Sins of Omission

by Fern Michaels

  “You’re in capable hands, Mr. Tarz,” the doctor said quietly. Reuben thrashed about in the bed, his entire body drenched with sweat. As the doctor continued to speak softly, the nurse reached for Reuben’s hand and held it tightly in her own. She echoed the doctor’s words, her voice gentle and motherly.

  “I want you to open your eyes, Mr. Tarz, and look at me. Do it now,” the doctor ordered in a firm, quiet voice. He nodded approval when Reuben’s eyes fluttered open. “Do you know where you are? Do you remember what happened to you?”

  Reuben struggled from the black vaporous pit he’d been sunk in for so long. He tried to speak, but his tongue seemed to fill the whole of his mouth. The nurse wiped a moist cloth over his lips. “No,” he said hoarsely.

  The doctor’s voice turned cheerful. “I didn’t think you would, at least not right away. It’s all right, take your time. You’ve been here a month now. You injured yourself in a barn with a pitchfork that had manure on it. We’ve bombarded your body with everything at our disposal. I’m not making light of your injury, Mr. Tarz. You’ve been very ill, but I think you will mend. It’s going to take time, however. I also think you should know that Madame Fonsard and your friend Daniel have been here since the day you were brought in. They leave only to eat and change clothes. They’ve been staying at a pension not far from here. You have wonderful, caring friends, Mr. Tarz, whose only wish is for your recovery. Nurse is going to feed you some broth now, and later, if you’re up to it, you can visit with your friends. I’ll be back to check on you later this afternoon. In the meantime, rest.”

  Reuben gagged on the first spoonful of broth. The nurse wiped his chin and tried again. From somewhere his mind ordered him to swallow, to eat, so he could regain his strength. He wanted to think, but opening his mouth and swallowing drained all his energy.

  When the nurse returned to her chair in the corner of the room, Reuben lay back exhausted, perspiration beading on his forehead. He tried to wipe the sweat away, but he was too weak, his thoughts cloudy and disoriented. The broth he’d taken was bubbling around in his stomach. He wondered if he would die. He moved restlessly, his body sticking to the damp sheets. He was in Paris standing under a blooming chestnut tree, seeing a girl in a pretty, flowered dress walk by, and then he was paddling his feet in the Seine with someone whose shoes were too big. He felt himself slipping into black, murky water. “No. no. Don’t do it!” he cried feverishly, his head spinning, spinning. “No!” He fought then, with the bedsheets and the nurse’s firm hands. “She should have killed me. I thought she…Help me…” The water was pulling at him, the oversize shoes in his hands pulling him under, deeper and deeper.

  “Come back, Mr. Tarz, come back and talk to me,” ordered the kindly nurse. “Now. You’re dreaming, and the dream is over. Talk to me, Mr. Tarz. Tell me about Daniel. I want to hear about your friend. I want to hear now.”

  From far away, past the murky black water full of overhead bubbles, Reuben heard the authoritative voice and struggled to obey. “Daniel…Daniel…Daniel…Yes, Daniel…my friend,” he murmured as he broke the surface of the black water.

  “Yes, tell me about Daniel.” The old nurse sighed.

  He was lucid then, and coherent. He spoke of Daniel until his tongue failed him. The nurse relaxed her hold on his hand, but she didn’t leave his side. Instead, she spoke quietly, explaining about his accident. He was lucky to be alive, she told him.

  Reuben listened, reliving the scene firsthand as the nurse described what she’d been told. He swore he felt the cold hand of death touch his shoulder at that moment. It all came back to him then—his own voice, Bebe’s screams, the pain of the pitchfork going into his groin, his drunkenness, the old doctor’s disbelieving face. The pain, God, the pain. The same pain he was feeling now. A month, she’d said, this woman in white. Daniel, where was Daniel? And Mickey. He’d betrayed Mickey. Reuben could feel his eyes roll back in his head and he panicked, thrashing about in the bed. The fever was sweeping through him, starting in his loins, fanning out to cover every inch of his body until he would explode into thousands of pieces of burned flesh. He’d seen that once, a body exploding, the flesh plummeting down on Daniel. Who would pick up his pieces?

