My Sister Caroline

My Sister Caroline
A Short Story
By Frank Sperry

My sister Caroline was the center of attention even before she was born. My Mom was carrying her under her belly button, but before she was ready to come out, Doctor Finley at the Hanover hospital got everyone in our family nervous when he told my Mom and Dad that there was a problem. He said that my Mom would have to go to Duke. My grandfather told me later that Duke was good at baby problems, especially babies that had a problem even before they were supposed to come out, or babies who were trying to come out too soon. Mom and Dad told Grandma and my Grandfather even before they left the hospital. On the way home my Grandfather got the job of telling me, before the ambulance took her from Wilmington to go to the better hospital at Duke.

My Grandfather stayed at home with me while my Dad and Grandma followed the ambulance in Dad’s car to be with my Mom when she got to Duke.

My grandfather and me went to Burger King for supper that night cause neither one of us were good cooks. Dad called later that night. My grandfather told me when he got off the phone that Dad said things up there were going OK. I knew things were not going that OK because I heard him say to my Dad on the phone: “Can’t they give her something for the pain?” Sometimes everyone tried to keep things from me and treated me as if I was still in Kindergarten. Did they forget I got promoted last month?

The next day my grandfather announced that we were going to Duke to see my Mom. That was all he said, sipping his coffee at Burger King. My grandfather never took me to any other restaurants. He said the other restaurants that were near our house cost a lot more than his pension could tolerate and besides they never had senior coffee for only 19 cents.

All the way up Interstate 40 my grandfather was kind of quiet. He pretended he was listening to some guy on the radio named Rush, but I think that was only an excuse to keep from answering my questions. There’s so much a little kid like me has to learn about baby stuff and why they are sometimes a problem even before they come out. It would be nice if there was a school you could go to to learn this stuff, and you wouldn’t have to put your grandfather on the spot in case he didn’t know.

When we got to Duke there was a big brick building across from the main Hospital entrance. It was so you could park your car there. As you drove in, a machine looked in your car window, opened its mouth and stuck out a ticket. It reminded me the way my cousin Sarah stuck out her tongue when she wouldn’t give you a taste of whatever it was that she was eating.

After we parked the car, my grandfather took hold of my hand, we crossed at the traffic light, and then went through the tall glass doors that opened up automatically, like there was an invisible guy there you couldn’t see who was in charge of who to let in.

The Hospital lobby was humongous with all sorts of people coming and going. It even had a waterfall and a fountain with little fish in it near the gift shop by the elevators.

My grandfather and Dad must have had a long talk about where to find Mom when we got to the hospital. He walked straight ahead, past the information desk to the elevators at the back of the lobby.

We took the elevator to the sixth floor and got off with some other people. The others looked more bewildered and lost than we were. It was good to have a grandfather who at times was better than an Indian scout at finding his way to where he wanted to go.

When we got to Mom’s room, Grandma and Dad were sitting in chairs beside the bed. The covers were turned back and the bed was empty. “They took her down for more tests”, my Dad said. My Grandma came over and hugged me long and hard as if I was one of the doctors who had brought miracle medicine in my backpack for my Mom. I looked past her elbow to see that my Grandfather appeared to be a little put out that he got no bear hug for his role as my chauffeur.

After a few minutes, a lady with long black hair and a pretty face came into the room. She was a little chubby, but that gave her face warmth that chubby people usually have. She was wearing a white coat that came down to her knees and she had a silvery thing connected to a black tube that hung around her neck.

She put out her hand to my Dad and said, “I’m Doctor Arnette. I’ll be helping you folks get through this.” She looked at me as if to signal that she even included me when she said “you folks.” I liked her from the “getgo”. That was an expression I had picked up from one of the older kids in Kindergarten. The lady doctor with the pretty face spoke again, this time looking back and forth among my Dad and my grandparents. “I’ve already gone over the situation downstairs with Mrs. Cavanaugh.”

It sounded strange to hear my Mom called “Mrs. Cavanaugh.” I had tried that myself once, but I could tell my Mom didn’t like to hear it coming from me. She had looked at me the way she did whenever she was not in the same mood I was in, and spoke with her lips hardly moving. “Tyler, sometimes you try to be too cute for words.”

