MILLION DOLLAR BABY

by Patricia Ryan

  With slow, careful movements, Dean extricated himself from Laura's sleeping embrace, tucked the afghan snugly around her and pulled on his jeans. Okay, if I were a birth certificate, where would I be hiding?

  He scanned the living room in the dark, recreating its furnishings in his mind – couch, coffee table, chairs, TV, woodstove, a couple of lamps and end tables … nothing in which important papers might be secreted.

  Walking silently on bare feet down the hall, he went into the kitchen and flipped the light switch, squinting as the overhead lamps snapped on. A quick rifle of the drawers and cabinets revealed nothing other than the usual kitchen stuff. His search of Laura's studio was just as fruitless. There was a big steel cabinet against one wall, but all it contained was art supplies.

  Dean closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He seemed to recall having seen a desk somewhere in this house – one of those old-fashioned ones, with a top that rolled up and down.

  "Yes," he whispered when it came to him. Retracing his steps down the hall, he took the stairs two at a time, wincing every time his foot landed on a creaky one. Groping on the wall of Laura's bedroom, he found a light switch and thumbed it. A floor lamp went on; he smiled when he saw that it was situated conveniently next to the rolltop desk in the corner.

  Settling himself in the old swivel-seated desk chair, Dean raised the slatted rolltop and blinked at the Byzantine arrangement of slots and cubbyholes he encountered, most crammed with papers. He moved the lamp closer and set about removing, inspecting and replacing the contents of every nook and cranny: paid bills, unpaid bills, sales receipts for paintings, tax documentation, assorted business cards, correspondence, bank statements…

  Ah. In a wide, shallow drawer near the bottom, he found a nine-by-twelve kraft envelope with "Janey" inked on it in whimsically ornate letters surrounded by a circle of cavorting monkeys. Smiling, he opened the clasp and slid the envelope's contents onto the bare desktop. On top was a little booklet that turned out to contain a record of Janey's vaccinations. Next came a handful of photographs.

  The first was of Laura and Kay mugging in the front yard of Laura's house after what looked to have been a snowstorm of titanic proportions. Kay, wielding a hammer and chisel in that gaudy blanket coat of hers, and sporting a black beret and a painted-on mustache and goatee, was playing the part of a sculptor putting the finishing touches on a snowman. Oh. Not a snowman, Dean saw – a snowwoman patterned after those primitive fertility icons of women with pendulous breasts and gigantic pregnant bellies. Laura, looking about twelve months pregnant herself in an unzipped parka and maternity sweatsuit, stood a few feet away in the same posture as the snowwoman, as if posing for it.

  Dean's chuckles ceased when he encountered the next picture, one of those grainy black-and-white ultrasound snapshots of an unborn baby – Janey, obviously. Sucking her thumb. His throat tightened as he gazed in wonderment at the sweet, fragile little baby girl curled up in her mother's womb.

  The next snapshot made him smile again: Laura in a hospital bed, wearing one of those awful institutional cotton gowns, smiling down at the newborn daughter sleeping in her arms. No, not sleeping, Dean realized, but nursing. The gown had been pulled down to free one of Laura's arms and bare an astonishingly full and luxuriant breast. Janey, with that Sid Vicious hair and swaddled in a thin little blanket, was suckling with her eyes closed, one hand resting possessively on the creamy, blue-veined upper slope of the breast. In a corner of the snapshot Dean saw one of those little rolling tables bearing a tray of food, half-eaten, and next to it, a paper napkin with a drawing of Janey on it – the same drawing that now hung in Laura's studio, framed like the most priceless artwork.

  In an envelope beneath the photographs, Dean struck pay dirt in the form of Janey's Social Security card. "Yes!" Poking around for something to write on, he found a legal pad and pen, copied down the number, folded up the sheet and stuck it in his back pocket. The next item was a folded-up sheet of drawing paper. He assumed it was another sketch of Janey until he opened it and, with a dull jolt of recognition, saw the border of teddy bears and raffles that surrounded Laura's final letter to Will… "Remember that night we decided to throw away my diaphragm?"

