He turned to face her. “I’m sorry too,” he said, then eased his arm around her body. “I shouldn’t have flown off the handle that way.”
She shushed him with a kiss and then they made love as if no anger or hurt feelings had passed between them. “I love you, Abigail,” he whispered, “I never meant to fall in love with you, but I have.”
Abigail didn’t hear the sound of sorrow muffled beneath his words; to her ear it was simply a declaration that he’d found her irresistible. “I always meant to fall in love with you,” she answered, “I knew the day you walked into the library, that you would be my one true love.” She kissed him again, softly, sweetly, with her heart soaring on wings wider than an eagle’s.
“I suppose it was meant to be.” He breathed a sorrowful sigh that rose into the air and splintered like frozen teardrops. At that same moment, a chill touched down on Abigail’s shoulder and she moved deeper into his embrace.
By time they woke in the morning, John had slipped into an unusual mood of seriousness. He braced his hands against her shoulders and once again told Abigail of his love. “I only wish I could make you happy,” he said, then disappeared out the door.
Abigail sighed – deep inside she knew everything would work out fine, he needed time, that’s all, just a bit more time.
She waited two days before calling Gloria again. “You’re wrong,” she told her friend, “John is very much in love with me.”
“He proposed?”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly a proposal – but, he said he loves me and wants to make me happy. Sooner or later we’re gonna get married, but with his job it’s impossible for him to settle in one spot, right now.”
Gloria groaned. “What hogwash!”
“No, it’s not. He’s on the road seven days a week.”
“Nobody works seven days a week.”
“Oh really? And just how many property inspectors do you know?”
“None. But I do know that when a man wants to latch onto a woman, he puts a wedding ring on her finger, job or no job!”
After Abigail hung up the telephone, she decided that although Gloria was her best friend, she had no understanding of John, so they didn’t speak again until almost two weeks after baby Belinda was born and when they did, the issue of John’s intentions was never again brought up. Once they resumed their friendship, Abigail went to visit most every day, except of course, when John was in town. “Look at that sweet smile,” she’d coo and jiggle Belinda in the air even when it was long past the baby’s bedtime.
The first time Abigail noticed the difference in her face was the day before Halloween, as she looked into the mirror and considered what type of candies she’d set out on the circulation counter. Such a thing wasn’t possible she thought and wrinkled her brow. She turned to one side and the other, then leaned in so close her nose touched upon its reflection; but regardless of how she turned or angled herself, the look was still there – the same look she’d seen on Gloria’s face last Thanksgiving. Her skin was the color it had always been, but glowing. Her eyes sparkled like a prism shot through with sunbeams. Her mouth was fixed into a smile and even when she tried to reconfigure it into a frown, such a thing could not be done.
“Impossible,” she muttered and turned away from the mirror. She’d not missed a monthly and John had been diligent about the use of a condom. Abigail shrugged off the thought then sat at the kitchen table with her breakfast of tea and a muffin; before she’d taken a single bite, she was back at the mirror. The look was still there.
On her way to the library, Abigail bounced along the street as if she were dancing on a trampoline. Each step felt as though the next would send her soaring skyward, to pluck loose a cloud the size of a baby pillow. Pots of chrysanthemums were already lining the walkways but Abigail saw roses and daffodils, she caught the fragrance of jasmine and felt the warmth of a summer sun when the sky was drizzling rain. She imagined John tenderly touching his hand to her stomach and stating that although he’d still have to do some traveling, they ought to be married right away. Suddenly it struck her that even though she’d seen the look on her face, there was no other indication that she was pregnant. It would be a terrible thing, she decided, to tell John that he was going to be a daddy and then disappoint him if she’d made a mistake. It would be far better to wait – wait until she was absolutely certain.
But uncertainty didn’t stop Abigail from dreaming and by the time she reached the front door of the library, she’d decided if the baby was a boy, she’d name it John, after his father. A girl, she’d name Livonia. “Livonia,” she sighed as she switched on the lights, “a pretty little girl who will grow up to be just like Mama.” Prompted by nothing but the look she’d seen on her face, Abigail spent that day and the remainder of the week reading about the care and feeding of babies; after which she went on to nine books on lullabies and seven on nursery rhymes.
