A Mother's Promise

by K. D. Alden

  But now Clarence had heard her dreamin’…was nothing private anymore?

  He seemed to sense that he’d made her uncomfortable, and he changed the subject. “Lookit: I brought you pink roses. You like ’em?”

  Sure enough, at least a dozen of the most beautiful roses she’d ever seen hugged each other in a water pitcher on her infirmary nightstand. Their petals were like graceful folds of velvet. “Oh, Clarence,” she breathed. “Those are…they are the loveliest flowers I ever seen. Wherever did you get ’em?”

  Unmistakable mischief lurked in his eyes, and he tugged at his earlobe before answering her. “From somewhere’s they got too many, and don’t deserve to have any.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You really want to know where these beauties come from? You sure?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, I took me a moonlit stroll t’other night, when I knew Glory was sittin’ with you for a spell and holdin’ your hand. I walked me over to the Stringer estate—”

  Ruth Ann clapped a hand over her mouth. “You did not!”

  “Oh, yes, I did. An’ that jackal lawyer’s wife grows her a mighty fine garden. Afore I knew it, them roses were just flockin’ to me, clamorin’ to get rolled in some newspaper and come to visit you. Never knew roses could be quite so purposeful. But they was just bound and determined to come look in on you, Ruth Ann, and cheer you up.” Clarence’s eyes danced.

  She did her best to look shocked and horrified, but she smiled instead. “Well. You tell ’em thank you for me. They’re real pretty. I never had me any roses before.”

  “Never had you no roses? That is a scandal. What type o’ fellas you been steppin’ out with?”

  She squinted at him. “No type. Don’t need me any fellas. They are nothin’ but trouble.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yep.”

  “All fellas?”

  She slid him a look from under her lashes. “Most all of ’em.”

  “’Cept maybe…me?”

  “Maybe,” she allowed.

  He smiled at her.

  She smiled back.

  Then he began to fidget. “You hungry, Ruthie? You want me to ask one o’ the nurses to bring you somethin’ to eat?”

  Ruth Ann shook her head. “Thank you, though, Clarence. You sure are sweet.”

  “Sweet on you, Ruthie. And that’s a fact.” He took her hand and squeezed it.

  “You shouldn’t be sweet on a…a…Franken-female.”

  “A what?!” He hooted with laughter. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “No, it ain’t. I’m missin’ parts now, an’ got cuts and stitches, like Frankenstein’s monster in Mary Shelley’s book.”

  Clarence waved his stump at her. “I ain’t read Miz Shelley’s book. And I’m still sweet on ya—but then again, I’m just a circus freak who’s no longer even a man.”

  Ruth Ann was outraged. “Don’t you dare say that!”

  “Well, then, don’t you call yourself a Franken-female.”

  He had a point.

  “We got a deal?” He squeezed her hand again and bent his head close to hers. “Deal?” he murmured.

  She could fall into those rainy gray eyes. She nodded, and Clarence sealed it with a kiss, warm and firm and tender.

  Ruth Ann found herself slipping into unconsciousness again and wondered if she’d dreamed his presence. Would he be here when she woke up?

  Clarence was right there, sure and steady, the next time she drifted awake and gasped again at the searing pain in her lower abdomen. The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was his dear, stubborn, freckled face, those sterling eyes fixed on her own. “I didn’t dream you…”

  Clarence smiled faintly and shook his head. “Hey, Ruthie,” he murmured. His eyes darkened to stormy gray as he registered her agony. “How you feelin’?”

  “Truth? Like I been sawed in half,” she said, averting her gaze from him and looking in wonder at the bouquet of velvety pink roses.

  His lips flattened and empathy and anger suffused his face. “I’m so sorry. I’d do anything to take away the pain. Anything.”

  She inhaled the scent of the flowers, forced her stiff, dry lips into a smile. “I know you would. Thank you.”

  “You hungry?” Clarence asked.

  Ruth Ann shook her head.

  “You gotta eat something soon. You don’t eat it your ownself, they’ll send a nurse to pour soup down your gullet from a beaker.” He winked.

  The thought of food was not appealing.

