"When you're ready to prosecute, I'll pay the legal bills, no matter how high they are. You're doing the right thing, you know that, don't you?"
"Oh yes" was all she said.
At the airport when her flight was called, she knelt and looked into David's little face, and Rick was amazed at the way the child didn't fidget, didn't move while she talked to him, but seemed to take every word with great seriousness.
"Good-bye, little darling," she said. "I can't tell you how I hate to leave you. But at least I know that you're getting a mother and some big brothers. And even though you may not exactly remember this visit years from now, somewhere inside you you'll know that I was here. Now give me one last hug, and please make it a big one, 'cause it's gonna have to last me for a long, long time."
David must have understood every word because he put his pudgy arms around her neck, his mother's neck, and squeezed very hard, while Rick looked at them together and wished he could stop her from leaving. Call the police, adopt her too. But there was nothing he could do, until and unless she was willing to reveal what happened to her. He longed for the magical solution that could put him between her and the onslaught of pain she would have to face before things would get better for her.
"I love you," she said to David, then stood and hugged Rick. She was already turned toward the jetway when she tossed the words "And I love you too" over her shoulder, and was gone.
She'll tell Bea, he promised himself. But for weeks he couldn't get the image of the once feisty girl who had walked like a zombie through their Christmas together out of his head.
The day the letter arrived at the office it was opened first, as were all letters to the office, by Andrea, who came in and handed it to him, and without even seeing it he knew by her face who it was from and what it would say. And as he read it, he felt as though he'd been slammed against the wall.
Dear Mr. Reisman,
I am writing this to tell you we lost our sweet Doreen this week, when she took her own life. She didn't leave a note, but for a really long time she seemed sad and scared to me. I know she trusted you a lot and I did too, or I wouldn't have let her come and stay with you at Christmas, so I figured you would want to know.
That little baby was always in her heart. Maybe giving him up was too hard for her to live with, or maybe I was wrong and being able to come and see him wasn't the best thing. I wish I knew, though it wouldn't bring her back. Maybe some boy at school hurt her and broke her heart. My other kids are feeling really awful that she's gone.
Bea Cobb
Andrea sat next to him and they held on to each other. He could feel her trembling, or was that him trembling with rage, and pain, and sorrow? Why didn't he see it or know that when Doreen knelt in the airport and looked at David as if it was for the last time that it was the last time? Now he remembered the words she'd said. Somewhere inside you, you'll know that I was here. Rick left the office and went home and held David on his lap all day, reading to him, talking to him, hugging him, noticing more than ever how many of his expressions were Doreen's. Then he called Patty and told her the news, and how glad he was that he had her to love.
42
ON CHRISTMAS EVE Judith's baby, Jody, had an ear infection, and the pediatrician's answering service didn't seem to be able to reach the doctor who was on call. So the baby screamed and Judith walked from room to room, holding her against her chest to try to soothe her. After a while the noise of her little sister's screams woke Jillian, and she climbed out of her crib and followed Judith and the baby around the house and hung on to the hem of her mother's bathrobe.
When the doctor finally called and said he'd be glad to telephone a prescription to the drugstore in her neighborhood if Judith would tell him which one was open, she realized she had no idea which one was open. So with the screaming Jody in her arms and her toddler daughter sitting on the floor tugging her robe so hard it was coming off her shoulders, she pulled out the yellow pages and called around to find an open drugstore. When she found one, after her eighth phone call, she asked the pharmacist to please call the pediatrician, had him give her directions from her house to the drugstore, and told him she was on her way.
Then she dressed herself and picked up the two babies, got each of them as settled as possible in their car seats, and drove toward the north Valley where the drugstore was located. It was miles from her home and the baby screamed all the way there, not quite drowning out the Christmas carols Judith put on the radio in order to calm them. Jillian sat in her car seat directly behind the driver's seat, kicking it to the rhythm of each familiar song, jolting her mother with each kick. In the parking lot of the shopping center, Judith unloaded both little ones from their car seats, sat one on each of her hips, grabbed her purse, and started toward the drugstore. She was hoping their pajamas were warm enough, because it was raining.