The doctor continued speaking to my Dad; “ Twenty-seven weeks is very much too soon. I had hoped we could wait as long as we could before it became critical. Because of the fluid building up in both of them Doctor Charnoff and I believe it will be in both their best interests if we induce labor. The baby’s chances will be minimal at best, but the alternative would not be best for your wife, if we waited much longer.”

Out of the corner of my eye I could see the worried look on my Dad’s face, and I could also see him look at my grandfather and then at me and make a motion with his head toward the door. I think my grandfather understood the message to take me out of the room and wait outside in the upstairs lobby. The lady doctor’s choice was to let me hear whatever other stuff about my Mom she was about to tell them. She must have had a boy my age to have understood my feelings that well. My grandfather was on the side of the doctor and pretended not to get the message to take me out of the room.

“We believe your wife may have a viral infection attacking both their immune systems and that appears to be causing the fluid build-up in both of them. The fluid is impacting on your wife’s lungs and is becoming critical by the hour”, the doctor continued.

I was starting to get more nervous than my Dad and my Grandma. I was beginning to wish they had not let me hear all this stuff about fluids and lungs. It made me even more nervous because I didn’t for a minute understand what it meant, except that I felt my sister Caroline and my Mom were in more trouble than all the doctors in the world might be able to get them out of.

Just then the door to the room opened and a black lady in a green outfit pushing my Mom in a wheelchair brought her in to the room. I didn’t wait for them to help her get back in bed but went over and put my arms around her and gave her one of those bear hugs that I had inherited from my Grandma. My Mom’s eyes were watery and I almost cried myself after not seeing my Mom since the other hospital in Wilmington, when she didn’t look so worried. I almost cried but I didn’t want to disappoint the lady doctor or my grandfather for allowing me to stay in the room and for being one of “you folks” who were old enough to hear any kind of bad news, but not too young to cry.

Later, after sitting on the bed and stealing all of my Mom’s attention for a long time, My grandfather and I went downstairs to the cafeteria. My grandfather said the food and the coffee there was still cheap but I noticed when he paid the cashier lady that it was still more than 19 cents.

When we left the hospital, we went to a place only about a block from the hospital called the Brownstone Inn. Our room there had a television where you could even order games, if you paid extra. I didn’t pester my Grandfather to let me play games on the TV. Instead I pretended to read the Sports page of the USA Today my grandfather had gotten from the lobby downstairs. I had a talent for knowing when to act older than a kid my age. I also wanted to be the best company I could be for my Grandfather at that time. I even let him be in charge of the remote as we watched Fox News together. I could tell he was just as worried about things at the hospital as me and the others were. His talent, like another one of mine, was not to show a worried look.

The next morning even before I was fully awake. I looked up and saw my Grandfather talking on the telephone between the two beds. When he put down the telephone, he turned to me with a broad grin and said “ So far, so good. You have a baby sister, Caroline, and so far she’s still …. She’s still kickin’. Oh yeah, your Mom’s not exactly kickin’ like Caroline is, they had to get to the baby through her stomach, but she’s resting now and doing just fine.”

I was a little confused. I wasn’t sure I understood the part about still kickin’. Didn’t all babies after they came out just keep “still kickin’?" And as for getting to the baby through my Mom’s stomach. How else did my Grandfather expect the doctor would get to the baby? There was still a lot I had to teach my Grandfather about life, besides turtles.

Later that day we were all back at Duke Hospital in a waiting room outside of the special room where they said my Mom was and near the place with tiny baby baskets behind the big glass windows. There were a bunch of nurses behind the glass that wore green outfits like the wheelchair lady with little white hats and small white handkerchiefs that covered their mouths so the babies could not see their whole faces. Our baby Caroline wasn’t in that glass baby room. Grandma said she had her own special room, cause she was even more special than the babies who waited until it was their time to come out.

After a long while, another nurse lady came in to our waiting room and said we could come with her to get a peek at our Caroline. First we all had to wash our hands from a faucet without touching it. That was some trick. Before that we all had to put these funny socks over top of our shoes. Finally, we got to go in to a room where there were bigger baby baskets that had big white hoses through the top of the glass cover above them.

The nurse lady walked us over to one of the covered baskets and I stood in front of my grandfather because he was taller than I was. “There’s Caroline”, he said.

