Body Of Truth

by Deirdre Savoy

  Uneasiness settled in Jonathan’s belly. Joanna wasn’t due for three weeks. He wondered how this turn of events boded for his sister. “How’s she doing?” he asked, but Adam had already hung up.

  Damn. That was his brother. Why bother to have an actual conversation when a few grunted words would do? But whatever was going on with Joanna must be serious for Adam to bother to call. Ten minutes later, he was in his car headed for St. Lawrence Hospital in Westchester.

  Eight

  “Come on, Joanna, breathe with me,” Ray urged his wife.

  “I don’t want to do any goddamn Lamaze. I want the baby to come.”

  Dana stood on the opposite side of Joanna’s hospital bed, watching the exchange between the couple. She’d been at their house when Joanna had gone into labor and had come with her and Ray to the hospital.

  “I know, baby, I know.”

  Dana suspected he also knew what Joanna was too preoccupied with the birth to notice. A moment ago, a new team of hospital personnel had entered the room, including an anesthesiologist and a surgical nurse. They intended to take the baby.

  Joanna’s doctor, a tall woman with a horse’s long face and a mane of long dark hair re-entered the room. Dana moved out of the way so that the woman could come to stand by Joanna’s bedside.

  “Joanna,” she said in a kind voice. “The baby’s in trouble. We need to do a C-section.”

  Joanna nodded gravely. “All right.”

  The doctor patted her hand. “Don’t you worry. Everything will go just fine.”

  The doctor moved off and Dana went back to her spot. She knew the first step would be to give Joanna the epidural she’d refused earlier. The doctor would need quiet and solitude for that. “I’ll go see if Adam has gotten here yet,” Dana volunteered. When Joanna went into labor, they’d dropped the boys at Adam’s house. Adam said he’d follow them to the hospital as soon as his wife, Barbara, showed up to spell him.

  Joanna nodded. “But you’re coming back, right?”

  Dana offered her friend her most solicitous smile. “You don’t think I’d miss my godchild being born, do you?”

  She winked at Joanna, then left.

  She found both of Joanna’s older brothers waiting in the small area outside the room. Zack was sitting in one of the chairs, his arms folded, his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, his eyes closed, looking on the verge of sleep if he hadn’t succumbed already. Adam paced with his hands fisted, a grim expression on his face.

  Those were Joanna’s brother’s: as different as night and day, from A to Z, as far apart as their initials suggested. As she walked toward them, she wondered where Jonathan fit into that equation, how he dealt with having these two men for brothers. He struck her as being as intense as Adam, but definitely his own man, not a replica of either of his brothers.

  “How is she?”

  That came from Zack, the supposedly laid-back one. “She’s fine, but the baby’s not coming. They did an enzyme test to assess the amount of oxygen the baby is getting and it looks like the baby’s in distress. They’re going to perform a C-section.”

  Both men nodded. Adam sighed. “I called Jonathan a few moments ago. I figured all those grim-faced doctors heading into Joanna’s room couldn’t be a good thing. He should be here soon.”

  Dana nodded, not knowing what to say to that bit of news. “I’d better get back before Joanna misses me.”

  Since neither man objected, she pivoted and went back to Joanna. The doctors had just begun to prep her for surgery when she got back. She silently slipped back to the same spot she’d occupied before, at the head of the bed. Joanna had asked her to come back, but she didn’t really need her. Joanna’s attention was totally taken up by her husband, who held her hand and whispered words of comfort and encouragement.

  She had to admit Ray surprised her. His devotion to Joanna throughout the birth had been remarkable. Or maybe he was just such a drastic improvement from Joanna’s first husband, who’d been out drinking when their first child was born and with another woman for their second.

  That infidelity, which the bastard hadn’t bothered to try to cover up, had been the death knell for the marriage. Joanna had ended up with a toddler and a new baby to raise alone. To this day, he hadn’t paid one dime in child support, not that he’d ever been a big fan of holding down a job. He lived off women, not the other way around.

