Family Tree Part 18

"Translation?"

"A vertebral fracture caused bone fragments from the spine to break into the spinal ca.n.a.l and push on nerve roots there. We opened the spine and removed enough of the fragments to relieve pressure on the nerve roots. Had we not done this within the first few hours, there might have been permanent neurological damage."

"No permanent damage, then?"

"Not neurological. The Risser cast will hold the fracture in a safe position until it heals. I don't antic.i.p.ate any problem on that score."

"His mother mentioned growth plates."

"There's the problem. I would guess, given Jay's initial fracture and my experience with similar ones, that there has been some level of damage to the inferior and superior plates on the right side of the body. If this proves to be the case, the boy's left side grows while the right side doesn't. This would cause a scoliotic deformity."

"Meaning?"

"His torso will pitch over to the right. If this happens, his body will try to compensate, and in so doing create a whole new set of problems. We don't want those to arise, which is why we recommend early surgical intervention."

Hugh heard a "but" and dipped his head.

"It's a very specialized field," the doctor said.

"She mentioned St. Louis."

"The best man is there."

Hugh would probably have to depose him, too. For now, though, he asked, "Would you be willing to give an affidavit covering all of the above?"

"Of course." The doctor pulled out his card.

"Is the prognosis good?" Hugh asked.

"For Jay? With proper medical treatment, very good. He'd be home now if it weren't for the leg cast. We don't want him walking on it for a couple of weeks, and the Risser makes crutches difficult. We're training him on a walker. Once he can handle that, he'll be discharged. We'll see him in six weeks and get a better grasp then on the situation with the growth plates. If he gets down to St. Louis soon after that, he could be playing soccer next year."

"And if not?"

"He'll be watching from the sidelines for good."

Dana was returning from the yarn shop late Sunday afternoon, carrying a sleeping Lizzie to the patio in her car seat, when David and Ali came out of their house to barbecue on the deck. David spared Dana a glance before busying himself with the grill. Ali waved and shouted, then looked at her father and was silent.

Dana was having none of that. No matter how David felt about Hugh, she didn't want Ali suffering for it. Leaving Lizzie safe in the carrier, she crossed her own yard into theirs. "Hey," she said. "You guys are back earlier than I thought you'd be. How was camping?"

As though Dana's entry into their yard was the magic key, Ali ran over to her. Her hair was a tangled mess and her tee shirt stained blue, but her cheeks were pink and her dark eyes danced. "It was awesome! Daddy and me walked for hours, then"-she began waving her hands to ill.u.s.trate-"we found this little place where the trees weren't too close, and we put up a tent and collected sticks and cooked over a fire."

"What'd you cook?"

"Marshmallows."

"Marshmallows. Is that all?"

"Oh, there was other stuff, but the marshmallows were the best." She started moving her hands again. "First you have to get a stick, then you use this little knife to clean it off and sharpen it, and then you push marshmallows onto the stick. You have to hold the stick over the fire," she demonstrated, "and turn it all the time, or else it's gonna catch fire and get chaired-"

"Charred," David said.

"Charred." She turned to Dana. "Are we knitting tomorrow? You promised you'd teach me."

"And I will, yes, tomorrow."

"Oh, good. I have swimming-when do I have that, Daddy?"

"Two," David said.

"Two, so we could do it before that, maybe at eight or nine or ten." She was bouncing on her toes, looking toward the car carrier. "Is the baby in that thing?"

"She is."

"Can I see her?" she asked, taking Dana by the hand.

"Ali-" David warned.

"It's okay," Dana said. "We'll be right back." Breaking into a trot to keep up, she ran with Ali to the carrier.

Ali made a hushed sound and, kneeling on the stone, clutched the sides of the carrier. "She's sleeping again," she said, looking up at Dana. "Why is she always sleeping?"

"That's what babies do. They aren't able to do much else until they grow bigger, and in order to grow bigger, they need sleep."

