His Bundle of Love / the Color of Courage

by Patricia Davids

  She ignored him. Why didn’t he leave? Why couldn’t she open her mouth and send him away?

  Because she wanted him to stay. He was a link to her child. And maybe she wanted him to stay because she felt something different when he was near. She felt safe. It was a feeling she didn’t dare trust. “You named her Beth, right?”

  “Elizabeth Anne, actually, but everyone calls her Beth.”

  “After your mother?”

  “Yes. When she was born, you said, ‘Go with Beth.’”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “I didn’t know what else to call her. ‘Hey You’ seemed a little impersonal.”

  She smiled slightly. His voice was so beautiful—deep, expressive, soothing. Just the sound of it made her headache better. No wonder the baby responded so well to him.

  “Elizabeth Anne,” she tried the name on her tongue. It sounded regal. It was a big name for such a tiny person. “I guess it’s as good a name as any,” she conceded.

  The silence lengthened. She waited for him to make some excuse and leave. She’d spent so much of her life alone. Funny that she dreaded it still. At least her baby hadn’t been alone. Mick had been there for her. She began to remember bits of things he’d said and done when Eddy brought him to her room.

  Caitlin tried to swallow the lump that pressed up in her throat. She wanted to thank him, but she couldn’t find words to express the way his voice—his very presence had given her an anchor when she’d been so lost.

  She closed her eyes and struggled to shut away the feelings this man aroused in her—feelings of caring and tenderness, feelings that threatened to overwhelm her only because she was still so weak. She didn’t need an anchor now, and she didn’t need him. She needed to be strong. Only the strong survived on the streets. She couldn’t afford to depend on anybody but herself.

  In the past, she had depended on others, but they always let her down. She wouldn’t forget that fact. Not after her mother—not after Vinnie. Everybody had an angle, only some were harder to figure out than others.

  She drew a deep breath, then turned over to face him. “What are you getting out of this?”

  His eyes widened at her tone. “I don’t understand.”

  “You’ve got nothing better to do than hang out at the hospital with a woman in a coma and someone else’s kid?”

  “Beth is a very special child.”

  Caitlin resented the determined pride she heard in his voice—something that she should feel, but didn’t. Maybe she wasn’t cut out to be a mother. She certainly hadn’t had a role model to follow. “You can’t have kids, right?”

  “That’s true.”

  “So you thought you’d take mine?”

  A frown creased his forehead. “It’s not like that.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, what was it like—exactly? You’ve been telling people you’re her father. That’s a lie.”

  “You’re the one who said it.” His tone grew defensive.

  “So you tell me.”

  “Look, there are some things we need to discuss, but I don’t think now is the time. You’re getting upset.”

  “No kidding!” She turned away again. “You’re giving me a headache. Take a hike, why don’t you?”

  Even as she spoke, she hoped he’d ignore her words, hoped desperately that he would see through her act and stay. She was so tired of being alone.

  Mick stared at her back in the dim light from the window. He didn’t know if he wanted to shake her or gather her in his arms and comfort her. Maybe both. One moment she was like a lost child, the next minute she was a sharp-tongued shrew. Which person was the real Caitlin?

  “You’re tired,” he said. “We’ll talk later.”

  “Whatever.”

  Opening the door, he paused and cast one last glance at the rigid figure on the bed. He heard a muffled sob and saw her wipe at her eyes. Softly, he closed the door and left.

  * * *

  The next day, Mick stood in the deserted street and stared at the crumbling facade of the abandoned building where he’d first found Caitlin. The boards that once crisscrossed the door lay on the sidewalk where the ambulance crew had tossed them in their hurry to get their gurney inside; otherwise, nothing had changed. This was the last place he had any hope of finding out something about Caitlin.

  Pastor Frank knew nothing of Caitlin’s history. Like a lot of the homeless, she came and went at the shelter with barely a word.