  In between him and Ray, there had been a string of other men, none of them worth a good damn among them. Joanna was smart enough to not have brought any of them around her children, but Dana had met a few of them and disliked them all. Joanna seemed to be on a self-destruct mission that Dana had been powerless to help her friend through, except as being a shoulder to cry on when yet another son-of-a-bitch showed his true colors.

  Dana knew that’s why she’d been so hard on Ray right from the beginning. She’d been waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop, waiting for Joanna to call her to say Ray was married, or cheating on her, or he drank too much or hit her. Whatever it might be this time that would end the relationship and send Joanna into another depression.

  But that call had never come. So far, Ray had done everything right. He treated Joanna like a queen, he was good to her children, he came home at night. Considering his present devotion to his wife, maybe it was time she cut him the slack he asked for.

  The sound of the doctor’s voice snapped Dana out of her musings. “It’s a girl, Joanna. A girl.”

  Dana beamed at her friend as the numerous staff members in the room gave up a cheer. After having two boys, she knew this was what Joanna had hoped for.

  After a few moments, the pediatrician handed Joanna the baby wrapped in a pink, white and blue blanket with a pink stocking cap on her tiny head. Dana touched her fingers to the tiny cap. “She’s beautiful, Joanna.”

  Teary-eyed, Joanna beamed back. “Isn’t she?” The baby smacked her lips while rooting around for something to suck on. “And hungry.” With Ray’s help, Joanna adjusted her gown to offer the baby her breast. The baby latched on and began to feed.

  “Ouch. This is the worst part,” Joanna said as if she were imparting news. “The first few days are murder.”

  “That’s what I hear.”

  “You could do more than hear about it if you’d . . . ouch. That’s human flesh you’re munching on, baby.”

  Dana offered up silent thanks to the baby for distracting her mother from her intended topic of conversation. She intended to distract her further. “What are you going to name her?”

  Joanna glanced at her husband, then back again. “We’ve been having the great debate over that. If it was a girl, he wanted to name her after his mother, Sarah. I wanted to name her after mine, Elizabeth. Right now, Sarah Elizabeth sounds fine to me. What do you think, Ray?”

  For a moment, husband and wife exchanged a look. “Whatever you want, baby. You’re the one who did all the work.”

  Joanna laughed. “And don’t you forget that, either, bub.”

  Within a few minutes, the room had cleared and an orderly came to transport Joanna and the baby to their room. Dana stayed behind on the pretext of checking to make sure they hadn’t left anything behind. Truthfully, she wanted to give mom and dad and baby a moment to bond without outside interference. And even more than that, she wanted to settle her own emotions.

  She was relieved that the baby was all right, happy for her friend, yet some other emotion shimmered on the surface of her consciousness like sunlight on water. A peculiar form of melancholia the cause of which she couldn’t identify.

  For some reason she was drawn to the window and its vantage point of nothing except the side of another building. She wasn’t really looking, anyway. Her mind was busy analyzing the alien emotion and surprisingly, she settled on envy.

  In some ways, Joanna was right. Her biological clock was sounding an alarm, not the one that demanded children but one that announced a far more earthy need. She wasn’t ashamed to admit she
missed sex. She missed being held and the pretense of intimacy. It had been way too long, long enough to make a less circumspect woman do something reckless.

  But, never one not to learn from others’ mistakes, she’d witnessed Joanna’s mistakes, the missteps of her other friends, the defection of her own father and opted out of ever trying to find someone for herself. There had been men in her life, but none who hadn’t known they were only temporary and that she called the shots.

  She’d always told herself she had a brother to raise and not much time for any one or any thing that would demand much of her time or attention. But that was an excuse, not a reason.

  She still couldn’t bring herself to believe in that “happily ever after” that poets wrote songs about, but she hoped she could find someone who would fit for right now, someone who she could let in just a little bit. Someone who she could let go when things soured without too much emotional upheaval.

