In Memoriam (2 page)

“Your mother needs to get over it,” Dan said.

“Good luck with that, Dan,” Lisa said. “You don’t know my mother. She either forgives unconditionally or holds a grudge forever. I hate to tell you what side of the fence you fall on.”

“I notice she forgave you,” Dan replied.

“I’m her flesh and blood,” Lisa said smugly. She looked at him, frightened that a man who was supposed to love her would start a conversation like this an hour after she’d given birth to his child.

“Your mother doesn’t impact our happiness unless we give her the power,” he said, coming over to the side of the bed. “As far as I’m concerned, we never have to talk about her again. Sorry I even said anything. My emotions must be raw.” He looked at her deadpan, and she burst out laughing.

“Oh, I see,” Lisa said. “I’m the one who just had a baby, and we have to skirt around
your
hormones. Better let your family know what shape you’re in before we get home.”

“A little of my family goes a long way. I think I’m going to ask them to back off for a while.”

Lisa stifled a sigh of relief.

“Unless you think we need them to help out.”

“No. We have Gladys,” Lisa said, determined to maintain some control. “She’ll help us as much as she is able, and we won’t even know she’s there.”

Dan bent over to kiss Lisa on the cheek and reached for his son. Life would certainly change for him now that he had an heir.

Chapter 2

Saturday morning should have been a time of rest, family and reenergizing. But for Sandra Benson, it was fraught with angst. The source of the only joy in her life came from her infant son, Thomas Brent. But at three months of age, what he was capable of giving her besides a fleeting smile and a poopy diaper was limited.

Childbirth classes taught fathers were often jealous of the new baby, a fact Sandra thought appalling.
Why in the hell would a grown man feel his own child was taking attention away from him?
Her worst nightmare was realized; Tom was jealous! When she found out she was pregnant, the possibility a faulty condom exposed Tom to HIV stole the joy from those first days. She kept waiting for him to join in the excitement, but he seemed unable or unwilling, even after a negative HIV test.

“I’m worried about his safety,” Tom said, and Sandra remembered that he was a witness to her heartbreak when baby Ellin died. She’d discovered she was pregnant with Jack Smith’s baby right after Jack died. Jack was Pam’s late husband. Then she met Tom, and they started to date. At five months, Sandra went into labor, losing Ellin. The doctor advised her not to get pregnant again; the risk for the baby was too great because she was HIV positive.

In spite of their precautions, she’d still gotten pregnant. “Doctor Jacobs says everything is fine,” Sandra reassured him. “Let’s try to enjoy it. I feel so lucky.”

But Tom was not convinced. Extremely careful when they had sex, she didn’t realize just
how
careful; he didn’t haphazardly put a condom on. He inspected it first, used only water-based lubricants, and afterward inspected it again. Although there was no proof it helped, he urinated and washed off with soap. Secretly confiding in his stepmother, Gwen, a nurse, she tried to help him relax.

“Just enjoy the baby, Tom!” she encouraged him. “Look at him as a gift.”

But Tom was hard to convince. He had a feeling he just couldn’t shake.

All through her pregnancy, Sandra kept waiting for Tom to come around, hoping his disinterest was just what he claimed it was, fear for the safety of their baby. But when she delivered, Tom distanced himself further.

Both dark haired and brown eyed, baby Brent had thick blond hair and blue eyes that everyone said would change in time. But Sandra wasn’t sure that was true. The first time Pam saw him, she wept. “He looks like one of
my
babies,” she exclaimed. That night after everyone left, Sandra crept down to the nursery and tapped on the window.

“Can I see baby Adams?”

“Go back to your room, and I’ll bring him around,” the nurse said, smiling.

So Sandra did as she was told, getting back into bed. The nurse brought him to her in a little wheeled cart, pushing it up to the bed. Sandra leaned over and pulled the blanket away from his face as soon as the nurse left. Baby Brent. She chose the middle name in honor of Pam’s son Brent, who’d died the previous June. Murdered by his girlfriend’s father. Tom didn’t bat an eyelash when he heard the name. Thomas Brent. But when she was alone, Sandra started calling him Brent. Baby Brent.

