Suddenly

by Barbara Delinsky

  “If anyone can do it, you can.”

  “But can I do it well? Will I be able to give this little one what she needs? And she needs plenty. She needs to be touched and talked to and played with, and encouraged to sit and then stand and walk. She needs to be weaned onto regular milk and the kinds of foods that other fourteen-month-olds eat—”

  “She’s that old?” Nonny asked in surprise.

  “That old,” Paige replied. “That’s what I’m telling you. She needs extra love and care if she’s going to catch up, but I’m not sure I’m able to give it to her.”

  “Of course you are.”

  “What with everything else I have to do?”

  “You’re the one who talks about quality time.”

  Paige grunted. “Sounds good, huh? But does it work?”

  “You’ll know soon enough,” Nonny advised, then brightened. “I can help. Let me baby-sit while you’re at work.”

  “No way. Babies are hard work.”

  “So?”

  “You’ve paid your dues twice, first with Chloe, then with me.”

  “So? Why can’t I do it a third time? I’m only seventy-six. My friend Elisabeth is eighty-two, and she baby-sits her great-grandchildren all the time.”

  “This isn’t your great-grandchild,” Paige reminded her. “She’s only here for a little while.”

  “All the more reason why I can help. My friend Sylvia works three days a week at the day care center in town, and she’s eighty-one.”

  “I need someone five days a week. With Mara gone, my caseload will be heavier than ever.”

  “I can work five days a week. My friend Helen does it, works at the library five days a week, and she’s seventy-eight.”

  “And then there’s Gussie VonDamon,” Paige teased.

  Nonny scowled. “Don’t even mention Gussie. She’s an old biddy if ever there was one, gives senior citizens a bad name, driving around in that boat of a car at fifteen miles an hour, yelling out the window and honking all the time—Oooh, pumpkin”—she drew Sami close when the child puckered up—“I’m talking too sharp? You’d understand if you knew Gussie VonDamon, and you may well, one day. If she catches sight of Paige bringing you here, she’ll be knocking down my door asking all kinds of questions. Far better if I drive over to see you.”

  “It’s a long drive.”

  “It’s only forty minutes.”

  “Nonny,” Paige said, giving her grandmother’s delicate shoulder a squeeze, “this is a moot point. I’ve already arranged to have Mrs. Busbee baby-sit. She lives two doors down. It’s a perfect arrangement.” Unfortunately, it was also temporary. In several more weeks Mrs. Busbee would be going south for the winter, and Paige would have to find someone else.

  “Is she good with children?” Nonny asked.

  “Very.”

  “As good as I would be?”

  “No one’s as good as you would be. Or Mara.” Paige sighed. She stroked Sami’s dark hair. “Mara would have loved this little one. She’s a darling.” Sami was staring at the strip of red leather that looped around Nonny’s neck and through a papier-mâché strawberry. Paige lifted the strawberry and touched it to Sami’s tiny hand. “I miss Mara. I keep reaching for the phone to call her, or thinking of things to tell her. She was such an important part of my life.” She paused. “I let her down.”

  “Nonsense,” Nonny said.

  “I wasn’t there when she needed me. I was too wrapped up in my own life to take the extra time and make sure she was okay. I knew she was going through a difficult time. I should have made the effort.”

  “It might not have made any difference.”

  “No, but at least I wouldn’t feel so guilty.”

  Nonny shot her a knowing look. “You probably would anyway. You have a thing for guilt, Paige. When you were little, you blamed yourself for your parents’ wanderlust, but it wasn’t right then, and it’s not right now. You may be a wonderful doctor, but you aren’t a mind reader. You had no way of knowing what Mara was feeling inside.”

  That didn’t keep Paige from wondering. She had relived Mara’s death in her imagination dozens of times. “It haunts me, thinking of that. The feelings have to be awful for a person to reach the point of contemplating suicide, and to go through with it—” The horror hadn’t yet begun to fade.

  “Have you ruled out an accident?”