  Ah, that feels good, he thought as the nurse placed a wet cloth on his forehead and one around his neck. “I need to hear more,” she said in that same school teacherish voice, the one every child had to obey. “I want to hear about Madame Fonsard, too. You call her Mickey. You must tell me now. Don’t go to sleep, Mr. Tarz. You must tell me about Mickey and Daniel. Jake misses you, Daniel told me. Who is Jake, Mr. Tarz?”

  “Jake…Jake…Daniel’s dog. Jake misses me?”

  “Very much,” the nurse said gently. “Tell me about Jake.”

  “Jake…peed on my new suit.” Daniel laughed. The cloths were replaced with cooler ones. It was easier to think when he was cool.

  “Will I die?” he asked. If I die, she killed me. Someday I’ll kill her for this. I can’t die, I have to live so I can… “Will I die?” he repeated.

  “Not if I can help it,” the nurse said cheerfully. “Things are mixed up in your mind right now because of your fever. Once it breaks, you’ll be fine.”

  Reuben believed the kind, gentle voice. He slept then, a feverish slumber, but he didn’t slip back into the black hole of unconsciousness. When he woke later he knew where he was and what had happened to him. Pain seared through him, but he made no sound.

  The nurse said he was very ill, but he would live. Another voice had said the same thing—the doctor perhaps, he thought wearily. If he lived, the first thing he would do when he was well was find Bebe Rosen and…and…He slipped away again, into a sleep that was more restful, less feverish, the terrible pain staying with him.

  In the coming days he fought for his life with a determination that had been buried deeply within him. He had to live, to make Bebe pay for what he was going through. If it took him the rest of his life, she’d pay for what she’d done to him.

  As Reuben fought for his life and Mickey and Daniel continued their vigil, Bebe danced and partied in London under the watchful eye of her chaperone Pamela, Mickey Fonsard’s friend.

  She was alone in her room, staring at the calendar in front of her, her face registering shock and disbelief. If what it told her was true, then her tiredness and irritability had nothing to do with late hours, parties, and dancing.

  She was pregnant.

  There was no way she could switch roles now. This was a fact that would not go away no matter how much she wanted to sweep it under the rug. Babies are messy, and all they do is cry, she told herself. I’m too young to have a baby. I’ll be fat and ugly and get pimples on my face. Men had their way with you, and a baby was the result. “Damn you, Reuben!”

  She’d planned on returning to France in September, but not if she was pregnant. Dammit, nothing was working out the way she wanted it to. Daniel had promised to write, and he hadn’t; Mickey hadn’t written, either. They didn’t want her, were glad to be rid of her, so why had she expected them to write, to care about her stay in England? And after she’d gone to such great lengths to keep the secret! She should have told Mickey. Should have screamed it at the doctor so the whole village would know. Good old Daniel considered her confession a confidence and wouldn’t tell anyone, she was sure of it. She’d been so damn noble and gallant thinking they’d praise her and turn on Reuben.

  And how is dear old Reuben? She wondered bitterly. Still living off Mickey and taking advantage of Daniel, no doubt. Whom did he get angry at these days? Bastard that he was, he was probably laughing up his sleeve that he’d stolen her virginity. She rolled over on her stomach. Soon it would puff out and she’d look like she’d swallowed a watermelon. Oh. God! “I don’t want a baby!” she wailed. “Especially Reuben Tarz’s baby.”

  Bebe’s thoughts whirled and danced. An abortion! Surely Mickey would know someone who would do it. With Mickey’s help she’d get rid of this child, and someday s
he’d tell him what she’d done. She could almost see the shock on his face….On the other hand, maybe he’d feel sorry for her if she told him, and try to make things right. Maybe he’d ask her to marry him…. Of course, there was always a third alternative: she could have this baby, go through the nine months of misery, give the child away, and then tell him. Reuben’s flesh and blood. He’d never know where the child was, only that he had one somewhere. He’d search the world over until he found it and brought it back, and then they’d live happily ever after.

