Custody (38 page)

“No, I don’t know that one.” Reaching over, he took Kelly’s hands in his. “You’ve gotten icy cold. What’s wrong?”

“I—Nothing.” She slipped his card into her purse. “I’ll let you go now.”

“Just for the morning. We’ll see each other this afternoon, right?”

“Right.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. I’m fine.”

“You know I’ll see you this afternoon.”

“Yes. I know.”

She stumbled from his Jeep. Leaning against her own car, she watched Randall drive off, beneath the stone gates, down the winding road.

“Dear God,” she moaned, rubbing her hands over her face. She could still feel his kiss on her mouth, the imprint of his hands on her shoulders.

She could still see the picture of his daughter. The image was burned into her mind.

Blindly, she walked up the avenue toward her mother’s grave.

This time she didn’t see the trees, lush with summer, heavy with shadows. She didn’t feel the pressing heat.

She saw white hospital walls, hot lights, the doctor in a white gown and mask, a nurse in green scrubs.

She saw her knees bent, covered with white sheets, and another nurse coming toward her with an oxygen mask.

She was in a strange town on the other side of the state, a town Professor Hammond had found for her, a place where she could finish her pregnancy in anonymity. She had no friends, and she’d told no one about this child she was carrying for another couple.

She knew that labor would be painful. She’d read accounts of birth in novels, seen women grimacing on television shows. She had discussed everything with the obstetrician, who
recommended that she have an epidural when the time came.

And then the time came.

Two weeks earlier than expected.

She took a cab to the hospital. It was ten o’clock at night, in February, in the middle of an ice storm. The roads were glassy, and ice fell from the sky, breaking on the windshield of the cab with an almost musical clinking, like crystal beads.

The hospital was in chaos. The ice had caused a bus of schoolchildren returning from a play in Albany to slide off the road. Ambulances screamed and glittered at the entrance to the hospital, cars came sliding into the parking lot, terrified parents spilling out the doors.

The emergency entrance was congested, the nurses pressed upon by frantic fathers and mothers, and if the cabdriver had not taken pity on Kelly and half carried her into the admitting room, she might not have made it inside.

But the cabdriver was loud and persistent. Somehow in the midst of the screaming children and frightened parents, Kelly was wheeled to a room and left to undress. She was told the doctor was on his way. She was helped onto a high bed. A nurse checked her dilation, told her she was coming along nicely, not to worry, nothing was going to happen for a few hours at least.

She lay on the high bed, hearing the cries of children in the corridors. Then she was aware of nothing but her own pain. She wished her mother were with her, or a friend, or a lover. It occurred to her that she could not do this. She could not endure this. She’d been a fool to think she could.

Perhaps they forgot about her. It felt like it. She ached with pain. She was afraid. She cried for her mother. She was alone for a very long time, until her screams—she could not hold them back—brought a nurse and doctor running toward her.

“I can’t do this!” she wept. “Help me, please!”

“The baby’s crowning,” the doctor told her. “Push.”

She pushed, not because the doctor told her to, but because her body
insisted
, and then she heard a wail, high, triumphant, indignant.

“It’s a girl,” the doctor said.

The nurse took the baby to the side of the room while the doctor coached the placenta from Kelly’s body. Perhaps because the nurse hadn’t been informed, or perhaps in the chaos she’d forgotten: the nurse brought the baby to Kelly. She put the baby in Kelly’s arms. She went away, and Kelly looked down at her child.

The baby was pale, with dark blue eyes that fastened on Kelly’s and would not look away. She was very calm, and she seemed to be listening. Certainly she was alert, aware, and
waiting
.

Kelly said, “Hello, baby.” The baby squirmed and puckered her perfect mouth in reply.

Kelly touched the baby’s head—it was small, and very hot, and it fit exactly into the curve of Kelly’s palm.

She was so perfect, so new, so fragile. She gazed at Kelly with such trust, and when she rooted toward Kelly’s breast, Kelly was flooded with helpless, overpowering love.

I have a daughter, she thought.

“Oh, my darling girl,” Kelly whispered. She loosened the blanket wrapped around the baby and studied her child. Her stomach and chest seemed enormous, her limbs long and thin. She was as pale as the ice outside the windows, and with a similar glitter to her skin.

On the left side of her neck was a dark brown mark, like a leaf.

“Is something wrong with her?” Kelly asked the nurse.

The nurse peered down. “Oh, no. That’s just a birthmark. Distinctive, isn’t it?”

“Will she always have it?”

“Well, yes. She won’t feel it. It doesn’t hurt or anything. When she’s a young woman she might consider it unattractive. Then a plastic surgeon can remove it, but that would be years and years away.”

“Nurse.” The doctor’s voice was brusque.

The nurse went off. Kelly stared and stared at the baby in her arms. Her eyes were so large and full of something like wisdom, and she made funny little squeaks, as if she were trying to speak. Kelly had never seen anything so endearing, so beautiful, so
perfect
.

The nurse came back. “All right, dearie, off we go.” She lifted the baby from Kelly’s arms.

The baby turned scarlet and wailed at the separation. I must protect her! Kelly thought.

“No,” she said, shoving back her sheets.

“Nurse,”
the doctor said.

The nurse rushed out the door.

An arrow of anger shot through Kelly. She struggled to sit up. She wanted to throw herself from the hospital bed, grab the baby, and run.

The doctor moved to stand with his body between Kelly and the door. “Well done.” He patted her on the shoulder. “You did a fine job, Ms. MacLeod. I’m sure the parents will be
thrilled to have such a nice healthy baby girl. And you’re looking good yourself. Nice blood pressure, good steady vital signs. We’ll wheel you into a recovery room as soon as we get one free. That might be a while, with all those poor people out there. You just take it easy now, and rest.”