I had never seen too many babies soon after they had come out, but I was puzzled at the way she looked. Her eyes were closed, and she looked as tiny as anybody I had ever seen that wasn’t a puppy or a kitten. “Why does she have all those things sticking in her?”, I asked, looking back at my Grandfather.

“That’s so the doctors and nurses can give her little body the things she needs”.
“She’s even got one sticking in the top of her head”, I said, looking even more puzzled. “What could she need through the top of her head?”
“I’m not sure”, he answered, looking just as puzzled.

My Dad overheard us talking and leaned over and whispered to my grandfather “Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to bring Tyler in to see her.”

You know people; my Dad had three sisters who were all grown up now. I felt like asking him how he would have felt if he hadn’t been allowed to see them in their baby baskets, like I wanted to see my one and only sister Caroline, no matter how many things they might have to stick in her body.

My grandfather squeezed my shoulder like he had read my mind from the top of my head and was sending me a signal to just look at Caroline and not say any thing else. I got the signal. I just looked at her for the rest of the time and didn’t open my mouth again until we got outside that special baby room and I took off the socks that covered my shoes to keep the floor clean.

I got to visit with my Mom for a long time later that day, and the next morning my Grandfather and I drove back to Wilmington. My Dad and my Grandma stayed up there at Duke for two weeks to be closer to my Mom and Caroline. My grandfather told me that later they had switched over to stay at the Ronald McDonald House because it was cheaper than the Brownstone Inn. My Aunt Christina came over to our house to cook for me and my grandfather practically every day so he wouldn’t have to spend his whole pension at Burger King.

My Dad told my grandfather and me that the doctors at Duke were all calling Caroline their “miracle baby”, because they admitted later that she had only a very small chance to keep on breathing with such a tiny pair of lungs. They never even put her in the regular baby basket until she finally got to be four pounds. When I told that to my cousin Sarah, she said her puppy weighed more than four pounds. That was just like Sarah. She had to brag about having a puppy that weighed more than my sister Caroline. I told her I had seen both and Caroline was prettier than her puppy.

It was about three more weeks before Caroline ate enough to weigh more than Sarah’s puppy and they all came home from Duke. For quite a while yet Caroline was enjoying still being the center of attention. There was one scary minute when some thing they called her monitor got loose and my Mom ran into her room to shut off the beeping noise.

My Grandma started to spoil her a whole bunch more than anybody ever tried to spoil me. That part never bothered me because Sarah told me that once you got to be six you were too old to get spoiled any more. I believed her because Sarah was an expert on being spoiled.

Caroline had to go back to Duke once every month to see if she was doing whatever babies who came out too soon are supposed to do. Each month when she came back from Duke my grandfather announced that we should have a celebration for her. My grandfather had some really good ideas, the kind that appealed to Sarah and me. My Grandma said it was because he wanted a reason to celebrate with cake and ice cream 12 times a year instead of just once.
Things were going along great and everyone in the family was starting to treat her like a normal baby girl. She didn’t even have to be monitored with a beeper anymore. But soon after her six month celebration, that’s when the real trouble began.

“I have no idea what it could be”, my Grandma said to my Mom, examining Caroline’s face as if they were both looking at her for the first time.

“It looks like some kind of rash or maybe even a bruise”, my Mom said. “I know it wasn’t there this morning. We need to take her somewhere and have it looked at. She’s not due to go back to Duke for three more weeks.”

When Dad came home from work they both took her to the Clinic. It was later that night when Dad called. He told my grandma that the doctor at the clinic told them he wanted her to be taken to Hanover hospital, and that he wanted her to be seen by a special baby doctor. We didn’t hear from them again until it was nearly eight o’clock.

My grandma took the phone call from my Dad at the hospital. I could only hear what my grandma was saying.

“They have got to be kidding. Did you tell them about Duke and all Caroline went through?”

"Aren’t they even going to call Duke and talk to someone there that knows about her birth and her medical history?"

“Abuse. Abuse. Oh, my God. How could they suspect something like that?”

When my grandfather heard my Grandma say ‘abuse”, he got up from his chair and started for the door. He called to my Grandma, who was still on the phone. “You stay hear with Tyler. I’m going down there. I need to find out what is going on.”