  Dean put the letter down, scrubbed his hands over his face…

  He picked it up again and skimmed it, reliving the sick tide of comprehension that had gripped him at the revelation of Laura's pregnancy. "Yes, I'm sure it's for real … I'm only four or five weeks along right now, but I've got a due date! October 7 – your sister Bridget's birthday…"

  Dean read that last line again. "October 7 – your sister Bridget's birthday."

  October 7.

  Frowning, he sorted through the snapshots until he came to the first one, the comical tableau of Laura posing as the archetypal fertility symbol for Kay. The snow was a foot thick where it hadn't been shoveled, deeper where it had drifted. It was unequivocally a winter scene, taken no earlier than mid-November at the outside, although Long Island usually didn't see snow like that until much further into the season.

  Focusing on the image of Laura, big with child – huge with child – Dean had to figure she was almost due, if not overdue. Yet she'd been given a due date of October 7, and this picture had to have been taken well after that.

  It didn't make sense. Unless Janey had already been born and, in the interest of humor, Laura had stuffed her sweatshirt with pillows for the camera.

  That was it. That had to be it. Dean was certain of it.

  Then why were his hands trembling?

  Shoving aside what he'd looked at already, Dean rummaged swiftly through the remaining "Janey" items until he came to a six-by-nine envelope addressed to Laura from the Suffolk County Health Department and bearing the legend Do Not Fold Or Bend in big black letters. Reaching into the end that had been ripped open, he slid out a pale green document with Certificate of Birth Registration printed in an officious gothic typeface across the top. "This certifies that a certificate of birth has been filed under the name of: Jane Bridget Sweeney. Sex: Female. Born on…"

  "January 1?" Dean whispered incredulously.

  "At: Stony Brook, New York. Name of father…"

  That space was blank.

  Dean stared at the certificate, but it was shaking too badly to read.

  It was his hand that was shaking, along with the rest of him. He dropped the certificate onto the desk. Pushed his chair back. Sat there, gazing at the blank space on Janey's birth certificate.

  The blank space where Will Sweeney's name should have been. He raked both palsied hands through his hair, startled to find there was almost none left. Oh, yeah… Wanna play barbershop, Mr. Kettle-wing?

  "My God…" Could it be?

  Frantically he sorted through the papers on the desk until he located the letter to Will, which was dated February 3. I went to Dr. Chang this morning. She says I'm only four or five weeks along right now…

  How, if Laura had gotten pregnant by Will around the beginning of '95, could she have gotten pregnant again by Dean four months later? Unless…

  Yes. She must have lost the baby, the first baby, Will's baby. She must have miscarried sometime after Will's death but before Dean's visit in April.

  "Oh, Laura, Laura…" Leaning his elbows on the desk, Dean dropped his face in his hands. First she'd had to endure the news about Will, then a miscarriage, and then…

  In his mind's eye, he saw himself throwing her onto her bed, tearing at her nightgown, ramming into her…

  We were both responsible for that night.

  Even if that were true, and it wasn't, not really, they both knew who was responsible for her waking up the next morning alone, bewildered, remorseful. And then, a few weeks later, when she discovered she was pregnant again…

  The air force wouldn't tell me where you were… There was something I wanted to tell you.

  He knew now what that was. But when he'd asked her about it, not an hour ago, she'd told him she couldn't remember, t
hat it wasn't important.

  She'd lied. He'd heard it in her voice, the telltale strain, but he'd dismissed it from his mind. But he should have known. She'd never been able to lie worth a damn. The only time she could ever bring herself to do it was when the alternative was so distasteful that there was essentially no other choice.

  In the beginning, she'd wanted to tell him, but then she'd changed her mind when she'd thought about what it would mean to acknowledge someone like him as the father of her child. She'd wised up.

  But then, she'd always been pretty levelheaded.

  "God…" Dean lifted the ultrasound picture of Janey. His breath snagged in his throat, stinging his eyes. He brushed his thumb over the picture, as if trying to touch the spidery fingers, the unformed face – the face of his daughter. The knowledge that he had a child, and that that child was Janey, was both humbling and exhilarating. The knowledge that Laura was desperate to keep the truth from him, even now, after tonight…

  She may have wanted to sleep with him, she might even love him. But she knew better than to try and make a life with him.