“Where are they taking my baby?”

“Now, now, that’s not your concern. The baby’s in good hands. You’ve done your job. Now you get to rest.”

But when the doctor strode out through the swinging doors, Kelly did not rest. She sobbed. She shook with sobs. She thought her heart would break.

Kelly sat at her mother’s grave, remembering her daughter’s birth.

She hadn’t wanted children, until she’d held her own daughter in her arms.

She hadn’t wanted marriage or “love,” whatever that was.

She’d wanted justice. She’d
burned
with the need to make
something
right. Being powerless, she’d wanted power. And she’d wanted to be an advocate for others who were powerless, especially for children.

She could not make her mother give her back the money that was meant for her. She could not make her mother choose her daughter’s rights over her husband’s desires. She couldn’t change the world. But she could change some things in it.

Over the past twelve years she’d worked hard. The more she worked, the more she saw needing to be done. She’d represented clients no one else had wanted, people desperately in need of baths, and toothbrushes, and AA meetings, and therapy. She’d fought with all her might for what she believed in, working in a system that was flawed, confusing, sometimes maddening. She’d seen terrible miscarriages of justice due to the incompetency of a battered woman’s lawyer up against the expensive expertise of a lawyer hired by an abusive husband. She’d seen exhausted judges make stupid mistakes that wrecked lives. She’d seen greedy lawyers lie. She’d given her heart to clients who didn’t know how to speak the truth, and she’d given her heart to clients who could speak eloquently yet lied, lied to her, their own advocate. She learned that the law was imperfect, impeded, arbitrary, exhausted. She’d learned that lawyers were manipulative, exploitative, egomaniacal, and deceitful.

She’d learned that what her mother had done, giving away Kelly’s legacy to a new husband in the name of love was
nothing
compared to what “love” made some people do.

But she’d also seen judges making rulings so wise it took Kelly’s breath away. She’d seen judges who understood how each couple standing before them was new, special, each time, and each time deserving of their fresh, careful attention and profound wisdom. She’d seen judges who were exhausted, sneezing into handkerchiefs, popping throat lozenges, eyes drooping like a basset hound’s, still sitting into the cold depths of a bleak winter afternoon, patiently working with an estranged couple, handling the moment that blossomed around them with the delicacy of a master artisan shaping fragile glass, not closing court no matter how tired they were, because that frail moment would not tolerate interruption and would never come again … and she’d seen some couples reconcile and go forward with their lives together, and she’d seen more couples, sagging with sadness, divorce.

She’d begun by wanting justice in all its theoretical purity.

She’d arrived, desiring to be a judge, impure, imperfect, learned, exhausted, compassionate, and wise.

But she hadn’t counted on
this
happening. She hadn’t dreamed that one day she’d fall in love with the man who had fathered her own child.

Ten

T
ESSA LAY
,
FULLY DRESSED
,
ON TOP OF HER BED
. Her father was coming to take her to breakfast, but somehow she couldn’t get excited about it. Since her mother had said those things about the photograph of her with Chad, Tessa felt numb. Within her chest her heart ached, as cold as the tips of her fingers.

Through her window came the crackling sound of tires over gravel. Her father was here. She had to get up. With enormous effort, she forced herself from bed and out into the hall. She could say she didn’t feel well enough to go out—that was true—but she didn’t want to hurt her father’s feelings, especially since he knew she was going out this afternoon with her mother, campaigning door-to-door. She had no choice about that.

She heard the clicking of her mother’s heels over the hall floor.

“Good morning, Anne.” Her father sounded happy. “Where’s Tessa?”

“In her room. I’ll call her in a moment. I want to speak with you privately first.”

“Anne—”

“I’ll be brief.” The heels clicked away down the hall to Anne’s study.

Tessa’s stomach heaved. Her mother had
promised
not to tell her father about the photograph with Chad. She’d
promised
not to show it to him. Tessa would
die
if her father knew she’d been doing anything so gross.

She raced down the stairs, tripping over her own feet, nearly falling, wrenching her arm as she caught herself on the banister.
Calm down!
she ordered herself. She’d look
really
guilty if she showed up out of breath, out of control.

Her mother hadn’t shut the door to her study. Halfway down the hall, Tessa could hear her parents clearly. Tessa froze in the hall, listening hard.

“—help me with my campaign, so she won’t be attending camp any longer.”

“Anne, I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

“I’m sure you don’t. But it’s what Tessa wants. You can ask her yourself.”

“Anne—”

“But something has come up that I think you’ll like. Sarah called this week. She invited me and Tessa to come to Nantucket for the weekend. I think
you
should go. You and Tessa.”

“Sarah’s
your
mother, Anne.”

“That doesn’t alter the fact that she prefers your company. Besides, you like the island more than I do. Look, I’m trying to be positive. I’m trying to offer you something you and Tessa would both enjoy.
You’re
the one who’s always insisting that Tessa should be outdoors more. Here’s a chance for you to spend some time with Tessa. Swimming. Sailing. Playing tennis. Whatever.”

“Next weekend?” Her father sounded reluctant.

“Randall, you’ve taken Tessa to your father’s every weekend for months now. The least you can do is give equal time to my parents.”

“I would think that’s the least
you
can do.”

“You know damned well every moment of my life is booked right up to the night of the election.”

Tessa’s father sighed. “Why did Sarah specify next weekend?”

“Lord, Randall, why does my mother do
anything
? She’s got all sorts of immigrants living there, working, and she said something about putting up some visiting musicians who’ll be performing for the art society at the end of the month. You can ask her when you see her. If next weekend’s not convenient, phone her about it. I would have thought you would jump at the
chance to take Tessa off for a weekend. I guess you’re going to balk at any suggestion I make.”