Anne Mahroum knows she's lucky. She's got a loving husband whose work as a dealer of rare coins provides a more than comfortable living, she's a successful artist in her own right - refurbishing tables at her shop, Anne of Green Tables - and she is a new mother. But Anne is also beset by a deep-seated discontent, by anxiety over her baby son's severely club feet, and by a sudden need to know more about the mystery surrounding her and her mother's abrupt escape from their hometown out West when she was five. Anne's mother Jean never speaks about their past. She is vague about who Anne's father is and why she broke all ties with her family so utterly. Now that Anne has her own child, she feels a need to connect to the people of her origins, yet at the same time, she can't help being embarrassed by her imperfect son, and ashamed by her failure to accept him as he is. 'Harmony' is a novel about fidelity, restlessness and the quest for perfection. As Anne struggles to care for Evan through painful casting and surgeries, and to rein in her sexual fantasies about a man in her club foot support group, she also begins pressing her mother to reveal the truth - never anticipating that the truth might be more than she wanted to know about where she comes from and who she is.

1.

Her baby needs surgery. Only six months old and his first wound will be the incision of a cold knife in his tender pink skin.

She scoops him protectively into her arms and smothers his scalp with kisses, stroking the soft patch of dark down that is getting thicker and thicker by the day. He will have jet black hair like his daddy but he’s got her eyes. Dark green, like a wine bottle. And the tiniest nose, red as a raspberry from all the crying; clear snot leaking onto his trembling lip. Soft, fierce arms that won’t let go of her neck. This is her baby boy. He is almost perfect. Almost, but not quite.

Dr. Hotz, Evan’s orthopedic surgeon, has reported some improvement in the right foot but very little in the left. She inspects both his feet now that the casts are off but neither of them looks any better. The heel is still drawn up and the toes are still pointing down, with the same deformed high arch as before.

“Will surgery make them normal?” she asks.

“Hopefully,” the doctor responds impassively. He looks bored to her. He always looks bored.

“Hopefully?” she repeats, her voice sounding high and squeaky, like she’s just swallowed helium. She clutches Evan to her breast.

“Anne, it’s not life or death,” Elie reminds her. “It’s only a cosmetic problem.”

“Surgery is always life or death,” she whimpers. “Especially for a baby.”

“Mrs. Mahroum, I’ve done hundreds of these corrective surgeries,” the doctor assures her.

Evan was born with severe bilateral club feet. The technician never detected it at Anne’s five-month ultra-sound. In the delivery room, her obgyn assured her it was a common birth defect, but after 22 hours of labour, the words ‘birth defect’ made her weep inconsolably. It was one of several pre-natal nightmares she’d had in her final months of pregnancy - the kind of worrying you do for worrying sake but never truly believe will come to pass.

The nurses managed to stuff Evan into her quivering arms and calm her down with soothing promises that the “problem” would be easily fixed. Anne and Elie had no idea what lay ahead. No idea that at six days old, their son would be put into two casts from his toes to his groin; that over the next five months, they’d be bringing him in to have his casts changed every week; that they would spend the first half year of his precious life agonizing over the possibility of surgery.

Despite all the casting, Evan’s feet are still completely twisted inward and look more like kidney beans than cute little baby feet. When he hoists himself upright into a standing position, which he’s just starting to do, he stands on the top of his feet rather than on the soles. It looks excruciating, but he doesn’t give up. No matter how frustrated he gets, he perseveres. Elie and Anne cheer him on, heartbroken and helpless, always pretending to celebrate each milestone. And when he sees them clapping, he smiles triumphantly, wobbling heroically on those contorted little feet.

All she wants from Dr. Hotz right now is a placating, uplifting promise. Yes, Mrs. Mahroum. Your son’s feet will be normal after the next casting. Your son will be perfect. You will have a perfect son with two perfect feet. You will never even know that he was born deformed.

“ - because in the delivery room,” she reminds Dr. Hotz, “the hospital pediatrician told us this was a minor problem that was one hundred percent correctible without surgery.” She emphasizes ‘minor,’ and ‘one hundred percent correctible,’ hoping to convince him with her testimonial.