My grandma got off the phone, went to the door, and before my grandfather pulled out of the driveway, called out to him “Wait just a minute, we’re coming with you.”

At the hospital we stopped at the information desk and they sent us upstairs to a place called Pediatrics. We all got off the elevator and my grandfather spoke to someone behind a desk. We followed my grandfather to a room where we found my Mom and Dad. My Mom was crying and my Dad had his arm around her.
My Dad spoke first. “We were only here less than an hour and they took Caroline for X-rays. A little while later a doctor came in and said Caroline had healing fractures in her ribs and also in her left leg. Along with what he called the facial bruise that we couldn’t explain, he was required to make a report immediately to Child Protective Services for them to investigate.”

My grandfather looked bewildered and said “ Are they out of their mind? Do they really think you would ever abuse that baby?”

My Dad answered him; “They couldn’t seem to accept the fact that we were not able to explain how she got the mark on her face. I think it would have been better if Carol had lied and said Caroline had rolled off the bed when she was changing her diaper.”

My Mom looked up and spoke for the first time. “We still would not have been able to explain what they are calling healing fractures.”
My grandfather responded. “That’s something the doctors at Duke could help explain. Jesus, aren’t they going to get hold of the people at Duke who said it’s an absolute miracle that Caroline is even alive?”

“The doctor who ordered the X-rays said there was no need to contact Duke”, my Dad said.
“That’s incredible. I can’t believe this is happening”, my Grandma added.

Just then a nurse stuck her head in the door and said “ Someone from Child Protective Services called. She will be here tonight and will want to interview all family members for her investigation.”

My grandfather and I went outside in the lobby where he found a phone and he called my Aunt Christina to let her know what was happening.

We had only been out of the room for a little while, but when we got back to the room, I saw that Mom was sitting in a chair and was holding Caroline.

I went over to the chair and touched my Mom’s face lightly with the back of my fingers and then touched Caroline’s face too, but she was sleeping. She probably didn’t know she was the center of attention or the center of whatever was happening. I couldn’t even tell from her face if she was dreaming about it.

It seemed to me that whatever was happening at this hospital had made my Mom and my Grandma very sad and had made their eyes leak tears when I wasn’t in the room. Even my Dad’s eyes looked as they did when we had been on vacation last summer and he stayed too long in the swimming pool. That was strange because I had never seen my Dad cry. I had never suspected that God had given Moms and Dads the same kind of eyes.
My grandfather went out in the hall, spoke with a woman sitting behind a desk, and came back in the room. “ The nurse said the lady from Child Protective Services is on her way over.” He continued speaking, “ If the X-rays show there have been bones that are healing there’s got to be some rational explanation for that.”

My Dad said, “ We’ve got to get another doctor’s opinion. If they won’t call and talk to Duke, we’ll have to find another doctor here with a different opinion.”
My grandfather shook his head and said, “Trying to find a second doctor who is willing to tell another doctor from the same place that he is mistaken is like trying to find a doctor who doesn’t play golf.”

My grandfather’s expression changed when he spoke again, “I need to talk with a retired Doctor I know. He volunteers with me at the Good Shepherd Shelter on Tuesday mornings. He retired and came down here last year and bought a house in Landfall.”

“Was he a pediatrician?”, my Dad asked.
“No, but he is an Orthopedic surgeon. He was in charge of a group of doctors at a Medical Center somewhere in Maryland. I told him about Caroline’s birth history and her ordeal at Duke. He and his wife don’t have any grandchildren. He was very interested in Caroline. His name is Zuccarelli, Richard Zuccarelli.”

“Do you know how to get in touch with him?” my Dad asked.

“I should be able to find him in the phone book. How many Zuccarellis can there be in Landfall?”

There was a telephone in the room but my grandfather left the room. He must have wanted to find a telephone that wasn’t connected to the hospital so he could talk to his friend without the hospital listening.

Soon after my grandfather had left he room, the door opened and a lady with a scarf tucked inside of her jacket came in and said she was Linda Kessler from Child Protective Services and that she needed to talk about Caroline’s condition. The lady looked younger than my Mom and dressed different. My Mom never wore a scarf tucked inside of a jacket or wore pants like a man. Her face was thin and she looked as if she were trying very hard to smile but her face wouldn’t cooperate.

