Remembrance (43 page)

“Dr. Fullerton?” The nurse sounded surprised. “Yes … his niece? I'll get him.” Teddy was on the line a minute later, the call was accepted, and Vanessa almost got hysterical as she tried to tell him what she had seen and what her mother had told her.

“She's all tied up, Uncle Teddy, with her legs up in the air, and we've been here since five o'clock this morning, and she says … she says … the baby's beach, and they tried to turn him and can't, and—” She began to sob into the phone and he tried to calm her.

“It's all right, sweetheart, it's all right. Just tell me what she said.”

“They're going to give her a few more hours and keep trying to turn the baby. She wants you to come right away, and she said hurry.” At his end he almost burst into tears too. A breech birth three thousand miles away. Even if he caught the next plane, it would be anywhere from twelve to eighteen hours before he got to her. She needed a Caesarean section done immediately, and waiting useless hours to continue trying to turn the baby could kill her and lose the baby.

“It's going to be all right sweetheart,” he told Vanessa, wishing he believed it. “Do you know her doctor's name?” At least he could call him, but Vanessa didn't. “The hospital?” She gave it to him quickly. “I'll call them and we'll see if we can't get things moving.”

“Can't you come, Uncle Teddy?” It was obvious from her voice that Vanessa was beginning to panic.

“I'm going to catch the next plane, sweetheart, and with any luck at all I'll be there first thing tomorrow morning, your time, but maybe the baby will come before that.” It would only be twenty-four hours by then, but he knew that for Serena, strapped to a delivery table, her legs in stirrups, with a breech birth, and a possibly unsympathetic staff continually trying to turn the baby, he could mink of no worse torture for her to endure. “Can you get back to Mommy, sweetheart?”

“I'll try. I don't know if they'll let me.”

“Tell her I'm coming. Do you know where Vasili is?”

“No, and I don't want him to come. He's crazy.”

“I know, I know. I just wondered. Did you leave him a note at the house about where you are?”

“No.”

“What about his brother?”

“Mommy said he can't come until the end of the week because his wife is sick.”

“Okay, tiger, then you just hold the fort until I get there. Think you can do that? It may be a long night, but I'll be there, and pretty soon it'll be all over.” He was already making notes for his secretary. He wouldn't even go back to his apartment. He could buy what he needed in London when he got there. All he would take with him was his medical bag and a briefcase. “I'm very proud of you, Vanessa darling. You're doing great.”

“But Mommy—”

“She's going to be fine too. I promise. Sometimes it's a little hard having a baby, but it isn't always like that, and when it's all over and she has the baby, she won't even mind it. I promise.”

“She looks like she's dying.” Vanessa's voice broke on a sob, and Teddy prayed that Vanessa was wrong. But she might not be.

Five minutes after they hung up he called the hospital, spoke to the nurse in charge, and was unable to speak to a doctor. Mrs. Arbus, according to them, was doing fine. The baby was indeed breech, but they felt no need for a Caesarean as yet. They were going to wait until, at the very least, the following morning. And no, they had been unable to turn the baby, but they had every confidence that subsequent efforts would set matters aright. Subsequent efforts would mean that when Serena was in midpain, a nurse or an intern would shove both hands as far in as they could get them and try to turn the baby upside down. The very thought of it was almost more than he could bear when he thought of Serena. He went straight from his office to the airport and checked in at Idlewild at two thirty. The next flight to London left at four, and he called the hospital again. There was no change, but this time they sounded slightly more impressed. Not all of their patients had attending physicians flying in from New York.

The four-o'clock flight was due to reach London at two o'clock the next morning, which was eight o'clock in the morning in London. He assumed that with any luck at all he could reach the hospital by nine or nine thirty. It was the best he could do, and once he was on the flight, he explained to the steward what he was doing. He was flying to London to deliver a baby by Caesarean with complications for a very important patient. What he needed was a police escort or an ambulance to take him as quickly as possible from the airport to the hospital. The steward spoke at once to the captain, the message was passed along once they established radio contact with London, and when they arrived, Teddy was whisked through customs, out a side door to a waiting ambulance, the sirens were put on, and they sailed through the streets on the way to London. Luck had also been on their side, the flight had arrived half an hour early. It was exactly five minutes after eight when Teddy stepped out of the ambulance into the streets of London. He thanked the ambulance driver, gave him an enormous tip, rushed inside, inquired for the maternity ward, and ran up the stairs, his bag in his hand, to emerge into a large unfriendly waiting room, where he saw Vanessa asleep in a chair. He hurried to the desk, spoke to a nurse, and she looked extremely startled.

