“Yes, it is.”
“I didn’t tell you everything yesterday. I was ashamed. It was foolish of me.”
“Ma’am?” His heart began to pound in anticipation.
“My sister was considering the possibility of an abortion. She met with Doctor Williams. I wasn’t much help to her, I’m afraid. I don’t know if this means anything….”
“It could,” McShane said sadly. “The case is being turned over to the FBI. There have been some similar cases in other states recently.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sure they’ll be contacting you,” he added.
“Then, you won’t be involved?”
“Only tangentially,” he said. “But you can’t ask for more than having the FBI on it.”
“Yes,” she said. And then she added, “I’m sorry I held back information.”
“It’s all right. Thanks for the call,” he said, and she said good-bye, her voice drifting away like a leaf in the wind.
He sat there with the receiver in his hand, thinking. It felt as if he had just told someone her sister had the worst possible disease, maybe cancer. If Anna Gold were indeed another victim in a nationwide conspiracy, she had been abducted by more sophisticated people with more resources available to them. It made it harder and it filled him with rage. He wished he could pursue these fanatics and not just hand it over to the FBI.
He completed his report, adding the content of Miriam Gold’s recent call to the end of it. Then he brought it and Anna Gold’s pocketbook with all its contents to the sheriff. He told him about the phone call he had just received from Miriam Gold.
“So this thing does look like something bigger,” Ralph Cutler said.
“Maybe.”
“Not our problem now. Okay, look into those forgeries. See Steve Powell at the First National Bank first thing tomorrow.”
“Right.”
“Jimmy,” Ralph said as McShane started away. McShane turned. “One of the first things I learned when I got into this business is I couldn’t save everyone and I should get used to the idea.”
“Funny,” McShane said. “I always knew that to be true, but I always thought we should go at it as if we thought we could.”
“That’s a young, inexperienced man’s philosophy.”
“Maybe just an idealist,” McShane said.
“Same thing,” the sheriff retorted. McShane shrugged.
“I guess you’re right, Sheriff, but it’s sure depressing to be right sometimes.”
Ralph nodded and McShane left, never feeling more frustrated about himself and the work he had chosen to do.
16
It happened to her faster this time. With the last two human incubators, it had taken nearly two weeks; but there was something about this one, something about its resistance and the way it looked back defiantly at her, that accelerated the feeling, the need to think of it as nothing more than a nest in which the fertilized egg developed. She wanted to forget its name and especially its face so she could wipe away the idea that this was another human being. She could do that. Daddy made it possible for her to do that after the second incubator had become rebellious and had cursed her and spit at her.
She had told him she didn’t want that creature downstairs to be a person anymore.
“I can’t stand looking at its face, Daddy. It glares at me so hatefully, even when it’s asleep.”
He thought a moment, nodded, and said, “I’ll fix that, Mommy. Don’t worry.”
“What will you do, Daddy? We can’t do anything to harm her until after the baby is born.”
“I know. Just give me a chance to surprise you,” he said. “I have an idea.”
He smiled that handsome smile of his that had drawn her to him in the first place.
“What’s your idea, Daddy?”
“Be patient,” he said, and planted a kiss on her forehead.
She waited, but asked him about it first thing the next day when he came home from work.
“Patience,” he reminded her, still with that warm smile she loved.
“You know I hate surprises, Daddy. Most of my surprises were always bad ones,” she warned.
“This won’t be a bad one.”
The next day he looked like the cat that had eaten the canary. Before she could ask anything, he put up his hand and said, “Tomorrow.”
And the day after, just as he had vowed, he came home with his surprise. He had had a friend make it in his metal shop, and he had put it in a box and gift-wrapped it with pretty metallic paper filled with promises written in bright silver: I promise to love you forever. I promise to make you happy. I promise to fill your face with smiles….
“Go ahead, unwrap it,” Daddy said when she just stood there dumbfounded.
She did so as neatly as she could. She wanted to save the promises. Then she opened the box, cleared away the tissue paper, and took it out.
“Well?” Daddy said. “What do you think?”
The solution was so simple, she wondered why she hadn’t thought of it herself.
“It’s wonderful, Daddy. You didn’t let me down.”
Now it was in its box on the bedroom closet floor where they had left it after the second incubator died that horrible death.
She stood in the bedroom doorway and looked down at the box. By now the new incubator was asleep. It was a good time. Daddy would be surprised she had resorted to it so quickly, but he wouldn’t be upset. He understood. No one understood her as well as Daddy did.
She knelt down, uncovered the box, and plucked it out. She held it in her hands for a moment and then checked to see if the key was where it had been left in the box as well. It was. She would unlock it after this incubator had served its purpose, and put it back in the box to use again with the next incubator. Their plans called for at least two, maybe three more.