  “Oh, Nonny,” she said with a sigh, “Mara O’Neill didn’t do things accidentally. She was an all or nothing person—then again, she had so much to live for, not the least of which was Sami, that I can’t imagine she would deliberately kill herself. It just doesn’t make sense.”

  Nonny sent her an understanding look. “I guess it never will. If Mara had secrets, they’ve gone to her grave with her.”

  Paige wasn’t ready to accept that. Although her first order of business was to restore an element of normalcy to her life, which meant returning to work Monday morning and immersing herself in her patients’ lives as though everything were as it always had been, her second was to dig deeper into Mara’s last day. Between diagnosing Danny Brody’s poison ivy, removing a bead from Lisa Marmer’s nose, assuring a terrified Marilee Stiller that the spanking she had given her three-year-old that weekend hadn’t injured him, and repairing a subluxation with a quick snap, she talked with everyone who, to her knowledge, had had contact with Mara that last day.

  By lunchtime, when she caught Angie alone in the kitchenette at the back of the office, she had a large sheet of paper covered with notes. “From what I can figure, Mara came here first thing in the morning. She was writing up reports when Ginny arrived, but it was standard stuff, nothing to suggest she was tidying up before killing herself. She didn’t even finish what she was doing, because the first of the emergencies arrived. She saw patients until ten.”

  “Feverishly?” Angie asked.

  “Not particularly, according to Dottie”—the nurse-practitioner on duty that morning—“but Dottie wasn’t looking for anything unusual, any more than the rest of us were. Whether her energy was unduly frenetic is anyone’s guess.”

  She studied her notes while she absently ate the orange slice Angie handed her. “She was on the phone between patients—talked with the lab, with the desk at Two-E”—the pediatric wing of Tucker General—“and with Larry Hills.” Larry was the pharmacist at the local drugstore. “There were some outgoing calls, too, Ginny says, but unless they were long distance, we’ll never know who they were to. At ten, she asked me to cover so that she could run over and confront the lab over Todd Fiske’s tests. She was annoyed, but certainly not distraught, and she was back in forty-five minutes. There were more patients after that, more phone calls—a consult on the Webber child, several calls to parents. No one remembers whether she took time for lunch. You stopped her in the hall at about twelve-thirty. She was distracted then and for most of the afternoon, from what Dottie said. Peter was the last to see her. That was at four-thirty. The coroner said she died around midnight.”

  She sank back in her chair. “That leaves a big gap during which she took a large amount of Valium. What was happening to her all that time?”

  The phone rang. Angie answered it, then passed it to Paige, who felt an instant’s fright. She had called Mrs. Busbee twice during the morning and been told all was fine, but that could have changed. “Yes, Ginny?”

  “Jill Stickley is here. She’d like to talk with you for a minute.”

  Not Sami. Jill Stickley. Paige felt relief on one score, concern on another. Jill’s name hadn’t been on the daily roster. She would have remembered. Seventeen years old and one of Paige’s original Tucker patients, Jill held a special place in her heart, which was only one of the reasons Paige was alert. The other was that the Stickleys had been through more than their share of rough times of late. One more wouldn’t do.

  “Show her into my office,” Paige said without pause. “I’ll be right there.” She rose from the table with an apology to Angie.

 
“Go,” Angie urged. “I’ll see if I can learn anything more about Mara’s day. Something’s missing.”

  That had been Paige’s thought exactly, but it was gone from mind the minute she saw Jill Stickley’s face. The girl was standing awkwardly in her office, looking exhausted, pale, and tense.

  Paige imagined that Jill’s father, a frustrated insurance salesman, had beaten her mother again, or that her mother, who had been unemployed for a year before landing a lower-paying job, had been laid off again, or that Jill’s brother had stolen another car and been caught again ditching it at the Tucker landfill.

  She put an arm around Jill’s shoulder and said, “No matter what it is, it can’t be that bad.” After a while, nothing was. “Go on. Tell me.”

  “I think I’m pregnant,” Jill said in a reed-thin voice while frightened eyes sought Paige’s reaction.

