Concealed Attractions (Cedar Island Tales) (51 page)

Ben arrived home
that afternoon
,
knowing only
that the baby had died
, probably of SIDS,
and
that
Danni
was not talking. He went directly to her
,
pulled
her
up
out of the rocker and into his arms
.

She was
limp
in his arms for a few moment
s
. Then as if a dam was breaking in him, Ben began
to weep.
For
the first time since the paramedics had
taken the
baby
from her
,
Danni
too began to
cry
,
quietly at first and
then louder, keening her
utter
despair.
Ben knew
her heart
was
shattered,
perhaps
never to be repaired
.
He felt the
sam
e, swaying with her, weeping with her
, wanting so much to make things better, knowing he could not
.

Anna left them, covering the untouched dinner she had made.

Her face tear-streaked
and swollen
,
Danni
finally
spoke
, her voice
hoarse
.
“The police were here. They think I did something or didn’t do somet
hing.
”

Ben shook his head.
“
It wasn’t you.
They have to ask questions. I’m sure they know you didn’t do anything. They kno
w you
love
d Jimmy. That big
paramedic
,
M
ike
?
I talked to him.
H
e was at
Jimmy’s
baptism. And, he saw you at the clinic when he brought
his
neigh
bor’s
old w
olfhound in
after he tangled with a porcupine
. He knows—”
His voice broke
again
as he held and rocked her.

The two of them
clung to
each other
for hours, moving from the living room, t
o the kitchen, and back again.
Finally, when she could no longer keep her eyes open, Ben
tucked
Danni
in
to bed, and
took
a long walk on the beach.
When he returned to the cottage, she was
again
sitting in the rocking chair, holding the
rainbow
quilt
her mother had made
, and crooning as if it still held
Jimmy
. When she did not respond to his questions
and refused to move
, he lay down in the smaller bedroom and tried to sleep.

The next day,
Danni
said,
her voice dull,
“I
should have checked
him
sooner, kept him
in my
bed
. He always nurses
so well there.”

“
But,
Danni
.
I
talked
to Angela. She
said it happens
. That’s
what the paramedics
said
, too. It wasn’t your fault.
Jimm
y
was
a
t
least
three weeks early. P
reterms are more likely
—they’re at greater risk—
”
he gulped, “
for SIDS
.”

“But he was so healthy, Ben, until he
caught
that cold.
Maybe
we
shouldn’t have taken him on the beach
during
our walks
.”
 

He’d been thinking the
sam
e thing
, but he didn’t want to add to her guilt
. “B
ut
h
e always was so nicely wrapped up—in your mom’s blanket
and snuggled against us. On my chest or yours
.
You took him to see Angela. He didn’t even have a fever. Nothing she could treat.
”

He looked around at all the
baby
items
scattered around the room
. “Should we p
ut his things away?
It might be easier for you,
so you won’t be reminded.
”
Except he didn’t think it would make a difference
, for
either of them.
How could they
ever
forget Jimmy?

“No! I can’t.
” She pulled away from him and
burst into tears.
“
You don’t understand.”

She refused to be comforted. Th
rough much of the
night he listened to
her
movements
as she paced
, her
thrashing in the bed when she finally lay down,
sounds
that told him she wasn’t sleeping either.

At the clinic
the next day
,
his
eye
s fe
lt
as if
shards of glass
had clustered
under his lids
.
Ben
told Joel
, “I should have been
there.
I know I would have heard him
if he was choking.”

Joel shook his head.
“
Listen
to your
self
, Ben
. What
Angela
told
Danni
applies to you
, too
. This sort of thing happens, and it’s not something parents can prevent
,
even when they’
re in the
sam
e room
.
You know that.
Didn’t Angie
show
you
th
os
e research
studies
?
”

He nodded grudgingly.
“But it w
asn’t supposed to happen
. Not
to
Jimmy
.
”
He rubbed his eyes and concentrated on the procedures he had to
complete
. When
he continued to fumble
through a particularly difficult spaying
, Joel took over and told
Ben
to go home and get some sleep.

He
walked out of the clinic
and
took
a solitary walk
on the beach, unable to
shed
his
guilt,
convinced
he
should
have seen
that
the baby was in
trouble
at the first sign of his cold
.

Jimmy
had been
his
link
to Dannilynn
. Would she now turn away from him? He went over in his mind all the things they had done together
since she’d first shared the news that she was pregnant
, how he felt about the baby, his child in so many ways, and how he felt about
Danni
.
When she was pregnant, he had thought s
he was
n’t
ready to hear that he
love
d her. Now she c
ouldn’t hear it
,
not while she was grieving a loss he never dreamed they would face.
He slept poorly, if at all, knowing
Danni
wasn’t
sleeping
,
either.
 

Only f
ive
w
eeks before, they
had
celebrated
the baby’s baptism. Now they gathered for a privat
e memorial service and burial. This time o
nly the family and
their
closest friends attended
. Each time Anna
,
dressed
in black,
looked
at the ti
ny white casket, she wept
as she stood next to
Danni
, Ben
on the other side of her
, each of them holding her hand
. W
hen the time came,
Anna
placed
a bonnet and booties she
had
made for the baby next to
his
still
body
.

Danni
insisted on wearing the
sam
e red dr
ess she had worn at his baptism,
as if denying the reason they were there. Ben
staye
d
next to h
er,
his arm around her,
unable to
share
how he felt
, afraid if he s
howed how much he was grieving Danni
would feel
that much
worse
. Even with
Julie
, he shared
a minimum
of details.

After they
gathered briefly at Anna’s for lunch,
he
drove
Danni
back to the cottage. He knew something was wrong when they
arrived
and the front door was
standing
open
, the screen door hanging by one hinge
. 

“Stay in the car and lock the doors!”
He
rac
ed into the house.
Chairs had been knocked
over and drawers had been pulled out. The kitchen was a mess, with fo
od and utensils on the floor
.

The same man he had seen months earlier
was standing in the living room staring at the pictures of the baby
. He
turned and
looked past Ben to where Danni was standing,
her face pale and pinched
.

“What are you doing here?” Ben demanded.

“What’s it to you?”
he
replied. “I
heard she lived here
.”
He took two s
teps toward Danni, who backed away from him.

Ben
grabbed the man by the arm
,
swinging him around
.
Danni
’s old
boyfriend.
Steve.
“Well, it’s time you le
ft
.” He pulled Steve out of the house and onto the porch, away from Danni.

“
Just wanted to see if it was true
.”
Steve
pulled his arm away and swung at Ben,
h
is
first mistake.

Ben blocked the
blow with his left arm
and cocked his
right
fist. “
That what was true?
W
hat were you
look
ing for?”

“
I heard she had a
kid
.
I’m betting it’s
mine.”
Steve’s
second mistake.

Ben’s heart turned to stone
and then
his grief at Jimmy’s death blaz
ed
into fury
as he stared at the man.
“That baby was never
yours. You
didn’t
deserve him.” T
he frustration and
anguish
he
felt
was behind his fist as it smashed into
the shorter man
’s nose.

Steve
went down
to
his knees and grabbed
at
Ben’s legs, knocking him off balance.
Both men tumbled off the porch. They
grappled
on the ground
,
alternately
swinging wildly or with better aim
, connecting
with
a
body and face
.
When he
finally
stood up,
Ben’s greater height gave him an advantage
.
He pulled
Steve
to his feet
. As the man
swayed and moved toward him again,
Ben
hit him
on the side of
the
head
. The
s
horter man
fell, his
strawberry blond
hair
now
spotted with blood
as it
splayed on the
sandy soil
.