  With a little more digging, he’d found a small newspaper article about the death of Vincent Williams. A visit to Harley’s Diner, the place Vinnie was accused of robbing, yielded only the information that Caitlin had worked there, but that she had been fired after the incident. He was able to track down where she lived from their records, but the landlord of the run-down apartments would only say that Caitlin had been evicted the same week her husband died. The man didn’t know and didn’t care where she went. As far as Mick could tell, after that Caitlin had ended up here.

  Inside the old building it was cool, dark and smelled of mold where the rain had dripped in from the sagging roof. He passed Eddy’s room and glanced in. It was empty.

  After making his way around the debris in the hall, Mick opened the door to Caitlin’s room and stepped inside. The same mattress lay in the corner. Three cardboard boxes sat beside the bed and a few clothes hung from nails in the wall.

  Dropping to one knee beside the mattress, he noticed a small black purse tucked between two boxes. He picked it up and dumped out the contents onto the bed.

  A gray vinyl wallet held six dollars and eighteen cents, but no ID and no pictures. A tube of lipstick and three books of matches were the only other things in the purse. All of the matchbooks were from the Harley’s Diner where Caitlin had worked busing tables and washing dishes.

  Mick turned his attention to the boxes. The first one contained a few cans of food. The next one held some clothes, and nothing else. The last carton said Sunkist Oranges. Did she like oranges or had the box simply been handy? He opened the lid.

  A baby blanket lay on top. Neatly folded, the downy soft square was covered in pastel-colored hearts and teddy bears. A second blanket, white and trimmed with yellow lace, lay under the first one. He set them carefully aside. Next he drew out a pink sleeper and small pair of white knit booties with tiny blue bows and laid them on the blankets.

  Caitlin had obviously wanted her baby. Except Mick knew wanting a child wasn’t enough. Perhaps Beth’s premature birth had been a blessing in disguise. The Lord moved in mysterious ways. Now she would never live in this dump. She’d never be homeless or hungry or cold. Now she had Mick O’Callaghan to look after her.

  The rest of the box held only papers. He took a closer look. They were sketches.

  Rising, he carried them to the window and sat on the sill. One by one, he held the drawings up to the light.

  Eddy stooping to pet a scrawny cat. A thin woman clutching a small child in her arms. Pastor Frank holding a cup to the lips of a frail, elderly woman. Somehow, the strokes of the pencil had captured the warmth in Eddy’s gesture, the fear on the face of the young mother and the gratitude in the old woman’s eyes.

  He leafed through several more sketches; they were mostly of children—kids from the shelter and from the streets. Then the next drawing stopped him cold. He was looking at himself.

  He had a football in his hands and three small defenders were putting a stop to his run by hanging on to his legs. The details in the picture were incredible. She had captured the boys’ determined expressions perfectly, but the gentle look of happiness on his own face surprised him the most.

  He thought back to that day. He had glimpsed Caitlin in the shadow of the building watching the game, but he didn’t remember seeing her with a drawing pad. He stared down at the sketches in amazeme
nt. Could she have drawn these detailed images from memory?

  He looked through over a hundred sketches that Caitlin had drawn. At the bottom of the box, he found a single photograph bent in half. Picking it up, he unfolded the picture and gazed at a small blond girl standing beside a young woman with dark hair. The child was Caitlin, he was sure of it. Was the tired-looking woman with a cigarette dangling from her lips Caitlin’s mother? The white line of the folded picture separated the mother and child, perhaps just as her mother’s addiction had separated them in real life.

  A scraping noise reached him, and Mick’s head snapped up. Something heavy was being dragged down the hallway. A moment later, the door swung wide, and an overcoat-clad figure backed into the room, muttering loudly. “Ya stupid piece a junk. I should a left ya for the garbage truck.”

  “Eddy, what in the world are you doing?”

  The old man spun around, his eyes wide and startled. “Sheesh, Mick, ya scared the livin’ daylights out of me.”

  “Sorry. Can I give you a hand with that?” Mick offered, leaving his place on the windowsill after he replaced the photo and the sketches in the box.