  If she chose not to tell him, but have the baby, give it up, and get on with her life, the knowledge would be the same as the contract she had with Daniel. Cardplayers called it having an ace in the hole.

  Tomorrow she would go to two doctors to have her pregnancy confirmed. If she was truly pregnant, she’d book passage to France immediately.

  If you ruined his life and he ruined your life, where does that leave things? her conscience whispered. “We can start over after I decide what to do about this pregnancy. I won’t think about it again, and if Reuben doesn’t know, he can’t think about it.” Do you still want him, after all this? “Of course I want him. I want what he and Mickey had. I want to be loved that way. I can love him the way Mickey loves him. I want him and I’m going to have him, sooner or later. I’m good at waiting. Real good.”

  The following days were torture for Mickey and Daniel as they watched Reuben slip in and out of consciousness. Each time he rallied he was stronger, his lucid episodes more frequent. He recognized them now, and once or twice he tried to smile, but the effort exhausted him.

  August was almost at an end when the doctor pronounced him well enough for a lengthy visit with his friends.

  “At last!” Mickey cried tearfully. “The Three Muskeeteers together again. Oh, Reuben, I’m so glad you’re getting well.”

  Daniel did his best to ignore the blank look in Reuben’s eyes, hoping Mickey didn’t notice. His friend wasn’t the same. A part of him was gone, and Daniel knew he would never see it again. He wished there were something he could do for his friend, something he could say that would bring the sparkle back to his eyes. Time, he told himself, time would make things right.

  He didn’t know if he believed the thought or not, but for now it was all he had to go on.

  Reuben leaned back into his pillow, relieved that his visitors were gone. He felt physically whipped, his life’s blood gone from his body. If he needed further proof of how sick he’d been and still was, Mickey and Daniel’s visit clinched it. He hadn’t said three words, and while he’d tried to smile he knew he hadn’t carried it off. “A newborn baby has more stamina than I do,” he grunted.

  Tired and drained as he was, his brain refused to be still. Two months gone out of his life and all because of Bebe Rosen. He was an invalid, dependent on other people for his comfort, and it would be many more months until he was fully recovered, according to the doctor.

  If there was a way to make Bebe Rosen pay for what she did to him, he’d find it…. His thoughts trailed off into sleep.

  In the days that followed, as Reuben mended and regained his strength, he plotted his retaliation in every way imaginable. He gave very little thought to the violence of his anger that night, and when he did think of it he realized that he’d finally exploded, just the way Bebe had warned him he would the first day of her visit. Maybe now that horrible black side of him was gone forever. His anger was responsible for his recovery, he knew. But it was a healthy anger, not that destructive, all-consuming rage that had attacked him in the past.

  Every so often the memory of his unspeakable behavior that night crept into his thoughts, and he knew the day would come when the blame had to be parceled out justly; but for now, to speed his recovery, it helped to lay all the blame on Bebe’s shoulders.

  Mid-September found Reuben back at the château in his own bed. In those first days he refused to meet Daniel’s questioning gaze, which only convinced his friend that Bebe’s story was true. When at last he did stare Daniel down, there was defiance in his eyes.

  By the first week in October, Reuben was walking about. His appetite improved and he was sleeping soundly at night. No one questioned him about his “accident,” and he volunteered nothing. He was aware that both Mickey and Daniel received letters from Bebe, but he didn’t ask about her and they offered no information.

  It was a delightful autumn day, the leaves burned to a rich copper and a soft westerly wind blew, when the phone shrilled to life. Mickey picked it up and shooed Daniel and Reuben outdoors. For several long moments she listened, gripping the receiver with white-knuckled fingers. When she finally hung up, she started to tremble. Why now? Why? Hadn’t she been through enough? She tried to square her shoulders, to stop her trembling, but she failed. How was she to tell Reuben and Daniel she had to go to Paris?

  She walked to the double French doors and watched Reuben as he talked with Daniel in the late afternoon sun. He should be wearing a heavier sweater, she thought. Daniel, too, for that matter. It was her fault; she’d shooed them out so quickly.

