Haven Point

by Virginia Hume

  As she got ready for bed, Maren began to worry again, but she knew Maude was probably right. Pauline was not much for the outdoors. In all likelihood, she had made herself at home in an unoccupied house. She finally fell into a restless slumber.

  At two o’clock in the morning, Maren tried to convince herself that the loud, slurring voice belting out “Singing in the Rain” was a dream, rather than Pauline coming up the porch stairs, literally singing in the rain. She was about to turn and put a pillow over her head to block out the noise when she was roused by a recollection.

  Oh Lord. She’s at the front door. Maren had closed it tightly before she went to bed. Warped and swollen like everything in the house, it was tricky to open, no job for a drunken Pauline.

  If she wakes Annie, I will murder her, Maren thought as she raced downstairs. Maren took the knob in both hands and simultaneously lifted, turned, and pulled, the only sure way to get it to budge. As fate would have it, she wrenched the door open at the exact moment a very wet and surprised Pauline was trying to turn the knob on the other side.

  Pauline stumbled, and her hands flailed as she sought something to grasp onto. All she could find was Maren’s nightgown. Pauline seized a fistful of it before dropping to her knees. Maren stumbled, too, but she tightened her grip on the doorknob and kept herself from falling.

  She would have remained upright, but Pauline listed and her shoulder hit the door, causing it to swing farther open. Maren’s feet slid out from under her, and she landed hard on the floor. A pain shot through her hip, so sharp it took her breath away.

  She lay motionless for a moment, waiting for a wave of nausea to pass, then pushed herself up—first on her elbow, then gingerly to a sitting position. She carefully moved her legs. The pain was intense, and she knew she’d have a great bruise. To her relief, however, her limbs seemed to be working as they should.

  I am definitely talking to her tomorrow, Maren thought.

  Despite her annoyance, she almost laughed when she looked up and saw Pauline still on her knees in the doorway, hands pressed against the doorjamb, trying to pull herself up. She looked confused, unable to compute why she could not rise. Evidently she did not realize the screen door had shut on her bottom, immobilizing her lower legs beneath it.

  Maren stood carefully, took two painful steps toward Pauline, and held the screen door open with her foot as she helped the dripping woman to her feet.

  “What am I going to do with you, Pauline?” Maren said. Pauline mumbled something in response. Maren put her arm around the tiny shoulders.

  At least Annie didn’t wake up, Maren thought, relieved, as she guided Pauline up the stairs. She was so eager to get back to bed, she could practically taste the sleep.

  They were halfway up when Maren felt the dampness between her legs.

  She stopped and looked down. A spasm of fear clutched at her heart as she saw a slow, steady trickle of fluid down her leg. She stood up straighter, and the trickle came faster.

  Oh no. Oh God, no. Her water had broken.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Maren let go of Pauline, who teetered a little on the staircase. Maren cursed under her breath, helped Pauline back down the stairs, and pointed to the wooden chair by the hall table.

  “Sit!” she commanded. Pauline stumbled toward the chair and sat down.

  Maren tried to stay calm. Did she have time to wait for an ambulance? Billy and Annie had come quickly once her water broke, but in both cases, she had already been in labor. If it was the fall that caused her water to break, maybe labor would be slower. She was not due for five more weeks.

  There were no doctors on Haven Point at the moment, so an ambulance seemed the only hope. She hobbled to the hall table, picked up the handset of the old candlestick phone, and put it to her ear.

  Nothing.

  She pressed and released the brass switch hook. Still nothing. She tried a few more times, growing more frantic with each attempt, but she could not hear even a hint of static. She grabbed hold of the edge of the hall table and closed her eyes. It was the storm. The phones went out constantly. They were lucky to still have electricity.

  She tried to think of the best way to get to Phippsburg.

  Georgie. She could take her in the LaSalle. That was even better than an ambulance, because they wouldn’t have to wait for it to arrive.

  But then, with a groan, she remembered the fallen tree. And even if it had been cleared, the causeway was almost certainly flooded. An ambulance could not have gotten in, and the LaSalle could not get her out.