“We will need to talk one-on-one. There’s a room behind the nurse’s station where we can talk. Mrs. Cavanaugh, I’d like you to be first. Then I’d like to meet with you, Mister Cavanaugh, then the baby’s grandparents.”
“What about my son. He’s six years old,” my Dad asked.

She looked at me and tried again to smile, but her face still wasn’t ready to cooperate.

“Yes, I’m afraid I will need to talk with him also. Siblings often know things others don’t”

I couldn’t understand why she said she was afraid of talking with me. I wasn’t afraid of her, even though she called me a sibling. I didn’t know why she called me a name that didn’t sound good even before she got to know me. I wasn’t afraid of her but I wasn’t sure I wanted to get to know her, at least not before her face could learn how to smile.

My Mom and the lady who couldn’t smile were still not back when my Grandfather returned to the room.

“Were you able to get hold of your doctor friend”, my Dad asked him.

“I sure did and he was very helpful. As soon as I told him they said X-rays were showing bones that had been fractured, he told me that Caroline should be tested for something called Osteogenesis Imperfecta. It’s a very rare disease often referred to as brittle bone disease. A baby’s bone can be broken from handling her and even from something as simple as changing her diaper.”

“Wouldn’t Duke have known about something like that?” my Dad asked.

“I asked him about that. He said it is rarely detectable at birth. He told me to check the Internet; even though it is very rare, there is a ton of information about this. They call it OI. And here’s the kicker. Children who have this condition without it being known are often falsely suspected of being physically abused.”

“What about the mark on Caroline’s cheek?” my Dad asked.

“He didn’t have any idea where that might have come from”.

He also told me that there are only a few places in the Country that can test for this OI thing. It’s part of a rare group that doesn’t show up even with sophisticated testing. They may have to test the genetics of parents and grandparents on both sides.

My Dad put his hands up to his face to keep from looking at anything, and said,
“ This doesn’t sound like anything that can be easily cleared up in a few hours”.

When my Mom and the scarf lady came back, my Dad stood up and left with her.
“How did it go, Carol? Did she say they would get in touch with Duke?” my Grandma asked her.
“She said that would be up to the doctor who examined her here, but she said he did not think it was necessary.” As my Mom spoke she could not keep the tears from coming out from under her eyelids even when she closed her eyes. “ I could tell it is not going to be easy to convince her why we can't explain whatever might have happened to Caroline”.

After a while My Dad returned with the woman and my Grandfather jumped up from his chair to let everyone know he couldn’t wait to have his talk with the lady.

He was gone for a long time and when he returned he was shaking his head like Sarah’s puppy when she squirted water on his head.

When the lady and my Grandma left together, my grandfather said “ That woman believes that one of us hurt Caroline. She’s impossible to reason with. She’s got her mind made up that it was one of us.”

My Dad looked at him and said “ I hate to say this but I had the same impression”.
Then my grandfather continued, “ Do you want to hear the really incredible part? "When I told her what my doctor friend told me about the need to have Caroline tested for Osteogenesis Imperfecta, do you know what she said? She asked me to tell her how to spell it. Can you believe that? She never even heard about a medical condition that is often mistaken for child abuse? You wouldn’t expect average people to know about this but she is supposed to be in the business of investigating suspected child abuse. Don’t they train these people to know about things the world has a right to expect them to know about?”

The back of my Grandfather’s neck always got red like it was sunburned whenever he got excited, which was not very often. The back of his neck and his whole face looked more sunburned than I had ever seen it before.
He came over and took my hand to signal that it was time for us to leave, and said, “Tell that well trained professional investigator she can talk to Tyler some other time. You guys stay here with Caroline. Tyler and I are going home. I’ve got to get out of this hospital, it’s beginning to make me sick to my stomach.”

The next morning when I got out of bed and came into the kitchen in my pajamas, my grandfather was talking on the telephone.
The last thing I heard him say was, “OK, then if we have to get a lawyer we will. Meanwhile, try not to let this tear your heart out. I don’t think they can take her away from us. God knows, Carol, we haven’t done anything wrong.”
We both ate lucky charms for breakfast. My grandfather said we would skip Burger King this morning cause he wanted to stay near the telephone.

