The Laments (4 page)

“But steps should have been taken!” said Howard.

“How, sir, do you prepare for something that’s never happened?” The doctor was sputtering.

“Shouldn’t we be thinking instead about
where
this woman might have taken him?” cried Julia.

“An orderly spotted her in a car leaving the parking lot,” said Dr. Underberg. “The police will certainly track her down.”

“They could be fifty miles away!” shouted Howard. “And what if it’s a ransom sort of thing?”

“Darling, I don’t think this is about ransom,” Julia said quietly. “I think she
wanted
our baby.”

This grim assumption provoked Howard to direct his fury back toward Underberg. “It’s
your
fault!” he cried. “If Julia hadn’t been duped by your silly ideas . . .”

“I beg your pardon, sir”—the doctor bristled—“but I had only the best intentions.”

AS THE VOLVO CROSSED
a broad plain, Walter’s giddy joy began to fade. He resisted as long as he could, dearly wanting this precious feeling to last, but Mary’s house slippers, her disheveled hair, the damp linen uniform, and the shopping bag posed an increasingly upsetting series of questions.

“Had enough, then, Jackie?” cooed Mary. The baby turned away from her breast and gazed at Walter with a sudden grin. Walter couldn’t drive and think, so he brought the Volvo to a halt.

“Something wrong with the car?” asked Mary.

“Car’s fine.” Walter calculated their distance from the hospital.

Mary gazed into the mirror and drummed her fingers. “Then what are we stopping for?”

Walter shrugged. He stepped out and shielded his eyes from the morning sun. The road melted into sky; a few dead trees pierced the flat plain.

“Where were you
going,
Mary?”

“What?”

“When I found you.”

“I was taking the baby for a walk.”

Walter paused at her window, gazing at her uniform again.

“Mary, tell me the truth.”

“All right, Walter. But I’m hot, and so’s little Jackie. Start the car and I’ll explain.”

Walter watched Mary glance in the rearview mirror again. He sighed and got back in the car. But once they were moving, Mary said nothing, and he remembered the old Mary: impulsive, stubborn, and melodramatic.

“All my life, Walter,” she said, “I’ve had a little black cloud following me.” Mary wiped a tear from her cheek. “When little Jackie arrived, it disappeared. He’s so beautiful, and happy, and loving.”

The baby smiled at him, and Walter’s head began to throb.

“I don’t know if I fancy Jackie for a name,” he replied. “How about a nice biblical name? Matthew? Or Paul?”

She stared ahead.

“It’s Jackie, Walter. That’s final.”

“Look here,” he said, “I am the father; it’s my decision too, isn’t it?”

“Not exactly,” she said softly.

Walter squinted, his eyes salty with sweat. It was an infernal morning sun. Mary’s cheeks were crimson as she glared at him.

“‘Not exactly’? What’s
that
mean, Mary?”

She bit her lip and nudged the baby to nurse a little more, but the heat was too much; he was lapsing into sleep again.

“I drove four hundred twenty-eight miles to see my baby.
My baby.
”

Mary frowned, hugging the baby closer to her breast. She was remembering Walter’s defects, his rigidity and lack of humor. What a mistake it had been to get in his car. On the other hand, what choice did she have? She needed him on her side; she needed his sympathy.

“So, Mary,” he said. “Whose baby is this?”

“Our baby’s in the hospital,” she bleated. “Oh, you should see it—it’s an awful little thing, barely alive, barely
huma
n
;
the doctor asked me to look after little Jackie and he took to me like my very own.”

She couldn’t look at him now. Didn’t want to see his expression. But she reached out, her trembling fingers skating down his stiff cheek.

“I didn’t think I could tell you that,” she added, her tone brightening. “Surprised myself. But the thing is,” she said as her voice gained strength, “we’re going to be very happy together.”

Walter let out a whimper.

Oh, God, bless little Jackie. And God bless Walter,
prayed Mary to herself.
We’re going to be so very happy.

Ahead, Walter spotted a wide enough shoulder to turn the car around. When he downshifted, Mary looked at him with a start.

“Walter? What are you doing?”

“Going to get my baby,” he said.