  Maybe all she really lacked was the opportunity to get herself in trouble. She considered the way Jonathan Stone’s image had popped into her mind the other day when Joanna was haranguing her about the lack of a man in her life. Aside from a devil-may-care priest and her clients—most of whom were either too old or debilitated to be of any use—what men did she meet? No wonder he was the first man she thought of. But not him. She needed neither his intensity nor his aloofness and self-possession. She realized, with a sense of irony, she still wanted a man she could control. Now what did that say about her?

  She honestly didn’t know, but she’d dallied long enough. Joanna would be waiting for her.

  After a brief stop at the nurse’s station to find which room his sister had been taken to, Jonathan found the appropriate door and pushed it open. They were all there, the doting parents, his two brothers, Dana, and as yet none of them noticed him.

  What he noticed most was the way Zack’s arm rested on Dana’s shoulders as the two of them stood by the bed. Seeing them together, something shot through him—not anger, or even jealousy, but possessiveness, which didn’t make any sense to him. Dana wasn’t his and he had no intention of making any sort of play for her either. From what he knew of her, she was hard as nails on the outside and even tougher underneath. To his mind, a little softness in a woman both inside and out was a good thing. Dana didn’t seem to have any.

  Maybe it was seeing Zack’s arm in particular that caused this reaction in him. Zack’s cavalier attitude toward the opposite sex was likely to leave a woman like Dana hurt after an involvement with him. If Zack’s short-lived marriage had proved anything, it was that the man was incapable of treating a woman right, not even one he claimed to love.

  Jonathan stepped further into the room. “Hey,” he said, drawing the attention of everyone in the room, but his eyes were fixed on Dana. When she turned toward him, he noticed her arms were folded, a defensive posture that suggested the familiarity between her and Zack had been Zack’s idea. He also noticed that while the others advanced to greet him, she was the only one who turned away.

  After enduring congratulatory embraces from Ray and Zack and Adam’s usual sedate handshake, he went to his sister. Bending to kiss her cheek, he said, “Congratulations, Sis.”

  “Thanks. Wash your hands and I might consider letting you hold your new niece.”

  He did as she asked, using the small lavatory in the corner of the room. When he got back, he realized Dana was no longer standing, but sitting in one of the chairs on the opposite side of the bed. It flashed in his mind to wonder if she’d moved to get farther away from him.

  He’d left his jacket and tie in the car and rolled up his sleeves while he was in the bathroom. He took the sleeping baby from his sister and cradled her in the crook of his arm. He’d forgotten how tiny newborns were, how delicate. The last baby he’d held had been Joanna’s youngest boy. “She’s beautiful, Joanna.”

  “That seems to be the consensus,” Joanna teased. He looked at his sister, really looked at her this time. She looked dead tired, but happy. “What did you name her?”

  “Sarah Elizabeth. I think it’s fitting.”

  He nodded. He knew she referred to honoring their mother by naming the baby after her, but she forgot that, as the youngest, he carried the fewest memories of her. “Where are the boys?”

  “At my place,” Adam said. “And come to think of it, I’d better be going. Barbara is going to kill me if I leave her with four rowdy kids much longer.”

  “I’ll walk out with you.”

  Zack made no excuses for his desire to leave, but Jonathan would bet it had to do with some woman. After the two men left, Jonathan handed the baby back to his sister. “I’d better be going, too.”

  “You just got here,” Joanna protested.

  He chucked her under the chin. “And you and your hubby look like you’re both ready to fall out.”

  Joanna smiled at him sleepily. “I can’t argue with you there.” She adjusted the baby in her arms. “Do me a favor and see Dana home.”

  “I can see myself home,” Dana protested. “I live five minutes from here.”

  “By car, and yours is waiting for you at home.”

  Dana sighed. For the first time that evening she looked at him. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d appreciate a ride home.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Slowly, she rose from her seat as if she were reluctant to get up. Maybe she was stalling in order to think of some way of getting out of going with him. She’d never seemed particularly fond of him. In fact, the last time he’d seen her she’d been more than a little hostile. He could understand that, considering he’d breached her confidence in order to find her.