The telephone didn’t ring again but the doorbell did. It was my Aunt Christina. She came in the kitchen and gave me a hug. Whenever there was a family crisis I got more hugs than usual. She rubbed the top of my head like that was a secret way Aunts said hello.
Christina looked at my grandfather and said, “ A woman from Child Protective Services called me and wanted to know if Tom and I would take Caroline for a while she continued her investigation. She said that Carol said if the baby had to be with someone, she would want it to be with me. I told her of course I would be glad to watch Caroline. She couldn’t tell me for how long I’d have her but I got the impression it would be for a week or more until this matter could be cleared up”.

My grandfather said, “There must not be anything wrong with Caroline if they think she can leave the hospital. What do they want you to do?”

“They want me and Tom to be at the hospital at noon”. I already called him at work. He’s going to leave early for lunch and meet me at the hospital”.

“Tyler and I will be down there too. I’d like to find out what is going on”, my grandfather said.

When we got to the hospital, a lady with white hair sitting at the information desk told my grandfather our family was in a different room on the first floor. We followed her direction and found everyone in a large room with a long table and chairs and no hospital bed.
Mom, Dad and Grandma were sitting on one side of the table, and my aunt Christina and Uncle Tom were next to them. My aunt was holding Caroline, and the scarf lady was next to her. There was a policeman standing at the far end of the room along the wall. He looked out of place like he got in the wrong room by mistake.

When my Dad saw my grandfather he handed him a paper that was on the table in front of him. “They’ve got an order signed by a magistrate to take custody of Caroline for seven days until there is a hearing in family court on the 13th”. My Dad said.

My grandfather took the paper and I noticed that his neck had gotten sunburned again like it had last night. He looked at the paper for a minute and then looked at the scarf lady and said, “This thing is moving like a bullet train. How can anybody have the right to do this? Doesn’t a family have any rights here?”
The scarf lady looked at him and said,” We’ve been over this before you got here. I suggested earlier that your family may want to talk to a lawyer”.

Later that afternoon we were all back at our house without Caroline. My Aunt Christina had sent my Uncle Tom over to pick up clothes and pull-ups for Caroline. I think my Mom packed more stuffed animals then pull-ups.

When my Uncle Tom left with Caroline’s things, my Mom began to cry again. My Dad hugged her and stroked her hair, but he wasn’t able to keep her eyes from leaking tears for a long while. Crying must be like having a cold. My Grandma was the first to catch it, and she left the living room so she wouldn’t breathe on anyone else. My Dad still had his arm around my Mom sitting on the couch but he only stared straight ahead. Going by the color of his neck I was sure my grandfather was still too mad at the scarf lady to cry. I was too confused by whatever was happening to do anything except to close my eyes and try to see a picture of my sister Caroline behind my eyelids. Sometimes when I lay in bed at night before falling asleep my eyelids were like my own private movie theater.

My grandfather told everyone he would be in charge of getting a lawyer to see that Caroline would come back home right away. He didn’t waste any time. He called his retired doctor friend in Landfall and told him what had happened with Caroline being taken by the scarf lady and loaned to my Aunt Christina. My grandfather asked him if he could recommend a lawyer he might know. The last thing I heard my grandfather say was, “ That’s what I told Carol. Landfall is probably full of lawyers.”

Later that day, his friend the Zuccarrelli fellow called back and spoke with my grandfather. When he hung up the phone, he had a smile that I hadn’t seen him show the world in a long time.

“Richard spoke with one of his neighbors, Tucker Brown, who retired as the dean of the law school at Campbell University. He said when he told him about Caroline and what was happening he said he would be happy to represent us.”

I heard my grandfather tell my Dad later that the lawyer even said he would help us for only pro bono. Pro Bono must have been Italian, like Zuccarrelli, which they didn’t teach in Kindergarten, so I had no idea if that was a lot of money.

“You see Carol,” my grandfather said, “ when the devil closes the door and turns out the lights, God opens all the blinds and lets the sun come in.”

I couldn’t swear to it, but I think my grandfather heard Father Grady say something like that when he spoke at Mass and looked down from his platform to see who was putting money in the baskets.

My grandfather announced the next morning that he was going to meet with his friend Richard and his lawyer neighbor in Landfall. Going toward the door he turned and said to my Mom, “ If they need any details I don’t have, I will call you from there and let you talk with him.”

