‘He drank his bottle, and he was still hungry. And I have plenty of milk. Mothers nurse twins. I thought it would give him security.’
‘You don’t need to be defensive,’ Mac said. ‘I was just surprised.’
An unexpected sob rose in her throat and she tried to turn it into a laugh. ‘Does it seem, in a way, incestuous for me to nurse my brother?’
‘If I look at it rationally, I don’t have any problem.’
‘Darling, it’s not going to work if he’s only my brother. He has to be my baby, too. Our son.’
The next day, Luisa phoned. Camilla was in the kitchen. Both babies, miraculously, were napping. Camilla grabbed the phone at the first ring.
Luisa said, ‘I’m drowning in classes, papers, patients, exams, and I ought to be with you right now when you need me.’
‘We’re okay,’ Camilla said. ‘Three of the youth-group kids are coming over this afternoon after school. I have lots of help. But thanks, Lu, for wanting to be here.’
‘I think you’re crazy,’ Luisa said. ‘You know that. I suppose you’ve got to keep him for a couple of months till your father pulls himself together.’
There was no argument. Luisa did not know that Rafferty was not Taxi’s father.
‘You and Mac are naïve if you think you can do this and not have it ruin your marriage.’
‘Give us some credit.’
‘I do. Huge amounts of credit. But you’re human beings, not saints.’
Camilla’s voice sharpened. ‘We don’t have to be saints. Lots of couples have taken in unwanted children. Sometimes it’s made their marriages.’
‘If it takes that to make yours, things must be pretty disastrous. Oh, hell, Camilla, I’m sorry, I wanted to call and be a comfort and all I’m doing is making things worse. You’ve done what you’ve done, and if there’s ever anything I can do to help, I’ll be here. You do know that.’
‘Yes, Luisa, I do. Thank you.’
‘Maybe you’ll come to love the kid. Maybe it’ll be all right.’
Would it? Taxi was a demanding child, and he quickly learned to make his demands known, by howling, by flinging himself about. He would quieten whenever Camilla held him, and he would be at his most difficult whenever it was time for her to nurse Frances. She learned to sit in the rocker with a child in each arm, with Frances contentedly suckling, and Taxi drinking his bottle, knowing that later he would be given her breast.
Mac stayed away during the daytime, no longer coming home for lunch. The congregation was growing. There was more and more work for him to do. If it had not been for the eager help of the youth group, Camilla would have had no rest. Even so, she often felt like a sleepwalker, going through the movements of the day, but with no emotion, detached from reality.
After the first two weeks (it seemed two months, two years) Taxi woke only once during the night, anywhere between two and four in the morning. Camilla would rouse to his call and hurry into the nursery to pick him up before he disturbed Frances. Then she would carry him down to the kitchen, holding him on one hip while she heated his bottle. This was their time alone together, the time when Taxi became her baby, when he became her son, not a strange little half brother.
—Yes, Luisa, I’m learning to love him.
While he drank his bottle she rocked him and sang to him, giving him the physical reassurance he had not known before. After the bottle he would suck at her breast, taking great draughts of milk, as though trying to drink love.
Dr. Edison, dropping her white gloves on the kitchen table, said, ‘He’s beginning to fill out.’ Both children were asleep in the playpen, side by side. Frances’s hand was flung across Taxi. ‘He no longer looks like a starved little bird. He looks like you, not like his mother.’
For a moment Camilla was startled. His mother?
Rose.
Suddenly a sob of sorrow and guilt choked her. She was not grieving for her mother. Her focus was on the baby.
Dr. Edison said, ‘Camilla, you look exhausted.’
The potential sob turned into a laugh. ‘I wonder how mothers survive twins? Pinky and Wiz Morrison are coming over after school and I can have a nap. I get one nearly every day, and it’s what keeps me going.’
‘I worry about you.’
‘It’s getting easier,’ Camilla said. ‘Truly. I love my kids, Dr. Edith.’
‘How about your work? Is teaching two classes too much for you at this time?’
‘No, no. It saves me.’
‘How’s your father?’
‘Doing better, I think. He has arthritis, and the damp off Lake Michigan is no good for that.’
Rafferty called once a week, dutifully asking after Taxi. Asking how they were doing.
Mac had said, ‘Let him pull away from us for a while. He needs to heal his soul.’
Dr. Edison bent over the playpen. ‘I’m not going to wake them.’
‘Thanks.’
‘If they wake up before I go I want to hold my adorable godchild. Is she as beautiful and good as ever?’
‘She is undoubtedly the best little girl in the entire world.’
‘Don’t neglect Frances,’ Mac said one day when he came home and found her rocking Taxi while Frances was in the playpen.
‘I’m not,’ she retorted. ‘She’s perfectly happy playing with the cradle gym.’
