An Accidental Life (13 page)

I will always be there for you
, she promised.
I will always love you. I’m your mother. I am yours, and you are mine.

And then she rested her hand over the little bulge, feeling the new bond, the powerful attachment between a mother and child. For a long time she lay there on the chair beside the water taking all of this in. And she knew, now, that she was strong enough to make things work.

14

In the hotel lobby Rebecca stopped
at the reception desk to retrieve the key she’d dutifully left there on her way out, and was greeted by a desk clerk who appeared, as she spoke, to be stunned. “Signora Jacobs! There you are. We have received thousands of faxes for you!”

“Thousands?”

The woman threw up her arms, spun around, and hurried through a door behind the counter.

Rebecca stood waiting, wondering if Peter was awake. Now she couldn’t wait to tell him the news. The hotel driver from yesterday hurried through the lobby toward the front door and gave her a cheerful wave. She’d seen the car parked outside—on his way to the airport again, she supposed. She waved back.

The clerk returned clutching a stack of slick paper about an inch thick. “We’re not used to this, Signora. Most of our visitors here are on vacation.” She gave Rebecca a grim look as she handed them over. “Mamma mia, these took some time on our little machine.” Turning, she pulled the Jacobs room key from the slot, and handed it over.

“Thank you.” Rebecca smiled at the woman. “I hope this will be all the faxes.”

“I hope that also. Anyway,” the young woman’s expression smoothed and she dropped her arms onto the counter. “Perhaps our machine is now broken.”

Rebecca nodded, looking down at the Offering Memorandum she thought she’d handed off to Sydney.

Swooping up the key, she headed for the elevator, reading the fax cover sheet as she walked. Some new issues had come up, Sydney had written. She’d marked the changes in the document, but some would have to be approved by Rebecca, and they were hoping to finalize everything over the weekend.

The date and time stamp on the top of each page told her that the fax had been sent late last night, New Orleans time. A note on the first page suggested a time for a phone call. She glanced at her watch. She’d have about three hours to review this. She clicked her tongue against her teeth, then told herself that would still leave most of the afternoon for Peter. She would tell him this afternoon.

Peter was dressed and sitting on the terrace when she arrived. She called to him, and he turned and waved her out. Clutching the fax, she walked out onto the terrace.

“Did you get my message?”

“Yes. Woke up about twenty minutes ago. What’s that?” He eyed the papers in her hand.

“From Sydney.” She grimaced. “I’ll need to read this and give her a call. Have you had breakfast yet?”

“No. I ordered room service. Thought we could eat out here.”

A knock at the door interrupted.

“Breakfast is here.” Peter smiled down at her as he rose. Rebecca put the papers down on the table as Peter hurried to the door. “Out on the terrace, please,” she heard him say.

A small bird landed on the parapet, as if it knew that breakfast was coming. Peter followed the waiter and tray out onto the sun-glazed terrace.

She would prepare for the conference call with Sydney this morning. And then, later on, she would tell him.

The morning sun was still low in the sky, and the terrace was shady and cool. Rebecca sat outside, working at the table after breakfast. Peter had not minded and was inside now, working on his brief. Sydney had scribbled comments that were in contention on the margin of pages. As Rebecca thought about each one, she made a note on the same page, preparing for the phone call in—she glanced at her watch—two hours, now.

Just then the telephone rang. She heard Peter pick it up, and then he began talking and she bent over the document she was working on again. From his tone she knew the call was business. For something like the hundredth time, she thought about how much she and Peter were alike.

Peter sprawled on the bed with pillows plumped behind his back, talking to Mac on the phone. Outside he could see Rebecca, bent over her work. His eyes roved over the beautiful scene—his wife and the foliage and sea and sky behind her, and the coastline and the church. All of that beauty created a strange juxtaposition against the darkness of the case they were discussing. Following up on Glory Lynn Chasson’s complaint, Mac had tracked down the nurse, Clara Sonsten, the second nurse who’d been in the delivery room on the night Glory Lynn’s infant was born.

“I found her this morning. She’s working pediatrics at Baptist Hospital, and . . .” There was a pause. “We haven’t had time to really talk, yet. But I have a gut feeling she’s going to confirm everything that Glory Lynn said, Pete. She wouldn’t talk to me at work.”

“You think she’ll be able to help us with the time line, birth to death?”

“I’d bet my life on it.”

“Well, I’m not telling you how to do your job, Mac, but don’t lose her.”

