Josh had told Eden’s story more often than he’d cared to, but people wanted to know and he felt duty bound to satisfy their curiosity. Hearing someone else tell it would have given him no comfort. The present circumstance, though, was special. Con knew how attached the two girls had been to each other and surmised that Debbie must have been deeply affected by her friend’s death. So Josh resolved to hold nothing back.
“I learned a lot of medicine in the last two years of Eden’s life,” he said. “At least so far as her life was almost defined by that terrible disease. Among other things, that it’s caused by strep throat. If she’d got strep throat again after her first attack of rheumatic fever subsided, she’d have been even more likely to get rheumatic fever again. She came close to dying the first time; I still remember the floor in the hospital room littered with EKG strips. A second attack might well have finished what the first one started. But there’s a way to prevent strep throat: just one shot of long-acting penicillin a month is all it takes. But then Eden became allergic to penicillin and had a very bad time after one particular shot — bad enough to land her in the emergency room. Then one day at summer camp, where she worked as a counselor for the kids, she skinned her knee pretty badly. They sent her home rather than treat it there, which turned out to be a sensible decision, because she developed sepsis and once more she was rushed to the hospital. All those hospitalizations, by the way, were right here at Cresheim Valley. So her history was on the record.
“But Calvin, the man we met in the parking lot, didn’t consult the record — nor ask Eden herself — about allergies. He prescribed a penicillin-type antibiotic — intravenously, where its effect would be immediate. She had an anaphylactic reaction. They couldn’t bring her out of it. That was it.”
Josh could have said much more but he decided that Con now knew as much as he needed about Eden’s death. There was, of course, a huge gap, the events leading to the establishment of The Garden. He waited for Con’s questions, but Con’s thoughts went in a different direction.
“Is it OK if I ask you a personal question?” Con asked.
“Sure, go ahead.”
“Did Eden’s medical troubles have anything to do with your wanting to become a doctor?”
Josh looked down thoughtfully for several seconds. Then, facing Con, he replied: “I don’t know. In my application to med school I mentioned my undergraduate summers with Professor Ellsworth, which were really exciting. I also told them about Eden. I was afraid that might sound corny and perhaps disrespectful to her memory. But yes, I think she influenced me.”
Con didn’t think that mentioning such a powerful influence would have sounded corny at all. Neither did Debbie.
“May I ask you another question?” Con continued, hesitatingly. “You said Calvin prescribed an antibiotic without checking for allergy. Pardon me for saying so, but to me that sounds like medical malpractice. Then you addressed him by his first name in the parking lot, and you talked with each other as friends. How’s that possible? He was responsible for your girlfriend’s death, and then . . . I’m confused, and you say it was the same man?”
“It was, one and the same,” Josh answered.
There was something almost comical about the look on Con’s face, causing both Josh and Debbie to laugh aloud despite the seriousness of the context. Finally Josh came to his aid.
“It does call for an explanation, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe I’m just too dumb to see the obvious, but, like I just said, you actually seem to be on friendly terms with the man who you just told me caused your girlfriend’s death.”
“Let’s say reconciled. Not exactly friendly. And how that came about is an even longer story. Let me just say that Calvin was barely into his internship — this was mid-July, remember — and his M.D. degree was less than a month old. He felt terrible about his mistake and had the courage to appeal personally to Eden’s parents for forgiveness. Even that required my intervention, just to get them to hear him out, but in the end we all — Doctor and Mrs. Avery, Calvin, and I — agreed that, instead of litigating, Eden’s memory should be honored by building Eden’s Garden, which you saw this afternoon. That didn’t just happen, of course. There were doctors’ and lawyers’ attitudes to contend with, malpractice insurance, and so on and so on.”
Con shook his head in disbelief. “Even I can recognize blatant malpractice, and I’ve never had any dealings with lawyers or lawsuits. Didn’t Eden’s parents want to sue the doctor, the hospital, the nurses, whoever? Wasn’t that the normal thing to do?”
“Oh, it practically came to that all right,” Josh assured Con. “The lawyers — including Eden’s mother, who happens to be a malpractice lawyer herself, just imagine! — they were all on full alert. But with much reflection, many conversations, and months of agonizing, we stepped back from the cliff.”
“That is just remarkable! And what an incredibly generous gesture.”
“We all agreed that that was what Eden would have wanted. And by the way, it all started one rainy afternoon in the Statue Garden down on Kelly Drive. On your way back to the bus depot you should stop there and look around. Tell you what: I’ll ride down with you, even show you the bench we sat on the first time we talked.”
Con had no need for the paperback he’d brought along for the bus ride to New York City. His mind was awhirl with memories of the weekend. Less than two days, and impressions powerful enough to challenge his entire way of thinking. What kind of reaction should he expect from his own family if he told them? His father would probably be totally dismissive. How he wished he’d known Eden, if only to understand the depth of her influence on Josh, who struck him as a perfectly rational person. But Eden was dead — and Debbie was alive. Did he, Con, feel about Debbie the way Josh must have felt about Eden? What was it about Eden? What was her magic? Was she extraordinarily beautiful? He couldn’t tell from the bas-relief in the Garden, a generic girl’s profile that surely looked nothing like her. He wished he’d seen a picture of her, but he’d been so overcome with her story that he’d forgotten to ask.
