Excerpt from my novel White Lies: A Tale of Babies, Vaccines, and Deception

In the shadowy place of my memories Danny stays small and blue-eyed, sweet and happy. I've been over it and over it a thousand times. There's always something missing, some piece of the puzzle I can't quite figure. That June morning in 1969 I remember how he grabbed the spoon with his fingers, tugging eagerly. You'd have hardly known he had a fever except for those little crying fits like someone was pinching him. When I'd called Doc Snowden's office the day before, his nurse Mary said if Danny wasn't back to his old self in the morning, call again.

Although the days blur together—in 1969 he spent weeks on end in the hospital—the day of that first seizure is the one day I can't forget. He was three months old, his hair, already starting to curl like Scott's. I remember thinking when he grew up, he would be handsome and smart, thanks to my brand new college-graduated husband. And brave and kind because I'd make sure of that. Was I nutty about that baby? Oh, yeah. A baby of my own was the one thing I'd wanted since I was a little girl.

I know what they say about infants and gas, but that morning when Danny raised his head, he was definitely smiling. I only left him for a minute—to mix his cereal—maybe not even a minute. He sputtered a little bit, coughed. But after the cough there was no noise at all and when I rushed back to the living room, he was gasping for air, his legs sticking straight out from his knees like a broken jackknife. His face had gone all white. And he was making scratchy sounds as if he were scrabbling up a boulder.

Just as he started to slide out of the baby seat, I grabbed him. Pounded his back. Yelled for help. But when I put my finger on his tongue to keep him from choking like they showed us in baby class, he clamped down and wouldn't let go.

On the landing I banged on doors. Out came George, the apartment manager, half-dressed, looking for the fire. I'm standing there in my nightgown, screaming like a lunatic. He grabbed my elbow and pulled. When my finger popped loose, Danny wheezed as if there weren't enough air in the world. George drove us straight to the hospital. Ran every light. On the median strip. Honking the whole way. And right before the emergency doors he scraped a parked car, but that didn't slow him down any.

Weird, isn't it, how a person's brain works? Despite all that panic, I can see the color of his car. And the slippers I was wearing. Twenty-one years later that's what sticks. That yellow car and those red slippers. Like a hand in front of the sun, they keep my mind from the rest of the memory; the feel of Danny's legs dangling against my stomach and the sight of his eyes rolled back and his skin turning blue. His eyes were open, but he never blinked. The nurse grabbed him right out of my arms and walked away without saying a thing.

You'd think in a big city hospital there'd be a ton of people. Ambulances and doctors rushing around. But that hospital was like a funeral home. No noise, nothing moved. And on the floor there was a single line of black tile. One line in a great wide ocean of white, winter everywhere. Not a real color, just cold, cold enough to drown in. It was July in Virginia for God's sake and I was frozen. Over and over I mixed that stupid oatmeal and heard that sound when he stopped breathing. But I couldn't step across the damn line.