Изменить стиль страницы

Could I really do that? Could I really rise to the occasion? Of course, it was easy to say I would. But words are cheap. To love a child whom you never really got to know, whom you never really had the chance to bond with…I could only pray that God would give me the strength to be that sort of man—a goodman—and, indeed, a true man of power. I had no doubt my wife could do it. She seemed to have an unnaturally close connection to Carter, as he did to her. It was the way things had been between myself and Chandler, from the time she was old enough to be self-aware. Even now, in fact, when Chandler was inconsolable, it was always Daddy to the rescue.

And Carter, at less than two months old, was already responding to Nadine in that very miraculous way. It was as if her very presence calmed him, and soothed him, and made him feel that everything was just as it should be. One day I would be that close with my son; yes, if God would give me the chance, I most certainly would be.

By the time I made it through the front door, the Duchess already had Carter in her arms, swaddled in a blue blanket. Rocco Night had pulled the Range Rover to the front, ready to rush us to the hospital. As we headed out to the car I put the back of my hand to Carter’s tiny forehead and was completely taken aback. He was literally burning upwith fever. He was still breathing, albeit barely. There was no movement; he was stiff as a board.

On the way to the hospital the Duchess and I sat in the back of the Range Rover, and Suzanne sat in the front passenger seat. Rocco was an ex-NYPD detective, so red lights and speed limits were lost on him. And given the circumstances it was appropriate. I dialed Dr. Green, in Florida, but he wasn’t home. Then I called my parents and told them to meet us at North Shore Hospital, in Manhasset, which was five minutes closer than Long Island Jewish. The rest of the ride was spent in silence; there were still no tears.

We ran into the emergency room, the Duchess leading the charge, with Carter cradled in her arms. Carter’s pediatrician had already called the hospital, so they were waiting for us. We ran past a waiting room full of expressionless people, and in less than a minute Carter was on an examining table, being wiped down with a liquid that smelled like rubbing alcohol.

A young-looking doctor with bushy eyebrows said to us, “It looks like spinal meningitis. We need your authorization to give him a spinal tap. It’s a very low-risk procedure, but there is always the chance of an infection or—”

“Just give him the fucking spinal tap!” snapped the Duchess.

The doctor nodded, seeming not the least bit insulted over my wife’s use of language. She was entitled.

And then we waited. Whether it was ten minutes or two hours, it was impossible to say. Somewhere along the way his fever broke, dropping to 102. Then he started crying uncontrollably. It was a high-pitched, ungodly shriek, impossible to describe. I wondered if it was the sound an infant makes as he’s being robbed of his very faculties, as if instinctively he was crying out in anguish, aware of the terrible fate that had befallen him.

The Duchess and I were sitting in light-blue plastic chairs in the waiting room, leaning against each other, hanging on by a thread. We were accompanied by my parents and Suzanne. Sir Max was pacing back and forth, smoking cigarettes in spite of the no-smoking sign posted on the wall; I pitied the fool who would ask him to put it out. My mother was sitting beside me, in tears. I had never seen her look so terrible. Suzanne was sitting beside her daughter, no longer talking about conspiracies. It was one thing for a baby to have a hole in his heart; it could be patched. But it was quite another for a child to grow up deaf, dumb, and blind.

Just then the doctor emerged through a pair of automatic double doors. He was wearing green hospital scrubs and a neutral expression. The Duchess and I popped up out of our chairs and ran over to him. He said, “I’m sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Belfort; the spinal tap came back positive. Your son has meningitis. It—”

I cut off the doctor: “Is it viral or bacterial?” I grabbed my wife’s hand and squeezed it, praying for viral.

The doctor took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s bacterial,” he said sadly. “I’m very sorry. We were all praying it would be viral, but the test is conclusive. We checked the results three times and there’s no mistake.” The doctor took another deep breath and then plowed on: “We’ve been able to get his fever down to a little over a hundred, so it looks like he’s gonna make it. But with bacterial meningitis there’s significant damage to the central nervous system. It’s too soon to say exactly how much and where, but it usually involves a loss of sight and hearing and”—he paused, as if he were searching for the right words—“some loss of mental function. I’m very sorry. Once he’s out of the acute stages we’ll need to call in some specialists to assess how much damage was actually done. Right now, though, all we can do is pump him with high doses of broad-spectrum antibiotics to kill the bacteria. At this point, we’re not even sure what bacteria it is; it seems to be a rare organism, not typically found in meningitis. Our head of infectious disease has already been contacted, and he’s on his way to the hospital right now.”

In a state of absolute disbelief, I asked, “How did he contract it?”

“There’s no telling,” replied the young doctor. “But he’s being moved to the isolation ward, on the fifth floor. He’ll be quarantined until we get to the bottom of this. Other than you and your wife, no one can see him.”

I looked at the Duchess. Her mouth was hanging open. She seemed to be frozen solid, staring off into the distance. And then she fainted.

Up in the fifth-floor isolation unit, it was sheer bedlam. Carter was flailing his arms wildly, kicking and screeching, and the Duchess was pacing back and forth, crying hysterically. Tears were running down her face and her skin was an ashen gray.

One of the doctors said to her, “We’re trying to get an IV in your son, but he won’t remain still. At this age it can be very difficult to find a vein, so I think we’re just going to stick the needle through his skull. It’s the only way.” His tone was rather nonchalant, entirely unsympathetic.

The Duchess was right on him. “You motherfucker! Do you know who my husband is, you bastard? You go back there right now and get an IV in his arm or I’ll fucking kill you myself before my husband has the chance to pay someone to do it!”

The doctor froze in horror, mouth agape. He was no match for the sheer ferocity of the Duchess of Bay Ridge. “Well, what the fuck are you waiting for? Go!”

The doctor nodded and ran back over to Carter’s hospital crib, lifting up his tiny arm to search for another vein.

Just then my cell phone rang. “Hello,” I said tonelessly.

“Jordan! It’s Barth Green. I just got all your messages. I’m so sorry for you and Nadine. Are they sure it’s bacterial meningitis?”

“Yes,” I replied, “they’re sure. They’re trying to get an IV in him, to pump him with antibiotics, but he’s going crazy right now. He’s kicking and screaming and flailing his arms—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Barth Green, cutting me off. “Did you just say he’s flailing his arms?”

“Yes, he’s going absolutely crazy, even as we speak. He’s been inconsolable ever since his fever broke. It sounds like he’s possessed by an evil—”

“Well, you can relax, Jordan, because your son doesn’t have meningitis, viral orbacterial. If he did, his fever would still be a hundred and six, and he’d be as stiff as a board. He probably has a bad cold. Infants have a tendency to spike abnormally high fevers. He’ll be fine in the morning.”

I was bowled over. How could Barth Green be so irresponsible as to create false hope like that? He hadn’t even seen Carter, and the spinal tap was conclusive; they’d checked the results three times. I took a deep breath and said, “Listen, Barth, I appreciate you trying to make me feel better, but the spinal tap showed that he has some sort of rare org—”