The pharmacist was harassed. It was, he announced unhappily and irritably to Judith, his busiest night in years. The round baby-toy rack kept Jillian happy as she spun it and squealed at all the brightly colored bubble-packed toys flashing by her. That was fine with Judith, who had her hands full with the baby, still howling in agonized pain. When the pharmacist mercifully handed Judith the bottle of pink ampicillin, she opened it, and with a little dropper she fed the wincing-at-the-taste baby her first dose immediately.
Within a very few minutes, maybe just the time it took for Judith to pay the pharmacist, the baby seemed better. She was quiet and falling asleep on her mommy's shoulder. But the sudden crash to the floor of the toy rack woke her and caused Jillian to join her in shrill crying, as the pharmacist, assuring Judith he didn't mind picking up the many dozens of fallen toys, walked them to the door and showed them out.
"Merry Christmas," he called out to them as Judith carried her two crying children to the car through the night rain. By the time she had them back in their car seats and had started the car, they were soaked through and shivering. She turned on the car heat, and hoped that maybe the ride home would put them to sleep. Dear God, she thought driving down Van Nuys Boulevard through the pounding rain, I've been a horrible selfish woman bringing these babies into the world without a daddy.
But then she adjusted her rearview mirror so she could look at the two of them in the backseat. Their little faces looked angelic as the red and green Christmas decorations of the boulevard passed, casting their lights on them. "I love you two," she said, full of emotion at the miracle that had blessed her with them, and she felt good and strong.
At home she changed their clothes and their diapers, tucked baby Jody into her crib, and Jillian into hers. When they were finally asleep, she started a fire in the fireplace. I'm blessed, she thought. I have my babies and that's all I need. I'm not going to sit around feeling sorry for myself or them. We're a happier family than some of the intact ones I know where the parents are fighting and divorcing and cheating on each other.
She had just taped a bow on the box containing the talking teddy bear, when she heard the baby cry out. The pharmacist had told her if Jody woke in the night, she could give her another dose of the medicine, as long as it had been three hours since the first dose. She hurried to the refrigerator where she kept the awful-looking pink liquid and went to comfort her poor little baby girl. After administering another dropperful of medicine, she changed Jody's diaper. Then she scooped her into her arms and rocked her while she sang "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town." And the minute she was asleep and Judith had placed her gently into her crib, Jillian called out to her.
Jillian's diaper was dirty, so Judith put her on the changing table, removed the dirty diaper, and squatted to look on the lower shelf for a new box of premoistened baby wipes. And during that instant Jillian took the open bottle of ampicillin her mother had forgotten to close after she'd diapered the baby, and chugged some incalculable amount of it down. When Judith stood and saw her daughter still holding the bottle to her lips, the pink medicine all over her face, her knees buckled with panic.
"Jillie, no! Did you drink that? Oh, my God. I left it open. Oh no." Clutching Jillian to her, she ran to the phone and dialed the doctor's number again. "This is an emergency!" she said to the doctor's answering service operator. "Please get him on the phone." Why hadn't she learned something about poison control? Who could she call? Maybe she should dial 911. The phone rang almost immediately. "Meet me at the emergency room," the doctor told her, and within seconds she had awakened the baby, stuffed both of the children into their car seats, and was off again into the rainy night.
A nurse held sleepy Jody in her arms at the nurses' station so Judith could stay with Jillian, who screamed and retched while they pumped her stomach, and Judith could hardly keep herself from vomiting. When they were able to leave the hospital it was dawn. Christmas morning. While two nurses watched the babies, Judith went into the little antiseptic ladies' room in the hospital corridor to splash some cold water on her face to prepare for the drive home. As she dabbed her eyes with a harsh paper towel from the cold aluminum dispenser, she looked at what had become of herself, and felt right on that edge of emotion where she could either laugh or cry.
