The Dark Side - Danielle Steel Page 0,73

hadn’t been smooth, but none of it was serious. They were nervous first-time parents. And then three weeks in, the apnea incident when Jaime had stopped breathing, an incident that had never been repeated. Zoe had insisted on seeing a pediatric gastroenterologist for testing, and he had found Jaime to be normal. She saw a note from the doctor then, which Cathy had forgotten in the meantime, that Zoe had inquired about a gastric tube, which he had told her was inappropriate and unnecessary. And all along Jaime was gaining weight, and seemed to be thriving in spite of her mother’s nervousness.

Then there was her first injury when she rolled off the changing table at four months. Nasty bump on the head, but no concussion. Zoe had insisted on seeing a neurologist. Everything else was normal. And then the broken arm and stitches in her lip when she fell down the stairs, and later a fall in the bathtub. Cathy had made a note in the chart that Zoe had a lot of theories about no feeding schedules, no bedtime, respecting the baby’s freedom, no gates when she started walking. They hadn’t been friends yet, but she remembered how much she liked Austin and Zoe, how earnest they were, and how devoted Zoe was to her baby.

There was a note in the chart that she sat up all night every night with the baby, holding her upright, to avoid another apnea incident. Their anxiety screamed off the chart, but so did Zoe’s dedication. And all the other incidents were listed as she flipped through the pages. The broken wrist when she fell off the big girl swing. The flu and reported febrile seizure at home, and they had admitted her to the hospital for a night, and the fever had gone down by morning. Both dislocated elbows. It was all there, and as Austin said, the list of her injuries was long.

What struck Cathy was that Jaime was a healthy child who bounced back from every injury and incident. There were many notes in the chart, a lot of them about minor injuries, and Zoe’s concerns about the baby. She had called in frequently about teething problems for the better part of a year. And the more recent incidents were all listed too. Cathy had forgotten how many there were, many more than she normally saw, but somehow she hadn’t strung them all together because she knew what good parents they were, and there had never been a question in her mind about child abuse. But looking at it now, she could see that Jaime had been injured too often, and if she hadn’t known the parents so well, she might have questioned it. What came across was that Jaime’s mother was neurotic and overanxious and constantly concerned about her daughter’s health.

She saw the results of the leukemia testing, which she had done just to indulge her. She and Zoe were good friends by then. Jaime had been in their office far more than most of their patients. Jaime had had the usual coughs and colds and flus during her first year of school, and also the ear infection that led to her getting ear tubes without consulting Cathy about it. She had a lengthy history for what was essentially a healthy child. She had nursed for fourteen months, and was allergic to amoxicillin, none of which was unusual. None of her illnesses were serious, but the list of physical injuries was more extreme. If anything, Zoe came across as overzealous in the chart, and Cathy had made a side note early on: “uber mom.” And they had had long discussions about whether or not vaccines were dangerous and caused autism, but Zoe had finally given in and Jaime was up to date on all her shots. Her conclusion when she finished reading Jaime’s records was that she was too close to Austin and Zoe to see it objectively. She made a copy of the file, and put it in an envelope for Paul. Then she walked the ten blocks to his office, and arrived right on time.

She pressed the buzzer, and he let her in. He looked like a professor or a shrink. He was wearing a tweed jacket, cowboy boots, and jeans. He wore his light brown hair longer than most of the men she knew, and he had a beard. She knew he was somewhere in his late forties but didn’t know exactly where.