My Dad answered him before he opened the door. “I think it would be best if Carol and I went with you. At least he should meet with us before he sees us in court on Tuesday."

“You’re right,” my grandfather replied, Tyler can stay hear with Grandma till we get back.”

“Tyler should come too,” my Mom said. “ I think he should be as much a part of this as any of us.”

When we drove up to the entrance to Landfall on Eastwood road, my grandfather spoke to the man who came out of the little house. After he called someone on the phone, he gave my Dad a yellow card with a number on it that he put on the dashboard. The man in the little house pointed ahead and said, “Stay on this road till you pass the sign to the clubhouse, then it should be the third or fourth house on the left.”
My Dad found the house easily and parked in the driveway. My grandfather was first to reach the door and he rang the bell. The ringer was inside but we could hear it from outside. My grandfather told me later that all expensive houses in Landfall did that to let you know the bell inside worked and you didn’t have to knock on the door.

My grandfather’s friend Richard let us in and showed us into a living room that was as big as our whole house. I could tell no kids my age lived in this house because it looked too neat and there were a lot of little glass statues on a coffee table that kids and babies could easily knock over. When Caroline started to crawl and reach up to our tables, all of my Mom’s breakable angels retreated to a safer place on top of the china closet.

After we sat down, Mr. Zuccarrelli made a brief phone call. Only a short while later, the front doorbell rang again. A man in tan slacks and wearing a white shirt open at the collar came in, and was introduced to us by my grandfather’s friend as Tucker Brown. When he shook my hand I saw that his eyebrows were as white as his hair, and were thick above his blue eyes and he gave me a smile that reminded me of a picture of an Army General I had seen once.

The big people talked in the living room for a long while. Mrs. Zuccarrelli who had come into the living room from upstairs invited me into the kitchen where she offered me an oatmeal cookie with a glass of milk. I wasn’t really hungry, but I didn’t refuse her offer because I could see she was disappointed because it was a big house without one toy, not even a gameboy. Mrs. Zuccarrelli was a really nice lady but with no toys, food was the best she could do, and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

When it was time to leave, everyone in our family thanked Tucker Brown. They all seemed to me as if they were sure it was a good meeting at the Zuccarrelli’s house.

On the way home my grandfather said, “ I was really glad to hear he was going to be in touch with that Doctor Honeywell at the hospital. He was the young, arrogant one who started all this crap. He said he’s also going to be in touch with Doctor Arnette at Duke.” I was quiet on the way home but I was beginning to think my grandfather was right, that all the blinds were open and the sun was coming through. At least there was enough light so that my Mom was no longer crying.

The rest of the week went by quickly. All I can remember was that there were other phone calls back and forth between our house and Landfall. The best news was that all of us got to see Caroline at my Aunt Christina’s house three times. My Dad had to call first and arrange for the scarf lady to be there at the same time. There was no policeman that had to be there, but still they must have thought we might try to take Caroline back home if the scarf lady wasn’t watching.

The night before our family was supposed to go to court, Mom and Dad and my grandfather went over to Landfall to meet with Tucker Brown one more time. When they got back home they all seemed happy. At least Mom’s eyes were beginning to look normal again.

That next morning the whole family went downtown and met my grandfather’s Landfall friends in some place with a waiting room where we all had to go through a tall horseshoe-like thing that my grandfather said was supposed to find any bad guys that tried to sneak in with a gun. Tucker Brown, Mr. Zuccarrelli and my Mom and Dad stood talking near the water fountain. I was busy staring at a guy in the corner that I could tell was not a policeman and wondered how he managed to get past the horseshoe with a gun hooked to his belt.

When it was our turn to go into the room I saw that there were wooden pews on both sides of an aisle like in church for the people who weren’t priests. In front of the first pew there was a wooden railing, and in front of the railing seated up on a platform behind a long desk there was a man with glasses who wore a black robe and who looked out over the edge of his glasses at the people who were taking their seats.

The scarf lady was in the first pew on the other side of the room. Along side of her was a man who stood up and went up to the front desk when Tucker Brown went there when the man in the robe waived his hand at them.

They were talking to each other but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. After a while they both went back to their seats and then the scarf lady went up to the front of the room where there was a big wooden chair. . Before she sat down a man in a brown uniform had her put her hand on top of a book and then hold her other hand up to show him that her other hand was empty. She must have passed his test cause he let her sit down.