  Lord, she was tired. First the long weeks at the hospital not knowing if Reuben would live or die, and then his return—a triumph that was proving disastrous. What more could she do? God, how she tried. She ached with her good intentions, and her face was stiff from smiling. All she wanted to do was go to bed and sleep for weeks. “I want yesterday, I want things the way they were before his accident,” she whispered.

  She’d always prided herself on being a realist, yet here she was convincing herself that things would get better. Well, they wouldn’t. What she had with Reuben was gone. But I need to pretend. If I don’t, I will shatter into a thousand pieces.

  She did her best to put on a practiced smile and then called her guests indoors. Quickly she explained that she had to go to Paris in the morning, then excused herself, saying she had papers to go over and a bag to pack. Only Daniel’s eyes held unasked questions. Reuben’s blank look ripped at her heart. He didn’t care that she was leaving him; in fact he looked relieved. Tears welling in her eyes, Mickey fled to her room, where she sank down on her bed, her thoughts in a turmoil.

  Bebe was in Paris, at her house. And—God! of all things—she’d called to say that she was pregnant and would Mickey please come and help her. Help her do what, for heaven’s sake? Pamela, how could you let this happen? You promised me that you wouldn’t let her out of your sight. Sol. Mother of God, what was she to say to Sol? She felt a hundred years old. As soon as she arrived in Paris she would send off a cable to Pamela and demand an explanation.

  If she was right in her assessment of Bebe, the girl would want to go to some back-street butcher and abort the child. Dieu? Bebe was still a child herself! What am I to do, she asked herself over and over as she paced her bedroom. She tried to tell herself she couldn’t be held responsible for Bebe, but she was. She’d given Sol her word that his daughter would be well taken care of.

  Mickey remained in her room all evening, asking for a supper tray that she didn’t touch. She paced and she smoked until her room was blanketed in a dark gray cloud. When it grew unbearable she threw open the casement windows and watched the smoke trail outside as she smoked still another cigarette.

  The night was endless. At first light she carried her bag downstairs and out to the barn.

  “Would you like me to go with you, Mickey?” Daniel asked gruffly.

  She whirled around. “Daniel! You startled me. No, chéri, this is something I must do alone. Reuben needs you here. At the most I will be gone several days.” Or longer, depending on how quickly Pamela answers my cable, she thought.

  Daniel stood outside the barn for a long time after Mickey had backed the huge Citroën out and drove off. Last evening she hadn’t come out of her room once. And on his two trips to the bathroom he’d heard her pacing inside. Something was wrong, he knew it. He wondered if the trip had anything to do with Bebe.

  At last he whistled for Jake, who came on th
e run, a stick in his mouth. “Not this morning, Jake. Let’s go inside where it’s warm and get some breakfast and wait for Reuben.” Jake scampered ahead and Daniel picked up his feet and ran after the dog, into the house that was his security.

  Paris would never be the same, Mickey thought ruefully. She’d never feel the same about this beautiful city again, and all because of Bebe Rosen. She’d hated the train ride because there was nothing to do but think, and she’d done enough of that the past weeks to last her a lifetime. She spoke to her driver: “Stop by the Bank of Paris, please, I want to send a cable.”

  Inside the austere bank Mickey wrote out her cable. It was short and to the point.

  Dear Pamela,

  At Paris town house with Bebe, who informs me she is enceinte. Please explain by return cable how you allowed this child to escape your watchful eye.

  Mickey

  Mickey paid her driver and stood a moment looking at her house. They’d been happy here, all of them, even Bebe, when they’d made the trip earlier in the year. It was all a memory now. When next she left here for the château, she knew she wouldn’t want to return for a very long time.

  She walked through the rooms calling Bebe’s name. The girl was in the sitting room with her feet curled beneath her, a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She looked for all the world like the mistress of the house.

  “What am I to do with you, Bebe?” she said, getting right to the point. “How in the name of God could you let this happen? What is your father going to say? You’re just a child yourself. You aren’t capable of taking care of a baby.”