“I would have been reluctant to make such extravagant promises that early on,” Dr. Hotz says cautiously. “The casting obviously isn’t doing anything for him.”

“But the pediatrician said -”

Elie puts his hand on her arm, his signal for ‘please restrain yourself.’ Evan is still crying. He will cry like this until they’re out of the hospital and he’s buckled into his car-seat and they’re driving away. Anne’s chest will be in knots until his sobbing subsides and he falls asleep. Lately, she is only ever at peace when her boy is still and quietly resting. She had no idea love could be so excruciating.

“Mrs. Mahroum, the prognosis after corrective surgery is excellent.”

“There wasn’t supposed to be a surgery,” she flares, wounded. “You said the casting would fix the problem. You said the tendons and ligaments were flexible enough to reposition.”

“I said I hoped the casting would fix the problem,” Dr. Hotz says wearily. “But both his feet are still very stiff and they aren’t even close to flexing into normal position. You do have the option to wait.”

“How long?”

He shrugs. “A few months.”

“Do you think they might correct themselves on their own?”

“They might. You never know.”

“Is it likely?” she asks impatiently, frustrated by his vagueness. Doesn’t he get that this is her son? And that this decision will alter the course of his entire life? “Is it likely they’ll correct themselves or not?”

“No.”

She looks at Elie, confused. “What should we do?” she asks, more out of ceremonial obligation.

“Anne, it’s your decision.”

She turns back to the doctor. “I don’t want to wait,” she tells him, with a flutter of nervousness in her chest. “I just want him to not be in pain anymore!”

“Even if there’s a chance his feet will heel without an operation?” Elie questions.

“I don’t want to wait,” she repeats, with growing confidence. “Especially since he’ll probably need the operation anyway.”

“Then I’ll schedule the first surgery for next month -”

“The first surgery?”

“I’m going to do the left foot first,” he says matter-of-factly.

She gets a sudden image in her mind of her tiny fifteen-pound baby sprawled helplessly on some gigantic operating table. The image leaves her cold. What if they give him too much anesthetic for his tiny body? What if he never wakes up? What if they correct his crooked little feet but he never wakes up to walk on them?

She has the urge to grab Evan and run out of the hospital, away from Dr. Hotz and her husband’s recriminating eyes, and mostly away from what lies ahead for her baby boy.

“Other than time,” she says, “is this our only option?”

Dr. Hotz nods. So much for the sublime reassurance she’d hoped for.

One of the most frustrating things about an affliction like clubfeet, which is inconvenient and painful but not life-threatening, is the infuriatingly self-righteous reactions she’s gotten from the doctors. Better his feet than his heart. You should be grateful it’s not cancer. You should be grateful it’s only aesthetic. You should be grateful he’s not retarded.

Even Elie - who, by the way, has never once stayed up during the night with her, soaking Evan’s limbs in vinegar baths to get the casts off – is always reminding her how grateful they should be that “feet can be fixed.” And always in his tone there is the unspoken reminder of what he has lived through, of where he comes from and the gravity of his past. Maybe he has a right to that outlook, but she resents that he makes her feel guilty and trivial about hers.

In the face of her son’s deformity, people seem to have withheld their compassion. Clubfeet? So and so’s daughter has leukemia. And yet she knows when they peer at her son’s twisted, mangled feet, they are relieved it’s not their child as they tell her to be grateful.

A child’s pain is unbearable to withstand, no matter what the affliction. Her boy’s anguished screams as the casts come on and off make it difficult to feel grateful. Yes, clubfeet can be fixed, but she doesn’t know if her son will ever walk normally or run or jump. She doesn’t know if his legs will be scarred for life. She worries he will be an outcast in school, hobbling around in leg braces like Forrest Gump. She worries he will remember the physical discomfort of the casts and the sponge baths and the operations for the rest of his life. What if he’s already emotionally scarred, before she and Elie even have a chance to get in there and do the damage themselves?

She made that vow, to love him the best she could. To give him everything she could. To shelter him from pain for as long as she could. He’s only been in the world for a matter of months and she’s already missed her mark. She failed him from the very moment of his birth.