  Eddy’s face brightened and a nearly toothless grin appeared. “Look what I found fer Caitlin.” He pulled an ancient, enormous baby carriage through the doorway.

  “Pastor Frank told me she had a baby girl. She don’t have no place to keep a baby in here, so I got her this. Pastor Frank said I was a real hero for gettin’ her help that day. He said without me, her baby woulda died fer sure. Ain’t that somethin’? I mean—him sayin’ I was a hero?”

  “It’s nothing but the truth, Eddy.”

  “You—you think I was a hero, too?”

  Mick patted the small man’s shoulder. “I know you were the hero that day.”

  Eddy’s smile faded, and his face grew somber. “I ain’t never amounted to nothin’ in my whole life. Not like you, bein’ a fireman and all. I been a drunk and a bum...since I was born, I reckon, but I did somethin’ right for once, didn’t I?”

  “You sure did.”

  Eddy wiped at his eyes with the back of his dirty, tattered sleeve. “What are you doin’ here?”

  Mick glanced around the dingy room with its peeling plaster and sagging ceiling. “Caitlin is pretty sick. I was hoping to find out if she had any family or friends, anyone I can notify.”

  Eddy scratched his head. “Not that I know of.” He pushed the baby carriage across the room. The thing bobbed and wobbled on a bent front wheel.

  “How about the baby’s father? Did she ever tell you anything about him or his family?” Mick probed.

  “Yeah. Let me think.”

  Mick waited impatiently. “It’s important, Eddy.”

  “Oh, I know. She said he was a case of bad judgment.”

  “That’s it?”

  “She ain’t much for talkin’.”

  “Take a look at these sketches and see if you recognize anyone who might be a friend of hers.”

  Eddy took them and held them out at arm’s length. “I don’t see so good anymore, Mick.”

  Battling back his frustration, Mick nodded and took the drawings from him. “Okay, Eddy. Thanks for your help.”

  “Pastor Frank said the baby’s gonna be in the hospital a long time on account of her being so small. That true?”

  “Yes, she only weighs about two pounds. It’s going to take her a few months to get big enough to go home.”

  “Do ya—do ya think I could come and see her? Like a visitor, I mean? I’d like to do that.”

  Mick looked at Eddy’s grubby clothes and at his beard with wine stains and bits of food clinging in it. The smell of his unwashed body was overpowering, yet his face held such hopeful longing. How could Mick tell him no without crushing the pride that Eddy had found for the first time in his life?

  “She’s too tiny to have visitors yet,” he said gently.

  “Oh.” The hope on Eddy’s face drained away. Looking down, he brushed at the front of his clothes. “Sure, I understand.”

  Mick couldn’t let the man think he wasn’t good enough to see the baby whose life he had helped save. “But she’s getting bigger and stronger every day.”

  Eddy looked up. “She is?”

  “I’ll tell you what. You check in with Pastor Frank. When she’s big enough to have visitors, he can bring you to see her.”

  “Honest? You mean it? Ah, Mick—” Eddy’s voice broke, and he turned away to busy himself straightening up the leaning pram.

  After a moment, he said, “I clean up pretty good, Mick. You’ll see. She won’t be ashamed of me.”

  Mick blinked back the tears that threatened his own eyes. “How could she be ashamed of the guy who saved her life?”

  Mick gathered up Caitlin’s things. A sketch fluttered to the floor and he bent to pick it up. It was a portrait Caitlin had drawn of herself. Her pixielike face and wide eyes stared back at him, but like Caitlin herself, the sketch gave him no answers.

  He had to admit that holding her in his arms had stirred his protective instincts and made him aware of her as a woman, but who was she really? He’d invented a persona for her when she’d been unconscious, he realized, and now he was disturbed to discover it didn’t fit her at all.

  Where was the vulnerable, desperate woman he’d taken to the hospital? The woman he’d begun to care about? He wasn’t comfortable with the Caitlin who had emerged yesterday. Her refusal to see the baby again disturbed him deeply.

