Man Who Loved God Read online

  FOR JAVAN,

  my wife and collaborator

  In Memory of Charles Papke Sr.

  One

  The Past

  “This is just the way you’re built. You’ll have to live with it.”

  Babs’s mother was incredulous. In effect, the gynecologist was saying that Barbara was malformed. That couldn’t be. Not Claire Simpson’s daughter.

  In every way, Barbara resembled her mother. And Mrs. Simpson was a most attractive woman: she had the spoken and unspoken testimony of her husband and four paramours.

  However, Claire Simpson did not need testimonials. She was well aware of and confident in her own striking beauty.

  Babs was her daughter. The child’s body could not fail her. Babs was young—only twelve. Technically, she was not exactly a virgin. But that was the result of a biking accident. She had not, she attested, been sexually active.

  Barbara insisted on a woman—rather than a male—gynecologist. Assured that the girl had not been sexually active, the doctor gave Barbara a routine pelvic examination, then pronounced, “This is just the way you’re built. You’ll have to live with it.”

  Claire greeted this diagnosis with deep doubt. She watched her daughter carefully for the next few months. The condition worsened. Barbara complained of pain and pelvic pressure. And her menstrual periods—which had begun only in the past year—had ceased.

  Claire took her daughter to her own gynecologist. Once again, Claire explained that her daughter had not had sex.

  The doctor was skeptical. He gave her a pregnancy test. It was positive.

  There were options.

  They could prepare Barbara for the birth, which, if nature ran its course, would take place in four to five weeks. The delivery on this young a female could be tricky. But far greater risks had been taken successfully. And, as the doctor noted, her pelvic structure was excellent.

  If delivery proved successful, and if the baby survived, the next option was to keep the child or to place it for adoption.

  Or, there was abortion.

  Both delivery and “dilation and extraction” held risks. But Barbara was otherwise healthy and stood an excellent chance of surviving either birth or abortion.

  All of which led to another question: to tell Barbara the truth—that she was carrying a baby—or to create a fiction?

  The decision, in which the physician concurred, was to tell her there was a tumor—a growth—inside her tummy that needed to come out. The doctor would take it out and then everything would two be fine.

  Barbara was happy. Claire was worried. The doctor was confident.

  By no means would every gynecologist have agreed to perform an abortion, particularly at this advanced stage of pregnancy. Even though, at this time, the mid-seventies, it was not against Michigan law.

  There was no reason to delay and every reason to complete the procedure as soon as possible. So the operation was scheduled two days hence.

  After supper and after Babs had been put to bed, Claire related the day’s events to her husband: the doctor’s examination, diagnosis, and recommendation. Claire anticipated no opposition or disagreement. Her husband was an absentee partner in their relationship. His business kept him on the road much of the time. However, he did not lack for sexual consolation. Claire had ample evidence of his womanizing. Though this was, in part, a rationale for her own promiscuity, Claire’s extramarital behavior was disciplined compared with his. She’d had four—and no more—sexual partners. He, apparently, bedded any female who would accommodate him.

  In any case, his reaction to the news was a sort of uneasy silence.

  The next day, Claire brought Barbara to a teaching hospital in a far northern suburb of Detroit.

  Claire stayed with her daughter through the afternoon and evening. She was there for lunch, dinner, and when they prepped Barbara for the operation. Throughout the day, Claire tried to make light of the impending procedure. “They’ll get that tumor out of your tummy and you’ll feel good again. Real good.”

  Babs tried to convince her mother that all this reassurance was doing the trick. But she could sense that something more dire was distressing her mother. Babs was good at sensing the unspoken.

  But now Claire was able to at least establish a deeper bond between the two. This was leading to something. After all, Barbara was pregnant. Somewhere there had to be a father.

  Gentle questioning, backing off, returning to the matter eventually drew out the admission that someone had been doing strange things to her.

  Daddy had told her it was all right because he was her daddy. But she shouldn’t tell Mommy or anyone else what they did when Mommy wasn’t home. Barbara doubted that. She had a sixth sense. She was good at sensing things.

  Claire quieted her daughter and stayed with the girl until she fell asleep.

  Then Claire went home and put an end to her husband.

  She ordered him from the house. She vowed a divorce. All this would be done with a minimum of scandal and notoriety—as long as he never again darkened their lives with his presence. There was no room for negotiation: this was unconditional.

  His defense was no more than token. He knew it was over. He had known from the moment Claire told him about their daughter’s condition.

  She didn’t know where he would sleep that night. But never again would it be with her or—save the mark—their daughter.

  Next morning she arrived at the hospital early and never let go of Barbara’s hand till they were parted at the door of the operating room.

  Barbara was wheeled into a strange environment of intense light, shiny objects, lots of sheets, several people busy with work they seemed quite used to. They all wore masks. Their work seemed to draw them inexorably to her as filings to a magnet.

  She thought the doctor was the same one who had examined her a couple of days ago. When he spoke she was sure; she recognized his voice. She relaxed somewhat when he spoke to her encouragingly. “How are you feeling now, Babs?”