  A powerful contraction took hold. It started deep inside, and grew stronger until it felt as if someone had grabbed hold of a vital organ and twisted it mercilessly.

  Damn.

  Maren looked at Pauline, who was mumbling something, her eyes closed.

  Why? Why can I not have a competent mother-in-law, someone resourceful and helpful?

  And then it hit her.

  Clara. Competent, resourceful, helpful Clara was from Androscoggin County in rural Maine, where women had babies at home, not under twilight sleep in tidy hospitals. Clara was not a midwife, but she had assisted in many births, including several of her grandchildren’s. And she was just a little way down the road, at Georgie’s.

  All that was left was to fetch her. Maren knew she couldn’t, shouldn’t go. Pauline seemed scarcely more capable, but it was her or Billy, and she did not want to wake Billy.

  “Pauline!” she barked. Pauline’s head lolled, and she half opened one eye.

  “My water broke,” Maren said sharply. “I am going to have this baby. You have to go to Maude’s and get Clara.”

  “Oh, I can’t,” Pauline slurred, waving her hand, as if Maren had asked her to do something trivial, something optional. “I have to go to bed.”

  Maren’s pain and fear and helplessness all faded into the background, overtaken by white-hot fury. This woman, this feckless drunk, the author of this catastrophe, had to go to bed? If Pauline Demarest could form a sentence, if she could cheerfully sing a show tune while walking home from wherever she had been drinking, she could damn well get to Maude’s house.

  Maren leaned forward until her face was just a few inches from Pauline’s.

  “Get out of that chair and get over to Maude’s house. NOW!” Maren snarled. She barely resisted the temptation to smack Pauline across the face, like Scarlett O’Hara slapped Prissy the maid.

  Pauline looked fearful, but she rose unsteadily. Allowing no time for a change of heart, Maren helped her up and into a rain slicker, grabbed a flashlight from the hall closet, then took Pauline’s face between her hands.

  “Listen to me. Go to Maude’s. Bang on the door. Tell her the baby is coming. I need Clara.”

  Pauline nodded, but Maren worried she was merely placating her.

  “What did I say, Pauline?” Maren heard the edge in her own voice.

  “Maude, the baby, Clara,” Pauline slurred.

  Maren practically pushed her out the door and watched her stumble across the yard. Once she determined Pauline was lurching in roughly the right direction, Maren hobbled upstairs to her room. Just as she got on top of her covers, she felt another contraction.

  Please make it. Please make it. Maren didn’t care if a tree branch fell on Pauline’s head and killed her, just as long as it fell after she’d fetched Clara.

  She tried to breathe and think reassuring thoughts.

  My body will know what to do.… The baby is not so very premature.… Billy and Annie were big babies, so this one won’t be so small.…

  A memory of Oliver at her bedside at Billy’s and Annie’s births floated into her mind. She could almost feel his hand as it brushed the hair from her face, the love and tender concern in his eyes. Her need for him was almost a physical being, his absence a presence, like the phantom limbs of the amputees at Walter Reed. Tears spilled down her cheeks.

  It took little time for her to realize her hope for a longer labor had been a vain one. The
contractions grew closer together and the pain more intense, until she began to lose track of time and place. It felt as if the world collapsed in on itself until there was her, this bed, and this baby. A baby, who, by hook or by crook, would soon come into the world. Had it been ten minutes since Pauline left? An hour? Two?

  She wasn’t sure, but soon the contractions were right on top of each other, almost no respite between. Then came the pressure low in her pelvis and an entirely new pain, as if her hips were being torn apart. And then the urge, the overwhelming urge, to push.

  Some instinct told her to resist. They will come. They must come. She breathed, but it came out as a whimper. The urge grew stronger until she felt she had no choice but to relent. She bore down.

  Pauline didn’t get there. They don’t know.

  Through the fog, Maren realized it had been folly to send her. She should have gotten Billy up and had him get Clara. Now it was too late. She was going to have this baby alone. She was so tired she could not imagine how, but she had no choice. She took a breath, trying to summon strength from somewhere deep within.

