Sins of Innocence

by Jean Stone

  The sheriff looked back to Jess. “And so you took the scissors and went into her room? Just because you heard a thud of someone falling on the floor?”

  “It … it was more than a thud. It sounded like Ginny was in trouble.”

  “And you just happened to be awake.”

  “I was sewing. I was making … Christmas stockings for everyone.…” Tears spilled down her cheeks. Miss Taylor reached over and hugged her.

  “I think this is enough, Bud,” the housemother said.

  Ginny looked at Jess, so tiny and shriveled in her robe that no one would have guessed she was eight-and-a-half months’ pregnant. “Jess saved my life,” she said. “He was trying to kill me.”

  Ginny looked around the table. No one spoke.

  “As for my mother, let me handle it. I’ll call her in the morning.” She smiled to herself. But not too early, she thought. It’s not the kind of thing she’ll be able to handle with a hangover.

  “I didn’t mean to kill him,” Jess said. “I only wanted him to stop hurting her.…”

  “It’s okay, dear,” Miss T. said. “Everything will be fine.”

  Just then Jess let out a piercing scream and clutched her mounded stomach.

  Miss Taylor jumped up. “Jess?”

  “Oh, God!” Jess screamed in horror. “My baby! My baby is coming!” She doubled over and fainted.

  What followed was a blur to Ginny, a blur that would become even more faint in the years to come. She remembered seeing Pop Hines carry Jess out of the house; she remembered seeing what seemed like fifty men with badges and notebooks and odd, disinterested expressions come and go, and hearing questions and answering them vaguely; and she remembered, just as the dawn was breaking, seeing the heavy black plastic bag being carried down the stairs, and knowing that her nightmare was over—the nightmare that had lasted for so many years. And Ginny thought of her mother, and was safe in the knowledge that she, too, was at last released from him, free to become her mother again, safe.

  Susan

  “Her water had broken by the time they got her here,” Susan said as she and P.J. walked down the hospital corridor. “And her baby’s so tiny. Just a little over five pounds.”

  “I hope she’s okay. I hope they’re both okay.”

  “I can’t believe I’d ever say this, but I hope Ginny’s okay too. I guess the sheriff’s going to drive her to Boston this afternoon to tell her mother.”

  “How’d her stepfather get in, anyway? Weren’t the doors locked?”

  “Miss Taylor said he smashed in the windowpane on the back door. He reached in and turned the key in the lock.”

  P.J. shook her head. “Bet she won’t be leaving it there anymore. Did she call Jess’s father?”

  Susan shrugged. “Don’t think so. I’ve gotten the impression he didn’t want to know from nothing until Jess had the baby and was home. Maybe not even then.”

  “But after everything that happened last night?…”

  Susan shrugged again.

  They passed by a nurses’ station that was decorated with paper cutout turkeys and Oriental-looking pilgrims. “Miss Taylor also said Bud Wilson agreed to write this up as involuntary manslaughter,” Susan said.

  P.J. looked quizzical. “Well, it was.”

  Susan didn’t respond but continued, “He said that due to the fact that Ginny’s stepfather was trying to kill her and there was a witness—Ginny—it would be an open-and-shut case. No charges will be brought against Jess.”

  “He probably figures the less attention called to this, the better.”

  Susan nodded. “I’m sure his wife would agree.”

  “His wife? My God, Miss Taylor’s fooling around with a married guy?”

  “Hey, different strokes. It doesn’t affect me.”

  They walked in silence, their low heels creaking on the tile floor.

  “I guess it won’t be long before we’ll all be here,” P.J. said, as she glanced around the sterile corridor.

  “I’ll be here before you. Hopefully.”

  “You’re due the Fourth? God, what am I going to do alone at Larchwood for three weeks?”

  “Ginny will be here.”

  They walked in silence.

  “Susan?” P.J. asked. “You haven’t talked to me about much since—” she paused—“since you found out about David. Did you order furniture for the apartment? When are you moving to Boston?”

  Susan sighed. “I guess I’ve been procrastinating. I just don’t know what to do.”