“When do you get back?”

“Next Tuesday.”

“I thought I’d give her a few days. Thought I’d see what I can find on that other nurse, too. Eileen Broussard. The one married to Vicari. If she’s been working for Vicari for any length of time, I bet she knows plenty. I’ll see what I can find.”

“I’ve been thinking about Eileen Broussard. Let’s get that marriage certificate just to verify, but I’ll bet Vicari will claim the privilege and won’t let her testify against him for a deal.” Wind moved through the treetops near the terrace. He watched a flutter of scarlet petals floating onto the terrace near Rebecca.

When they’d finished the conversation and he’d hung up the phone, Peter stared unseeing at the walls before him. In his early years as a prosecutor, he’d learned to distance himself from the terrible facts that emerged in the cases he tried. But what he’d begun to think of as the Baby Chasson case didn’t allow it; that trick didn’t work with this one.

He told himself that as of now this was not yet a case—it was no more than a complaint filed by Glory Lynn Chasson. But one word kept rolling through his mind and he couldn’t let it go:
Intent
. Glory Lynn’s intent when she entered that delivery room was to abort a fetus. Charles Vicari’s intent when he began the procedure was to carry out to a conclusion the choice that she had made.

But what happened after the baby was born and separated from his mother? Had Vicari’s or Chason’s intentions changed after the birth when they realized that the infant was alive? Had Vicari’s duty to the Hippocratic oath kicked in so that he made the decision to try and save the child and something went wrong? And had Glory Lynn’s change of heart, as she claimed, invalidated her original consent?

So many questions to be answered. But Peter’s biggest fear, the question that underlay everything was whether this case was unique—an isolated incident.

He walked out onto the terrace. Rebecca looked up.

She saw misery in his face. Pushing aside the document that she’d been reading, she stood and met him on the other side of the table. Placing her hand on his cheek, she studied him. “What’s wrong?”

He pulled her into his arms, resting his chin atop her head for an instant, then, he stepped back. “It’s a case that Mac’s working, Rebbe.” He pulled out a chair. “Let’s sit.”

She sat down in her chair again. Peter slouched in his, legs stretched before him, elbows on the armrests, chin on his knuckles as he looked over her shoulder at the treetops and beyond that, the water. “The one you’ve been worrying about all week?”

He turned his eyes to her. “You noticed.”

“Sure. Tell me.”

He nodded and looked off again as he told her about the Chasson case, what Mac had found out so far. Immediately, when she heard about Glory Lynn hearing the infant’s cry right after birth, she crossed her arms and rested them over the little bulge. And then she listened, remaining quiet as he told her of his fear that this wasn’t an isolated case, his face taut with strain as he glanced at her then and wondered aloud how this could possibly be true.

And yet.

She listened, and she asked a few questions, offered a few words, trying to comfort him. But this case had struck Peter in some deep place and her words had no effect. Prosecutors were used to dealing with unthinkable crimes against innocent people, she told herself. Day after day they faced such horrors.

“It’s all just so sad,” he said.

She knew her decision to wait until the afternoon to tell Peter the news was the right one. There should be space between the Chasson infant case and her news. The two subjects should not be intertwined.

In the afternoon, after the call with Sydney was done, Rebecca and Peter wandered through Positano, trudging up and down the winding steps that spread in every direction through the village, while elderly men and women, locals used to the terrain, walked briskly by. Gradually Peter seemed to pull out of the earlier melancholy mood he’d sunk into after that phone call. Once, on a pathway, they stopped to admire an especially pretty view of the dancer’s island, and Rebecca found herself wondering whether they’d have a little girl who would love to dance. The thought caught her off guard, surprising her. Pondering this new perspective on life, she linked her arm through Peter’s and they walked on.

Yes. She decided. Something told her the baby was a little girl.

They went into a pottery studio and Rebecca fell in love with the large hand-painted urns. She ordered two. They could be shipped, the clerk assured. It would take three weeks.

They were almost back at the cove when Rebecca pulled Peter aside to admire the window display in a small shop. There were some pastels painted in the area that she pointed out to him, and straw hats and silk scarves, and a corner boutique of tiny, hand-embroidered dresses, and little playsuits, blankets, bonnets, and infant hats. After a moment, with a quizzical look, Peter tugged on her arm. She relented, walking on with a new spring in her step. Because, at last, a spark of excitement had taken hold, controlling Rebecca now. This was something new; something she could never have imagined. She was a mother.