Hannah crawled and scuttled down the stairs to her child, who was splayed out at an unnatural angle, her head against the banister, one leg on the landing and the other on a higher step. One arm was limp, bent backward.
Hannah reached her and tried to gather her daughter up into her arms.
Lisa’s cloudy eyes gazed at her, as if from some other galaxy. ‘Mommy,’ she whispered.
‘I’m here,’ said Hannah. She watched the feeble spark of life fade from her daughter’s eyes, along with every hope she had ever cherished. Hannah held that lost child to her heart and began to wail.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Eighteen months later
‘Come, sit out on the deck,’ said Hannah.
Kiyanna followed Hannah out through the sliding glass doors.
She sat down heavily on one of the chairs, her spring jacket falling open around her.
Hannah looked at her friend’s slightly distended stomach, and then smiled at her. ‘You’ve been keeping something from me,’ she said.
Kiyanna smiled and shook her head. ‘I figured you had enough on your mind.’
Hannah nodded. It was true, she thought. She had hardly been able to think about anything else but her own family for months. But today was different. Today, their friends had come to visit. She, Sydney and Adam had picked Kiyanna and Frank up at the Nashville airport, and then Adam had dropped them off so he could take Frank on a brief tour of Music City. Kiyanna and Hannah were left to enjoy the spring sunshine, while Sydney resumed playing in the yard with her new puppy.
‘When is the baby due?’ Hannah asked.
‘September.’
‘Boy or girl?’
Kiyanna shook her head. ‘We wanted to be surprised.’
‘Well, if it’s a girl, I’ve got boxes of baby clothes I’ll send you. From Sydney,’ she added hastily. In fact, she still had some of Lisa’s baby clothes. But anything that might have been Lisa’s seemed laden with bad karma.
‘I’ll take them. If it is.’
‘Frank must be thrilled. I can’t believe you didn’t tell us.’
‘Just being superstitious.’
‘I understand.’
‘And yes. Frank is over the moon.’
‘I’m happy for you two,’ said Hannah. ‘That baby will have a wonderful life.’
‘I hope so.’ Kiyanna looked down at her stomach and put a protective hand over it. ‘Hannah, I hope you know that what happened … with your daughter, is never far from his mind.’
Hannah nodded. ‘Frank came to our rescue. I never doubted that. Not for a minute. He only wanted to help us.’
‘Lots of nights I wake up and find him sitting on the edge of the bed, in a cold sweat,’ said Kiyanna. ‘He has a lot of bad memories from combat. But sometimes it’s about Lisa.’
Lisa. Hannah sighed. She still could not think of Lisa without a stabbing pain in her heart. Maybe she never would. ‘I know. I go over it and over it. But it always comes down to this. She shot at Frank, point blank. She shot her father. Hell, she pushed me in front of a subway train. When I get despondent, and I do, I remember that. I remind myself of all that happened, and it numbs the pain. It makes the pain recede. Still, it’s always there, lurking.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ said Kiyanna kindly.
Hannah and Adam had buried Lisa and moved back to their house in Nashville. Rayanne and Chet welcomed them home with a subdued happiness. Too much had happened for it to be anything other than a celebration tempered by sadness. When Pamela made her first, rare visit from the Veranda, she had treated Sydney with a tenderness that Hannah had never known as a child.
The Nashville D.A. had filed kidnapping charges against Hannah and Adam. With the aid of many witnesses, including Frank, who flew for one day to give his testimony, Marjorie Fox successfully argued to have the plea reduced to child endangerment, and Hannah had been given a suspended sentence. Adam, now recovered from his shoulder wound, had spent the minimum sentence, sixty days, in jail. In sentencing him, the judge had made a point of saying that the child was never hurt while she was in their care. Now, Adam was home at last, and Kiyanna and Frank, now married, had arrived to visit, bury the past and, hopefully, to start again.
Kiyanna looked out at Sydney, playing in the yard. ‘Cindy – I mean, Sydney – seems OK.’
Hannah frowned. ‘Thank God they let us keep her. Our attorney laid out the circumstances pretty clearly, and the court agreed that it was right for us to keep her. Mostly, she’s OK. She has blue periods. She has nightmares.’
‘How could she not? She’s had more trauma in her five years than some people have in a lifetime.’
‘That’s for sure.’
‘Does she … know what happened? How much is she aware of?’
‘She asks questions sometimes. I’ve been taking her to a child psychologist, just to be sure to keep the channels open, you know.’
‘I think it’s a good idea,’ said Kiyanna. ‘Questions are going to arise.’
‘I know,’ said Hannah.
‘Does she ever mention …’
‘Lisa?’ Hannah supplied her daughter’s name. ‘Once in a while. I say the usual thing. Mommy has gone to heaven.’
The two women sat in silence for a moment, each of them hoping it was true, both of them doubting it. Hannah glanced over at Kiyanna’s frowning face.
‘What?’ she said.
‘It’s just so … baffling. Doing the work I do, I’ve seen plenty of children at risk. Plenty of parents with no business having children. But when Cindy was in daycare, I saw you in action. I know you two were good parents …’
‘So, how could this have happened? Is that what you’re thinking?’ Hannah asked.
Sydney looked up at the two women on the deck. ‘Miss Kiyanna, look what Riley can do.’ Sydney then proceeded to run around the yard, and the pup followed her, barking excitedly.
‘That’s a cute puppy you have there,’ said Kiyanna.
Sydney beamed, and planted kisses on the patient animal’s head.
Hannah returned to Kiyanna’s unstated question. ‘The answer is I don’t know how it happened. I know that’s not much consolation when you’re thinking about the life you’ve created. You’re bound to wonder …’
Kiyanna shook her head, frowning. ‘I do. I can’t help it. You never knew about Lisa? You never realized …?’
Hannah shrugged. ‘There were warning signs. No doubt. But I blamed it on her extreme intelligence, on the fact that she was out of her element socially because she kept skipping grades. I made excuses to myself, even when I was uneasy. It’s hard to explain. You love them so much that you tell yourself that they are normal. Within the range of normal. You can’t really see them as they are sometimes.’
‘How can you ever be sure …?’ said Kiyanna.
Hannah leaned over and placed her pale hand over Kiyanna’s graceful brown fingers. ‘Your baby will be fine. In every way. I just know it. And you will be a wonderful mother. The two of you will be great parents. You just have to start out with all the hope in the world and believe that it will be fine. Because it will.’
Kiyanna frowned. ‘I guess if you can believe that …’
Hannah looked out at Sydney, shrieking and smiling and rolling on the grass with her pup. Did she really believe that? That she and Adam had done their best and it wasn’t their fault? Some professionals in the field of psychology had told them that it was not. That Lisa’s twisted psychology was inborn. Others had looked askance and sighed when they heard her story, suggesting that indeed, they bore much responsibility. And in her heart, Hannah agreed with them. They had raised Lisa. She was a product of their genes. How could it not be their fault at some level? The minister she had talked to had preached forgiveness. Both for herself and for Lisa. Forgive, and put it behind you.
And now, she was raising another child. Her grandchild. The doubts about her own fitness to mother Sydney often surfaced in her mind. Luckily Sydney gave her little t
ime or reason to worry. But secretly, she would always wonder. How could it be any other way? Still, since this was her fate, she tried to look upon it as her second chance. A chance to raise a child who was happy and healthy. Good. Sane. Whole. What other choice did she have? ‘I have to believe it,’ she said firmly. ‘I do.’
I See You Page 29