  “Glory’s got good news. She wanted me to tell you that she heard back from the Fawleys. They’re gonna let her see little Lily.”

  Oh! Ruth Ann smiled. “So glad.”

  “She’s makin’ you a blackberry tart, just so’s you know. Some of the other girls asked Carlotta if they could make you lemon snaps. She said yes.”

  Ruth Ann marveled at this. “Things sure have changed ’round here since Mother Jenkins went away.”

  “Thank the good Lord,” Clarence said fervently. “If I’d heard once more that she’d laid a finger on you, I was gonna plot her murder.”

  Ruth Ann clapped a hand to her mouth, which hurt like the dickens. “Clarence, don’t say such things.”

  He looked at her solemnly. “Well, all right. But I was.”

  “Shhhh!”

  Footsteps echoed on the tiles behind him, and one of the more crotchety nurses said over her shoulder, “She’s here in bed twenty-three. But, ma’am, I tell you this is no place for a toddler.”

  Ruth Ann couldn’t believe it: Mrs. Dade had come to visit her. And in her arms was a wriggling, on-the-verge-of-a-tantrum Annabel. Oh!

  Her eyes were the startling blue of a jay. And her hair…a rich chestnut. Scraped into two tight little pigtails on either side of a center part. She sported the same dent in her chin as Sheila…a portent of trouble. And there was a fresh smear of dirt on her little pinafore. She kicked her feet into Mrs. Dade’s belly as the woman gasped.

  Clarence stood up and doffed his cap. “Ma’am.”

  “Mrs. Dade!” exclaimed Ruth Ann. “Annabel…” Tears welled in her eyes.

  “Down!” the child hollered, wriggling and kicking some more.

  “Stop it at once, you little de—” Mrs. Dade broke off, crossly.

  Demon? Ruth Ann was quite sure she hadn’t meant to say delight.

  Mrs. D took another kick to the kidneys, and gasped as Annabel shrieked and almost tumbled out of her arms.

  Ruth Ann instinctively lunged to catch her and yelped at the vicious pain it caused.

  That got Annabel’s attention; the toddler hung by one arm and one leg and stared curiously at the strange lady in the white hospital bed. Ruth Ann stared back at her, mesmerized. Longing to take her into her arms and cuddle her—pain or not.

  “How are you, dear?” Mrs. Dade almost growled, looking as though she’d like nothing better than to drop the child on her head.

  Dear? Had Mrs. D lost her marbles?

  “F-fine,” Ruth Ann said, faintly.

  “Dowwwwn!” shrieked Annabel, contorting like a wild orangutan.

  Mrs. Dade looked to be on the verge of having kittens. She snapped the child upright and held her aloft by the shoulders. “Stop it, you horrid little hooligan,” she spat. “Behave yourself!”

  Annabel wailed and kicked Mrs. D in the stomach yet again.

  Clarence stepped forward, smiling, his arms outstretched. “Mebbe I could spell you for a bit, ma’am?”

  “She doesn’t care for strangers,” Mrs. Dade began, eyeing his stump with ill-disguised distaste. But she almost threw the child at him, her relief palpable.

  “Hello there, baby doll,” Clarence crooned, as Annabel quieted immediately in the crook of his arm and honked his nose. “Yes, thag you,” he told her, “thad’s one o’ by best features.”

  She pulled on his left ear next, and to her delight, Clarence clucked like a chicken.

  Annabel promptly
pulled on his right ear, whereupon he mooed like a cow.

  Entranced, Ruth Ann didn’t even register that Mrs. Dade was speaking to her.

  “Did you hear me? Something is very wrong with that child,” Mrs. D said emphatically.

  Ridiculous. Annabel was perfect, as anyone could see. She just didn’t take well to disapproval and scolding. Who did?

  “She’s so beautiful,” breathed Ruth Ann. “I can’t wait to come home and take care of her…I just can’t wait!”

  Mrs. Dade lifted her eyebrows. “Are you daft?”

  “It shouldn’t be more than three weeks,” Ruth Ann went on eagerly, her pain forgotten. “I’ll be good as new, Doc says. Can I share my old room with her?”

  “What on earth are you talking about, Ruth Ann Riley?”