  He flung the picture down, ground the heels of his hands against his forehead. This was why Laura wouldn't take his money or his gifts, or let him start a trust fund for Janey. She would have felt honor bound to tell him the truth then, and that would have meant letting him back into her life, into Janey's life, something she was obviously determined not to do.

  Could he blame her, with his track record? She knew him better than anyone; she knew he wasn't the type to turn over a new leaf, regardless of his pipe dreams. Had he really been contemplating marriage tonight?

  Bitter laughter shook his chest. Yeah, right. A few weeks of domestic tranquility and suddenly he was Father Knows Best. How long would that have lasted?

  It was his own damn fault, this whole hopeless fiasco – but what else was new?

  While gathering up the pictures and documents, Dean came across several photocopies of the birth certificate paper-clipped together. He folded up one and tucked it in his pocket, set the original certificate aside and returned everything else to the envelope marked "Janey."

  Then he reached once more for the legal pad and pen.

  * * *

  Chapter 13

  «^»

  "Mommy? You cwyin'?"

  Laura looked up from where she sat on the edge of her bed in her chenille robe, to find Janey standing in the doorway, having obviously just tumbled out of her own bed.

  "No, sweetie," Laura said in a wet, scratchy voice. "I'm fine." Not strictly a lie, since her tears had mostly subsided, although she must be a puffy, red-faced mess for Janey to have asked the question.

  Padding into the bedroom in her sleep-rumpled dinosaur jammies, her hair a flaxen snarl, Janey eyed the legal pad in Laura's hand. "What's that?"

  "Nothing." Liar. If it was nothing, then why had Laura collapsed in tears when she came up here this morning, after awakening on the living room couch, and discovered it on her desk?

  Next to – God help her – Janey's birth certificate.

  "Whatsa matter, Mommy?" Janey asked in that very grown-up, tell-me-all-about-it voice she'd probably picked up from her aunt Kay. Climbing up onto the bed, she put her arms around Laura and squeezed. "It can't be that bad."

  Her despair notwithstanding, Laura couldn't suppress a raspy little chuckle as she returned Janey's hug and kissed her tousled hair. "You're a great kid, you know that, monkey?"

  Janey smiled impishly. "That's what you're always telling me." Her gaze lit on the legal pad, the top sheet of which was covered with Dean's unique, angular handwriting. "Is that from Mr. Kettle-wing?"

  "How did you know that?"

  "He wites like that – like he's mad about something. Only he's never mad about anything. He's the coolest."

  "Yeah, he's pretty cool," Laura muttered, rubbing her forehead. Don't do it. Don't break down in front of Janey. Suck it up.

  "Will you wead it to me?" Janey asked, snuggling up against her mom.

  "No, monkey. It's … personal. He wrote it to me."

  With a little huff of displeasure, Janey said, "I'll just ask him what it says."

  Oh, God. "Janey … sweetie. You can't do that. Mr. Kettering … he's gone. He left. He went b-back to—" Laura bit her bottom lip to stop it from quivering "—Portsmouth. Where his boat is – where he lives."

  "But…" Distress contorted Janey's face. "I thought he was gonna stay till Aunt Kay got back."

  "So did I, sweetie, but … he decided to go back early."

  "Why?"

  "I…" Laura's gaze dropped to the legal pad. "It's complicated."

  "He didn't say goodbye to me." Janey's eyes were filling with tears, her face crumpling. "Why didn't he say goodbye to me?"

  "In the note, he asked me to say goodbye to you for him."

  "It's not the same thing," Janey whimpered, curling up into a ball and sliding her thumb into her mouth. It was the first time in months she'd surrendered to the urge to suck her thumb, yet she didn't even seem aware she was doing it.

  "Oh, sweetie…" Laura tucked Janey firmly into her embrace, using the sash of her robe to dry the child's tears. "I know he felt real bad, not being able to say it in person. Do you want me to read that part of the note to you?"

  Janey extracted the thumb just long enough to say, "I want you to wead the whole thing. I want to know why he left."

