Not now. Either he clammed up like this or walked away, leaving her with a hopeless, helpless sense of frustration and failure and loss. And nothing ever really got resolved between them.
Polly felt fear, as well, a terrible, bone-deep fear that they’d never recover whatever it was they were losing. It was as if the lifeblood of their marriage was leaking away. Surely there had to be a way to make Michael see that, to make him understand.
But before she could begin to put any of her feelings into words, the door opened and Clover appeared, holding out a sheet of paper covered with messy coloring.
“I made a picture for my daddy, see, Doctor?”
Polly could feel Michael’s relief at the interruption.
“That’s a beautiful picture, Clover.”
“I promised her you’d take her to St. Joe’s to see Jerome after dinner, Michael. I hope that fits into your busy schedule.” Polly was being deliberately sarcastic, still hoping that something would break through the wall he’d built around himself.
"And please tell Jerome I need some of her clothes and toys.”
All he said was, “I will. Let’s go eat right now, and then we’ll go to the hospital, Clover. I have a few patients to check on, and you can visit your daddy.” He took the girl’s hand and led the way to the dining room.
Polly followed, wondering if a person could literally explode from frustration.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
During dinner, Michael chatted politely with Polly, relating anecdotes from the office as if her outburst in the sunroom and the fight they’d had the night before had never happened.
He also talked to Clover. To Polly’s chagrin, the little girl prattled away to him, telling him about the clothes Polly had bought her, a bird she’d seen outside on the lawn, even the apple juice she’d spilled and the bath she’d had. She held out her hand coquettishly so Michael could smell the perfumed bubble bath. She was an altogether different child with Michael around.
When the meal was over, he helped Clover carry her dishes into the kitchen and showed her how to load them into the dishwasher. Polly could tell the little girl was impressed and fascinated by the appliance, as if she hadn’t seen one before.
Once the dishes were all cleared away, Polly said, “Now, Clover, maybe you’d like to wash your face and hands and brush your hair before you go see your daddy.”
For the first time, Clover was agreeable to what Polly suggested. She ran off to the bathroom, and a few moments later, clutching the picture she’d drawn for Jerome to her chest, she waited at the door for Michael.
Polly waited, too, half hoping he’d suggest she accompany them to the hospital, but he didn’t. He kissed her goodbye without the slightest trace of passion, and she watched through the window as he helped Clover into his car and adjusted the seat belt around her.
As they drove away, Polly turned slowly from the window. It was a relief to have Clover gone, but suddenly the house felt emptier than ever.
Michael glanced over at his small passenger. “We need to get a child’s seat for you, Clover, so you can see out the front window.”
“My daddy gots one in his truck.”
“Maybe we’ll ask him if we can borrow it, just while you’re staying with Polly and me.”
She didn’t respond, but he saw her forehead crease in an anxious frown. Poor little kid, she must be really confused by all that had happened to her.
“Your daddy’s going to be better soon, Clover, but for now he needs to be in the hospital. You won’t mind staying with us until he’s better, will you?”
“Where’s your own little girl? When she's coming back?”
The abrupt question caught Michael off guard, and for a moment he didn’t know how to reply.
How did she know about Susannah? If he’d learned anything about children over the years, it was that the only way to really communicate with them was to be totally forthright and honest.
“Our little girl got very sick and died, Clover.” He was aware that children even as young as Clover often had a concept of death and euphemisms only confused them. But above all, he didn’t want to frighten her. “That hardly ever happens to little girls, though. You’re not to worry it might happen to you, because it won’t.”
Clover nodded, seemingly undisturbed. “My kitten died. Daddy buried him behind the ’partment. Daddy said he went to stay in heaven, where the angels live.”
Michael couldn’t, even for Clover’s sake, reinforce a belief in heaven or in angels.
“What’s her name? Your girl.”
“Susannah.” Saying her name was difficult. He’d avoided it for so long now.
“Susannah. Susannah. That’s a nice name, Susannah.”
They drove in silence for several minutes. Clover finally turned and shot him a look from under her eyelashes. “Your mommy gots mad at me for touching the doll,” she said accusingly. “I went in your girl’s room and your mommy said I have to stay out of there. Off limits,” she parroted in an angry voice.
Susannah’s room, which Polly refused to change in any way. They’d quarreled about it, only once but fiercely. Michael had wanted everything gone from that room immediately after the funeral, and Polly had screamed at him and pounded his chest with her fists for suggesting it.
She’d be angry, all right, if this child or any other disrupted her shrine. He suspected Polly went and sat there often. His heart contracted. He hadn’t set foot in there himself since...
“I gots my own dolls at my house.” Clover was defensive. “My rabbit’s there, too, on my bed.” A tiny pause, then, in a rush, “I wanna go home to my own house, okay? I want my daddy and my own dolly, and my rabbit. Okay, Doctor?”
The vehement plea touched his heart. What she wanted was perfectly natural.
“You will go home, when your daddy’s better. But right now let’s see how he’s feeling.” He was relieved when they turned into the hospital parking lot.
Inside, he took her hand and shortened his stride, and on the elevator encouraged her to push the button for the orthopedics floor, where Jerome had been taken after a short stay in Recovery.