  There were unfit parents in the world, he knew that. In his line of work he’d met men and women who neglected and abused their children. He simply didn’t want to believe Caitlin was one of them. Even if she was the best mother in the world, she didn’t have a job or a place to live. She couldn’t take care of herself let alone a baby. She needed his help. She needed him.

  * * *

  The doctor listened to Caitlin’s chest, checked her eyes, peered down her throat, had her squeeze his hands and finally hit her knees with a little, red rubber hammer. Without comment, he took the chart from the end of her bed and leafed through it.

  He gave her a pointed look over the top of his glasses then snapped the chart shut. “You’re making a remarkable recovery. A week ago, I wouldn’t have believed it was possible. How would you like to move to the maternity floor? You’ll be closer to the NICU.”

  “I’d like that.” Caitlin struggled to keep her elation from showing. She’d be closer to her daughter. Closer, but not close enough to cause any more problems.

  “Good. If you keep up this progress, I’ll have to let you go home in a few days.”

  Caitlin twisted the edge of the covers in her hands. Home? Where would that be? A crowded shelter or maybe the building where Mick had found her? Some choice. Neither one was a fit place to take a newborn.

  If only Beth had waited until August to be born. Caitlin had planned to earn enough money selling her sketches to tourists down on the Navy Pier over the summer months to be able to afford a place to live. She’d made a few bucks in the past two months, but not many people wanted to sit for portraits when the cold north wind was whipping off the lake.

  No matter, she’d manage somehow—she always had—but she hadn’t had a baby to look after. How was she going to pay the hospital bills, or find a job or someone to look after the baby while she worked? She forced those fears to the back of her mind. She couldn’t dwell on them or she’d go crazy.

  “Feeling hungry?” the doctor asked.

  She shrugged. “I could eat.”

  Turning to the nurse, he said, “Betty, pull that IV and start her on a general diet.”

  “Yes, doctor.”

  After he left, Betty said, “This is great. Now you’ll be right down the hall from the NICU. Let me get you a menu. You can choose something for d
inner tonight besides Jell-O.”

  There didn’t seem to be any end to the things they wanted her to read in this place. If she wasn’t careful, they’d discover the truth. She hated the way people treated her when they found out. She hated being stupid.

  “I don’t see how you expect me to read anything without my glasses.” It was her oldest line.

  Betty’s eyes widened in surprise. “I didn’t know you wore any. Maybe they’re in the things that came from E.R. with you.” She opened the closet and began searching through a large, white plastic bag marked with the hospital’s logo. “They don’t seem to be here. Are you sure you had them with you?”

  “I was unconscious, remember?”

  “Why don’t I give Mick a call? Maybe he has them.”

  “No! I mean, don’t bother. I’ll manage.”

  “Perhaps I can read you the choices and mark them for you. Will that work?”

  “Whatever.” Caitlin stared at the window. She didn’t like acting this way, but she had discovered early on that if people didn’t like her, they left her alone. When she was alone, she didn’t have to watch what she said or did.

  “It’s no trouble. Let me take your IV out. The sooner that’s done, the sooner you can move out of here.”

  Caitlin held up her arm. “Knock yourself out.”

  Two hours later, Betty helped her out of a wheelchair and into her new bed on the maternity floor. As she watched the woman prepare to leave, Caitlin realized that she would miss the cheerful, little nurse. Betty had been nothing but kind even when Caitlin had been deliberately rude. As the nurse maneuvered the empty chair toward the door, Caitlin called out, “Hey, Betty.” She looked back and Caitlin managed a smile. “Thanks. For everything.”

  Betty grinned, then surprised Caitlin by crossing the room and enfolding her in a quick hug. “Good luck, honey. I’ll keep you in my prayers,” she said, and then she hurried out the door.

  Caitlin tried to swallow past the lump that rose in her throat. She wasn’t used to people being kind to her.

  Somewhere down the hall a baby was crying. But not her baby. Her baby was barely clinging to life. Every time she heard that sound, she’d be reminded of what she didn’t have. Of what she had missed out on.