The Other Life Read Free Page B

matter or the brain’s cover and cerebrospinal fluid. We’ll have to do more testing, schedule you for a targeted sonogram.”
    “And then what?” Lewis asked. “Will the baby be okay?”
    Lewis’s voice sounded distant to Quinn, and she became aware that the whole room seemed to shrink, as if she were viewing it through the wrong end of a telescope. She closed her eyes. This can’t be happening.
    “At this point,” the doctor was saying when she opened her eyes, “it’s impossible to make a prognosis.”
    “But can it be treated?” Lewis asked.
    The doctor licked his lips, his eyes scared and somber. Quinn could tell he was thinking hard about how to phrase his answer, and she knew that if he had the power to disappear at that moment, to slip through his own portal, he would. “Sometimes,” he said. “But I’ll be honest with you. This is a very serious condition. On the other hand, an encephalocele in the frontal region, where it appears with your baby, is more treatable than one in the posterior region.”
    “Treatable how?” Lewis asked. “Surgery?”
    Dr. Peng nodded. “Sometimes surgery can be performed either shortly after birth or even several years later, depending upon the circumstances. The surgeon repairs the damaged area and closes up the abnormal opening.”
    “What about brain damage?” Lewis asked.
    “I understand you have a lot of questions,” Dr. Peng said. “Let’s wait until Dr. Bernard arrives and we’ll discuss it further, figure out a game plan.” He turned to Quinn. “Do you want to sit up while we wait for her?”
    She nodded, and Jeanette placed a towel over the gel on her stomach while Lewis helped her to sit up.
    “This could be a mistake, right?” Quinn said. “I mean, you could be seeing shadows or something. I’ve heard about that happening.” She looked at Jeanette as she said it, hoping for a sympathetic nod. But the woman glanced down, avoiding Quinn’s gaze, and she knew.

2
    ALONE AND AWAKE IN BED THAT NIGHT, QUINN STILL FELT emotionally anesthetized, her numbness now blocking even her cognitive functioning. There was something she’d meant to tell Lewis, but what was it? During their crisis-fueled dance of asking questions, making medical test appointments, and gathering information from whatever sources they could, Quinn and Lewis had successfully avoided talking about the big issues, such as whether they would consider terminating the pregnancy, and what it would be like to raise a disabled child. But there was something more immediate she kept reminding herself to bring up when she and Lewis were alone. Now she couldn’t remember what it was.
    She looked at the clock. It was ten after one, and Lewis needed to get up at seven a.m. for work. He was, she knew, in the spare bedroom they used as a home office, researching “encephalocele” on the Internet. Come back , she willed him. Come back to bed . But nearly an hour later, when the anxiety nipping at the edges of her consciousness could no longer keep her awake, Lewis had still not returned. So she drifted off to sleep, remembering at last the words she had wanted to say to her husband all day: The doctor said “ her skull.” Her. It’s a girl, Lewis. Our baby daughter.
     
     
    WHEN QUINN AWOKE in the darkness a few hours later, Lewis lay next to her, locked in the heavy breathing of deep sleep. It would be cruel to wake him, since he was only getting a few hours of sleep as it was, but she was burning to talk to him, to tell him what was racing through her mind. She just wanted to share her vision, to let him know that this abstract baby they were talking about was a girl, a tiny bundle who would be swaddled in pink-trimmed receiving blankets. If they aborted the pregnancy, or if the baby died in utero, or was stillborn, or lived a short while before being taken from them, they’d be mourning a daughter. And if she lived—fine or disabled or terribly sick—she’d be their little girl,