At the nursing station, Michael learned that Jerome was still groggy from the anesthetic. Michael introduced Clover to the nurses, then led the girl down the hall to Jerome’s room.
“Daddy?” She wasn’t at all sure those first few seconds that the figure in the hospital bed with casts and an IV pole was her father. Jerome was sleeping, but at the sound of her voice he opened his eyes and turned his head.
“Clover? Hey, my sweetheart, come over here and say hi.”
His voice was weak, but there was no mistaking the delight in his tone, and she ran to him. Grasping the hand he extended to her, she pressed her face into his palm and sniffed at him like a puppy.
Michael saw tears spring to Jerome’s eyes when she passionately declared, “Daddy, I luff you, I miss you. I made you a picture, see?” She thrust it at him. “Can we go home now, Daddy? Please?”
The entreaty burst from the child, and the tears that had gathered in Jerome’s eyes now slid down his cheeks. “Not for a while, sweetheart,” he managed to say. In the gentlest way, he showed her his casts and told her he had to stay where he was, that he couldn’t walk, couldn’t take care of her just now.
“Then can I stay here with you, Daddy?”
Jerome reluctantly said she couldn’t do that, either, and Clover burst into stormy tears. Jerome stroked her head and Michael lifted her up on the bed. She sat in the crook of Jerome’s left arm, and after a few moments she quieted, although huge sobs still shook her now and again. At last she touched the dressing on Jerome’s chest with a gentle hand, before reaching up to press her lips to it.
“I kiss it better.”
“Thank you, sweetheart. That helps.”
She settled against him, and her thumb stole into her mouth. Soon her eyelids drooped and with a deep, contented sigh she fell asleep.
Quietly, so as not to
wake her, Michael said, “Are there any questions you have that I could help with, Jerome? Is there anything you need?”
Jerome shook his head. “Dr. Bellamy was real good about explaining everything. The only thing I’m worried about is her.” His voice trembled with weakness and concern. “They think it’ll be at least six or eight weeks before I’ll be able to take care of her myself.” His eyes were troubled. “I’ve been racking my brain to figure out who else might take her, but I can’t come up with anybody. If you and Polly can’t keep her, Doctor, she’ll have to go into foster care. I don’t know how she’d do with that. She’s still real upset over Tiffany leaving. She cries for her mother nearly every night, and now she’s gonna think I’ve deserted her, as well.”
“She’s fine with us, Jerome. I’ll bring her up often to see you, and I know Polly will take good care of her. We’ll need some of her clothes, though, and she should have her toys, to make her feel at home.”
“The keys to the apartment are in the drawer of that table. There’s a toy rabbit she sleeps with every night—she calls him ‘Wilbur.’” He hesitated. “Are you really sure it’s okay with you, Doctor?"
“Absolutely.” It was fine with him; Michael was fond of Clover. He wasn’t as certain about Polly, but she was the one who’d promised, and Polly was always good to her word. At any rate, there seemed no reasonable alternative except a temporary foster home, and Michael knew all too well how difficult it was for social workers to find suitable placements for any child. He hated to think of Clover, lost and lonely, in some group home where the workers did their best but couldn’t hope to address the needs of every child.
She was best off with them. And Michael vowed he’d do his damnedest to make good on his promise to Polly to share in caring for Clover.
“I have some other patients to see, Jerome. Shall I move Clover to that empty bed?”
Jerome shook his head. “I want her here with me for a little while.”
“If you get uncomfortable, ring for the nurse. I’ll tell them Clover’s in here with you. I shouldn’t be much more than half an hour.”
But it was an hour and a half before Michael came back. He’d had a minor emergency to deal with; Everett Simms, one his patients scheduled for gallbladder surgery the next morning, had suddenly decided to sign himself out. It had taken time and all of Michael’s persuasive powers to convince Everett that surgery was necessary.
When he finally got back to Jerome’s room, Clover was still snuggled in, and father and daughter were both fast asleep. Michael gently scooped Clover into his arms, and a nurse wrapped a blanket around her. She didn’t wake, and neither did Jerome.
At home, Polly must have been watching for his car; she opened the door for him and without a word led the way upstairs to the spare bedroom. She turned the covers back on the bed and together, still in silence, they undressed Clover and got her into a cotton nightie. She struggled and whined a little and her mouth puckered into a grimace, but the moment the covers were tucked snugly around her, she slept again.
Polly had put a night-light in a low wall socket, and it glowed as she pulled the door shut behind them.
“It’s really something how kids can sleep like that,” she remarked. “Remember the times we got home late and put Susannah down just this way?”
“Yeah, I do.” Why did she constantly have to remind him? Michael wondered wearily. It was like having someone pick at a scab.
“You want a glass of juice or maybe some wine?”
“Wine sounds great.”
Her earlier anger seemed entirely gone now, and he felt enormously relieved. They made their way back downstairs, and he poured them each a glass of white wine from a bottle in the fridge. Polly perched on a high stool in the kitchen and Michael took the seat across from her. He lifted his glass in an old and automatic toast “To us, my love.”
