The Birthday

John Grisham

The good doctor awoke in the darkness just before noon. Somehow, through the black-painted windows, a
ray of sunshine bounced and reflected and landed in a faint circle on the carpet. He turned away from it,
moaning, and rattling the cheap metal frame under the dirty mattress.

His eyes burned but he did not touch them. He opened and closed them, blinking slowly in a hopeless effort
to see without hurting. His brain pounded fiercely against his skull—the aftermath of a fifth and a half of six-
dollar vodka.

Today was another birthday. The mail would arrive at two. He cursed the vodka, a morning ritual. This was
the eighth birthday. She had found him last year in this battered trailer in this armpit mobile-home ghetto
where engineless pickups were parked in the streets like statues people were proud of, and where illegitimate
toddlers urinated on the curbs, and where televisions shrieked nonstop through ragged storm doors. She had
somehow tracked him here. She always knew where to find him.

He took a job selling medical supplies and moved into a duplex where no one could find him. The sixth
birthday was on a Sunday, and he was asleep, dreaming, when someone knocked on the door. He just missed
her, but she left another envelope with a picture of the birthday boy, now thinner, shriveled, more grotesque.
There was no note. He cried over the photo and went for the narcotics. He woke up three days later without a
job.

He served ninety days for shoplifting, and borrowed money for the last time from his mother. He found this
trailer. He sold some of his pills to buy food.

* * *

He sipped the vodka and read for the hundredth time the newspaper account of a good doctor gone bad. The
jury gave Jeffrey four million, and the appellate court affirmed. His ex-wife took what she wanted, and he
bankrupted the rest. His malpractice carrier paid its limit of a half a million to little Jeffrey and there was
simply no more with the bankruptcy and all. He loved to play tennis, the paper said.

The seventh picture was the worst. Jeffrey's head was much too large for his body, and it was clearly just a
matter of time before the birthdays ceased. Last year when he opened the envelope, he sat at the same table
and cried over the pictures until he made himself sick and vomitted.

Suddenly, he was cold. He pulled the robe tighter around his neck and stuffed his hands deep in the pockets.
The folder contained many other things, the divorce papers, letters from lawyers, notices from the state
medical board. But he'd read them a thousand times, and the words never changed. He'd looked at the
pictures of the little boy a thousand times and prayed hopelessly that the next one would show a healthy kid
on a new bike with a big birthday smile. He had grieved over the pictures, gotten drunk over them, moved
around like a gypsy because of them, hated them, planned suicide over them. But he wanted to see the next
one. Maybe it would be different.
He was drunk now. He drained the plastic cup and threw it on the floor. He collected the photos, wrapped the
rubber band back around them, and stood up. His hands were shaking, and he was mumbling to himself when
he heard a faint knock on the door. He froze, having no idea what to do. Then, another knock. He held the
table for support. A female voice said, "Dr. Green?" She was on the steps.

He made his way to the door and opened it slowly. He peeked around the facing through the storm door. For
a moment they studied each other. She seemed to have aged well in the seven years since he had seen her.
She was wearing a red dress and a long dark coat. Her eyes were wet. He could hear a car idling not far away.
There was nothing in her hands, no envelope, nothing.

"I didn't bring a picture," she said.

He felt himself getting sick. He leaned on the door facing her, but could think of nothing to say. The
birthdays were over.

"Jeffrey died two months ago," she said with the resignation of one who was grieving but knew the worst was
over. She wiped a tear from her cheek.

"I'm sorry," he said in a voice so weak and shaky that he was inaudible. He tried again, "I'm so sorry."

"Yes, I know," she said. Another tear emerged from her eye and then she actually smiled. She breathed
deeply. "I'm tired of hating you, Dr. Green. I've hated you so much for eight years, and now it's over. Jeffrey's
gone. He's better off now, and I have the rest of my life to live, don't I?"

He was able to nod slightly. He gripped the doorknob from the inside.

"So, I don't hate you anymore. I'm not going to follow you, and I'm not going to send pictures. And I'm sorry
for doing those things." She paused. "I want you to forgive me."

He collapsed and fell to the floor, crying and sobbing pathetically. She knelt on the steps and watched him
through the door. He covered his eyes with his hands.

"Please forgive me, Doctor," she said.

"I'm so sorry," he managed to say between hard, loud sobs. "I'm so sorry." He rolled to his side and curled
together like a napping child. She stood, watching him. Then she left him there, crying and shaking and
groaning to himself.

He awoke on the floor a few hours later. The door was still open, and through it he could hear the sounds of
children riding bikes and playing games in the street. He could hear loud TVs through open doors as the
heavy housewives had their daily visits with Oprah.

He was too weak and too drunk to stand, so he crawled across the green shag carpet in the den to the dirty tile
in the kitchen and back onto the carpet as it led down the hall to the bedroom.

He locked the bedroom door as if someone out there might want to stop him. The pistol was under the
mattress. He knew he didn't have the courage to use it, but something forced him closer to it. He felt a strong
desire to at least hold the gun in his hands.