evenly, “Let’s say the chances are not as good as if he had gone to full term.”
John nodded dully. There seemed nothing to say, nothing that would matter now.
The older man paused to put away his tobacco pouch. Then in the same quiet, careful tone he said, “As near as I can tell, you have a thirty-two-week baby; that means he was born eight weeks early.” Compassionately he added, “He wasn’t ready for the world, John; none of us are that soon.”
“No, I suppose not.” John was scarcely conscious of speaking. His mind was on Elizabeth and what this baby was to have meant to them both.
Dr. Dornberger had produced matches and was lighting his pipe. When he had it going he said, “Your baby’s birth weight was three pounds eight ounces. Perhaps that will mean more if I tell you that nowadays we consider any baby less than five pounds eight ounces at birth to be premature.”
“I see.”
“We have the baby in an incubator, of course. Naturally we’ll do everything we can.”
John looked at the obstetrician directly. “Then there is hope.”
“There’s always hope, son,” Dornberger said quietly. “When we haven’t much else, I guess there’s always hope.”
There was a pause, then John asked, “May I see my wife now?”
“Yes,” Dornberger said. “I’ll come to the nursing station with you.”
As they went out John saw the tall, gaunt man watching him curiously.
Vivian was not quite sure what was happening. All she knew was that one of the staff nurses had come into her room and told her they were going to Radiology immediately. With help from another student nurse she had been put on a stretcher and now was being wheeled along the corridors where so short a time ago she had walked herself. Her movement through the hospital had a dream-like quality; it complemented the unrealness of everything else that had happened so far. Momentarily Vivian found herself abandoning fear, as if whatever followed could not matter to her in the end because it was inevitable and would not be changed. She found herself wondering if this feeling were a form of depression, of abandoning hope. She had known already that this was the day which might bring the verdict she had dreaded, a verdict which would make her a cripple, depriving her of freedom of movement, removing from her in one swift stroke so many things she had taken for granted until this time. With this latest thought the moment of passivity left her and fear came crowding back. She wished desperately that Mike were with her at this moment.