The man who had been next to her came up to the front and began to ask her questions which I couldn’t hear. The man in the black robe didn’t seem to hear either because he leaned over closer to hear both of them. After a little while the man went back to his pew and thenTucker Brown went up to her and asked her more questions. It was like in church. The only one who didn’t whisper when they talked to each other was the priest.

I guess the man in the black robe was like the priest. When he spoke he didn’t whisper. He said in a clear voice, “I’d like to hear from one or both of the child’s parents.”
Tucker Brown turned around and pointed at my Mom and she went up to the front of the room by the big wooden chair. The man in the uniform came up to her and had her touch the book and did the hand inspection thing before she was allowed to sit down.

This time the man in the robe spoke to my Mom and asked her questions. It was hard for me to hear what my Mom told him because she still mixed in tears with her words. The only thing I was sure about was that my sister Caroline was the center of everyone’s attention even when she wasn’t even allowed to be here.

When my Mom’s turn on the chair was finished, Tucker Brown and the other man both went up front and spoke with the man in the robe. This time they all whispered. When the two men went back to their seats, the man in the robe looked out at everyone in the room and said, “ It is the court’s judgment that temporary custody will remain with the Child Protective Services pending consultation with Duke Medical Center and testing for OI or identification of any other medical basis for the apparent injuries.
Tucker Brown told us after we were all outside in the parking lot that the man in the robe was Judge Randall. My grandfather’s doctor friend, Richard, said he was pleased to find that the judge was very aware of OI. He said the judge seemed very surprised to learn that Linda Kessler, the scarf lady from CPS, was not familiar with it. My grandfather only shook his head and said “Amen”.

Mr. Zuccarrelli and Tucker Brown carried the ball from that day forward and made our family very happy to have them on our team. They even made a trip to Duke with our family and met with Doctor Arnette and other people there who my grandfather said could hardly believe the story about the Doctor who didn’t think it was necessary to contact Duke about my sister Caroline. My grandfather told us one of the doctors at Duke who was in charge of “miracle babies” wrote a letter to the hospital here in Wilmington that said my Mom and Dad’s rights had been “trampled on” by that Doctor Honeywell here who disregarded their repeated requests to consult with Duke Medical Center about Caroline’s condition.

The doctors at Duke told my grandfather that x-rays that were taken of Caroline in the days following her birth were a special challenge for them to re-examine. Richard Zuccarrelli filled in other details about things that my grandfather was not good at when he came over to our house with Tucker Brown to celebrate
Caroline’s return to us from Aunt Christina’s.

“Because a baby can only withstand low level radiation,” he said, “ the X Rays degrade much sooner than X Rays that are taken of an adult.” They sent Caroline’s early x-rays to Chapel Hill where they have specialized equipment they were able to use to enhance the images. Chapel Hill reported back to Duke that they saw some evidence of congenital hairline fractures. Most likely from the many probes she was subjected to.”

My grandfather interrupted and said, “Sure, remember that probe she had to have in her side, even after she came home from the hospital”.

Mr. Zuccarrelli continued, “ After that they sent bone tissue away to a place in Seattle, and they reported back that Caroline tested positive for level 1 type Osteogenesis Imperfecta.” He went on to explain, “There are four levels of OI. Level 1 is the least severe and the hardest to detect. It is so rare it is never tested for in babies unless there is some indication of brittle bones syndrome”. “Caroline will need to be tested periodically for Collagen levels but other than that she should have a normal life. That is unless, Tyler, forgets she needs to be treated like a very special little lady and isn’t too rough when they wrestle.”
“Will she really be able to wrestle?” I asked.
“Only if you promise that if she breaks her arm”, he said, “you’ll take her straight to Duke and not to Doctor Honeywell.”

Lately, I had been doing a lot of serious thinking about my life. I sure didn’t want to hurt my Dad’s feelings but selling insurance didn’t seem half as exciting as being either Mister Zuccarrelli, the doctor or Tucker Brown, the lawyer. As time went on I tilted toward being like Tucker Brown when I realized that if I went down the Zuccarrelli road the devil might play a trick on me and turn me into a Doctor Honeywell.