  Just as she prepared to push again, she thought she heard something. She froze and listened. It was unmistakable now. Voices, women’s voices. Her head fell back against the pillow as she reveled in the miraculous sound of Clara, Maude, and Georgie coming up the stairs. The bedroom door opened. Maren looked up and smiled weakly, then let her mind go blank as she relinquished the need to think.

  The next twenty minutes were a blur. She could hear Clara’s voice, her comforting tone of authority. Warm water, towels, clean scissors, syringe … Don’t push yet, dear.…

  Then pain, pressure.

  All right, now push … wait … all right, dear, push again.…

  A swirl of pain, more pressure and burning … One more push …

  And then, It’s a boy, Mrs. Demarest. It’s a boy.

  Maren let her head sink into the pillow and breathed deeply. She was still in pain, but nothing like before.

  A boy. Charles, after Maren’s own father. She and Oliver had agreed.

  She luxuriated in the silence, until the foggy peace was pierced by a terrible realization. It should not be so quiet. My baby hasn’t cried. Why hasn’t my baby cried?

  “What’s wrong?” No one answered, so she screamed louder. “Where’s my baby?”

  She forced her eyes open and saw four silhouettes: Clara in the armchair by the window, Maren’s silent son facedown across her legs, Maude and Georgie bent over her. Clara’s entire arm was moving back and forth, as if she were scrubbing a pan.

  Maren heard a sound, one plaintive word. “Nooooo!” She knew somehow it had come from her own throat.

  Three heads turned in her direction, but just as Maren prepared herself to see sorrow and horror on their faces, she heard a loud and lusty wail, and then a great cheer from Georgie and Maude. Weeping, Maren held out her arms to welcome her son.

  * * *

  The next day, Georgie filled in the blank spots from the night before. Pauline had managed to rouse her and Maude and explain the circumstances, albeit somewhat incoherently. They put Pauline to bed in a spare room, fetched Clara, and came straight to Fourwinds. At some point in the morning Pauline had stumbled home and gone directly to her own bed.

  That afternoon the phones were still down, but the roads were clear, so Gideon would fetch the doctor in Phippsburg. Maren was awaiting their arrival when Pauline entered her room. She smiled at Maren, not a hint of self-consciousness on her face, and leaned over the bassinet.

  “Oh, aren’t you a pretty boy!” She reached in and tickled the baby’s chin.

  “Pauline, can I talk to you?” Maren asked.

  “Of course,” Pauline said, still gazing adoringly at her new grandchild.

  “You need help, Pauline.” Maren’s voice had a hard edge.

  “With what?” Pauline looked up now, uncomprehending.

  “Pauline, can we please stop pretending? You came in drunk last night. You pulled me down as I was opening the door. I fell and my water broke. That’s why Charlie was born early. You’re why Charlie was born early.”

  “I don’t remember that,” she said, skeptical.

  “You had been drinking, Pauline. Do you remember that much?”

  “Well, everyone drinks on Haven Point,” she said innocently.

  “That wasn’t my question,” Maren said, beginning to feel insane. “My point is, you drink too much.”

  “Well, it’s just the way it is. I take the first drink and the next ones take themselves.” She spoke nonchalantly.

  Maren tried to come at it from a few more angles, until she finally realized she was on a verbal merry-go-round, and the only way off was a change of subject. She finally understood what Georgie and the others meant when they said talking to Pauline went nowhere. There was no helping her.

  As she watched Pauline coo at the baby, however, a strange thing happened. To her astonishment, rather than anger, Maren felt a surge of tenderness.

  For all her flaws, all her terrible glaring weaknesses, Pauline had one redeeming quality, one Maren realized she honored above all: pure and unadulterated love for her grandchildren.

  William picked and found fault. Billy was too bookish, Annie too wild. But Pauline was thrilled whenever the children entered the room, even if it had only been fifteen minutes since she’d last seen them. The kids felt it. They adored “Nonnie,” as they called her.

  In that moment, Maren decided anyone who loved her children as much as Pauline loved Billy, Annie, and now Charlie, deserved a measure of her devotion.

