Chapter 5: The Appointment
Dr.
Harlan Osei had the kind of stillness that made a room feel safer.
He was somewhere in his fifties, unhurried, with reading glasses he took off and set down before he spoke to you directly.
His office at Columbia Presbyterian smelled like paper and something faintly medicinal, and the walls held children's drawings in mismatched frames — gifts from patients, I assumed, kept not for decoration but because he had wanted to keep them.
Sloan sat in the chair beside the examination table.
I stood near the window.
Willa lay on the padded surface between us, bare except for her diaper, watching the overhead light with the focused concentration of someone encountering a ceiling for the first time.
"She's been gaining weight well," Dr.
Osei said, reviewing the chart from NYU Langone.
"The episodes in the first week — both resolved without intervention?"
"Both," Sloan said.
"The second one lasted longer.
About forty seconds."
He nodded, making a note.
"And since then?"
"Nothing.
She eats well.
She sleeps in stretches.
She cries the way babies cry." Sloan's hands were in her lap, very still.
"But I watch her constantly.
I can't stop watching her."
"That's understandable," he said.
He picked up his stethoscope and warmed it briefly in his palm before placing it against Willa's chest.
He listened.
Moved it.
Listened again.
His face gave nothing away, which I found both reassuring and unbearable.
"What are we looking for?" I asked.
"A few things," he said.
"There's a range of conditions that can cause apnea episodes in newborns.
Most are benign and resolve on their own.
Some require monitoring.
A small number require intervention." He moved the stethoscope once more.
"I want to run an ECG and an echo today.
We'll have a clearer picture after that."
Sloan nodded.
I looked at Willa.
She had found my face and was staring at it with the same unsettling focus she'd had since the first morning — like she was studying me, cataloguing me, deciding something.
The tests took an hour.
We waited in a small room with chairs that were slightly too low and a window that looked onto a courtyard.
Sloan had brought a bottle.
She fed Willa in the quiet, and I watched them both, and I thought about all the appointments I had not been at — the prenatal visits, the hospital room, the first terrifying week — and I made myself sit with that instead of pushing it away.
"She's going to be fine," Sloan said, not looking up from Willa.
"You don't know that yet."
"No." She adjusted the bottle slightly.
"But I've been telling myself that every morning for four weeks, and it's the only thing that's been getting me out of bed.
So I'm keeping it."
I didn't argue.
Dr.
Osei came back forty minutes later.
He sat down across from us, set the chart on the table between us, and took off his glasses.
"The ECG looks good," he said.
"Her rhythm is normal.
The echo shows a very small patent foramen ovale — a tiny opening between the chambers of the heart.
This is actually present in all babies at birth and closes on its own in the vast majority of cases, usually within the first year."
Sloan's breath came out slowly.
"In Willa's case," he continued, "the opening is small enough that I'm not concerned.
I don't believe it caused the apnea episodes, but I want to see her again in three months to confirm it's closing.
In the meantime, she goes home.
She lives normally.
You watch her the way you've been watching her, and you call me if anything changes."
"That's it?" I said.
"That's it," he said.
"She's a healthy baby, Mr.
Crane.
She had a difficult start.
That happens sometimes.
It doesn't mean she carries it forward."
I looked at Willa, who had fallen asleep against Sloan's arm, mouth slightly open, completely unconcerned with the conversation being held about her.
We rode down in the elevator in silence.
In the lobby, Sloan stopped walking and stood still for a moment with her eyes closed.
I waited.
When she opened them, they were wet, but she didn't let anything fall.
"Okay," she said.
Just that.
"Okay," I said back.
We walked out into the afternoon together.
I had the car waiting.
I held the door open, and Sloan got in with Willa, and I got in after them, and for the first time since I had walked through the penthouse door, the city outside the window looked like somewhere I actually lived.
My phone buzzed.
A message from my mother: *How did it go?*
I typed back: *She's fine.
Small issue, resolving on its own.
Thank you for Osei.*
Three dots appeared.
Then: *Good.
Come for dinner Sunday.
Bring them.*
I showed the message to Sloan.
She read it.
She looked out the window for a moment.
"She doesn't ask," Sloan said.
"She just states."
"Yes."
"Is that a Crane thing or an Eleanor thing?"
I thought about it.
"Both."
Sloan was quiet for another moment.
Then: "Sunday is fine."
I put the phone away.
Willa slept between us in her carrier, warm and small and entirely herself, and the car moved uptown through the afternoon light.
Then my phone buzzed again.
Not my mother this time.
A number I didn't recognize, with a New York area code.
I almost ignored it.
Instead I opened the message.
*Mr.
Crane.
My name is Patricia Hewes.
I'm a paralegal at Whitmore & Associates.
I've been trying to reach you regarding your divorce settlement.
There's a document your attorney never filed.
You need to see it before the settlement closes.
Please call me.*
I read it twice.
May you like
Then I looked at the date the settlement was scheduled to close.
Four days.