"And food," Ali added, stage-whispering now. "I'll bet Baby E-lizabeth would love marshmallows toasted all nice and brown and gooey-" She stopped short, broke into a big grin, and stood.

Hugh had materialized at the screen door. He came out with his eyes on Ali and his head c.o.c.ked to the side. He wore the teasingly skeptical expression that Dana loved. "That can't be Alissa Johnson," he said. "The one I remember is at least a foot shorter and nowhere near as grown-up as the young lady here. So who is this?"

Ali continued to grin. "It's Ali."

Hugh held up his hand for a high five. The child slapped it. When he moved it higher, she jumped to slap it again. "Atta girl," Hugh said.

"Ali," David called.

"I have to go now," Ali said. "I promised Daddy I'd help him make dinner." She ran across the lawn.

Hugh stared after her. "Do you think David told her what's going on?"

"I think he told her not to bother us because of the new baby. I can't imagine he said anything else."

"You ought to ask him."

"I think you should."

He shot her a vexed look. "I can't."

"You'll have to apologize to him at some point."

"Yeah, well, not yet," he said, and there it was again, the paternity test coming between them in ways Dana didn't know how to prevent. Some of her pain must have shown, because he added, "It's only a technicality, Dee. You know I know I'm Lizzie's father."

They stared at each other for a minute before Hugh turned to Lizzie. He knelt, touched her tummy, which was all but lost in the fabric of the striped onesie. Her head tilted to the side, eyes closed, dark lashes splayed over the deep gold of her cheeks. "I just came from the hospital. I was visiting Jay Kostas. He's a cute little boy who faces a lot of serious operatons. It really does make you grateful for what you have. Lizzie is very healthy."

Dana took a slow breath. "Yes. She is healthy. I'm grateful for that."

"Should I carry her inside?"

"No. The fresh air is good. I think the ocean sounds soothe her."

"Soothe her or you?"

"Both," Dana admitted. "I hear my mother in the waves. Maybe Lizzie does, too."

Hugh looked up. "What does your mother say?"

Dana studied the water. "She says that what's happening between us isn't good. That we have so much going for us, that we're crazy to be letting something like this come between us. That we're being childish."

"Do you agree?"

"Yes."

He stood. "So...?"

She met his gaze. "It isn't as simple as agreeing or not. Everything is relative. We had something that was perfect." Her voice caught on the pain of memory. "Maybe it was an illusion. But I want it back, and that's impossible."

"Nothing's impossible."

"Spoken by one who's led a charmed life."

"Come on, Dee," he chided. "Listen to your mother."

Forgive and forget? Dana thought and bristled. If Hugh didn't see that their lives were forever changed, if not by the DNA test then by the implications of Lizzie's color, he was the one who was being childish. "Do you always listen to your parents?"

"No," he conceded, but changed the subject. "Did Ali notice her color?"

"She hasn't said anything."

"Do you think she was just afraid to comment?"

"Ali, afraid to comment?" Dana asked dryly. "No. I think she just doesn't see anything out of the ordinary. Many kids don't. It's all about how they're raised."

"In other words, when the time comes, we have to make sure that whatever school Lizzie attends is multicultural."

"Which may rule out the public schools here," Dana said. David was their only African-American neighbor.

"Do you think it bothers Ali coming to this town?" Hugh asked. "Does she feel out of place?"

Dana considered that. "I don't know about her. I may not look like I'm of African descent, but apparently I am, which means I'm different from most people here. That's unsettling."

"No one sees anything different."

"So, I'm okay because I don't look black?"

"That's a loaded question."

"It's a valid one. Why should my daughter be treated any different from me? Why should Ali?"

He scratched the back of his head and left a hand on his nape. "In an ideal world, they wouldn't."

"I'm a generation closer to Africa than Lizzie is. By rights, I should feel the brunt of the prejudice more than she does."

"By rights, you should, but that's not the way it works."

"It's pretty shocking, coming all of a sudden like this," Dana said, trying to express some of what she felt. "At least Ali and Lizzie will be prepared."