The following week John came to Richmond for an overnight stay and although it was all she could do to hold back the news, Abigail said nothing. Her monthly was only two days late and twice before it had been a week late.
In the morning John kissed her goodbye and told Abigail he’d been assigned to cover Georgia and the Carolinas for the next month. “But,” she moaned, “that’s so far from Richmond.”
“I know,” he answered. “I’ll try to get back a time or two, but please understand if I don’t.” After seeing the disappointment in her eyes, he added, “It’s only temporary, and I’ll be thinking of you every minute.”
If he hadn’t had one foot out the door, Abigail would have told him the news right then and there, but hollering out to the back end of his coattail wasn’t the way she’d pictured it happening. He stopped for a moment and called back, “I’ll bring you something special,” then he disappeared down the stairs.
“I’ll have something special for you too,” Abigail whispered into the emptiness he’d left behind.
As it happened, the month that John was to spend in the southern states stretched into three. The weather turned cold and an unusual series of sleet storms hit Richmond, leaving the streets so icy that even the most sure-footed people were hesitant to walk anywhere. Driving was no better. In December there were a record number of car crashes and the emergency room of Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital was full from morning to night. One newspaper report claimed there were thirty-two broken legs in a single day.
After Abigail missed her second monthly, she was absolutely certain of the baby growing inside of her. She started to picture a dark-haired girl curled into a comma, her face sweet as an angel’s dream. Although the books said it was too soon for such a thing, she could feel the movement of the baby’s tiny hands and feet. On nights when the sky was black and cold, she'd hear its whisper thin voice calling out mama and she’d wish with all her heart that John could be there to enjoy the moment. “Daddy will be home soon,” she’d coo over and over again to her stomach.
John telephoned eleven times during the month of December and each time he assured Abigail he’d be back soon. “I miss you more than you can possibly imagine,” he told her, but it seemed small consolation for the nights of loneliness. On the twenty-third of the month, she received the red velvet dress he’d sent from Sears and Roebuck. It didn’t fit because her waist had grown wider and her breasts had blossomed to almost twice their original size, but she hung it in the closet and thought about how she’d wear it for the next Christmas, when they were together as a family.
On the coldest day of January, a day when a snowstorm had buckled the telephone poles and cut off electricity to most of the city, John showed up at the door. “I tried to call,” he said, “but the wires were down.”
Abigail, who’d been in bed for three days with a cold worse than any she’d ever encountered, sprung to her feet and danced around as if he was the Maypole. “Oh,” she sighed, “If I’d known you were coming, I’d have dressed up fancy.”
“You look beautiful,” he said, and kissed
her.
“I’d have made a roast turkey, stuffed zucchini, a chocolate cake.” That was the meal she’d planned for his homecoming, for the night he’d learn he was going to be a father – everything was supposed to be perfect. Unfortunately, he’d shown up when her nose was red as a springtime tulip and there was no electricity but after three months of missing him, Abigail didn’t care. She dabbed on some lipstick and hurriedly slipped into the pink satin nightgown; her swollen bosom rose up like an armload of ripe melons.
“Whew-eee,” John said, “Get a load of you!” He reached over, untied the shoulder strap and started suckling her nipple; before five minutes had passed he’d slipped inside of her. Abigail wanted the intimacy as much as he did, but she’d hoped it would be slower, more stretched out and lasting.
It was hours later when Abigail whispered that she had a wonderful surprise for John. “Oh?” he answered quizzically.
She sprang from the bed and stood before him, in profile, naked, with her stomach pudged out as far as she could push it. “Notice anything?” she asked.
John’s eyes widened and for a moment he seemed unable to speak.
“Well?”
“You’re not . . .” he gasped, pointing a limp finger at her stomach.
She nodded. “I am. Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Wonderful?”
Abigail had been practicing this moment for so long that the dream had settled into her head as reality and now she was blind to the look of despair on John’s face, deaf to the mournful tone of his voice. “Yes,” she sighed, “we’re having a baby!”