He sent the Rabins a sincere thank-you card but said nothing about his emotional upheaval. He and Debbie didn’t meet again until they registered for fall classes. Affectionate greetings aside, Con’s preoccupation showed so clearly that Debbie couldn’t help wondering whether she’d been replaced by the memory of a dead competitor. This absurd image brought a smile to her face, but also alarmed her slightly. Such was the power of an irrational imagination.
The weekend had allowed Con only a brief glimpse into Rabin family life, but it was enough to make him compare it to his own. What was it like to have a father like Max, who had so obviously supported his son’s love affair with a girl of another faith? Where was the prejudice in that family, and where was the tolerance in his? His mother seemed open to Con’s friendship with Debbie, although he could hardly be confident that she would accept marriage, should it come to that; his father had slammed the door shut without even waiting to learn Con’s intention.
On the porch that Sunday evening, beer can in hand, Mike asked Con about the trip. “Did they wear beanies?”
“No,” Con answered, wondering how far this line of questioning would go.
“Did they have mazookas on the doorjambs?”
“They’re called mezuzahs, and I didn’t notice whether they had them or not.”
“What was the neighborhood like? Men with black hats and long sideburns?”
“A really nice neighborhood. And no subway train rumbling by. Just a block from a huge park.”
“And I’d say the neighborhood is the people you see on the street.”
“Could be.”
And so on. Mike obviously had little interest in the visit, which suited Con fine, because he could not imagine sharing his impressions and reactions with his father. He was quite relieved when Mike got up and went into the house. Gladys, totally silent up to that point, stayed behind. In the silence following Mike’s departure, she asked softly: “Did you have a good time?”
“Wonderful, Mom. Absolutely amazing.” Suspecting that Mike could overhear, he told her. She was just as thunderstruck as he had been on hearing Eden’s story from Josh. “My word!” she said. “That is some story. Did you like the people? I mean, other than Debbie, whom you obviously like a lot.”
“Yes, I liked them all. And I think I’d have liked Eden too.” He laughed at the way he was running on.
His enthusiasm brought a smile to her face. “Eden was Josh’s girlfriend, wasn’t she? Besides, she was probably Jewish. So you’d have had to back off.”
“No, as a matter of fact she wasn’t Jewish, but she wasn’t Catholic either,” Con replied. “So she probably wouldn’t have been any more acceptable to Dad than Debbie is. I don’t think he’d accept any girl who doesn’t pass that filter. You heard the questions he asked.”
“Yes, but don’t be too hard on him. That was just the first thing that came to his mind.”
“But not yours, Mom. I think you have a better appreciation of what’s important and what isn’t. I just don’t feel like talking to him about Debbie or her family.”
“And that’s the first thing that comes to your mind, my son. Leave it to me. Curiosity will get the better of him, and I’ll tell him what you told me. OK?”
“OK. Let me know how he reacts,” he said as she followed Mike inside.
Gladys was right. As they got ready for bed that evening, Mike asked her what had happened in Philadelphia. The story left him wide-eyed too, and he felt contrite for the way he had welcomed Con back from his trip. “Apologize to him, Mike,” Gladys said firmly. “You’ll feel better about it after a good night’s sleep.”
Next morning came and Mike felt no better. “Sorry about the way I quizzed you last night,” he said to Con. “I think I had a beer too many.”
“May I be really frank with you?” Con asked. Mike’s eyes narrowed a shade, and for a moment Con wasn’t sure Mike’s apology was sincere. But Mike said, “OK, what is it?”
Con took a deep breath. “I happen to believe that someone who’s had a beer too many says what’s really on his mind. You can’t abide the fact that I’m interested in a girl who happens to be Jewish, so you set out right away to disparage her family, her home, her neighborhood, every aspect of her, and you don’t even bother to ask how my trip was.”
“Now just hold it a minute!” Mike’s tone had changed from contrition to rage. “You don’t tell your father what he’s thinking.”
“No, I don’t; I’d be ashamed to. You told me yourself, Dad. Do you want me to repeat what you said last night?”
“I had a beer too many, so I said some things I didn’t really mean.” Mike’s mood and tone, like a wave in the ocean, had subsided as fast as they had risen.
“On the contrary, that so-called a-beer-too-many allowed what you really do mean to spill out.” Now Con was angry. He had learned from his own experience that alcohol released inhibitions; it did not put foreign thoughts into his mind. And he bitterly resented his father’s antisemitism.
As if the Irish hadn’t been subjected to the same intolerance when they first came to America.
Mike was unprepared for his son’s defiance. He jumped from his chair and would have assaulted him physically had not Con deftly stepped out of range.
His mother certainly seemed more reasonable, and definitely kinder. The question was how catholic, with a small c, she would prove to be if he were to challenge her.
Hearing the angry exchange between father and son, she came to the door and stood mute, shaking her head. Her appearance had the effect of interrupting the confrontation, but the feelings on both sides remained unresolved.