These Precious Days: Essays

One morning, Ann heads to the bookstore she runs for a meeting about an upcoming project. People are flying in for this meeting, and Ann’s cell phone is turned on, which she only does a handful of times during the year for occasions such as these. Byron, the cardiologist at the hospital where Karl works, calls her with news that Karl seems to be having a heart attack.

By the time Ann reaches the hospital, the heart attack is clarified to be a false alarm. While waiting beside a sleeping Karl, Ann remembers a flight back from Moscow, filled with American families who had adopted babies from Russia. On the flight, a woman across the aisle from Ann and Karl begins crying; another woman has told her that something is wrong with the baby, who will possibly need some neurological tests.

Karl tells the woman he is a doctor and offers to check the baby out. He then assures the woman that her baby is perfectly alright and offers her 20,000 dollars for the baby. The woman immediately retorts that she doesn’t want to sell her baby, and her distress vanishes. After the woman leaves, Karl responds to Ann’s query about the baby, reasserting that there is nothing wrong with her; the woman just needed a reminder of how valuable the baby was.