“How?” he asked angrily, “how could such a thing happen? You know damn well, I used a condom. I used a condom every time.”
“I suppose it was God’s will,” she answered.
“God’s will, my ass!”
Suddenly feeling ashamed of her nakedness, she reached into the closet, pulled out a cotton dress and slipped it over her body. “You shouldn’t talk that way,” she said. “We may not have planned this baby, but once we’re married it will be –”
“Married?” he shouted. “I told you –”
“Don’t worry, I’m not asking for you to quit your job. I’ll move to New York. The baby and I can travel with you from time to time. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“Are you out of your mind? I already told you we’re not getting married.”
Abigail was going to say she thought having a baby would change that, but the words got turned sideways in her throat and she started to sob.
“Please, don’t cry,” John pleaded, and took hold of her hands. “I love you Abigail, I honestly do, but I just can’t marry you.”
She took her hands from his and turned away, sobbing so hard that her words became almost indistinguishable, “Why not?” she moaned, “Why not?”
For a long time he said nothing, then when he finally spoke, the words were as weighted as a body dredged up from the ocean. “I have a wife and two boys in New York,” he said sadly.
“No!” Abigail screamed. “That’s impossible! You love me!” She whirled to face him, but by then he had turned his eyes toward the window.
“Yes,” he answered, “God forgive me, but I do.”
“Look at me!” she screamed, “Damn you, look at me! Tell me how you could do such a thing. I trusted you. I gave you everything I had to give.” As she spoke, he continued to stare into the blackness of night, a night so cold that a latticework of ice crusted the inside of the windowpane. “How,” she sobbed, “can you do this? Leave me? Leave our baby?”
“I’ve no desire to leave you, Abigail. We can go on as we always have. I love you but I can’t marry you.”
“What about the baby? Do you want your baby to be born a bastard?”
“Of course, that’s not what I want.” He walked across the room and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Listen,” he said, “it’s early in the pregnancy; you could do something. The child in your stomach is not formed yet, it has no eyes, no brain, no feeling, why, it’s barely more than a seed. Get rid of it and we’ll go on as we always have, just the two of us, in love with each other.”
“Get rid of it!” she screamed and broke loose from his grip. “Never! Never in a hundred thousand years! I would sooner die than harm my baby!”
“Well, have it. Then, give it up. Let somebody else adopt it.”
“No! Never! This is my baby and I’m going to –”
“Abigail! I love you but I cannot marry you. I cannot!”
“Then don’t!” she screamed. Abigail grabbed hold of a spring coat hanging in the hall closet, the first her hand touched upon, then she ran from the apartment.
Abigail stumbled along the staircase in a blinding haze of tears. Halfway down she missed a step and would have tumbled all the way to the landing, had she not been clinging to the banister. When she ran from the apartment with her bedroom slippers still on her feet, she’d thought only of escape – were it possible, she would have willed herself to vanish, disappear into the blackness of night and drift off to another place where she could pretend the baby’s father, her husband, had died a tragic death. As it was, all she could do was run – run away from the shame of a baby called it.
It, not son or daughter, not baby, just it – a thing to get rid of. The woman in New York was a wife, those babies were sons, but this baby was it. Get rid of it. Give it away.
As soon as Abigail stepped onto the sidewalk her foot skidded on a patch of ice and she went down hard; her back hit the frozen ground with such force that it set her ears to ringing and created a dizziness which made her forget where she was going. When she felt a sharp pain shoot across her stomach, she remembered the need to run, so she pushed herself up and continued moving forward, sliding each foot up a bit and steadying it before daring another move. Never had there been a night black as this, no moon, no streetlights, window after window dark, nothing but a faint candle glow in some distant building. She inched along the walkway until she caught the smell of the bridal path that cut through the park; she then made her way across the path and stepped into the frozen grass. Walking in the grass was easier, it was icy cold, it brushed against her ankles and made her shinbones shiver, but it was not as slick and treacherous as the sidewalk.
