He stopped walking in front of the jury box. “You heard Dr. Rosenblad say something we all know: terminating a wanted pregnancy is nobody’s first choice. However, when parents are faced with the reality of a fetus who will become a profoundly disabled child, all the choices are bad. If you find in favor of the plaintiff, you’re buying into her faulty logic: that you can love your child so much you’d sue a doctor-a close friend-because you believe she should never have been born. You’re buying into a system that says obstetricians should determine which disabilities are worth living with and which aren’t. And that, my friends, is a dangerous track to walk. What kind of message does that send to people who live daily with handicaps? Which disabilities will be considered ‘too disabled’ to be worthy of a life? Right now, ninety percent of patients whose fetuses are diagnosed with Down syndrome choose to abort, even though there are thousands of people with Down who lead happy, productive existences. What happens when science becomes more advanced? Will patients choose to terminate fetuses with a potential for future heart disease? Or those that might get B’s instead of A’s? Or those who don’t look like supermodels?”
He began to walk back to the defense table. “Wrongful birth, ladies and gentlemen, presumes that every baby should be perfect-and Willow O’Keefe isn’t. But I’m not perfect, either. Neither is Ms. Gates. Judge Gellar’s not even perfect, although I’ll admit he’s pretty darn close. I’ll even hazard a guess that all of you have some flaw, somewhere. So I ask you to think hard while you’re considering your verdict,” Booker said. “Look at this wrongful birth suit, and make the right choice.”
When he sat down, Marin Gates rose. “It’s ironic that Mr. Booker would refer to choices, because that’s exactly what Charlotte O’Keefe wasn’t given.”
She stood behind Charlotte, whose head was bowed. “This case isn’t about religion. It’s not about abortion. It’s not about the rights of the disabled. It’s not about whether Charlotte loves her daughter. It’s not about any of those issues that the defense would like you to believe. This case is about one thing only: whether Dr. Piper Reece provided the appropriate standard of care during Charlotte’s pregnancy.”
After all this time, all these witnesses, I still didn’t know the answer to that myself. Even if I had looked at that eighteen-week ultrasound and found cause for concern, I would simply have recommended waiting to see what developed-and the outcome would have been the same. In that, I had saved Charlotte several months of an anxious pregnancy. But did that make me a good obstetrician or a negligent one? Maybe I had made assumptions about Charlotte, simply because I knew her too well, that I wouldn’t have made with another patient. Maybe I should have been looking more carefully for signs.
Maybe if I had, having my best friend sue me would not have come as such a shock.
“You’ve heard the evidence. You’ve heard that there was an anomaly during the eighteen-week ultrasound that suggested follow-up care, that flagged a fetal abnormality. Even if a physician wasn’t sure what that abnormality signified, ladies and gentlemen, it was up to her to look more closely and find out. Piper Reece did not do that after the eighteen-week ultrasound, pure and simple. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is negligence.”
She walked toward me. “Willow, the child who was born as a result, is going to have special needs her whole life. They’re expensive, they’re significant, they’re painful. They’re ongoing, they’re cumulative, they’re traumatic. They’re overwhelming. They’re exacerbated by age itself. Your job today is to decide whether Willow will be able to have a better, fuller life, with all the appropriate care she needs. Will she get the surgeries she needs? The adapted vehicles? The specialists’ care? Will she continue to get therapy and walking aids-all out-of-pocket expenses for the O’Keefes, which have run them into significant debt? Today, these decisions are in your hands,” Marin said. “Today you have the opportunity to make a choice…the way Charlotte O’Keefe never did.”
The judge said a few words to the jury, and then everyone began to file out of the courtroom. Rob walked up to the bar that separated the gallery from the front of the court and put his hands on my shoulders. “You okay?” he asked.
I nodded. I tried to offer him a smile.
“Thank you,” I said to Guy Booker.
He stuffed a pad into his briefcase. “Don’t thank me yet,” he said.
Charlotte
“You’re making me dizzy,” Sean said as I entered the conference room. Amelia was pacing back and forth, her hands speared through her electric hair. As soon as she saw me, she turned.
“So here’s the thing,” she said, talking fast. “I know you’re thinking about killing me, but that wouldn’t be the brightest move in a courthouse. I mean, there are cops all over the place, not to mention the fact that Dad’s here and he’d be obligated to arrest you-”
“I’m not going to kill you,” I said.
She stopped moving. “No?”
How had I never noticed before how beautiful Amelia had become? Her eyes, under the fringe of that ridiculous hair, were huge and almond-shaped. Her cheeks were naturally pink. Her mouth was a tiny bow, a purse string holding her opinions tight. I realized that she did not look like me, or like Sean. Mostly, she resembled you.
“What you did…what you said,” I began. “I know why.”
“Because I don’t want to go to Boston!” Amelia blurted. “That stupid treatment facility. You’re just going to leave me behind there.”
I glanced at Sean, and then back at her. “Maybe we shouldn’t have made that decision without you.”
Amelia narrowed her eyes, as if she didn’t quite trust what she was hearing.
“You may be angry at us, but that’s not really why you told Guy Booker you’d testify,” I continued. “I think you did it because you were trying to protect your sister.”
“Well,” Amelia said. “Yeah.”
“How could I be angry at you, then, for doing the same thing I’m trying to do?”
Amelia threw herself into my arms with the force of a hurricane. “If we win,” she said, muffled against my chest, “can I buy a Jet Ski?”
“No,” Sean and I said simultaneously. He stood up, his hands in his pockets. “If you win,” he said, “I was thinking I might move back home for good.”
“What if I lose?”
“Well,” Sean said, “I was still thinking I’d move back home for good.”
I looked at him over the crown of Amelia’s head. “You drive a hard bargain,” I said, and I smiled.
On the way to Disney World, during an airport layover, we had eaten in a Mexican restaurant. You had a quesadilla; Amelia had a burrito. I had fish tacos, and Sean had a chimichanga. The mild sauce was too hot for us. Sean convinced me to get a margarita (“It’s not like you’re the one who’ll be flying the plane”). We talked about fried ice cream, which was on the dessert menu and didn’t seem possible: wouldn’t the ice cream melt when it was put into the deep fryer? We talked about which rides we would go on first in the Magic Kingdom.