  “Okay, Doctor,” she murmured. “You aren’t going to put me to sleep, are you?” They had talked about this earlier. Terrified of being put to sleep, she feared that she would never again wake.

  Behind his mask, the doctor seemed to smile. His eyes crinkled. “No.”

  They placed her feet in stirrups. An odd position for removing a growth from her stomach. A sheet was draped over her knees.

  Wordlessly, they stimulated labor. A saline solution started the movement. Pitocin, to keep labor going, was delivered intravenously. They called it “pit drip.” As dilation began the volume was increased.

  When dilation approached four centimeters, an epidural anesthetic—Bupivicaine mixed with Sentanyl, a solution more than ten times stronger than morphine—was inserted in the spine, blocking pain from the abdomen down.

  From that point on, all went smoothly. The only real problem was the baby’s head: It was too large to pass through the birth canal.

  The surgical team was ready. If this had been a delivery instead of an abortion, and this anomaly had arisen, at this point they would have performed a cesarean section. As it was, this baby was destined to be destroyed in any case.

  So a procedure termed “collapsing the cranium” or “compressing the head” was used.

  Once the head was crushed, the rest of the body emerged easily.

  It was over.

  A nurse gathered the small body into her arms and turned to cross to the other side of the room.

  In that flickering second, Barbara saw what had come from her body. With that gift that some children have, she was able to identify precisely what she saw. Every detail was etched in her mind and stored in her memory.

  Everything was so well formed. The tin
y hand with five stubby, perfectly curled fingers. The small, curved shoulders. But most of all, the head. Like a favorite doll that had fallen from the dresser to smash its head against the floor.

  But this wasn’t a doll. This was a baby who had been living inside her. Now it was dead. She didn’t have to ask; the battered little head said it all.

  Strange. The doll had fallen while Daddy had been doing things to her. His foot had hit the dresser and the doll had come down. Daddy was responsible for that. Daddy was responsible for this.

  Mommy played a part—at least in the deception. Mommy had lied to her. Maybe she was just trying to shield her from this tragedy. But she would never again be able to trust her mother. Never.

  Babs felt so alone. More alone than ever before.

  Twelve was terribly early to be on one’s own. But she felt strong. Extraordinarily strong for one so young. How many girls her age coming from an ostensibly stable home had been pregnant and had an abortion? None that she knew of. And, in effect, raped by her own father?

  The doctor, mask dangling from his neck, appeared in her line of vision. “So, how do you feel?”

  “Okay.” She tried a brave smile, but it was weak. At least she was doing well holding back her tears.

  “Everything went well.”

  She nodded.

  “Just rest. We’ll take you to the recovery room. Then after a little while, you’ll be taken back to your room and you can see your mother. I’ll go give her the good news.” He left the room.

  Good news? What was good about this news? Maybe that she hadn’t died—at least not in the sense of physical death. Something had died in this room this morning—something in addition to the baby. Something inside Barbara.

  Trust.

  No one close to her could be trusted. Not her father. Not her mother. Not the doctor.

  Barbara had no way of telling how long she lay in the recovery room. But after some period a cheerful attendant wheeled her to the elevator and took her to her room, where her mother, now beaming, greeted her. “I’ve talked to the doctor, darling. Everything is going to be fine.”

  Barbara fixed her eyes on her mother’s. This was rare if not unique in their relationship. Claire felt a shiver.

  “I know,” Barbara said.

  Claire didn’t need to ask.

  In that instant, Barbara resolved that, whatever else happened, she would not follow in her mother’s path.

  The Present

  Barbara was only a little more than six weeks overdue. This afternoon, all possible doubt and hope had crumbled in the face of the lab report.

  Just a couple of hours ago she’d been sitting in the leather chair in the ob/gyn’s office. The doctor half stood, half sat, in front of her, one buttock on his desk, his left toe barely touching the floor. His right leg dangled in a small, lazy circle.

  “I don’t know whether to sympathize with you, or congratulate you, Barbara.” He fiddled with his stethoscope, a habit she found irritating. “Unless you’ve changed your mind, I know this is not a planned pregnancy.”

  She stared at him stonily. Her mood grew darker by the minute. “Do I remind you of the Happy Homemaker?” She made no attempt to mask her bitterness. “Of course I didn’t change my mind. I was relying on you and the modern miracles of medical science. Some miracle!”

  “Now, now. I’ve told you over and over there aren’t any miracles. Not even any sure bets … with the exception of total abstinence.”

  “Do I look like a vestal virgin?”

  “That would be a loss. But seriously, we’ve been all over this. After I worked everything out for you, you decided on a diaphragm—which we fitted. That plus a spermicidal jelly held out the best hope for you.

  “But nothing is foolproof. A diaphragm can slip, particularly if you’re highly active. Jelly can miss any number of sperm. A condom can tear or perforate, or even overflow. IUDs have been known to coexist with a fetus. And you wouldn’t hear of rhythm.

  “The most reliable method of birth control—outside of abstinence—is the Pill. But that’s contraindicated because of your diabetes.