“Come here, baby Brent,” Sandra whispered, picking the swaddled bundle up. “Oh, you’re such a big boy!” He’d weighed in at over eight pounds. Already cramming his fists in his mouth, Sandra quickly retrieved his bottle of formula. She held the little head up, offered him the bottle, and he immediately latched on.

It was in this posture that Tom would find Sandra. Looking up, she gasped, seeing his silhouette in the doorway, not sure who it was.

He started to walk toward her. “I was called out again,” he said softly. “An arrest warrant for someone I had in custody last week. The dumb asses released him, and he turned around and killed someone else the next day.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Sandra said, frightened. Tom never varied from routine, even when work called him out. It was unusual that he’d stop by the hospital at that hour.

“I had to drive by anyway, and it’s not too late, is it? I wanted to see my
son
.” Getting closer to the bed, she could see he was experiencing an intense emotion.

“Well, here he is,” she said, forcing a smile.

Standing over the bed, he was looking first at her with narrowed eyes, then to the baby with a penetrating gaze. He put his hand up to Sandra’s chin and grasped it firmly, almost hard, turning her head to him as he bent over to kiss her.

“My mother called me today,” he said. “She isn’t known for her subtle approach, as you know. She was concerned about Thomas Brent.

“She said she never knew an Adams baby to be born with light hair. His hair is almost white. She said she was in the room when Pam made the announcement to the world that he looked like one of her babies. I wasn’t present, of course. Because if I had been, I’d have asked her to get out. The minute my mother said it, I knew.

“I remember how you were so fucked up that weekend nine months ago. You’d come home from
spending the day with Pam
. You stayed in bed the entire weekend, sick, saying you felt drugged. Then of course, the unfortunate murder of Brent the next day. You stayed in bed for a week after that, too. No, wait; you dragged yourself to the funeral, against my advice. After you moped around for the next couple of months, the wonderful news. Out of nowhere, you’re pregnant!

“This morning, I went home to Miranda. Wait until you see her; she could be his sister they’re so alike. It occurred to me they’re cousins. His father is Miranda’s first cousin. My mother noticed, too. ‘Can you believe it?’ she said. ‘They share genes.’” Tom decompressed as soon as the last word was spoken. Pulling a chair over, he plunked down into it, defeated. Shaking his head, he started to cry.

Paralyzed, Sandra feared Tom was right, that baby Brent wasn’t his child. Not right away, of course, but a few months after she’d discovered she was pregnant, hiding her concerns from everyone. Tom’s reminder that she’d felt like she’d been drugged that Saturday after Pam left her alone with Brent sent chills through her body. She’d discovered evidence in the crotch of her underpants but ignored it, hoping it came from Tom because they’d had sex that morning.

How would she accuse Brent of raping her, anyway? It would be devastating for business. Brent was coming to work with her that Monday. It would look bad for Tom, who was a New York cop. It would have been so embarrassing for him. What she should have done was had a blood test right away to confirm that she’d been drugged. Just in case. The possibility of a pregnancy hadn’t even occurred to her, yet.

It was too late because she was already pregnant. It was a repeat of when she feared she was pregnant with Jack’s baby. She felt nauseous, and her period was late, so she took the test. The pink double stripes appeared. Positive! Not thinking of the Brent connection yet, Sandra rushed home from work to relieve Tom’s mother, Virginia, from babysitting and get Miranda into bed. She remembered exactly the sequence of telling Tom. “I’m pregnant!” she’d said happily when he came from work on a Tuesday night. Tom became ghostly pale. He knew she was concerned when her period was late, and it was during those conversations that his fears surfaced. The baby wasn’t his.

Tom knew. That was why he couldn’t get excited. Both parents knew the truth, but neither could say anything about it because it was too awful to contemplate. Tom was sure Sandra had had an affair with Brent, and there was no way she’d be able to prove otherwise. They had Miranda to consider;
what would become of her?
Neither had sole custody of her, it was a fostering situation at best. And their house—the huge, pretentious brownstone neither could have ever afforded on their own. Ownership would revert to Pam if they ever broke up and no longer were in a position to care for Miranda as a couple. It was a scenario never imagined in a million years, now a possibility.