  And, for what it was worth, at least Pauline was standing here in this room. Oliver didn’t yet know he had another son.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  February 2008

  Washington, D.C.

  SKYE

  “You have got to get a new job, Skye.” Adriene was perched on the vanity stool in the bathroom, painting her nails, while Skye got ready. Skye had just returned from a two-day trip into the congressional district. The entire time, she had felt the chief of staff’s eyes on her, scanning for signs of disloyalty.

  “You shouldn’t have to put up with this,” Adriene continued.

  “I know.” Skye sighed. She wished she could be more like Adriene, who was impervious to the moods and judgments of people around her. Skye was too porous, too vulnerable to toxicity. In other jobs, she had placated angry bosses or colleagues by meeting, or exceeding, even the most unreasonable expectations, but Mac McCarthy cared little about performance. The most worthless true believer was valued far more than Skye, who was highly capable, but unable to fake worshipful devotion to a congressman she did not respect, or a siege mentality she found baffling and ridiculous.

  “You look great,” Adriene said, looking up from her nails to check on Skye’s progress.

  “Good thing I’ve pared down the routine,” Skye replied. “He’ll be here in like three minutes.”

  Years earlier, at Adriene’s urging, Skye had given up on foundation and powder.

  “I’m telling you, the Celtic ginger look is in,” Adriene had insisted, pointing to a Benetton ad, featuring a Scottish model with Skye’s auburn hair, pale skin, and light freckles. Skye was down to blush, eye makeup, and tinted gloss on her full lips. In the cold, dry air it took only a few minutes to coax her hair into subtle waves past her shoulders. She finished just as Ben buzzed from downstairs.

  They had dinner at a restaurant in upper Georgetown, then wandered around the historic neighborhood. Like many Washingtonians, Skye tended to avoid Georgetown, especially on weekends. She had forgotten how pretty it was at night. As they walked along M Street, the sound of people singing along to a piano emanated from one of the bars. Ben looked at Skye and smiled.

  “Shall we?”

  “I can’t sing, but sure,” Skye replied.

  “Me neither, but sounds like it won’t matter much,” Ben replied as he led her inside. They got beers at the bar and joined the
crowd of drunken patrons, singing along (badly) to “Sweet Caroline,” “Piano Man,” and “Brown-Eyed Girl.”

  When they left an hour later, Skye was not exactly drunk, but she felt pleasantly buzzed, having exceeded her normal two-drink limit.

  As Ben lifted his arm to hail a cab, he looked over his shoulder at Skye.

  “Any chance I could talk you into coming over?” he asked casually.

  “Sure,” Skye replied, before she could stop herself.

  “Thirteenth and Q, please,” Ben said as they climbed in. Ben and Skye shared an affection for the quirky, often overeducated cabdrivers in D.C. On their way to dinner, they’d gotten a passionate lecture about bottleneck dolphins from a student pursuing a Ph.D. in biology at Georgetown University.

  The driver that picked them up now was older and taciturn. In response to Ben’s friendly questioning, they learned he was from Baltimore (“Bawler, Merlin,” as he pronounced it), but not much more. Ben smiled at Skye and shrugged, as if to say, Can’t win them all.

  When they arrived, the driver leaned over his steering wheel and looked up at the little town house Ben shared with a fellow clerk. “This where you live?” he asked.

  “Yep,” Ben said as he pulled bills from his wallet.

  “Bit close to the pentagram for my taste,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Pardon me?” Ben asked.

  “The pentagram,” the driver said, as if this should be obvious. “You know the Illuminati designed Washington, don’t you?”

  “I did not know that,” Ben said, now smiling triumphantly at Skye. “Tell me more.”

  The driver outlined the elaborate conspiracy theory about the Freemasons who had incorporated occult symbols into the original plan for the capital.

  “Just look at a map. You’ll see it. Pentagram, right there in the middle, pointing at the White House,” the driver said. He nodded his head southward. “Logan Circle over there? That’s one of the tips.”

  “Good to know,” Ben said. He handed over the bills. “Thanks.”