  Paige swallowed. “Pregnant?” It wasn’t what she’d expected at all. “Uh, I thought we agreed on birth control pills.”

  “We did. Only I messed up, I guess.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “I’m late.”

  “How late?”

  “A couple of months.”

  Paige glanced at her middle, which was covered with loose layers and revealed nothing. The hand she put there learned far more. Beneath it was a distinct bulge. “A couple of months? Oh, sweetie. This feels like four at the least.”

  Jill’s eyes filled with tears. “I guess I lost count,” she whispered.

  Lost count? Paige cried silently. How could you lose count? We’ve been talking about sperm meeting egg since you started menstruating five years ago. I pushed abstinence until abstinence became a pipe dream, and then I pushed contraception.

  But the arguments were moot. The deed was done. “And you’re terrified.”

  The girl nodded.

  Paige rubbed her back. “Does Joey know?” Joey was the longtime boyfriend, an automobile mechanic, six years older than Jill. “Of course he knows,” Paige answered herself. “He’s seen this bulge.”

  But Jill shook her head. “He thought I was getting fat. He’s been razzing me about it. So I told him the truth last night. He said he didn’t want any part of a fat girlfriend or a screaming baby, and that I could do what I wanted with it. I thought he’d get used to the idea overnight, so I went home and sat up all night praying for it, but when I stopped at his place this morning, he had packed up and gone.”

  Paige sighed. “Oh, sweetie.”

  “I can’t tell my dad—he’ll go apeshit—and if I tell Mom, he’ll accuse her of keeping secrets from him. He’ll hit her big time for that.” She wiped her cheek with the heel of her hand. “I’ve really messed up this time, haven’t I?”

  Paige clicked her tongue. “Bringing new life into the world is never a mess-up. What gets hairy is the way we handle it.” She guided Jill to the examining room. “Let’s take a look and see what we’re dealing with here.”

  Ten minutes later they were back in the office, sitting close on the small sofa, trying to “handle” the situation. Jill ruled out an abortion, for which Paige, who had fresh visions of Mara pregnant at the very same age, would have been grateful even if the timing had been right, though it wasn’t. Paige estimated that Jill was indeed four to five months pregnant, and although physically an abortion might still have been safely performed, the emotional ramifications would be tougher. Then again, raising the baby was a hardship Jill could ill afford; the Stickleys had negative economic resources, and without a high school diploma, Jill had little chance of improving on it. Adoption seemed the wisest solution.

  The immediate problem, given that Jill was still a minor, was breaking the news to her parents. Knowing that the longer they waited the worse it would be, Paige phoned each, arranged a meeting in her office at three-thirty that afternoon, then ordered Jill to take a nap on the sofa while she saw her afternoon patients.

  Frank Stickley was furious. His wife, Jane, stood by in fearful silence while he cursed Jill’s lack of brains, morals, and looks, none of which Paige found lacking in the least.

  “Jill made a mistake,” Paige pointed out calmly. “It isn’t anything that has to spoil her life.”

  “Are you kidding?” Frank yelled. “She’s having a kid.”

  “Which she’ll be giving up for adoption. The adoption agency will cover the cost of her medical care. There won’t be any imposition on you.”

  “But I have to look at her all those months, look at that belly getting bigger and bigger, and know that the whole town knows and is laughing up a storm.” He faced Jill. “You’re a slut. I told you this’d happen. That boyfriend of yours was no good. I said it. But did you listen? Naaaaah. You knew all the answers. Well, what’s your answer about school? How you gonna finish school having a baby?”

  “I’m dropping out. I’ll finish after I have the baby.”

  “She’ll carry the baby to term,” Paige said in support, “give it up for adoption, then pick up her life right where she left off.”

  “Not in my house, she won’t.”

  “Frank,” his wife protested, then cowered when he aimed a finger her way. The finger was threat enough. He didn’t have to say another word.

  “You won’t know I’m around, Daddy. Really,” Jill promised.

