Chapter 4 - THE FOOT ALOYSIUS COULD NOT ACCEPT
The prenatal ultrasound had not shown clubfoot clearly.
At thirty-two weeks, the sonographer said one foot looked slightly turned.
Could be position.
Could be nothing.
Could be clubfoot.
We were referred for a follow-up scan.
The maternal-fetal medicine specialist said:
“If it is isolated clubfoot, outcomes are generally excellent with treatment.”
I asked about surgery.
“Sometimes. Often serial casting and bracing are very effective.”
Aloysius asked:
“Will she walk normally?”
“Most children do very well.”
“Will people see it?”
The doctor paused.
“During treatment, yes.”
I laughed softly because I thought he meant medical visibility.
He did not.
Afterward, in the parking garage, Aloysius said:
“I don’t want pictures of her in casts everywhere.”
I stared.
“What?”
“Family posts everything.”
“So we tell them not to.”
“You’re missing the point.”
“What point?”
“Our daughter’s first months become a medical story.”
I said:
“She’ll be a baby with a foot we treat.”
He became quiet.
I should have pressed.
I did not.
Then birth.
Our daughter came out crying.
Pink.
Strong.
Left foot clearly turned inward.
The pediatrician confirmed likely isolated clubfoot.
No other obvious congenital anomaly.
Aloysius stared.
He did not touch her foot.
Then he said:
“Could they be wrong?”
The pediatrician answered:
“Orthopedics will evaluate, but the appearance is characteristic.”
Aloysius asked whether it could have been prevented.
No.
Whether something I did caused it.
No.
I looked at him after that.
“Why would you ask that?”
“I’m asking questions.”
No.
He was looking for blame.
Then skin-to-skin.
I held our daughter.
She stopped crying.
I said her name.
“Leonie.”
We had chosen it at twenty-four weeks.
Caius liked it because he could say:
“Leo-neee.”
Aloysius had loved the name.
After seeing her foot, he stopped using it.
He called her:
the baby.
That should have frightened me.
Instead I told myself he needed time.
Men react differently.
New fathers get overwhelmed.
All the excuses women use when something feels ugly but not yet dangerous.
Then that first evening.
Caius visited.
Touched Leonie’s tiny toes.
Asked:
“Why bent?”
I said:
“She was born that way.”
“Does hurt?”
“No.”
“Fix?”
“Doctors will help.”
He accepted.
Aloysius did not.
He told Caius:
“Stop staring.”
Caius apologized.
I snapped at Aloysius.
“He’s six.”
That argument ended quickly because I was exhausted.
Then the next morning.
Aloysius took Leonie for her screening while I slept.
I had trusted him with his daughter.
Why would I not?
May you like
Now another baby was in my bassinet.
And my husband had spent the first hours of Leonie’s life treating her foot like a defect in a photograph.