“
This
is our baby, Walter. We’re going to be happy with little Jackie, I
swear
we are!”

“My baby’s in the hospital.” His eyes fixed her accusingly.
“
You left him there.”

“Walter, please, we can’t go back, if you have any mercy . . . please!”

But the air rushing past the windows drowned out her plea. Walter was as solid and implacable as Mount Sinai. His foot hardened against the accelerator pedal and the engine began to shake.
He
was the black cloud following her, thought Mary. She’d offered him a new start and he’d ruined it with his self-righteous attitude.
Bloody hell!
She shouted her pleas, but he kept his eyes to the road and his knuckles on the wheel. So, with the baby nestled in one arm, Mary struck out at his face with her left fist. He took the blow without a flinch.

“Stop here, Walter. I’ll get out now,” she said.
“Stop the ca
r
!”

He laughed in disbelief. “You’re bloody crazy. Leave you here? You’re out of your mind! That baby’s got to go back to his parents!”

She hit Walter’s nose with the heel of her hand, and he let out a groan. Blood rolled down his chin to his shirt, but he stared ahead. The engine was whining now; the speedometer must have been above eighty when she grabbed the wheel in a fit of despair.

The car seemed to do a graceful somersault into the bush, the rich, paprika-red earth rising in clouds as the machine spun over and over and over.

DR. UNDERBERG PRESSED HIS NOSE
to the glass of the incubator. “Look at him,” he said.

He was sitting in the darkness of the nursery that evening, staring at the little urchin. Ironically, it had made a dramatic advance; now three pounds, with pencil-thin arms and legs, a faint whorl of hair, and sad-lidded eyes, he hardly seemed equipped for life, but
something
had propelled him this far. The night matron, Mrs. Pritchard, stood in silhouette at the door, clipboard in hand, waiting for an answer to her question.

“Astonishing!” the doctor murmured. “Abandoned, orphaned, no relatives, and yet he holds on to life. Such tenacity deserves reward.”

“It’s God’s will,” said the matron, crossing herself.

This provoked a sniff from the doctor. Of the hundreds of babies he’d delivered in the white hospital, and the scores of black babies who had died during his service in the mobile clinic, he’d concluded that God’s will was nothing if not a fickle thing.

“Would you like me to call the foster home?” she asked for the second time.

The doctor bristled. “The foster home?
There’s
a magnificent institution! Child rearing by bureaucrats and matrons! I can’t think of anything worse.”

A wry line appeared in Nurse Pritchard’s cheek as she registered the sting of his rather personal remark. Nevertheless, she hugged her clipboard like a shield and pressed on.

“Plenty of orphaned children find secure homes, Doctor.”

“Secure homes?” retorted Dr. Underberg. “No doubt they produce secure orphans and secure foster children, Mrs. Pritchard, but surely our mission should be to find this child a
happy
home!” He rose from the incubator and walked to the door. “Don’t sign a single form for that child until I return!”

With that he tore off his white coat and spun through the door, leaving Nurse Pritchard alone with the incubator waif.

Moments later the doctor’s cherubic face reappeared.

“And for your information, I myself was a foster child!”

Now Nurse Pritchard peered at the little urchin. His chapped lips parted slightly to take a breath of air, and hung open in such an expression of grief as to make her sigh. His features were the embodiment of hopelessness in an indifferent world. Still, Mrs. Pritchard decided, at least he was alive. She crossed herself again, thinking of the other poor baby, who had perished in the car.

THE CHALLENGE OF HARD TIMES
and suffering can unite a couple, forge their love, and sustain their passion. But Howard and Julia Lament were not so equipped for the death of their Little One. Though they felt united in despair, they chose to suffer in solitude. They told no relatives, and left Mercy Hospital bearing no swaddled bundle, no balloons, no arms laden with the fripperies of babyhood.

Their drive home was spent in shocked silence. Howard entered the house first and discreetly closed the door to the nursery he’d prepared, with its crib, its white lace bumper, the tiny crocheted blanket, and the welcoming audience of teddy bears lined up along the dresser.