This was a perfect size, she thought, amazed at how light it really was. It wasn’t too small, nor was it too big. Food and drink could easily pass through the mouth, and the eyes were large enough for the incubator to see what it had to see, without her having to look at those hateful orbs, she thought. There were just two small holes for the ears, but they sufficed.
Once, even before they had put it on the second incubator, she had put it on herself just to be sure it would work. She wasn’t happy about wearing it. Her face became a little warm, but she was confident it would in no way endanger the baby growing in the incubator. Ultimately, that was the essential test for anything they would do: Would it be good for the baby?
Well, as long as there was defiance and hate, as long as there was resentment and conflict between her and the incubator, the baby was in some jeopardy. Daddy’s surprise gift would once again subdue the rancor and create a neutral atmosphere, at least as far as she was concerned. She wouldn’t have to face the sneers, the fire in the eyes, the clenched teeth. Most important, she would have no nightmares.
We should have done it the moment we brought this new incubator here, she thought. Both Daddy and I were so excited, we didn’t think clearly, otherwise we would have. Convinced she would be doing the right thing for herself as well as for the baby, she left and took it down to the basement. For a few moments she lingered outside the door and listened. The silence convinced her this was her opportunity.
Sure enough, when she opened the door, the incubator’s eyes were closed; it was lying on its back on the bed, which was perfect, and it was breathing softly, it chest lifting and falling in a stable rhythm, indicating it was asleep. The tranquilizers were working well.
Making as little noise as she could, practically tiptoeing over to the bed, she gently lifted the incubator’s head. Then she slipped it under the head and over the incubator’s face and quietly, gracefully, clicked in the two sides to lock it. That done, she lowered the incubator’s head to the pillow again and stepped back.
It was like looking at the white wall. Immediately she felt a wave of deep relief crawl through her body, washing away the
tension and unhappiness. A new confidence came over her.
“This time we’re doing it all right,” she muttered. “We won’t make any tragic mistakes.”
Proud of herself for taking intelligent action, she left the basement bedroom and went upstairs to prepare dinner. They would have a special dinner tonight, a celebration. There would be duck à l’orange and rice and cranberry sauce, champagne and strawberry shortcake with French-roast coffee. Tonight they would dine instead of eat. Their glasses would clink and their laughter would reverberate through this otherwise dank, dark, sad house, a house that had been without children for years.
They would bring the sunshine back in here. It would be warm again, with a fire in the fireplace, the delicious aromas of food permeating every room, the chandeliers sparkling, candles glittering in the old and very valuable antique silver candelabra.
Afterward she might even make Daddy happy by polishing his pendulum with her body oil. She didn’t do that too often these days. When she was unhappy, it was hard for her to make Daddy happy, but tonight she was positive she would.
She went about preparing the dinner, humming some quaint tune that lay in her memory like the pale yellow page of an old newspaper in a trunk stored in the attic. She couldn’t remember many words, nor could she recall the title of the song, but she vaguely remembered her mother humming it to her when she was having a soft time. That was how she recalled the few-and-far-between happy moments with her mother: soft times; times when her mother forgot how much she resented her birth and the added burden it had brought; times when her mother permitted some love to trickle out from under that mask of unhappiness.
These days she had trouble recalling her mother’s face. The oil paintings and photographs in wood frames of her parents and her mother’s parents lined the entryway of the old house, but the entryway was not well lit. The wall lamps no longer worked and there were no windows on the door. The door was made of cherry wood. It was chipped and cracked, wrinkled like an old woman, but still strong enough to withstand the weather and the ravages of time.
Sometimes she thought the house looked arthritic. The porch sagged on the right, shingles hung loosely. It was in dire need of a paint job, and the roof leaked in little places. She couldn’t remember when she had been in the attic last, but she knew that everything up there was damp and soggy and there were and had been a continuous society of chipmunks and other sorts of rodents residing in its corners and nooks. Often, when the house was quiet, she could discern their tiny feet scratching the attic floorboards as they scurried around the old furniture, trunks, piles of books, and discarded papers that marked the history of her family.
It went back to the Revolutionary War. One of her ancestors, Steven Corning, had been given a tract of land as payment for his participation in the war, and the land had remained in the family ever since. Her brother and sister were more than happy to leave it to her. The called it the Rattrap. They had hated living here so far away from other children, but she had always enjoyed the seclusion and never really cared about what her school friends thought.
When Daddy first saw the house and the grounds, and saw where it was all located, he was sincerely excited about it. She had feared that he, like all the men she had met, would find it odd that she could live there alone all that time, but he completely understood. He was at home here almost immediately, and almost immediately she felt he was the man who would be her husband.
They had met at the hospital. He would often say, “I took your blood but I was really after your heart.”
They had struck up a good friendship quickly, and he came around often to visit, stopping every time he was anywhere near her room at first, and then coming when he was off duty. He was the one who would bring her home when she was released, and that was when he first set eyes on the house.