  “I’ll know. So will every randy dandy in Tucker. You can bet that once that baby’s gone, they’ll be coming round, now that that stupid boyfriend of yours ran off. Well, I won’t have it. You want to stay in town, you can find somewhere else to live. I don’t want to see you.” Without so much as a glance at either his wife or Paige, he stormed from the office.

  Jill started to cry.

  Jane looked tormented, torn between appeasing Frank by following him out and staying to comfort her daughter.

  “Go with him,” Paige urged softly, taking Jill’s hand. “Jill’s coming home with me.”

  Jane gave a convulsive head shake. “You can’t—”

  “I’ve just hired her. I need a live-in someone for a little while. It’s perfect.” She shooed Jane out. “Go. Make things as easy on yourself as you can. We’ll talk later.”

  Looking dubious, Jane left, and in the quiet that ensued, Paige told Jill about Sami. “It’s the perfect solution,” she concluded. “If you’re determined to drop out of school”—which she was, though Paige had done her best to dissuade her—“you’ll need something to keep you busy. I need someone to watch Sami when I’m at work and when emergency calls come through at night.” With Jill in one of the upstairs rooms, she wouldn’t have a qualm about setting up Sami in the other. The fact that her little house was getting fuller and fuller seemed secondary. “It’s an important job. Sami has special needs right now. Do you think you can do it?”

  “Do you think I can?” Jill asked cautiously.

  Paige smiled. “Without a doubt.” Her smile faltered, then reappeared. “And you aren’t allergic to cats.” She glanced at her watch. “This is perfect timing. I have cross-country practice in an hour. I was going to take Sami with me to Mount Court.” Though the Head would never have approved. She wondered if he would be on the lookout for her. “Now I won’t have to. We’ll send Mrs. Busbee home, put Sami in the carriage, and you can take her for a long walk while I run. It’ll be good for you both. She’s a little angel. You’ll see.” She was rising to clean up her desk when the phone rang.

  “There’s a fellow on the line asking for Mara,” Ginny reported. “He’s calling from New York. From Air India. Do you want to take it?”

  Paige felt the nudge of an awful sixth sense. “Right now,” she said, and pressed in the call. “This is Paige Pfeiffer. I’m Mara O’Neill’s partner. May I help you?”

  “Yes, please,” said a voice with a British accent. He gave his name and identified himself as a supervisor. “I’ve been trying to reach Dr. O’Neill, but I can’t seem to get an answer at the number she left. I understand that that was her home number and that this is her professional one,
and I do apologize for disturbing her here, but I would very much like to speak with her.”

  “May I ask what this is about?”

  The fellow cleared his throat. “It’s a bit awkward. I have an apology to make, actually. Is Dr. O’Neill there?”

  “No. But I’d be glad to take a message.”

  “Oh, dear. I had wanted to speak directly with her.”

  “That may be difficult. For the sake of expediency, perhaps I would do.”

  The man considered that. “Yes. I suppose.” He took a breath. “You see, Dr. O’Neill phoned this office last Tuesday to check on the progress of a flight from Calcutta to Bombay. The agent who took her call is new with us and was a bit confused operating the computer system. I’m afraid he erroneously told her that the flight on which, I believe, she had a child, had crashed.”

  Paige closed her eyes.

  The voice by her ear continued. “Indeed there was an accident on one of our aircraft that night, but it was not the one on which the child and her escort were traveling. Unfortunately, what with trying to handle the calls we were receiving from those who truly did have parties on the ill-fated plane, our agent did not realize his mistake until week’s end. At that time, he verified that the child and her escort had landed safely in Boston, but he did relate to me what had happened, and responsibly so. We would like to apologize to Dr. O’Neill for any fright we may have caused. Air India does not make a practice of passing on misinformation. We sincerely regret having done so in this instance. I trust that Dr. O’Neill has custody of her child, and that all is well.”

  Paige wrapped an arm around her waist. In a small voice she said, “Can you tell me what time it was when Dr. O’Neill called you?”

  “It was four twenty-five. We had received news of the accident a mere ten minutes before that and were still trying to get the details, so you can imagine the pandemonium….”