Family Trouble: Memoirists on the Hazards and Rewards of Revealing Family

Sally Could Delete Whatever She Wanted

29 Sally Could Delete Whatever She Wanted paul austin When I was writing a book about the way my job as an emergency room doctor almost wrecked my family, my wife and I had the following agreement: I could write whatever I wanted, and she could delete whatever she wanted. No apology, no explanation. This allowed me to write without restraint, while preserving a marriage that has sustained me for twenty-seven years. We have always made our decisions together: whether we have another child, where we will live, which job I should take. I trust her with our checkbook and our children; why would I not trust her with my writing? I’ve read articles in Poets & Writers and other magazines in which some memoirists seem hesitant to ask a spouse or sibling about a point they’re hazy on. But I’m an er doc. And if I’m not sure that I remember the correct dose of a drug, I look it up, or I ask a nurse, or one of the other docs. Doesn’t take but a second. I would hope my own doctor would do the same. I have the same expectation of my electrician: if he isn’t sure that a fourteen-gauge wire is heavy enough for the circuit going to our room addition, I want him to ask someone. I wouldn’t want to wake up to a house full of fire just because someone whose expertise I trusted failed to double-check an important detail. Of course, my arrangement with Sally hinged on trust. Something for the Pain: One Doctor’s Account of Life and Death in the er has several chapters about the stress I carried home from work, and the corrosive effect it had on our family. It wasn’t “my story,” or “her story.” 30 Austin It was “our story.” And if I planned to snap open the curtains of our living room, and toss back the covers of our bed, I thought it was only fair to give Sally a red pen, to mark through things she wouldn’t want her mother, or our children, to see. Speaking of our children, they didn’t get to vote. And that brings up a difficult question: Is it possible to write about our children ethically ? Are they able to give permission? In the emergency room, I always obtain informed consent prior to performing a risky procedure . Before I stick a three-inch needle in a patient’s back to drain off cerebral spinal fluid, I make sure the patient understands the dangers and benefits of the procedure. And before I give someone a sedative so I can pull a dislocated shoulder back into place, I explain that the medicine may cause him to quit breathing. The patient signs his name at the bottom of a piece of paper, documenting that he thoroughly understands that the procedure may harm, rather than help him. If it’s a child, the mother or father signs. I’ve told our children, Sarah, John, and Sam, that they’re in the book, and they don’t seem to care one way or the other. I’ve read to John and Sam the passages in which they appear. With Sarah, it was different. She has Down syndrome. She will never read the book. She is twenty years old and lives in a group home, surrounded by caring people. I can’t imagine the circumstance in which someone would say something harmful to her, after reading my book. But there are passages in the book that would hurt her, if she could read them. Should I have left those passages out? I could’ve limited my writing to stories about our plucky, cute, loving daughter—all of those qualities are abundantly present. I could fill a book with heart-warming lessons that my wife and I learned about unconditional love—we’ve learned a lot. But the fact is, our marriage took a hit. So did my expectation that life would be fair. To leave that out would be false. And there may be a dad somewhere with a daughter with Down syndrome, and he may read the book and gain some comfort knowing that he wasn’t the first father to feel disappointed that his daughter would never read beyond a sixth-grade level. Some mother may gain peace, knowing that she wasn’t the only person who had wor- [3.133...