A shadow flitted across her face, but she held her own stemmed glass aloft and repeated, “To us.”
Michael reached in his trouser pocket for Jerome’s keys. “I can go over there first thing in the morning, if that would help, and get Clover’s stuff.”
Polly shook her head. “I’ll go. It’s probably better if I take her with me. That way she can bring whatever things she wants.” She dragged a hand through her hair, and Michael noticed the dark circles under her eyes, the fatigue there.
“Polly, remember there’s always Community Services for Clover.” Whatever the other considerations, he wouldn’t have her worn down by this. s “I know you feel a responsibility because Jerome is your friend, but if this is too much for you, I’ll make other arrangements for her.”
“No.” Polly shook her head. “I promised him, and a promise is a promise. I talked to Nora. She’s gonna take Clover on her days off.” Polly scowled. “My mother should have volunteered to have her at least part of the time. I’m really furious with her over this, Michael. She made friends with Clover. She’s the logical person to care for her. But no. She’s got some man on the string who’s staying with her overnight, can you believe that?”
Michael grinned, equally amused by Isabelle’s antics and Polly’s reaction to them. “It doesn’t really surprise me that she’s sexually active. Isabelle’s an attractive woman. I just hope she’s practicing safe sex.”
Polly shot him a look, but she had to smile. “You might not think it was so funny if she were your mother.”
“Oh, I don’t know. My mother turned herself into a self-pitying martyr after my father died. She might have lived longer and been a lot more pleasant to be around if she’d decided to have an affair or two.”
Michael was an only child, and his mother had made his life difficult before her death ten years earlier. She’d quarreled with everyone in the senior’s home, demanded that Michael visit her every single day, then complained nonstop about everything. She’d been a thoroughly miserable, self-centered woman, and it had almost been a relief when she’d contracted pneumonia and died suddenly.
Michael had always privately thought Isabelle was by far the easier of the two women, even though she, too, was monumentally self-centered.
What Michael liked about Isabelle was her indomitable spirit. He’d never told Polly she’d inherited that same fiery spirit from her mother. He knew his wife wouldn’t consider it a compliment.
“Do you really think Mom’s promiscuous, Michael?” There was consternation in Polly’s voice. “I’ve joked about it, but I’m not sure I really believed it”
“She could be.” Michael thought it more than probable. “But what difference does it really make, Pol? You’re not responsible for her actions.”
“Maybe not but we’d have to take care of her if she got some disease. What if she got AIDS?”
“I think Isabelle’s wise enough to protect herself, but if that happened, we’d just have to do the best we could. Anyhow, the things we worry about aren’t usually the things that happen, Pol.”
That wasn’t entirely true, of course. Although he’d never once considered the possibility of losing Susannah, he’d always worried about losing Polly, and that fear had come all too close to reality; she’d almost died when Susannah was born. She’d bled out and had to be transfused, and her heart had stopped during the procedure.
Having Susannah had nearly lost him Polly; now, ironically, losing Susannah seemed to be doing the same thing. Tranquil moments such as this were increasingly rare between them. More often than not, Polly was angry with him, or he with her.
Cold and terrible fear clutched at his bowels and he set down his wineglass and suddenly took her in his arms, kissing her lips, running his hands down her lovely body, reassuring himself that for this moment in time, she was still here, still his.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Let's go to bed,Polly.”
Michael’s words were an invitation, and she acknowledged it with her lips, kissing him with deepening passion, winding her arms around his neck and pressing her body against his.
&nbs
p; Holding her close to his side, he led the way upstairs. In their bedroom, he again took her in his arms and kissed her, long, sensuous, endless kisses that brought her body alive in his arms until she moved restlessly against him, wordlessly pleading for more.
Still kissing her, he undid the buttons on the front of her denim dress and slid it off her shoulders, letting it drop to the floor. Beneath it, she wore a white lacy bra and silk panties, and he bent and closed his lips around lace and taut nipple, teasing first one breast and then the other before he reached behind her and undid the clasp to free them to lips and teeth and tongue.
Polly moaned, and Michael lifted her and placed her on the wide bed, then stripped off his own clothing and propped himself up beside her, his heart lurching at the softness of her velvety skin, the incredible delicacy and perfection of her slender body. He pulled her to him, trying to fit every inch of her diminutive frame against his own long length.
Softness, heat, sensuality.
“Sweetheart, I love you, I love you so,” he breathed, his mouth traveling from lips to neck to breasts and back again. He knew her body intimately, but familiarity brought only increased excitement.
He sensed the exact moment when desire became need, when need turned to urgency, when urgency became desperation. Only then did he enter her, slowly, tantalizingly, controlling his violent urge to plunge again and again, choreographing every long slide, pausing with exquisite delight to encourage her climb and inadvertently his own.
She trembled, hovering, and with one final long, desperate stroke he brought them to the summit, and together they tumbled into ecstasy...and immediately became aware of a child wailing just outside their closed bedroom door.
“Damn. Damn it to hell.” Polly scrabbled under her pillow for a nightgown, and Michael yanked the bedcovers up an instant before the door swung open.
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