Born Twice (Vintage International) Read Free Page A

know!”
    For years I hated them all. They hide behind a metaphor that’s been worn thin through overuse, drained of all meaning, even with regard to the fantastic. It’s as if they need to protect themselves from what they see as irrational demands, when actually they’re calls for help from people who crave hope, people who’d like to escape into the future in order to liberate themselves from the torment of the present. Instead, these doctors choose to fall back on a phrase they probably first heard in medical school. (How they treasure the fatuities of the great!) Meanwhile, the alibi of professional ethics masks any eventual discontinuity in what they say. Not that the patients or their relatives actually believe in the crystal ball. They don’t see it as the key to the future. For them it reflects their need to avoid painful self-analysis in order to be confronted with the details of the difficulties that lie ahead. Those doctors who are both competent and compassionate enough to address these issues have never regretted doing so.
    I remember the doctor who, when Paolo was three months old, told us the truth: or what he really thought. He reflected at length before speaking. The room was fraught with tension. He didn’t mention a crystal ball. A far greater expert in questions both of medicine and of humanity than so many of his colleagues, he looked at us and said gently, “I cannot tell you what your son will be like when he grows up. I can only make a few reasonable hypotheses.
    “The most optimistic one: The cerebral damage caused by the forceps and a lack of oxygen at birth will be assimilated, leaving no subsequent trace. His condition could be marginal. This is not the most probable hypothesis.
    “The median hypothesis: The cerebral lesions, though not deep, have damaged his language and motor skills. The child will begin speaking late; at age three he’ll know a hundred words where another child might know a thousand. He won’t be able to walk properly. His fine motor skills will be imperfect. His intelligence will be intact, yet he will seem immature because of his incomplete experience.
    “The third and most negative hypothesis: The encephalogram doesn’t reveal the degree of the lesions. It’s still too early. The effects on his mobility and intelligence will be greater than suspected. In my opinion, this is the least probable hypothesis.
    “However, I might be wrong. You will have to learn to live from day to day. Try not to think too much about the future. It will be a difficult experience, yet you will not regret it. You will be the better for it.
    “These children are born twice. They have to learn to get by in a world that their first birth made difficult for them. Their second birth depends on you, on what you can give them. Because they are born twice, their journey through life is a far more agonizing one than most. Yet ultimately their rebirth will be yours too. This, at least, has been my experience. I have no more to tell you.”
    Thirty years later, I want to say thank you.

The First Appointment
     
    The physiotherapist greets us in a dark, dismal, and uncomfortably small waiting room. Some houses, like some people, reveal the worst of themselves at the threshold and only later manage to correct that initial impression. As Oscar Wilde said, only the superficial don’t trust their first impressions.
    Taking turns holding the baby, we manage to remove our coats. Then, with our backs pressed against the wall, we open a dark closet and hang them up. We move into the rehabilitation room. It has hardwood floors, and its walls are lined with cushioned bumpers. There’s a square gymnastics mat in the center. The gray foggy light of late afternoon filters through the window.
    She motions for us to sit down on a wicker sofa, while she sinks down onto an oversized pillow on the floor. You can tell that’s where she feels most comfortable.
    She’d forgotten to tell us her fee over the