  “I don’t want to sound sarcastic, but don’t you think you’d better hurry up and decide?”

  “I know. It’s just that things keep happening. First David. Then your father dying. Now last night …” She stopped as a woman passed by in a wheelchair. “God, the time has flown. I hardly even paid any attention to the election.”

  “I noticed.”

  Susan smiled. “Humphrey didn’t have a chance, anyway. I don’t care how close the popular vote was, he never could have pulled it off. Even Johnson’s last-minute halt to the bombing couldn’t—”

  “Susan,” P.J. interrupted her, “that was weeks ago. I’m talking about today, tomorrow. About your baby and you.”

  Susan looked at the white tile floor. “I know,” she said. Susan also knew she was procrastinating because she still didn’t know what to do. If only she could call her parents and talk with them. But she hadn’t spoken with them since her mother had told her about David, and as the weeks had passed, it became easier not to. She recognized that what she was doing was not much different from the denial Jess’s father was pulling on Jess, or P.J.’s mother on her. She had been so sure, so willing to take on the responsibility of her baby while knowing she might never find David. She had been so sure. Or had she? Had she only been living in the dream that they’d be together again? Had she been denying the truth—the way she’d once denied that she loved him? And now that David might never return, was it really wise for her to keep the baby? Was it really fair, to either of them?

  They continued to walk down the hall, as if drawn toward the sounds of the babies crying. Suddenly they stood in front of the glass partition to the nursery.

  Jess’s baby was there, wrapped in a pink blanket. FRANCES BATES, read the name pasted to the outside of the bassinet.

  “Frances,” Susan said. “She named her after Miss Taylor.”

  “She’s so small,” P.J. said. “And beautiful.”

  Susan looked at the baby. She felt oddly displaced from her, detached. From around the corner came voices. Susan recognized Miss Taylor’s, then Miss Gladstone’s. She realized they didn’t know Susan and P.J. were there.

  “The adoptive parents are so thrilled,” Miss Gladstone was saying. “They’re even more excited that she was early.”

  “Do they understand the circumstances of the birth?” Miss Taylor asked.

  “No. Only that she was born early, by cesarean section.”

  “You have a nice job.”

  “Well, this part of it, anyway. It’s wonderful to see people so happy. People who want a baby so desperately. It’s working with the girls that’s the hard part. I can’t begin to imagine how hard this is for them.”

  “Neither can I,” Miss Taylor said. “It must be difficult to put their babies’ happiness above their own.”

  Susan felt a gnawing in her stomach. She looked at P.J. P.J. said nothing, but Susan sensed what she was thinking. Susan must give her baby up like the other girls. She must give this child a chance to have a decent life. She must face the fact that she would probably never see David again. It was the least she could do for his baby. Give it up. Give it a chance. Give David up. The two people in the world she most loved, and because she loved them, she would let them go.

  Six days later Jess went directly from the hospital back to Manhattan. Miss Taylor packed her bags and had them shipped to the Park Avenue town house.

  “She thought it best not to return to Larchwood,” the woman told
the others. “The memories … you know.” They had all nodded. They knew.

  On Tuesday, December 5, Susan delivered a baby boy. She cringed at the irony: It was the six-month anniversary of the assassination of Robert Kennedy.

  When Miss Taylor came to see her, she asked if Susan wanted her to phone her parents.

  “I don’t care,” Susan said, and realized she meant it. She had decided to move to Boston after all, alone. She would take her inheritance and support herself, put herself through grad school, be on her own. She was too old to go running back to Mommy and Daddy and be the perfect little Jewish princess and date the perfect Jewish boy. For now, anyway, she would be on her own. She might try to find David. She might not. But their baby would go to a loving home, where his two parents would cherish every breath he took.

  “They’d just better appreciate him,” she said to herself, as she signed the adoption papers.

  P.J.

  “Well, it’s you and me, kid,” Ginny said to P.J., as they watched the cab drive Susan away from Larchwood.

  “Yeah,” P.J. answered. “Merry Christmas.”

  They walked back into the house and flopped in the living room.