“I never dreamt it would be exactly as you described,” he told her. “This is like walking through the wall of time, being protected by time. I love it. It’s…magical. And you,” he said, turning back to her, “you’re magical too.”
She thought that if a man could love her and want to be with her after what had happened to her, then he must be a good man, and a good man made a good father. She confessed her dreams and he confessed his, which to her required a deeper sense of trust than mere romantic love. They fed each other’s hope, and when they talked about what was happening to families around them, they soon saw that they agreed on most of the essential things.
Daddy was the one who suggested they bring the first incubator here. She didn’t agree or disagree immediately, but she didn’t oppose him when he began the construction of the maternity room downstairs in the basement. He told her he had often had dreams about it, and the dreams were so vivid, he actually thought the room had already been constructed. He said he believed someone had once lived down there anyway.
She turned away, amazed. When she had been little, that was where she had spent all of her private time. Her brother and sister hated the dark, damp basement, where field rats, mice, and snakes dwelled. She had always had an affinity for animals and even people whom other people avoided. The qualities that annoyed, frightened, or disgusted them were qualities that appealed to her. She sympathized with loneliness and fear: She felt it so often herself.
But all that was in the past. She was happy now. She and Daddy again were trying to have a child and raise a family. They desperately needed a family, needed someone else to depend on them, needed a place in which to deposit the love they had bursting inside them. They resented the fact that other people who had so little love to give small people still were able to have small people.
“They pop them out after Lamaze or with painkillers swimming through their veins, and then they immediately hire a nanny until their child is old enough to be put in day care or preschool,” he lectured.
She agreed: It was unfair. There were too many things that happened in this world that were unfair. Daddy nodded and his eyes grew small with determination.
“We have to do something about that,” he said. “We can’t just sit here and watch all this unroll on television and read about it in the papers and shake our heads.”
“Yes,” she said. She loved when he talked like that, full of passion and anger.
“A child is your child because you love him or her. That’s what connects you. People who have children of their own but don’t give them any love don’t really have children. You understand what I mean, don’t you?” he asked.
Of course she did. She understood that even before he had.
“I mean, if we have a child somehow and we give that child our love, it will be our child.”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s all waiting here.”
She pressed her hand against her heart.
He smiled and, shortly afterward, went downstairs into the basement and began to build the room. She would often stand by and watch him or hand him a tool. When it was completed they celebrated, just as they would celebrate tonight. They had a wonderful meal and talked softly and she made him happy.
Time passed. It took so long to find the proper first incubator. She used to go downstairs and stare at the empty room and sigh. Daddy knew how sad she was, so he tried harder, and when the opportunity came, he couldn’t wait to rush home to tell her.
“We’re going to have a baby,” he said.
What a wonderful thing to hear; what a wonderful thing for him to have said.
But it didn’t happen the way they had hoped.
And it didn’t happen the second time either.
But three was always a lucky number for her. This time it was going to happen.
“We’re going to have a baby. We’re really going to have a baby.”
And so she hummed as she worked.
The phone rang. It was Daddy.
“I’m just about finished with my lunch break,” he said. “I had to eat later today, so I thought I would call you now to see if there was anything we needed before I ch
ecked out for the day.”
She thought a moment and smiled to herself, just knowing what the effect of her words would be.
“I’m almost out of my body oil, Daddy,” she said. “Could you stop and get me another bottle?”
“Of course I could,” he said, the higher pitch in his voice revealing his anticipation. “I guess everything is all right there.”
“You guess right, Daddy. Hurry home.”
“A team of wild horses couldn’t stop me,” he said, and she laughed. It was more like a teenager’s giggle.
“No groceries?”
“No. I checked. We have everything else that we need for a while.”
“Okay. See you soon, Mommy.”
Daddy said good-bye and hung up quickly.
Back in the hospital corridor near the pay phone, he stood simmering with glee.
“Who’s that you were talking to?” Tommy Patterson asked.
He spun on him as if he had been pricked in the spine.
His fellow lab technician had his head tilted, his face twisted in a smile of curiosity.
“What?”
“I thought I heard you call the person Mommy. Your mother here?”
“You shouldn’t eavesdrop on someone else’s conversations,” he said indignantly.
“I wasn’t. I was just passing by and overheard. Don’t get your testosterone up.”
Daddy cooled quickly and gazed around to be sure no one else had heard. Making a scene always drew more attention to something you didn’t want other people to notice.
“It’s my wife,” he confessed softly, his eyes down. “I do that to make her feel good. You know, with the adoption being set up and all.”
“Oh.” Tommy smiled. “That’s nice. I’m happy for you guys. No two people deserve to have a child more.”
“Thank you,” he said. He brightened, thinking about how he would tell Mommy what Patterson had said.
“Good luck,” Tommy added, and walked off.
He watched him disappear down the corridor. Then he thought about the body oil and Mommy’s wonderful hands and the happiness that waited for him at home.
Under Abduction Page 12
