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1964

March 1964, Parts I–IV

Summary: Part I

A young orthopedic surgeon, David Henry takes a job at a clinic in Lexington, Kentucky, where he is known only by his diploma from a Pittsburgh university and his resume. A single nurse in the practice, Caroline Gill, develops deep feelings for him, but David marries the beautiful Norah Asher, a woman eleven years younger than him. They have been married a year when Norah goes into labor three weeks early. A freak snowstorm motivates David to ask his obstetrician colleague Dr. Bentley and his nurse Caroline Gill to meet them at the clinic rather than try to get to the hospital. Dr. Bentley spins out and disables his car in a snowdrift, and David ends up handling the emergency delivery with only Caroline in attendance at the birth.

Norah announces the names she has picked: Paul if the baby is a boy and Phoebe if a girl. After David delivers a healthy baby boy, he finds that Norah has been carrying twins. The smaller girl baby emerges, and David and Caroline recognize in her facial features that she has Down syndrome. Norah is still under anesthetic when David asks Caroline to commit the little girl to the Home for the Feebleminded, an institution in Louisville. After Caroline leaves with Phoebe, David tells Norah that their daughter was born dead.

Summary: Part II

Caroline arrives at the run-down facility to find a hostile and uncaring staff, and she cannot bring herself to leave Phoebe in their care. En route back to Lexington, she focuses on the baby’s immediate needs and gets off the interstate to buy diapers and formula. Phoebe needs to be fed, and Caroline uses the store restroom to give her a bottle. She is the last customer checking out as the store closes for the day. Getting to her car with the groceries and baby, Caroline finds she had left her lights on and the battery is drained. Alone with a disabled car in the empty parking lot of the closed grocery store where everyone has left for the day, she pounds on the locked store doors in panic.

Summary: Part III

Norah’s love for her son Paul cannot dispel her grief over the death of a daughter whom she never met. Clinical depression has overtaken her, and she feels distance come between her and David. Her sister Bree suggests she plan a memorial service for Phoebe. Making the arrangements to honor her daughter brings a sense of closure and fresh determination into Norah’s life.

Summary: Part IV

Stranded at the deserted store, Caroline meets the kind trucker Al Simpson, who drives her home. Caroline persists in her belief that David will do the right thing and come for Phoebe until she sees a note about Phoebe’s memorial service in the paper, and realizes David has told Norah that Phoebe died at birth. Caroline confronts David, who puts his fate—and hers—in her hands by inviting her to report him, but advising her to give him a heads up before doing anything that could tear his life apart. Caroline is angry, but also feels strangely connected to David, finding new purpose being joined to him in the care of his daughter. Caroline decides to move away and raise Phoebe as her own. Before leaving town, Caroline stops at the memorial service and sees Norah crying. Caroline wonders if she should share the truth about Phoebe, but cannot bring herself to say anything. She goes back to her car with Phoebe and they leave for Pittsburgh.

Analysis: March 1964, Parts I–IV

David and Norah Henry nurture idyllic expectations for their life together. A year into their marriage with a baby on the way, their hopes and dreams depend on each other, each unaware of the fragility of their trust. The snowstorm that introduces their story symbolizes the underlying peril that is about to unfold in criminal behavior and tragic loss.

The nature of medical practice in 1964 afforded the means and opportunity for David’s crime. The use of fetal ultrasound during pregnancy had not yet become the standard of care in the United States, so Norah’s pregnancy with twins had been undetected. Anticipating one birth, she chose the name Paul for a boy and Phoebe for a girl to cover either eventuality. Obstetrical care during delivery routinely relied on twilight anesthesia to mitigate the pain of labor, so a mother could be completely unconscious during the birth. Add to these plot points a blizzard that necessitates an emergency delivery in a deserted clinic and the stage is set for deception.

Down syndrome, a chromosomal condition known as trisomy 21, manifests in intellectual disability, heart weakness, and a shortened life span. In 1964, such children were cruelly and incorrectly considered defective, and no attempts were made to give them quality of life. Given his medical training in that era, David doesn’t see his daughter for who she is and who she could be. She becomes objectified as a world of grief that he must spare his wife from. He makes a snap decision that, at the time, was conventional for children born with Down syndrome. David’s chauvinism in not letting Norah meet her daughter and participate in the decision shows a callous disregard for the needs of his wife, who is also his patient. His further impulse to tell Norah that Phoebe was born dead springs from the need to simplify the narrative of their lives to one he can control. Norah’s deep grief over the loss of her daughter whom she never even met derails David’s quixotic plan to put the birth of Phoebe firmly in the past.

Caroline finds herself colluding in David’s scheme as her love for David overwhelms her professional ethics as a nurse. At first, she follows David’s orders until she visits the institution. Then she has faith that David will reconsider when she tells him that his solution proves to be inhumane. When Caroline finds out David has taken extreme steps to shut out Phoebe permanently from their lives by declaring her dead, Caroline must reconsider whether to report the falsification of records to the authorities. Reconciling David’s callous behavior with the doctor she has come to love and respect proves challenging. David plays on Caroline’s emotions in an expression of vulnerability and trust by kissing her hand and throwing himself on her mercy. He gives her permission to report him while reminding her that she also is culpable. She sees taking on the care of his daughter as an opportunity to connect intimately with David on a mission she has been seeking her entire life. Realizing that her life as a single mother in Lexington would be the end of her career, Caroline seeks a new life in the city where David once lived, Pittsburgh.

Next section February 1965

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