  “Okay, so you took a chance and you lost. You’re not the only woman for whom birth control didn’t work.”

  Her mood, already sullen, was deteriorating. “Something tells me that if men were the ones who got pregnant, we’d have long since found the ‘miracle’ of perfectly dependable birth control.”

  Silence.

  “Barbara,” he said finally, “the next logical item of business is what you want to do about this. You’re early in the first trimester—”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I think you know as well as I …” The unfinished sentence hung in the air. He didn’t use the “A” word.

  “I suppose,” she said, “you’re suggesting an abortion.”

  “I’m not suggesting anything. What you do about this is up to you.”

  She stood and began to pace. “I don’t know …. I just don’t know ….”

  “That surprises me.”

  “You thought I’d jump at an abortion.”

  “It’s early enough so there would be comparatively little danger. I doubt that you have any moral or religious reservations about it. And since you haven’t changed your mind, I assume you want neither a pregnancy nor a child. So …”

  “So?”

  “Why the hesitation?”

  “I’ve got to think about it. I need more time. I’ve been thinking about it practically constantly ever since that missed period. But”—she shook her head—“now that I know for sure … well, this is a bigger decision for me than you imagine. There are too many complications. I need more time.”

  “Well, don’t take too long. Either we have to end this pregnancy soon, or we begin preparing you to be a mother.”

  Two

  Mother. Mother? Mother! Motherhood!

  Barbara Ulrich, to this point in her life, had never associated this concept with herself. Even as a small child playing with dolls, she was not their “mother.” They were things her parents had given her. Eventually, she wrecked them, as she did all her toys.

  Her mother, even her father, had worried about that. They were concerned that, as an only child, Babs had no sibling to relate to. Dolls were supposed to stand in for the missing siblings.

  As time went on and each dismembered doll joined the burial ground of the rest of Babs’s toys, her parents acceded to her every request and demand.

  They should have worried about denying her nothing.

  Now, if things ran their normal course, Barbara would be a mother. Her child could not be flung into a corner and forgotten. Her baby could not be discarded when she tired of it. She could not treat her child as she had her toys.

  For one thing, it was against the law.

  It was now just a couple of hours since her doctor had dropped the bombshell. Slowly, she was assimilating all the implications of this new possible role fate had flung at her.

  Barbara sat before the mirror at her dressing table. Over frilly step-ins she wore a lacy slip. It accentuated rather than obscured her body’s perfect lines.

  If she allowed this pregnancy to progress, her life would change. Her life would change in ways she had never planned.

  She had seen grossly pregnant women. Inwardly she had laughed at their awkward, ungainly attempts at such normally simple acts as walking or sitting down or picking things up.

  The alternative: an abortion. But she’d been there, done that. She remembered it all too vividly. She dreamed about it—always that little head, crushed beyond recognition. Never again.

  In addition, there was that intriguing question: who was the father?

  It certainly wasn’t her husband. God knows how long it had been since they’d had sex together.

  And yet her husband had no other woman on the side. In all candor, Barbara knew that while she might have an equal somewhere, no one could be better in bed than she. No, it was that other
bugaboo: work. Al Ulrich had singlemindedly given himself to Adams Bank and Trust. He had risen through the ranks to branch manager.

  And beyond that, Thomas A. Adams, president and chief executive officer, was about to open a new branch in one of the most dangerous locations in near northeast Detroit. Al Ulrich had not only applied for the position, he was campaigning for it. He was not playing the sycophant; Al Ulrich genuinely admired—almost worshiped—Thomas Aquinas Adams.

  When she’d realized how intertwined her husband and his bank had grown, Barbara had erupted like an uncorked volcano. Her husband’s reaction was to cut her out of his life as far as any intimacy was concerned.

  Not that she much cared, but, as far as she knew, Al had not been, was not, sexually unfaithful to her. She knew he had near unlimited opportunity. But for whatever reason, he did not cheat.

  Having completely suppressed all memory of what little she had known of her mother’s affairs, the same could not be said for Babs. Thus the pertinence of the question: who indeed was the father of the child she was carrying?

  There were four possible candidates: the bank’s president and its three executive vice presidents. That all four worked for the same firm, indeed in the same building, was some sort of tribute to Barbara’s sense of brinkmanship. Not only did she chance this volatile juggling in a tight, localized area, she was reasonably sure none of the four was aware of the other three.

  Inevitably, someplace down the line, she would begin to show. At which time her husband would explode in righteous indignation. Probably there would be a divorce. Al certainly would not support her or her bastard child. She would have to lean on the real father—whoever he proved to be.

  In any case, all four men were quite wealthy. Any of them ought to be able to support her and her child in a manner into which Barbara was eager to ascend.

  Thus her hesitation. She didn’t want the child, but she would not abort it. And she did want all that the child could extort from its father.

  Barbara wasn’t facile in math. But it didn’t take an expert to figure that in the time frame given by the doctor, two of the four men were the more likely nominees. However, the doctor’s estimate of the time of conception was an educated guess, only slightly more reliable than a weather forecast. In that elastic expansion, all four qualified.