  He didn’t understand her hesitancy now. If not for him she’d either have to walk or wait downstairs for a non-existent taxi. But he did know it challenged him to find out why she’d rather be inconvenienced than to go with him.

  After they said their goodbyes and promised to come back the next day, they took the elevator down to the ground floor in silence.

  When they got outside, heat rushed up at them, even though the sun had gone down hours ago. By the time they walked the short distance to the car and got in, his brow was perspired and his collar chafed, but she looked none the worse for it. He started the engine and turned on the air conditioner. “How do I get to your place from here?”

  She gave him concise instructions, which amounted to a few turns at various intersections. Before the air conditioning had a chance to kick in he pulled up in front of her house and cut the engine.

  Her hand was already on the door latch. “Thanks for the lift.” She pushed open the car door. “Good night.”

  She got out and he did, too.

  As she rounded the car, she asked, “Where are you going?”

  “It’s late. I hope you don’t mind if I see you to your door.” He’d said that with more sarcasm than chivalry, so he wasn’t surprised that she huffed and pivoted away from him.

  She crossed the front porch, got the front door open, flicked on the hallway light and turned to face him. “Now I’m at my door. Or do you want to check the place for sneak thieves and mad rapists?”

  He picked up on the hint of humor in her voice. “Does that mean you’re inviting me in?”

  “It’s late, Jonathan, and I’m tired. I’m—”

  He forestalled her with a silencing finger against her lips. Obviously, she’d taken him seriously, but he didn’t need to hear her litany of reasons why he should go home. “Just answer one question for me and I’ll go.”

  She stepped back from him, crossing her arms over her chest while eyeing him warily. “What’s that?”

  “What exactly do you have against me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Aside from the fact that we can’t seem to hold a civil conversation. Every time I get near you, you back away.”

  “I don’t like cops.”

  He snorted. If that were true she’d sure picked the wrong family to befriend. Not only that, h
e didn’t entirely believe her. Working where she did, she certainly had enough opportunity to witness police misconduct if there were any to see. She probably heard enough complaints from her clients. But she didn’t back away when Zack’s arm had been around her, even if she hadn’t encouraged his touch.

  Still her statement intrigued him enough for him to question her about it. “Why not?”

  “You have folks like Moretti running around and you have to ask me that?”

  He couldn’t argue with her there. In fact, she reminded him that he had information for her that he had yet to impart. “Listen, Dana. I spoke to Moretti last night. I don’t know how much good I did any of us.”

  She glanced up at him. “What do you mean?”

  “For one thing, the man seems to hold some sort of grudge against me, for what I haven’t the faintest clue. For another, he may be under internal investigation.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because it makes him dangerous.” He doubted his warning was necessary, but he added. “Watch your step around him.”

  “Believe me, I will. I have. He was at Wesley’s funeral this morning.”

  “Probably looking for suspects among the mourners,” he said, but considering the insinuations he’d made the night before, the only mourner he’d been interested in was Dana. “Call me if he gives you any trouble.”

  She nodded, but he didn’t believe she would. She probably made the gesture only to mollify him and would try to handle Moretti on her own.

  He tilted her chin up to see her face. “Will you call me? I want to hear you say it.”

  “Yes, I will call you. Okay?”

  There was no belligerence in her voice, only the same weariness reflected in her eyes. He rubbed his thumb across her cheek. “Get some rest. You look almost as beat as Joanna.”

  He paused, having nothing left to say and not quite wanting to leave her. For one thing, for the first time he’d gotten near her and she hadn’t pulled away. For another, there was the expectant way she looked at him when their eyes met. He didn’t know what she wanted from him, but he knew what he wanted. His mouth lowered to hers, slowly, giving her enough time to move away or slap his face or whatever she might have done other than stand there and wait for him to kiss her.