From the minute Dana picked Ali up Monday morning, the child was full of talk. There was a detailed summary of the movie she and David had watched the night before, an in-depth description of the blueberry pancakes that had just been made for her by the babysitter David had hired to stay with her while he worked, a blow-by-blow of the phone conversation she had had with her mother no more than an hour before.

She quieted some when they arrived at the shop. They had barely stepped foot in the place when she spotted the knitted dolls that sat together on display with a how-to book.

They were adorable dolls-Dana had herself knit several in the display-remarkably simple in design compared to dolls on sale in traditional toy stores. They were either cream, brown, or beige, knit in stockinette st.i.tch, finished with yarn-strand hair and felt features.

Ali was intrigued. She touched a face, held a small hand, crossed a pair of floppy legs. When Dana said she could have one, her whole face lit up-and then, won over by that bliss, Dana said she could have two. But it wasn't pure indulgence on Dana's part. She couldn't think of a better beginner's project for a seven-year-old than a scarf for a doll.

Ali studied the dolls with the care of one picking a diamond. Dana had time to feed Lizzie before the choice was finally made, and then Ali appeared before her, proudly holding her prizes. When Dana said she had to name them, Ali didn't hesitate. "Cream," she said, holding out the ivory doll, then held out the brown one, "and Cocoa."

Dana hadn't been thinking of those particular names, but she couldn't argue. "Cocoa and Cream it is," she said and led the child to the odd-ball basket. It held leftovers from customers' projects, along with remnants of discontinued dye lots, all for use by beginners.

Ali wasted no time in choosing a ball of bright red wool. "This for Cream, don't you think?" she asked.

"And for Cocoa?"

Ali was longer picking this one. Finally, she came up with one that she liked. It was a dark green worsted-weight wool with a touch of mohair for added softness.

Dana took needles, sat at the table with Ali, and showed her the basic st.i.tch. She went over it once, then twice, exaggerating the steps. When she did it a third time, she added the rhyme "In through the front door / once around the back / peek through the window / and off jumps Jack."

Ali grinned. "Do it again," she ordered, and so Dana did, remembering the day Ellie Jo had sung her the song and taught her to knit.

"Let me do it," Ali said, taking the needles. Dana showed her how to hold the yarn and guided her hands through the first several st.i.tches, but that was all it took. Ali was a quick learner. Focused on her work, she seemed perfectly comfortable with the other women, pausing from time to time to ask questions. What are you making? Who's it for? What if he doesn't like it? Why'd you pick that color?

Watching as she rocked Lizzie's cradle, Dana decided that Ali's mother was definitely doing something right.

Hugh was back at work, and none too soon, given the mounting backlog. He had a motion for discovery to file on a mail fraud case, a forensic pathologist to meet on a vehicular homicide one, and a meeting with a new client who was accused of perjury in a federal indictment. He also had decisions to make regarding a wrongful-termination suit, and kept drifting back to this case. His client, who sold homeowners' insurance, claimed that he had brought in more accounts than any other single agent, but that since his contacts were, demographically, among a less wealthy group, his average yield was consistently lower, hence his firing. Hugh's client-and most of that man's clients-were African American.

Hugh wanted to include racial discrimination in the suit and spent much of Monday trying to work out the logistics-only to decide against it at the end of the day. Racial discrimination would be hard to prove and might be a distraction from his client's other, more solidly doc.u.mented claims. Practicing law was about picking one's fights.

Life was about picking one's fights, he realized. He might argue forever with Dana about his motive for running a DNA test, but the more pressing issue was finding her father. With so little to go on, that was posing a problem.

Tuesday morning, when Crystal Kostas called, she was a welcome diversion. He was only too happy to buy her breakfast at the hospital in exchange for her notes. She ordered a three-egg omelet with toast, home fries, and coffee, and ate hungrily while he read. Her jottings were surprisingly coherent, with headings at the top of each page.

There was a list of other patrons who had been at the restaurant at the time she had waited on the senator, with asterisks next to the names of regulars who knew her.