The Blackstone Chronicles (9 page)

“Rebecca?” Oliver said. “What is it? Can I help you with something?”

She hesitated, then turned back, her cheeks still flushed red. Her eyes nervously flicked from one face to another, but finally came to rest on Oliver. Taking a tentative step toward him, she held out her hand. “Th-this is for you,” she said. “Just because you’re always so nice to me.” Her flush deepening once again, she turned away and quickly ducked out the door.

Oliver peered into the bag. Inside, wrapped in shiny silver foil, were a dozen chocolate Kisses. When he looked up again, everyone in the office was staring at him.

Staring, and smiling.

Oliver broke into a smile too, wishing Rebecca hadn’t scurried out of the office quite so fast.

“Well, at least some people’s lives are going right,” Bill McGuire said, slapping Oliver on the back as he left the office.

Seeing how happy the little bag of silver-wrapped chocolates had made Oliver, his own troubles no longer seemed quite so grim. Maybe, Bill thought, he’d just stop at the candy store and pick up a bag for Elizabeth. No, make that three bags; no sense in leaving Megan and Mrs. Goodrich out.

Suddenly, Bill McGuire felt better than he had in days.

An hour later Elizabeth came awake again, stretching languorously, savoring the feeling of well-being that had replaced the terrible torpor she’d felt earlier this morning. But as the last vestiges of sleep were sloughed away and she came back to consciousness, she slowly became aware of someone moving around in the next room.

The nursery.

Megan?

But what would Megan be doing in the nursery?

Rising from the chaise and carrying the doll with her, Elizabeth went through the bathroom and into the nursery.

Mrs. Goodrich, her back to Elizabeth, was in the process of emptying the contents of the little dresser, which stood against the opposite wall, into a large cardboard box.

“Who told you to do that?” Elizabeth demanded.

Startled by Elizabeth’s words, Mrs. Goodrich whirled around. “Oh, dear,” she Said. “You frightened me, popping
out of the bathroom that way. You go on back to bed, dear. I can take care of all this.”

“All what?” Elizabeth asked, moving out of the bathroom doorway into the middle of the room. “What are you doing?”

Mrs. Goodrich placed the tiny sweater she held in her hands into the box and took another from the dresser drawer. “I just thought I’d get all this packed away for you, and put away in the attic.”

“No,” Elizabeth said.

Mrs. Goodrich blinked. “Beg pardon?”

Elizabeth’s voice hardened. “I said no, Mrs. Goodrich.” Her voice began to rise. “How dare you come in here and start packing all my baby’s clothes.”

“But I thought you’d want—” Ms. Goodrich began. Elizabeth didn’t let her finish.

“I don’t care what you thought. Go back downstairs and leave me alone. And from now on, stay out of this room!” Mrs. Goodrich hesitated, but before she could argue, Elizabeth spoke again. “Just go! I’ll take care of this.”

Mrs. Goodrich stared at Elizabeth in shock, barely able to believe her ears. Should she try to argue with her? she wondered.

No, she decided. Better not to say anything right now. After all, given what she’d been through, Elizabeth couldn’t be expected to be herself quite yet. It was her own fault, really. She should have given Elizabeth more time before she began packing away the things in the nursery.

Laying the sweater in her hand on the top of the dresser, Mrs. Goodrich quietly left the room.

When she was gone, Elizabeth went to the dresser and began removing the clothes—the little play suits and pajamas, the tiny overalls, bibs, and shirts—from the box, carefully smoothing each one out and refolding it
before putting each item back in the drawer from which it had come.

“How could she do that?” she asked the doll, which she’d sat on the dresser so it was leaning up against the wall, exactly as if it were watching what she was doing. “Doesn’t she realize you’re going to need all these things?” Taking a small sweater out of the box, she shook it out, then held it up against the doll. “Still a little big, but in a few months it will fit perfectly, won’t it? What could she have been thinking of?” Still talking to the doll, Elizabeth folded the sweater and put it in the drawer next to the bottom, with all the other sweaters. When the box was empty and all the baby clothes were back where they belonged, she picked up the doll and carried it to the crib, where she carefully tucked it under the comforter and kissed it softly on the cheek.

“Time for a nap,” she whispered. “But don’t you worry. Mommy will be right here.” Settling into the blue rocking chair next to the crib, Elizabeth softly began crooning a lullaby.

From the open doorway to the hall, unnoticed by her mother, Megan watched.

“S
omething’s wrong with Mommy,” Megan announced as her father came through the front door. She was sitting on the bottom step of the hall stairway, her face stormy. “She took Sam.”

“Your doll?” Bill asked, “Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know,” Megan replied. “And she got mad at Mrs. Goodrich too. Real mad.” Then she saw the paper bags tied with red ribbon, and got up. “Is that for me?”

“One bag’s for you,” Bill told her, “and one’s for your mother, and one’s for Mrs. Goodrich.” He gave her one of the little bags of chocolate Kisses. “You can have one now. Then we’ll put the rest away for later.”

“Mommy shouldn’t get any,” Megan said. “If I were bad, you wouldn’t let me have any.”

Bill knelt down so his eyes were level with his daughter’s. “Honey, Mommy isn’t being bad. She’s just very, very sad right now. And if she took your doll, I’m sure there’s a good reason.”

Megan shook her head. “She just wanted it. But Sam wants to be with me.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Bill said. “I’ll go up and talk to Mommy, and see if I can find out why she took Sam. Okay?” Megan nodded, her hand disappearing into the bag, emerging with a fistful of Kisses. “Only one now,” Bill said. “You can have another after lunch. And we’ll save the rest for later.”