“From America? For Mrs. Arbus?” She immediately went to get the head nurse, who in turn found the doctor on duty. Mrs. Arbus's physician had not actually been at the hospital for several hours, but of course if Dr. Fullerton had the proper credentials with him, perhaps if a Caesarean was indeed needed in due course, he would be able to assist the British surgeon. Teddy immediately presented the papers they would need, washed his hands, and asked to see Serena. And with a large entourage behind him he was led to the door where Vanessa had found her thirteen hours before. She lay almost breathless, semiconscious, drenched in sweat, and so stunned by the pain that she seemed to be barely breathing as Teddy got to her. He looked down at her, took her pulse, listened to the baby's heart. There seemed to be no sign of recognition from her. Her heartbeat was frantic and faint, the baby's was beginning to fade, and her blood pressure was so low that he wondered if they could even save her. Without thinking, he gave rapidfire orders to prepare her for surgery. He wanted to kill someone for not doing it twenty-four hours sooner. When he examined her to see how low the baby had come, he saw what they had done to her by continually trying to turn the baby, and it horrified him to see the condition she was in. He wanted to sweep her into his arms and carry her away from the nightmare she had suffered, but as he unstrapped her legs and laid her gently flat on the table and they began to wheel her away, she stirred and looked at him strangely.

“You look …”It was the barest of hoarse croaks. “… like … Teddy.”

“I am Teddy, Serena. Everything's going to be oaky. Vanessa called me, and we're going to take the baby by Caesarean.” She nodded, and then a moment later she was screaming with the pain again. They rolled her directly into the operating theater, a young doctor appeared, a little flustered by the unusual procedures, and without further ado the anesthetic was given, and after scrubbing up and returning in operating-room garb, Teddy began to make the incision on Serena. The anesthetist and two of the nurses were keeping close tabs on her failing heart. Teddy felt himself working steadily against the clock as he could see her dying rapidly beneath his fingers. And a moment later he had the child, a perfectly formed, beautiful little baby girl, but as they brought her out of the womb there was no cry, she wasn't breathing, and he knew that he was about to lose both the baby and Serena. He gave terse instructions to the nurses who stood by as he continued the surgery on Serena. Every effort was made to keep her alive, and a pediatrician was summoned to help the nurses and the young doctor with their attempts to get the baby breathing. It seemed an eternity before they heard the first cry, but suddenly the room was filled with her lusty sounds, and at almost the same moment the anesthetist reported that Serena's blood pressure was rising slowly and her heartbeat was finally regular. He wanted to give a whoop of joy, but he still had work to do, and when it was all over, he looked down at the sleeping woman he had loved for so many years, and in a most unprofessional gesture he leaned down to her cheek and kissed her.

The operating-room staff congratulated him on his brilliant and speedy maneuvers, and he followed them slowly out of the operating theater. Both Serena and the baby were going to be all right, but he still had to see Vanessa. The poor child had been through an ordeal of her own, and when he reached her side at ten fifteen, she was still sleeping. He sat down beside her and as though she sensed him, she looked up with a puzzled frown, and he smiled at her. “Hi, kiddo. You have a big fat baby sister.”

“I do?” Vanessa sat up, stunned. “How do you know? Did you see her?”

“I sure did. I delivered her myself.”

“You did?” She threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, Uncle Teddy, you're terrific!” And then with an anxious look in her eyes, “How's my mom?”

“She's alseep.” And then he explained about the Caesarean section.

“It sounds awful.” She made a grim face. “I don't ever want to have a baby. They had her all tied up, and”—her voice drifted away as she remembered—”she was screaming … I thought she was going to die.…” He put an arm around her shoulders.

“But she didn't. She's fine. And the baby is so cute. Do you want to see her?”

“Will they let me?”

“If they won't, I'll tell them you're my nurse.”

Vanessa giggled, and after a hushed conversation with the head nurse they led Teddy and Vanessa down the hall to a big picture window. There were at least two dozen babies there, but they held up “Arbus, baby girl” for Vanessa to see, and as she looked into her sister's face, she saw exactly what Teddy had seen when he delivered her. “She looks just like Mommy!” Vanessa looked stunned. “Except she has black hair.” But she did look exactly like her mother. She was a tiny perfect mirror image of Serena. “She's so pretty, isn't she, Uncle Teddy?”