That painful but absurd place where it seems as if anything that might have gone wrong has, and you can either lie down on the floor and kick your feet or dance with relief that you've survived the latest onslaught. "Merry Christmas," she said to her reflection, and that made her laugh. She was wearing an old chenille bathrobe over her flannel nightgown and some fuzzy blue slippers she had ordered from the Norm Thompson catalogue about seven years ago; her usually well-kept red hair was dry and flyaway, and the circles under her eyes were now so long and low they were invading her cheeks. She sighed, and walked into the corridor where one of the nurses stood holding a sleeping Jillian and another stood holding the sleeping Jody.
"Thank you," Judith said to them, so grateful for the tender way they had treated her babies.
"Why don't we walk you out?" one of the nurses asked.
"That would be great."
Judith followed behind as they made their way in an odd little parade down the long hospital corridor. This is all a test, she thought. But I will pass it. At home she put both of the children on her big bed, put herself between them, and they all slept until noon. When they woke, Jody seemed to be one-hundred-percent cured, and Jillian was as chipper as if nothing had happened. So after Jillian had torn into all of her Christmas packages and Jody had rejected all of the toys in favor of the boxes in which they'd been packaged, Judith put them each in a fancy dress and took them out to a party.
"I realized something about myself over the holidays," she said to the group after she'd regaled them with what was now the funny version of her Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. "And what's so interesting to me is that what I got from the whole experience is that I like it this way. Love it this way. Don't want anybody to interfere with the decisions I make for them, don't want to compromise my life-style one bit, and I chose this life-style because I want control. I know it's going to be tough for me on occasion after occasion, but I can do it.
"So what I want to know is, is it okay," she asked Barbara, "for me to be this way? I mean I'm sure we can go deep into my psyche and figure out how my father treated my mother and on and on, but whatever the reason, I know I'm happiest this way. My life, however different it may seem to other people, feels great to me. And now that I really know that, I can stop falling prey to every fix-up, and quit apologizing for the fact that I'm a single mother as if it's just a stopgap on the road to a kind of normalcy I don't want."
"I think," Barbara said, "you just answered your own question, Judith. But also try to give yourself the flexibility to change your mind, when and if that happens."
"Rick," Ruthie said, "you look bad. Are you feeling all right?"
Rick shook his head but didn't speak, looked away from the others and out at David to check on him. Ruthie was right. He was hollow-eyed and gray-faced.
"Doreen is gone," he said, looking at all of them. "It was a suicide. Her mother thinks the reason was her parting with David, maybe even about her coming here for Christmas. I know it had to do with what was going on with her at home, but now with her gone, what can I do . . . . "
"Oh, Rick." The others surrounded him, touching his hands, his shoulders, putting their arms around him.
"And I feel as if in part I contributed to the unhappiness, because right in front of her at Christmas, I proposed to Patty."
Silence.
"So?" Shelly asked.
"So that must have made Doreen afraid that she'd become less important to David. Maybe she would lose her link with him."
"Rick," Barbara said, "the possibility that you would marry was always there whether you thought so or not."
Rick just shook his head.
"I'm so happy for me," he said, "and so god-awful sad for that little girl. Being the parent of that little boy has transformed me, shown me the world through a pair of innocent, loving eyes. Taught me how to need someone and be needed. And most of all taught me about priorities. Now I know that in the final analysis it really is the way we love that matters, and everything else is completely beside the point.
"When I look back at the years I spent before this baby was in my life, sometimes I'm appalled at the time I wasted on so many unimportant endeavors and projects and problems and anxieties. But then I realize that it's okay. That none of that was really for naught, because it was all about teaching me to get here, to this mindset, to this relationship with Patty."
After a long quiet time Barbara spoke. "Well, it's pretty clear that the De Nardos had a good holiday," she said, looking at Lainie and Mitch, whose chairs were close to each other's and who held tightly on to each other's hands.