  “Hey, I don’t know about you, but I don’t plan to stick around here till Christmas,” Ginny said.

  P.J. shrugged. “I think that’s out of my hands.” She looked around the room. Pine needles had begun to fall. The red bows had begun to droop. “Besides, we already had our Christmas. The day before Thanksgiving.” She looked at Ginny. “Sorry, I didn’t mean …”

  Ginny waved her off. “No problem.”

  “So what are you going to do when you leave?”

  “Go home. On our little trip to Boston to tell my mother about my stepfather, Bud Wilson told me a lot of things—things about A.A. He’s not so bad, you know. Maybe I can get my mother some help. Get her off the booze. I don’t know if it will work, but I’m going to give it a shot. I’m going to start by trying to talk her into moving to L.A. Thankfully my stepfather left a bundle of money.”

  “You didn’t like your stepfather much, did you?”

  Ginny laughed. “No. You could say that. It was weird, though. My mother did. But then,” she added, “there was a lot she didn’t know.”

  P.J. got up and walked to the window. She looked out onto the driveway. It was starting to snow. “Let’s not talk about mothers,” she said.

  “Oh, shit, that’s right. What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going away to school. Chicago. I’m going back for commercial art. I think I’m pretty good at it. And I don’t care if I ever see my mother again.”

  “Yeah,” Ginny said, “well, that can change too.”

  P.J. shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  Ten days later, on December 18, P.J. rode to the hospital with Ginny. Ginny was doubled over in the backseat of the station wagon: She hadn’t told anyone she was having contractions until after her water broke.

  “No sense getting there too soon,” she said.

  But P.J. was annoyed. “Jesus, Ginny, do you want to have the baby in the car?”

  “Why not?” she asked, then moaned. “Between you and me, I’d do just about anything to avoid the hospital. Hospitals scare the hell out of me.”

  P.J. tried not to show her surprise.

  P.J. sat with Pop and Miss Taylor in the waiting room. They were there less than an hour when the doctor appeared. “It’s a girl,” he said. “Mother and baby are doing fine. Mother used every foul word she knew and then some, I expect.” He smiled and raised his bushy eyebrows. “But she made it. They both made it.”

  The ride back to Larchwood was quiet. Miss Taylor had stayed to be with Ginny when she awoke. P.J. knew she would be alone in the house tonight. As if reading her thoughts, Pop spoke.

  “The missus and I will stay in Miss Taylor’s apartment tonight. We don’t want you to be alone. Good Lord, what if your time came in the middle of the night?”

  P.J. smiled. “Thanks, Pop.” My time, she thought. My time, and the other girls won’t even know. Well, one of us had to be the last. P.J. shivered a little and felt the loneliness the empty house would bring. She hoped she wouldn’t have to wait too long.

  Five days later Ginny came back from the hospital. Her stomach was still a little distended, but her miniskirt had returned, and she carried a foam-rubber doughnut.

  “Do you believe this shit?” Ginny screeched, pointing to the doughnut. “Hemorrhoids! Me, who didn’t even get morning sickness. I end up with fucking hemorrhoids!” She wobbled upstairs to pack.

  P.J. stayed in the living room, fixing the weary Christmas decorations. She noticed that the red satin Santa was missing. Miss Taylor must have packed it with Jess’s things.

  An hour passed. Why hadn’t Ginny come down?

  P.J. went into the kitchen. Mrs. Hines was fixing dinner.

  “Not many tonight, Miss P.J. Just you and Miss Taylor.”

  P.J. noticed the woman’s gruffness had eased. Tragedy, she thought, can change people.

  “What about Ginny?”

  “Oh, Ginny’s gone. Pop drove her to the train station about twenty minutes ago.”

  P.J. was shocked. “You mean she left? She left without saying good-bye?”

  Mrs. Hines shrugged. “She was an odd one, all right.”

  P.J. went back to the living room. She couldn’t believe Ginny had disappeared so quickly, that Ginny didn’t even care enough to say good-bye. She had thought they’d broken through that wall around Ginny’s emotions. She thought of Mrs. Hines; she thought again of Ginny. Some people change, some people don’t.