Tom disliked Pam and her family from the first meeting shortly after Jack died. He knew all Sandra’s secrets: how she’d had an affair with Jack, becoming pregnant and contacting HIV, how Pam forgave her. They’d become unlikely best of friends. He tolerated Pam because she trusted him to be a father to Miranda. There was just too much at stake to give credence to his fears. What if they were unfounded? He would have upset his family for nothing. So he buried it and tried to be civil, tried to pretend he was excited. Tried to give his behavior an acceptable title: he was the worried father. But it didn’t work. He didn’t touch her, could barely make eye contact, never wanted to feel the baby move or look at her belly as it grew. Concern that it wasn’t his baby was never verbalized, so horrible was the possibility.

So when he finally saw the baby for the first time, he didn’t even try to see his likeness. All he could see was a Smith. And when his mother made her announcement, that cinched it. It wasn’t his child.

“What are you going to do?” Sandra whispered, grateful Tom had not yet delved into a discussion about Brent.

He raised his head and looked at her. “I’m pathetic,” he said. “What am
I
going to do? Probably nothing. Admit to my family that my wonderful girlfriend is a whore?” He laughed out loud, and the baby jumped in Sandra’s arms. “No way. I have too much pride. We can just let things go on as they are. For Miranda’s sake.” He stood up and walked out of the room without saying good-bye. But Sandra knew she could never
just let things go on as they are
.

She remembered the kiss, the one kiss she had with Brent in the car, that if she’d been standing up, her knees would’ve buckled. On Monday morning, she tried to pull herself together to get to work; it was supposed to be Brent’s first day at Lang, Smith and Romney. But the phone pealing at five thirty cinched it; she wouldn’t go back for a week. It was a hysterical Pam, almost incoherent. Brent was dead. Armed with a checkbook, ready to pay his ex-girlfriend’s father for having to ship her belongings back and forth across the country, the man thought he was reaching for a weapon. At least that was what he told police. Even his daughter said it was ridiculous, Brent never did anything to warrant the fear he’d do them harm. The worst that could be said about him was that he was a sex maniac.

Sandra was so full of shame and disgust with herself that she couldn’t stop thinking about it. The next nine months were spent “pussyfooting around each other,” as Tom liked to call it. In spite of having told Sandra he’d probably do nothing about their relationship, it was clear they were going to have to do
something
,
most likely putting an end to it. It would be the destruction of a family in its fullest sense of the word.

To Sandra, it was a relief that the pretense was over. She no longer had to suffer through weekends at her future in-laws, pretending she enjoyed their company. And she didn’t have to pretend with Tom. He was a man that she lived with who’d called her a whore.

Getting home from the hospital was an embarrassing nightmare; she had to call a cab the next morning to take her and the baby to the brownstone. Quickly moving out of their shared bedroom, she’d stay adjacent to the baby’s room. That Virginia Adams could betray her by making the comment about the baby’s appearance angered Sandra, so she ignored her, locking the baby’s door when Virginia was in the house. Tom and Virginia took care of Miranda while Sandra recovered.

Virginia wouldn’t be caring for baby Brent. When he was two weeks old, Sandra returned to her job in Manhattan, bringing the baby along. Tom used to bring her to work, but she now hired a car at company expense to drive her in and out of the city. A nanny met her at the office and took care of the baby while Sandra worked, bringing him in to be fed every two hours.

Sandra’s business partner, Peter, had just one meltdown, yelling at her that she wasn’t going to turn his office into a nursery. In turn, Sandra pointed her finger at him and told him to, “Shut up, Peter. I’ll do whatever the hell I please because this is
my
company, too.” He never broached the subject again.

Virginia continued to care for Miranda but never asked about baby Brent. Sandra was sure Tom told her the whole story because for supposedly being the first blood grandchild, she was not in the least interested. Sandra was happy; it meant less fake interaction with her, and she never cared for Virginia, anyway, the feeling mutual.

Longing to tell Pam that baby Brent was her grandchild, Sandra knew the timing for it had to be perfect, as well. Everything was in the timing.

Chapter 3

Keeping her head down as she race-walked to her car, Pam was determined not to look up at Lisa’s window, sure Dan had better things to do than peer down at her, but she could never be too careful. The thought of him infuriated her. Happy his family appeared to have left already, she wasn’t taking any chances. Hurriedly unlocking the car door, she got in just in case there were any stragglers waiting to accost her.