They made cups of tea for consolation, but left them untouched. The constant ringing of the telephone was ignored; Julia simply hadn’t the composure to speak to anyone. The only cure for their misery was to forget, but how could they ever look at each other without thinking of their child? So each wandered from room to room, trying to avoid the other wretched soul pacing around.

It seemed that Julia’s body was no more capable than her soul of forgetting her baby; for as her breasts ached, full of milk, unable to nourish him, she was haunted by his emphatic smiles. She became the very figure she had pitied before, a woman with no child to nurse. Closing her eyes, fingers resting on her soft belly, she doubted that she would ever muster the will to conceive again.

Howard recalled the expressions of his wife and child greeting him in the hospital room just a few days before—his wife’s pride and that small, blessed face, wrapped tightly in a cotton cocoon. He’d never felt so solid as he had holding that baby in his arms; he would have done anything for him. But now he was adrift again. The exquisite adventure of a new family, that truly wondrous trinity, was denied him.

UNABLE TO REACH THEM
by phone, Dr. Underberg drove over to the Laments’ flat on Barabus Lane in Ludlow. It was important for him to speak to them as quickly as possible, to catch them before they had accepted their loss.

“I feel terribly responsible for what has happened,” he began.

“Well, it’s a bit late . . .” said Howard, but he felt the pressure of Julia’s hand on his shoulder urging him to let the doctor speak.

“Improbably, this unfortunate woman became attached to the wrong child. I’ve seen mothers abandon children, but never has a patient taken a child in place of her own! Imagine
his
predicament!” The doctor paused, waiting for what he hoped would be a spark of compassion.

“The poor thing,” murmured Julia. “How is he doing?”

The doctor was hoping for just such a question. “As a matter of fact, Julia,” he began, “this boy has made astonishing progress! He’s gained weight, has good color, breathes well. I think he’s rather special. A
survivor,
you might say!”

But this caused Julia’s tears to well up, and she left the room. Howard lingered, torn between going to her aid and exacting some other retribution on a man he now considered an insensitive quack.

Unnerved by Howard’s glare, the doctor continued: “Howard, I cannot help but feel that there is some order to things. Fate has a hand in this.”

“Fate? What on
earth
are you talking about?” muttered Howard.

“A fine couple, ideal parents, who have lost a baby, on the one hand,” said the doctor, “and an orphan, abandoned by his parents, who insists on surviving.”

“Yes.” Howard forgot his anger for a moment. “I suppose the poor fellow doesn’t have much to look forward to, does he?”

Dr. Underberg leaned forward with a light in his eyes. “Not in an institution, perhaps. But what if this child were to be raised by parents like you—young, spirited,
rebels
!”

“Rebels?” Howard’s jaw went slack. “If you ever use that word around me again, Doctor, I’ll—”

Underberg raised his hands to plead his point. “Look, Howard, we must accept that life deals tragedy and opportunity in equal measures. Only the brave and generous of heart prevail, and only the timid walk away from life’s second chances. Howard, I
implore
you to consider this boy’s future.” Moved by his own words, Underberg wiped his eyes with his tie, rose from his chair, and bade Howard a good evening.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING
, Julia and Howard returned to Mercy Hospital and left with their new son. His name: Will Howard Lament. “Will,” because only a child with a will of astonishing fortitude could have survived such a sad beginning.

In order to avoid weeks of delay and paperwork, Underberg arranged for the records to state that this was the natural-born son of the Laments, and as far as most were concerned, the matter ended there.

When Rose demanded to see her grandson for a second time, Julia refused, citing a cold first, then a host of other excuses. In time, Julia resolved never to reveal her son’s true identity to her mother (or to the rest of the world), for two reasons. First, she felt compelled to protect this child with all her heart; and second, she wanted to punish Rose for denying her the news of the most devastating fact of her childhood—her parents’ divorce.

In subsequent weeks, the baby gained weight, and it was expected that any other differences could be explained by the dramatic change every baby goes through in its first months. Several members of the family struggled to reconcile the child’s fair appearance with the mother’s black thunderhead of hair and the father’s coppery curls, but most would declare the child’s features a genetic compromise.

Except for Rose. “His coloring looks different,” she observed.

“A little case of jaundice,” Howard assured her.

“And he’s smaller than he was,” she continued.