  She stared at the Christmas decorations. It was growing dark outside, and the light from the veranda cast a glow against the snow into the room. P.J. wondered if any of the girls could really change. Deep down inside, where it mattered.

  She heard the front door open.

  “P.J.?” It was Ginny’s voice.

  “In the living room.”

  Ginny walked in and brushed the snow from her jacket. “I–well, I realized I forgot to say good-bye.”

  P.J. stood up and went to her. Ginny hugged her. “Good luck, P.J.”

  “And to you.”

  They held each other for a moment, then Ginny broke away. “Hey, man, I gotta get outta here. I’m going to miss my fucking train.”

  P.J. laughed. “So long, friend,” she said.

  Ginny waved and wobbled toward the door, her foam doughnut in hand. “Later!” she called back.

  There had been no talk of staying in touch—none of the girls had mentioned it. It was as though they all knew they wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Shouldn’t. Some things, P.J. thought, are best forgotten. But she couldn’t help but wonder if she would ever have another friend.

  On Christmas morning P.J. sat alone in the living room. She tried to read the paper, but it only reminded her of Susan: She wondered where she was, what she was doing. She thought about Jess. Would she be celebrating the holiday with her father? As for Ginny, P.J. smiled. There was nothing to worry about. Ginny would be fine, for what Ginny lacked in strength, she made up for with guts. Ginny was a survivor.

  But maybe, P.J. thought, we are all survivors.

  Then she thought about her father. She was almost glad she wasn’t home, sitting on the floor, opening gifts, trying to pretend nothing had changed, trying not to stare at his vacant easy chair. She wondered if there would ever be another man she could trust as much as him. Or another man who would love her as much as he had.

  Early in the afternoon P.J.’s mother called. “I just wanted to be sure you were all right,” she said. Her voice sounded flat, and P.J. suspected this wasn’t much more than a “duty” call. Be a good mother, do the right thing. Probably Reverend Blacksmith had prodded her into it.

  “I’m okay, Mom,” P.J. answered. “I should be home soon.”

  “Yes, well—” her mother continued quickly, as though she was afraid P.J. might say something she didn’t wa
nt to hear. “I suppose we need to talk about your plans. Have you made any?”

  P.J. sighed. “I’d like to go to Chicago. To the Art Institute. They have a great program.”

  “Good. That’s good.” The relief in her mother’s voice was unmistakable.

  “I’ll be leaving the first week of January.”

  “Good. That’s good,” her mother repeated. “Well, Merry Christmas.”

  “Sure, Mom. Merry Christmas.”

  P.J. hung up the phone and folded her hands across her stomach. She realized she wasn’t angry with her mother. She also realized that she and her mother would probably never be friends. Without her father to hold them together, they would go their separate ways. Her mother would hold on to her secret, and P.J. would hold on to her memories. It was then that P.J. knew she wasn’t just alone at Larchwood, but that now she was completely on her own.

  Late that night P.J. went into labor. Her son was born the day after Christmas, at 8:59 A.M.

  CHAPTER 11

  Saturday, September 18

  Jess

  When she arrived home from L.A., Charles was seated in the study, his long feet propped up on the edge of the desk, his arms folded across his chest. The lines on his face were frozen in anger.

  “Where the hell have you been?” he barked.

  Jess walked into the room and set down her bag. “Visiting a friend.”

  He pulled his legs from the desk. His feet dropped to the floor with a thud. “For two fucking days?”

  Jess pushed a flyaway tendril from her face. She was exhausted from the cross-country flight, and in no mood to put up with her husband.

  “I told the children I’d be back today.”

  “Chuck and Travis went to a soccer game last night. I didn’t find out you were gone until they got home.”

  “If you were speaking to your daughter, she would have told you.”

  He stood up, full height, and put his hands on his hips. He’s assuming his stance, Jess thought. The one he uses for intimidation. A flash came into her mind of him, standing that way in Maura’s bedroom. Trying to frighten his child. Trying to pull the ultimate power play. Jess wanted to kick him.