  “They said…” Ruth Ann faltered under Mrs. Dade’s stare. “In court, they said…that if I agreed to the surgery that…”

  Mrs. Dade clutched her pocketbook against her, her fingers whitening as she shook her head. Her expression was not without pity, but her next words were devastating. “I believe there has been some sort of misunderstanding. Elijah and I cannot take you back into our home, Ruth Ann. That is simply out of the question.”

  She may as well have been speaking a foreign language. “But—”

  “I don’t know who told you that it was even a possibility,” Mrs. Dade went on, “but it can never happen…”

  Ruth Ann watched her mouth move, one word blurring into the next: sour and incomprehensible, like curdled cream.

  Clarence’s big, warm hand settled on her shoulder and squeezed.

  “…whatever would the neighbors think? Absolutely, categorically not. I’m sorry, Ruth Ann. Whoever told you that is rather heartless, I must say.”

  Ruth Ann had forgotten to breathe. When her body forced the issue, the air turned to gunpowder in her lungs, exploding as she choked on it, coughing and crying out with the pain.

  Alarmed, Clarence thrust Annabel back into Mrs. Dade’s arms and called for a nurse.

  “Oh, dear. I just thought I’d visit, let her see Annabel while I’m here…I have an appointment with Dr. Price,” her former foster mother said.

  Two nurses came running. One shoved a needle into Ruth Ann’s arm.

  Before she lost consciousness, she heard Mrs. Dade say again, “There is something very wrong with this child. She’s no relation to me. With that gene pool…I should have known better.”

  Annabel kicked and shrieked in the background.

  Ruth Ann simply wanted to die. The last wraith of her hope had vanished.

  Thirty-Five

  Dr. Price steepled his hands upon his massive desk while Mrs. Dade squirmed in the visitor’s chair on the other side of it.

  “I simply cannot keep her, Doctor. Annabel is…uncontrollable.”

  “She is a toddler,” Doc pointed out. “They’re not known for either grace or etiquette.”

  As if to emphasize these words, Annabel screeched like a dragon and went flying by the window, a laughing Glory in hot pursuit. She’d been assigned to babysit during this meeting.

  “Doctor,” Mrs. Dade said, “I should think that you, of all people, would understand that the child’s geneplasm is…polluted. It is for that reason that the court sided with you on Riley v. Price.”

  He sighed and nodded. “Of course, Mrs. Dade. I sympathize with you. But I fail to see how I can help you.”

  “To be blunt—” Annabel took this moment to plaster her hands and face against the window, staring in at them with her nose and mouth squashed against the glass. “Stop that! Stop that at once, young lady!”

  Glory peeled her off the glass and carried her away, shrieking and kicking, but she’d left disgusting smears upon it.

  Mrs. Dade turned back to Dr. Price. “To be blunt, Doctor, my husband and I simply cannot handle this child any longer. Our nephew Patrick was found badly beaten and half dead in an alley recently…” She wiped away a tear. “I’m nursing him full time. We’d like you to take Annabel off our hands.”

  “Dear lady, I am sorry for your troubles, but I simply can’t do that. We have no toddlers or babies in custody at the Colony. No child care.”

  Mrs. Dade looked down at her lap. “Doctor, I know that normally we would go back to the social worker on a matter like this. But Ruth Ann…she was apparently told by someone that following her procedure, she’d be allowed to return to our home to help care for Annabel.”

  Doc felt a flush rising in his face. He inserted a finger under his collar to loosen it, to no avail.

  The woman before him seemed to sense his guilt and honed in on it. “She was very hopeful that she could do so. I had to dash those hopes.”

  “That must have been very difficult for you,” Dr. Price said, grasping a sheaf of papers and straightening them.

  “Well, it was. So I’d like to suggest—”

  “No.”

  “Please hear me out. The child’s mother and her grandmother are both here at the Colony—”

  “The grandmother is a lunatic. The mother is a moron.”

  “—so she has an established family unit. There are other girls and women here who could help look after her.”

  “No, madam. I’m afraid this establishment simply does not function that way.”