He put a hand on Vanessa's shoulder and looking at the baby with a small tired smile, he nodded. “Yes, she is.”

44

Andreas arrived, as promised, at the end of that week and found Vasili in a stuporous state in his bedroom. He hadn't bathed in a week, his skin was broken out, his hair was matted to his head, his eyes were sunken and darkly ringed, and he was wearing a filthy bathrobe. Andreas tried to urge him to clean up before they left, but he was nodding out, and he saw with distaste and despair the hypodermic on the table. He also noticed a yellowish tinge about his brother's face, and feared that he had hepatitis. In the end he had to get his driver to help Vasili out of his chair, and they led him, just as he was, to the car and drove him directly to the hospital. He had not been to see his wife, recovering slowly from her ordeal and the emergency surgery. He had not seen his daughter, and he was barely aware that the baby had been born, when Andreas left him at the clinic.

“He's in bad shape this time,” he told Serena bluntly when he came to see her. “But he should be all right soon.” He didn't mention the serum hepatitis they had confirmed at the hospital and for a long moment she said nothing. And then she sighed. She was still in a great deal of pain, and the truth of what she had to do about Vasili had been nagging at her all morning.

“I think I'm going to divorce him, Andreas.”

“And go back to the States?” Andreas looked crushed. He was fond of her and the child, and yet another part of him wanted them free of the nightmare.

“I think so. There's no reason for me to stay here.” Having got pregnant so soon, she had never really established herself in London as a model. And now she had two children to support, instead of one. “I can go back to work in New York.”

He spoke slowly and sadly. “You won't have to.” Serena didn't answer. “Serena, if he cleans up again, will you give him one more chance?”

“Why, what would be different this time? According to him, he's been doing this for the last ten years.”

“But it's different now. He has you and the baby.” Andreas had been awed by the beautiful little baby girl. But Serena suspected that Vasili was going to be less impressed than Andreas.

“He's had us for the past year. Me anyway, and Vanessa. It hasn't changed a thing.”

“But now he'll have the baby.” He smiled then. “What will you call her?”

“Charlotte.” And then she smiled at him. “Charlotte Andrea.” He looked as though he would burst into tears, he was so pleased, and leaned down and kissed Serena.

“You're a beautiful girl.” And then with a tone of sorrow, “I shouldn't let you waste yourself on my brother. But… I hate to see him lose you and the child.” He stood up slowly then, and she saw that he was really a very attractive man. In his own way he was better looking than Vasili. He had none of the dissipation, or the mischief, or the boyish good looks. What he had instead was an air of distinction, the same handsome face, and an aura about him that was all man. “Do what seems best for you. I know that you will, and if you go, let me know where I can find you, Serena. One day I will come to New York to visit my namesake.” Serena inquired for his wife, and he avoided her gaze. He didn't want to face what was coming. Instead he kissed her gently on the cheek and left her to her own thoughts. She had as yet heard nothing from Vasili. But the day before she was to leave the hospital, she was walking slowly down the hall on the arm of a nurse, and she suddenly saw him. He looked clean, handsome, and very much like himself, but also desperately frightened, and for a moment when she saw him, she wondered if he would run away. She stopped walking and stood there, leaning heavily on the nurse's arm and wishing that she could run away quickly, but she couldn't, and he walked slowly toward her, and then he stood very still.

“Hello, Serena.”

“Hello.” She felt her knees turn to jelly beneath her. Part of her wanted to see him, and part of her wanted him to go away, perhaps forever this time.

“Are you all right?” She nodded, and the nurse began to squirm, sensing that this was an awkward meeting. “The baby?”

“She's fine. Have you seen her?”

“Not yet. I wanted to see you first. I just… I… uh …” He glanced at the nurse. “I just got back to town today.” She noticed how pale he looked. The detox was always quick, but it took him a long time to look decent, and this time he had a slight cast of yellow to his skin. She knew what it was, but she also knew that the hepatitis one caught from needles was not contagious. But she was sorry as hell he had come. She didn't want to see him.