  Although she'd read the note half a dozen times, Laura skimmed it again, keeping in mind Janey's five-year-old sensibilities and how much she knew – and didn't know – about her mother and "Mr. Kettle-wing." But keeping in mind, as well, Laura's personal mandate to be as frank and honest with everyone – especially her own child – as she could.

  "Okay, Janey, tell you what. I'll read you the note – most of it. The really personal parts I'll skip over. But if there's anything in the note you don't understand – and there will be – I want you to promise to ask me about it afterward. How about that?"

  Janey ruminated on that in thumb-sucking silence for a moment, then nodded.

  "Okay." Drawing in a deep, steadying breath, Laura started to read from the note. "'Dear Laura. This is the hardest thing I've ever done, leaving you like this. I know it's going to feel the same to you as it did six years ago, but—'"

  Out popped the thumb. "What happened six years ago?"

  "Wait till I'm done, sweetie, and then I'll answer all your questions." Laura cautioned herself to be a little more circumspect about which parts she read out loud. "Okay, let's see … I think I can skip this next part." The part about how this time it was different because he'd actually been thinking about proposing to her before he found Janey's birth certificate and sorted out the truth – and realized that Laura would never, in a million years, let him play that fundamental role in her life, and especially not in Janey's. He hastened to explain that, as painful as this was to him, he understood and even appreciated the wisdom of it.

  "Mommy, wead it," Janey said plaintively around the thumb.

  "Uh…" This next bit should be all right, Laura decided. "'The weeks I spent with you and Janey kind of got to me, I guess. They made me feel like I could maybe be a different kind of man, someone who could be part of a family and like it. But it was all just smoke and mirrors.'"

  "Smoke and what?"

  "Make believe. 'You're right about me, Lorelei. You've always had my number. Some dogs can't be trained.'"

  Janey frowned as she gnawed on the thumb. "What dog?"

  "No, sweetie, it's a metaphor – a way of saying something by drawing a comparison to something else."

  Janey gave her one those "Say what?" looks.

  "He means he's not the kind of man who can change."

  "That's stoopit!" Janey looked down at her wet thumb as if noticing it for the first time, and wiped it on her pajamas. "He can so change."

  "Sweetie, I think he might just have a point. Some people have a lot of trouble changing."

  "Not Mr. Kettle
-wing. He smoked cigawettes when he came here, wemember? But he stopped wight away and never started again."

  "Um, yeah, and that's good. That's great. Smoking is really bad for you. But I don't think that's the kind of changing he's talking about."

  "He let me cut his hair."

  Laura sighed. "Again, that's … you know … just how he looks. It doesn't really have anything to do with who he is inside."

  "Yes, it does, 'cause when he first came here, he was all, like … closed up inside himself." Janey illustrated this observation by going fetal again, her arms tightly wrapped around her legs, her head tucked in. "But lately he's been, like…" Unfolding her little body, she sprawled out on the bed with a goofy smile on her face.

  Laura smiled when she remembered how Dean had looked last night while Janey was cutting his hair – the indolent pose, the blissed-out grin – and realized Janey had a point.

  Sitting up and leaning over the legal pad, Janey asked, "What else does he say?"

  "Let's see…" Laura found her place in the note. Dean had switched gears to tell her that he'd spent only about $120,000 of the million – only? – and that the remainder was in a joint account under both their names, so she could access it as needed. Anything that was left when he returned from Bermuda would go into Janey's trust fund, which he still intended to establish.

  "Mommy," Janey pressed. "Wead it!"

  "Ah, here we go. 'Tell Kay I'm sorry to drop the ball like this, after promising her I'd look after the Blue Mist and take reservations and all that while she was gone. I guess you'll have to do it. I can't tell you how bad I feel about leaving in the middle of the night this way, especially after…' Hmm…" Laura skipped over the reprise of his having done the same thing six years ago. "'The thing is, I just couldn't bear to say goodbye to you in person, or Janey, either, knowing I might…'" Laura's breath hitched. She reread the next few lines silently to herself … knowing I might never see either one of you again. I can't think about that, or I'll never have the courage to drive away. I meant it when I said this is the hardest thing I've ever done.