Megan hesitated, calculating the odds of getting her
way if she begged for more of the candy right now. Reluctantly, she dropped all but one of the chocolates back in the bag. As her father started up the stairs, though, she quickly sneaked another one, and then a third.

Bill headed for the master bedroom, expecting to find Elizabeth either in bed or lying on the chaise. But the room was empty. Then, through the open door to the bathroom, he heard the soft creaking of the antique rocker in the nursery. Why would Elizabeth have gone in there? Since the miscarriage, even he hadn’t been able to bring himself to go into the room they’d been preparing for the new baby. And for Elizabeth, going into the nursery had to be agonizing. Yet something had drawn her into it.

He crossed the bedroom and stepped into the connecting bathroom. Though the door opposite him stood ajar, he could see little of the room beyond. And now in addition to the creaking rocking chair, he could hear Elizabeth, quietly humming a lullaby.

He pushed the door to the nursery farther open.

Elizabeth was seated in the chair. Her back was to him, but he could see that she was holding something in her arms.

Something to which she was humming the quiet song.

“Elizabeth?” he asked, starting toward the chair.

The rocking stopped, as did Elizabeth’s humming. “Bill?”

He bent over to kiss her on the cheek, but pulled back abruptly.

In her arms, wrapped in the soft pink and blue woolen blanket they had bought only a week earlier, was the doll. Its blue eyes were staring up at him, and for the tiniest fraction of a second Bill had the feeling that they were watching him. But then the moment passed and he brushed his lips against Elizabeth’s cheek.

Her flesh felt oddly cold.

“Honey? Are you all right?”

Elizabeth nodded, but said nothing.

“I brought you something.”

A flicker of interest came into her eyes, and she stood up. “Let me just put the baby back in his crib.”

The baby
 … The words echoed in Bill’s mind as Elizabeth gently laid the doll in the crib and tucked the little blanket around it. “How come you brought Megan’s doll in here?” he asked as she turned back to face him. A flash of confusion appeared in Elizabeth’s eyes, and then they cleared.

“Well, we don’t really know the doll was meant for her, do we?” she asked, but there was a brittleness to her voice that sent a warning chill through her husband. “It could have been for the new baby, couldn’t it?”

“I suppose it could,” Bill conceded uneasily. “But don’t you think—”

“Can’t we just leave it here for now, at least?” Elizabeth pleaded. “When I came in here this morning, the room just seemed so empty, and lonely, but when I brought Sam in, it just seemed to fill right up.” Her eyes flicked toward the crib. “Sam,” she repeated. “What a nice name. I always thought if we had a boy, it would be nice to name him Sam.”

Another warning current tingled through Bill. Though he and Elizabeth had discussed a lot of names, he couldn’t remember either one of them ever mentioning Sam. “I think Megan really—” Bill began, only to be quickly interrupted by his wife.

“Megan can get along without the doll for now,” she said. “And it will only be for a day or two.” She smiled at him, then moved close, putting her arms around him. “I can’t explain it, really,” she whispered, her lips close to his ear. “It just makes it easier for me. Can’t you understand that?”

Bill’s arms closed around her and he wished there
were something—anything—he could do to ease her pain. “Of course I can understand,” he replied. “If it makes you feel better, there’s no reason you can’t keep the doll in here for a little while. I’m sure Megan will understand.”

In the hall outside the nursery, Megan scowled angrily. Her father hadn’t taken the doll away from her mother after all.

In fact, he’d told her she could keep it.

And Megan didn’t understand.

She didn’t understand at all.

T
he moment Bill awakened, he knew Elizabeth was no longer beside him, but as the big clock downstairs began to strike midnight, he still reached out to his wife’s empty place in the hope his instincts might have betrayed him.

They had not. The bed was empty, the sheets almost as cold as the room itself.

He lay in bed for a moment, trying to decide what to do. The evening had not been easy for any of them. First he’d had to try to explain to Megan that right now her mother needed the doll more than she did. “Mommy’s sick,” he’d told her. “And she needs the doll to take care of her.”

“But she’s always sick,” Megan had protested. “And I need Sam to take care of me!”

“In a few days,” he’d promised, but he could see the doubt in Megan’s eyes, and when Elizabeth finally came down for supper, the three of them sat tensely at the table. Megan, usually full of chatter about what she’d been doing all day, barely spoke at all, and Elizabeth was utterly silent.

After dinner he’d tried to interest his wife and daughter in watching a videotape, but Megan quickly retreated to her room, and although Elizabeth sat beside him on the sofa in the library, he knew she wasn’t paying attention to the movie. Finally, a little after nine, they both came up to bed.

While he stopped in to kiss Megan good night, Elizabeth went directly to their room. He told himself she’d sensed
Megan’s anger and was simply giving her daughter some time to get over it, but deep inside he suspected that Elizabeth had simply not been able to consider Megan’s feelings, any more than she’d been able to concentrate on the movie.

“Mommy doesn’t love me anymore, does she?” Megan had asked when he’d gone in to say good night. Her voice was quavering, and though he couldn’t see her face in the shadowy room, he’d tasted the saltiness of tears when he kissed her cheek.

“Of course she loves you,” he’d assured her. “She’s just not feeling well, that’s all.”

But Megan had not been consoled. “No, she doesn’t,” she insisted. “She just loves Sam.”