Once she had turned into the park Abigail started to feel an ache in her back and her legs grew so heavy, they had to be pushed along with lumbering lunges. Streams of tears had frozen upon her face and turned the skin raw. She was cold to the very core of her bones. She wanted to go home, crawl into her own warm bed, pull the comforter up over her head and hide for a month, maybe two months, maybe a year. But, she couldn’t – not with John there. Abigail headed for the one place she could go – Gloria’s apartment. It was only five minutes away if she cut across the park, ten at the most. She’d curl up in the rocking chair beside Belinda’s crib and breathe in the sweet smell of a baby girl. In the morning she’d go home, after John had gone back to his wife and sons in New York.
How could he think she’d give this baby away, Abigail asked herself. How could he possibly think she’d consider such a thing? He said the baby wasn’t formed yet, but he was wrong, he had to be wrong. She’d seen the baby in her dreams – a sweet little girl, dark-haired like him. A thought suddenly shivered down Abigail’s spine, a thought more bone-chilling than the wind. What if John, like her father, wanted only boy babies? What if he could tell by the look in her eyes that this baby was a girl? Was that why he wanted her to get rid of the baby? “God have mercy!” Abigail screamed in a voice so shrill that it caused the ice to splinter and fall from the branches. As her cry echoed across the sky Abigail could hear the sound of her father saying he’d sooner have a three-legged pig than another girl baby.
Lost in the blackness of thought and night Abigail turned herself around and wandered in circles. On any given day she could have walked the path from her apartment to Gloria’s blindfolded, she would have listened for the sound of traffic, sensed direction by the su
n on her back, touched her feet down upon a stretch of flagstones and been there in less than ten minutes. But on this night, she’d walked for what seemed hours, at times losing sight of the bridal path, then finding it again but uncertain which way to turn. Her feet, she believed, were frozen and it was probably only a matter of minutes until the toes would start to drop off one by one. When she became too weary to walk a single step further, Abigail sat beneath a tree and prayed for morning. She cradled her stomach in her arms and promised baby Livonia that she would always be loved.
As soon as Abigail closed her eyes she slipped under the warmth of her comforter, downy soft, cozy as a baby bunting. She could feel herself floating on a cloud of feathers, the chill in her bones melting, her blood turning from blue to orange and then red, a blazing red, hotter than the center of the sun. When the wind tore loose a chunk of ice from the branch directly above her, Abigail never heard the crash, she never felt the shower of crystals that landed in her lap, because by then she was dreaming. She could see the baby growing into a toddler with chubby arms and legs, a smear of oatmeal on her chin. Then she saw the child as a girl, her cheeks pink as rose petals, her laugh melodious as the song of a white-throated sparrow. She saw herself sitting alongside of John, both of them with hair of silver; a flock of grandchildren gathered around, all clamoring to sit on grandma’s lap. Abigail could hear God calling and she was ready to go, for she’d lived the life she’d wanted.
“Miss, miss,” the voice shouted. “Are you alright?” Angelo Lucci shook the lifeless body for a second and third time, before he heard the woman moan. That’s when he knew she was still alive. He pulled the overcoat from his back and covered her with it, then he ran from the park and called for an ambulance.
That night, there were very few people in Richmond who dared venture out – a few policemen bundled in wool scarves and layered overcoats, a nurse making her way to Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital for the midnight shift, a dark-haired man walking through a maze of unfamiliar streets calling out Abigail’s name, and Angelo Lucci. Angelo hated the cold weather and would never have stepped foot out the door if it weren’t for Lucifer, a Labrador Retriever black as the night itself, a dog that howled and clawed at the back door when he didn’t get his nightly outing. “Alright, alright,” Angelo had moaned as he hooked a leash to the dog’s collar. He was wishing he’d listened to his wife and bought a smaller breed, a poodle maybe, or a miniature dachshund, anything that wouldn’t drag him out on a night like this. Angelo pulled on two pair of wool socks and four sweaters, then he squeezed his arms through the sleeves of his overcoat. “Damn dog,” he mumbled as they left the house. He tried to coerce the dog into relieving himself on the front lawn, but Lucifer was accustomed to the park and so he tugged at the leash until Angelo crossed over the street and headed down the bridal path. That’s where he found Abigail; sound asleep under Lucifer’s favorite tree.
The Twelfth Child Page 21