“I read that Lord Byron had a club foot.”

This is meant to cheer the rest of them up. This is how they console each other at her Parents of Club Foot Babies support group. There are pictures of famous people who overcame clubfeet tacked to the wall. (Kristi Yamaguchi. Troy Aikman. Dudley Moore. Mia Hamm.) There are pamphlets scattered on the coffee table, all of them chock-full of factoids about clubfoot. (ie: It’s the most common birth defect; it’s one of the oldest birth defects; there are Egyptian mummies with clubfeet; it occurs more often in boys than in girls, blah blah blah.) Most of them are here because it is the only place they can get some genuine sympathy from anyone.

“I keep hoping that maybe this whole thing will give my son a certain depth he might not otherwise have had.” This from one of the few men in the group, a man called Declan Gray. He always comes alone. She’s never seen him here with his wife, which is unusual. He’s quite attractive, with aqua-blue eyes and dark brown hair the colour of fresh-turned soil. He’s the one bright spot in an otherwise abysmal situation.

“Maybe it’s where Lord Byron’s creativity comes from,” he adds optimistically. (That he’s heard of Lord Byron at all portends a half-decent intellect. It’s not a given with most men.)

“You’re saying his creativity comes from his club foot?” one of the other members questions indignantly.

“I’m saying maybe creativity can be enhanced by all the shit that goes along with having a deformity,” Declan explains. “Who’s to say that suffering early in life and being different can’t be an asset down the road? I like to believe it will add dimension to my son’s character, maybe even shape who he becomes. I don’t know to what degree, but I like to think that way, no matter how many people tell me he can be repaired as good as new.”

Anne gazes at Declan for a moment. He’s well-spoken, earnest, full of quixotic ideals. His theory momentarily uplifts her.

There’s a new woman in the circle tonight. She’s pale and fair-haired and slight. The rims of her eye are red and she keeps sniffling into a Kleenex. Typical of a first-timer. “My name is Courtney,” she squeaks. She has a high, clear voice, like a drop of water.

“Hi Courtney.” The familiar chorus. “Welcome.”

“My…my daughter has a clubfoot,” she blurts, as though it’s a dirty secret. She flicks her eyes up towards the group and scans the room nervously, trying to gauge their reactions. It’s obvious she’s ashamed, afraid the others might judge her. (As though the rest of them are there for the Krispy Kremes.) Courtney blows her nose again. “I’m so…I know this sounds awful,” she admits, between nose-blowings. “But I’m just so disappointed. I’m disappointed in my own daughter. I almost…I mean, when the doctor first told me, my reaction was I…I wanted to hide her! I still do. I’m always covering her up, covering up that thing…I don’t even want my parents to see her, or Jim’s parents, or Janet, my sister. Janet’s girls are perfect, naturally. And mine has this grotesque…this ugly…I just, I can’t let anyone see that foot and so I’ve been lying to people about it…No one can understand why I haven’t let anyone see her yet…”

Anne gives her a reassuring look. They’ve all had thoughts like Courtney’s, but only in the group are they emboldened enough to voice them aloud.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles. “Thanks for listening.”

“Thanks for sharing, Courtney.”

Now it’s Anne’s turn. She draws a breath. “My name is Anne.”

“Hello, Anne. Welcome.”

“Evan had his casts removed today and there hasn’t been any improvement. He has to have the operation.”

The woman to her left reaches for her hand.

“I could wait it out,” she admits. “We have the option to wait a few months and see if his feet correct themselves. But…”

Her voice tapers off. She feels the warmth of tears on her cheeks. “But I just don’t want to wait anymore. I want him to be normal.”

She lowers her head, ashamed. Someone hands her a fresh tissue. She smiles absently, knowing that at least these people understand how scary it is to send your six-month-old into an operating room where he will be put to sleep with gas. They understand caudal blocks and vague, semi-optimistic prognoses for the outcome. Most of all, they understand the guilt of being embarrassed by your own child. They never tell her to be grateful that it’s only aesthetic or that it can be fixed.

Like Anne, they don’t want to settle for anything less than perfection. view abbreviated excerpt only...

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