Lainie spoke in her quiet way. "I'm starting to feel comfortable with expanding our concept of family to in some ways include Jackie. It doesn't diminish me, and for Rosie, the more people who love her, the better she'll feel about herself. The trick will be getting her to understand all of this when she gets older. But that's when I think the openness is going to pay off the most and make what seems to be the strange part work."
These people are amazing, Barbara thought. What these babies have done to open up their lives is extraordinary.
"And what about your family? How were your holidays?" Barbara asked Ruthie and Shelly. Shelly answered.
"We're okay. I hated the parties, but I think Ruthie and Sid had a pretty good time. In fact, as a result of all the socializing, some man is pursuing Ruthie. Calls our house every day." It was clear he was kidding Ruthie. A little kidding on the square.
"Oh, Shel, cut it out," Ruthie said and gave him a tap on the arm. "I'm not one bit interested in him."
"Want to talk about it, Ruth?" Barbara asked.
"No," Ruthie snapped.
"I want you to," Shelly said.
"There's nothing to talk about," Ruthie said, her eyes angry now. And that was when the little ones came toddling in to have their snack.
43
BARBARA TURNED HER CAR into the parking lot of the Rexall drugstore on Beverly and La Cienega, and looked across the street at the Beverly Center shopping mall. She remembered two decades ago when there had been nothing on that same lot but Beverly Park, an amusement center for children, which had a few toddler rides and a pony ring. It had always been the hands-down favorite spot for both Heidi and Jeff on a Sunday morning. They loved to be taken there and sit proudly on one of the harnessed ponies and ride around and around the ring waving as they passed Barbara and Stan.
An unexpected shadow of sadness moved across her face, and it made her want to cry. For days she hadn't felt well. Maybe it was an ulcer, or a hiatal hernia, or some other digestive problem, but her queasiness wouldn't go away. That was the reason she had stopped at the drugstore, so she could go in and get herself some Tums or Rolaids to take away that constant feeling of heaviness in her abdomen.
Inside the big bustling drugstore, she was planning to walk
straight to the antacid counter, get what she wanted, and leave, but instead she found herself walking to the train of empty shopping carts, extracting one, and steering it toward the beckoning aisles of merchandise. She loved drugstores, the millions of colors, the glossy posters that advertised blushers and nail polish and lipsticks. And the constant barrage of new products. Like a spray to put in a travel case that would remove wrinkles from clothes, or a new kind of diet powder that she had seen advertised in magazines which had already made lots of famous fat people thin.
Feminine hygiene. She slowed the cart down in that aisle, grabbed a box of tampons, and was just about at the end of the aisle when she stopped to look right at what she now had to admit to herself was what she had really come into the drugstore to buy. An EPT. Early pregnancy test. My God, what if what she was fearing was true? Her period was only a little late, and at her age, as Howie Kramer had reminded her more than once, she was premenopausal, so the irregularity was to be expected. But maybe she should buy it as a catalyst. Surely buying one of those tests, wasting the seventeen dollars, would be exactly what she had to do to bring her period on. But she knew she was playing games with herself, because there was no doubt in her mind that she was absolutely, unequivocally, one-thousand-percent pregnant. At age forty-two.
She remembered the feeling from the early stages of both her pregnancies, which now seemed as if they were a million years ago. That bloated, weary, swollen-breasted, full-of-tears, moody feeling, and she didn't need an EPT to tell her it was so. Stan, she imagined herself saying, I'm pregnant. What in the world would he say to that? Hooray? After all, he had suggested the idea of their having another baby not very long ago. But he was kidding when he said it, she reminded herself. He was thinking about buying second homes and traveling and running through the house naked.
How about, Guess what, Heidi, I'm pregnant! That would be the hardest of all. After her own failed engagement and her childhood friend having a new baby girl. A few months ago she was the one who was looking at apartments with room for a nursery. Heidi would look at her, her mouth hanging open in shock, and say, "No way!" She'd be mortified.
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