“Do you think we could talk?” She motioned toward her room, and the nurse led her back there slowly. When she got there, she lay down on her bed and she looked exhausted. Vasili was looking. at her strangely, and then he hung his head and she saw that he was trying not to cry. “I don't know what to say to you, Serena.”

“I don't think there's anything left to say, Vasili.” For the first time in a long time, when she looked at him, she felt nothing. No disgust, no anger, no sorrow, no love. In her heart there was silence.

His head shot up and the black eyes met her green. “What do you mean, there's nothing left to say?”

“Just that. What can one say after all we've been through? I'm sorry? Good luck? Good-bye?”

“We could try again.” His voice was sad and soft. But to her he still looked like a junkie. To her he always would. She would never forgive him.

“Could we? Why?”

“Because I love you.”

“That's what you said before.” She looked at him accusingly then. “If you'd been around and sober, I might not have almost died having this baby. Did you know that I almost died and we almost lost the baby? If Vanessa hadn't come to find me and called Teddy, we'd both be dead now.”

“I know.” The tears crept slowly out of his eyes. “Andreas told me.”

“Could you have lived with that?” He shook his head, and then looked up at her again.

“I can't forgive myself for anything I've done, and I will understand if you can't forgive me either. But I'm different now, I came so close to losing everything, both you and the baby, and even myself. If we tried again, I know that this time everything will be different.”

“I don't believe that anymore. How can you even say it?”

“I can't be sure. But I can tell you that I'll try with my whole soul. I can't give you more than that.” He approached the bed slowly and reached for her hand and gently kissed it. “I love you. It sounds like very little, but it's the best I've got. I'll do anything to keep you. I'll beg you … I'll crawl … Serena, you don't know how much I love you.” Her eyes filled with tears and spilled over as she listened. She bowed her head, and stricken, he reached out to hold her. “Oh, darling, please—”

“Go away … don't touch me.” She didn't want to want him again. She couldn't let herself go through that.

He forced her face up to his then. “Do you still love me?” She shook her head, but her eyes said she did, and when he looked at her, he could see all that she had suffered at his hands and at the birth of their child, and he hated himself for it. “What have I done?” He began to cry, and then suddenly he took her into his arms, and the only sound in the room was that of Serena sobbing. He begged her for another chance, but she was too overcome to answer. And then at last she asked him if he wanted to see the baby.

“I'd love to.” And then he remembered something. “Are you going home from the hospital tomorrow?”

“I'm leaving here.” Serena blew her nose and avoided his eyes. “But I'm not sure yet if I'm going to the house or a hotel.” She was thinking of staying at the same hotel as Teddy, the Connaught, before she made up her mind. He wasn't leaving for the States for a few more days.

“I see.” Vasili offered her an arm, and laboriously she took it, making her way slowly out of her room again and down the hall to where they could see the baby through the window. The nurse smiled when she saw Serena, and looked with interest at the man at her side, and then she remembered him from his pictures in the paper, but he looked very different. Nonetheless she recognized him and she was impressed, as she picked up his baby girl and held her up for him to see for the first time. He stood mesmerized by the tiny child with Serena's face and his shining black hair, and tears filled his eyes again as he watched her and silently put an arm around Serena.

“She's so beautiful, and so small.”

Serena smiled. “She looks big to me. Eight and a half pounds is big for a baby.”

“Is it?” He grinned down at his wife with pride. “She's so perfect.”

“Wait until you hold her.”

“Does she cry a lot?”

Serena shook her head and for a few minutes she told him about the baby, and then he took her back to her room and they looked at each other. “Serena, can't we try it again? I don't want to lose you. Not now … not ever.”

Trembling, she closed her eyes, and then she opened them again. She still loved him, and she owed the baby something, at least to try one more time, but she was afraid that if he used drugs again the horror of it would destroy her. But she felt so torn between what she owed herself and what she thought she owed the baby. “All right. We'll try it once more.” It was barely a whisper. “But if you do it again, it's over. Do you understand?” She knew she should take her children and go now, but his magic still worked on her. He was still dug deep under her skin.

“I understand.” He came to her then and kissed her, and in the kiss was all the ache that he felt over the pain he had caused her. He promised to pick her up to bring her home the next day, and as he left the room, with a sigh she reached for the phone to call Teddy, wondering how to explain this new madness to him. She knew it was wrong, and yet she wanted to think it was right. And she couldn't, and now she had to justify it to Teddy.