  “Even temporarily? Because now that Ruth Ann has undergone the surgery, she’s no longer a danger to society. She can be released, right?”

  Dr. Price pursed his lips. “Theoretically.”

  “Why not put theory into practice?”

  “She’d have to find a means of supporting herself.”

  “Yes. Or marry.”

  “I doubt she has many prospects, madam.”

  “I think there’s a boy here at the Colony who’s sweet on her. I met him at her bedside in the infirmary.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Clarence, I believe his name is?”

  “The young man with only one hand? You must be joking.”

  Mrs. Dade shook her head.

  “But how would he earn a living, with only…” Doc trailed off. “You know, against all odds, he’s actually quite handy around here. It is possible that he could fend for himself—possibly even support a wife and daughter.”

  “And Ruth Ann—she could help out. She has domestic skills.”

  “Hmmmm.” Dr. Price eyed Mrs. Dade and drummed his fingers upon the desk.

  “So she can be given custody of her child, then, surely? Especially as she will never be able to have another?”

  Doc leaned back in his chair and thought about it. “I suppose it’s not altogether outside the realm of possibility.”

  Mrs. Dade looked quietly triumphant. “It would make me feel much better about all of this…to reunite them. I love the babies. And I’m happy to take in a child who’s a little older and can be reasoned with, trained to help out. But for toddlers—and that one in particular—I have no patience.”

  Dr. Price gazed out the window, at the sight of Glory swinging Annabel in a circle, the two of them giggling madly.

  “We haven’t formally adopted her. So there wouldn’t be any need to petition the court, because Ruth Ann is her biological mother, correct?”

  He silently nodded his assent.

  “So surely it’s not complicated.”

  Dear Lord, was the woman trying to leave Annabel here today?

  He frowned at her. “I’ll need some time to think about this, madam.”

  She sighed, but nodded. “I understand. But surely you can see that this is the best possible solution?”

  Dr. Price stroked his beard, then looked down at his papers again. “You may very well be right, Mrs. Dade. I’ll be in touch with you shortly.”

  When Ruth Ann awoke, Clarence was somehow still there.

  “Mornin’, sleepyhead,” he said.

  “It’s mornin’?” She took in the dim, gray light and the rustle of patients in the beds down the hall from them. She didn’t much c
are. She would be stuck here for the rest of her days, separated from the only child she’d ever be able to have.

  “Yep,” said Clarence. “Brand-new day.”

  She shrugged. His gray eyes held a twinkle that she found downright annoying, given the circumstances.

  “Them nurses keep tryin’ to hustle me out of here,” he said, “but I begged ’em to let me stay. I couldn’t leave, what with you rehearsin’ in your sleep an’ all.”

  “Rehearsin’?” She was puzzled.

  “Oh, sure. You are plumb dedicated to gettin’ things just right.” Clarence nodded. “An’ I respect that about you.”

  “Gettin’ what things right?”

  “Your marriage proposal to me, o’ course,” Clarence said. “What else would you need to get right?”

  “My…my…” Words failed her.

  He raised his eyebrows and grinned at her.

  “No!” Ruth Ann, scandalized, tried to sit up. Big mistake. Pain scorched through her in waves.

  Clarence paled and swore under his breath. “Don’t you move again, Ruth Ann,” he said. “Aw right? Promise me.”

  “Yes,” she said weakly.

  “You want some water?”

  She shook her head.

  “Okay. Now, where was I? Oh, yeah. So you, Ruth Ann, were most certainly rehearsing your marriage proposal to me in your sleep.”

  “What?! No, no, no, I was not!”

  “Were, too. You said to me, ‘Clarence,’ you said, ‘you are the handsomest fella in all of these United States.’”

  Ruth Ann managed a snort.

  “‘And the smartest fella, too—’”

  “Even in your wildest dreams, Clarence—”

  “‘And the most likely to succeed in anything you choose to set your mind to, in particular circus-juggling…’”

  “Stop it,” she cried. “Laughing hurts.”

  “‘And the heir to a great fortune and a castle in Europe—’”

  “Oh, right.”

  “‘And because, Clarence, you’re a secret prince who done switched places with some low-born, one-handed fool—’”