51

Charley and Mary Barton were invited by the president to spend election night at the White House, in the Lincoln bedroom. Charley went alone. Mary Barton stayed with the children, beating a path between the hospital and the nursery on Sixty-fourth Street.

It was a fairly late night because Charley waited up with FMH, his staff, and his family for the election returns to come in, or for as long as it took for Gordon Manning to concede. The ticket carried forty-seven states, Manning winning only Rhode Island, Alaska, and his own Connecticut.

The president took Charley aside after the landslide victory had been confirmed. “You had one helluva lot to do with this victory, Charley,” he said. “And I want you to know just how grateful I am.”

“Thank you, Mr. President.”

“We’re leaving early tomorrow after they’ve gotten the photo opportunity out of the way. My asthma is pretty bad, and I have to get a couple of weeks or so at the Arizona chalet.” Blister, Arizona, was the site of the “winter” White House, which the president had used regularly all year round during his first term of office. “I won’t be seeing you tomorrow, but I want you to know I’ll be getting back to you.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Charley said. “Sorry about that asthma.”

“We’re fifty-three-hundred-feet high out there. Largest ponderosa pine tracts in the world. It’s healthy, Charley. I get total relief—from asthma, that is. Damn sight better than this place.”

“At least you can relax with the knowledge that the campaign deficit has already been handled,” Charley said. “It didn’t come to anything anyway. Two million eight.”

“Don’t know what I’d do without you, Charley. And remember, the bed you’ll be sleeping on tonight is a historic bed. L. B. Mayer slept in it the first night of the Hoover administration.”

Charley went straight home before going to the office the next day. He had breakfast with Mae and tried not to look at her lined, haggard face. He told her of the conversation with the president. She tried to respond with the old-time verve, but she didn’t have it anymore.

“Hold out for something big, Charley. Don’t let him fob off ambassador to the Court of St. James’s.”

“London is nice, Mae.”

“He should have offered you vice-president before the convention. You got him the information and the money that got him reelected. He’s got to pay you off.”

“The vice-presidency is where politicians go to die, Mae. I’m a businessman.”

“Horseshit.”

“So what do you want me to get?”

“Defense?”

“I’m going to listen to what he has to tell me. What’s the news on the baby?”

“Dr. Lesion is going to have a final prognosis this afternoon at two o’clock.” She began to cry silently. She put her head on Charley’s chest and sobbed. Charley realized he had never really talked to his wife before. Or any other woman. It was always the same stuff, sex and money. He held her in his arms and said, “Sometimes we should expect the worst, because, if we dared to hope, it would kill us when the truth came in. We have to say it was an accident, Mae. Rocco wouldn’t let a thing like that happen on purpose.”

“I’m not gonna expect the worst, Charley. What’s the use of having what we’ve got if Rado can’t walk like other kids?”

“Mae, lissena me. What I’m trying to say is—don’t suffer all this until the doctor tells you that’s what’s going to be. We’ll suffer after that unless we don’t have to suffer at all—and it’s probably sixty-forty odds—because Lesion has figured out a way to make the baby walk.”

She nodded dumbly and wept all over his White House tie.

Following an examination of the Barton baby, Dr. Lesion went through the case with the six assembled interns and residents.

“The bleeding inside the skull seems to have stopped long enough for a fibrous membrane to have formed around the clot,” he said. “That was what caused the symptoms to subside. But the hematoma will enlarge when it starts to bleed again. We looked at a pale, irritable baby—weakened by vomiting—with a tense fontanelle. The optic fundi show hemorrhage and papilloedema. Subdural hematoma is confirmed by the needle yield. My intention is to excise the sac; otherwise there will be a scarring of the meninges, which will restrict the growth of the brain, which could result in spasticity and epilepsy. Do you have any questions?”

“Would burr holes be adequate to drain out the hematoma, Dr. Lesion?”

“Not for this patient. Neither will turning the bone flap to evacuate the clot and membrane—or a craniotomy. Since we are going in, we’ve got to get it all out.” He flashed his famous wit at the students. “Modern man doesn’t need a brain. He has computers and television.”

Loud laughter.

“Will the infant ever regain the use of his right leg?”

“I shouldn’t think so. But therapy will help to an extent. It really will.”