‘Darling, don’t bristle. I know you wouldn’t ever neglect her knowingly. But Taxi does demand attention.’
‘He needs it. Frances has always had it. She knows she’s loved. Taxi needs to know he’s loved, too.’ She was a lioness with her cubs. It did not occur to her that Taxi’s inexhaustible need for love was not unlike Rose’s.
Now he held out his arms to Mac, who took him from Camilla. Taxi reached up and patted his face, then poked inquiring fingers toward his eyes. Mac caught the little fingers. ‘Hey, Tax, I need those.’ He looked at Camilla. ‘Considering everything, I suppose we’re doing really well.’
Considering everything. She seemed to live two lives, the life of the mother with her little ones, totally responsive to their needs, sleeping always with one ear open for them. It was an intuitive rather than a thinking nurturing. Luisa had sent her several books on child raising, but they lay on her bed table, barely glanced at. She usually fell asleep before reading more than a few sentences. She loved the children with a great deal of physical contact, holding, rocking, protecting. Often she walked around the house with one baby on each hip. Did all mothers smell the threat of danger in the air, or was her concern caused solely by the strange circumstances?
There was the other Camilla, who drove into Athens to teach, who discussed new discoveries of astrophysics with her students, with Dr. Edison, the Camilla who delighted in the unfolding worlds of both macrocosm and microcosm. Who relaxed by offering her students mathematical games.
‘This story came from Persia, I think,’ Camilla said. ‘It’s an ancient one about an emperor and one of his courtiers, who invented the game of chess. The emperor was so pleased with it that he promised he’d give the courtier any reward he asked for.’
‘Is this a fairy tale?’ one young man asked suspiciously.
‘Wait and see. So. The courtier who invented chess put the chessboard in front of the emperor and asked if he would put one grain of barley for him in the first square, two in the second, four in the third, eight in the fourth, sixteen in the fifth, and so forth.’
‘Geometrical progression, eh?’ someone asked.
Camilla smiled. ‘What do you think the emperor would make of this request?’
‘Not much.’ The young man who had asked if Camilla was telling a fairy tale shrugged.
‘It’s a trick, I bet it’s a trick,’ one of the girls said.
‘It’s not a trick.’ Camilla smiled. ‘It’s arithmetic. Surely you all have a good background in math.’
One of the students had pulled out a small pad and was scribbling away. ‘You keep on going up, squaring each number,’ she said
, ‘and you’ve got sixty-four squares on the board—I can’t give the exact number without my calculator, but the emperor would have to give the courtier more grains of barley than could be grown in a year. Wow!’
Camilla laughed. ‘That’s right. There’s no way the king could satisfy that request. The end of the story, I’m afraid, is that the emperor had the courtier’s head cut off.’
‘I don’t get it,’ someone said.
‘It’s simple,’ the girl with the pad said. ‘What’s 16 times 16? Square that, and keep on squaring.’
‘Oh. I’m a dolt. Of course.’
Everybody laughed. It would be a long time before Camilla could play this kind of game with her little ones. It was good to be free of babies for a few hours, to be herself, rather than an extension of their needs.
When she was in Athens she could forget the demands of the household, of the parish. Only a few miles, and she was in a different world.
On Sunday evenings she usually helped Mac with the youth group. ‘My mother wants to know what Taxi is going to call you,’ Pinky said. ‘I mean, it’s really weird that he’s your brother, isn’t it? Frances is certainly not going to call him Uncle Taxi. Sometimes we forget he’s not your own baby, he looks so much like you.’
Pinky and Wiz’s mother, bitter over her divorce, not yet remarried, was venting her frustration on the rest of the world. She came with Mrs. Lee to call on Camilla.
‘Are you feeling better, dear Mrs. Xanthakos?’ Mrs. Lee dripped solicitude.
‘Fine, thanks, never felt better.’ That was the appropriate answer for the rector’s wife.
Mrs. Morrison asked, ‘Do you think it was wise for you to go back to teaching so soon? Are you strong enough?’
‘My doctor urged me to return to the university.’ Camilla tried not to sound stiff. ‘Pinky is my very best babysitter.’
‘Well, my dear, I suppose you know what’s best. Pinky tells me that when she has given Taxi his bottle he immediately goes for her breast.’
Camilla felt herself flush. She had never nursed Taxi in front of anyone except Mac. ‘He’s just a baby,’ she defended. ‘It’s quite natural.’
Mrs. Lee looked sharply at Camilla. ‘You’re very brave, Mrs. Xanthakos.’
‘Not at all. And Pinky is so good with both children—I don’t know what I’d do without her.’
‘That girl adores you, Mrs. Xanthakos, just adores you,’ Mrs. Morrison said.
Mrs. Lee added, ‘You do have enormous influence on the young people.’
‘They’re terrific kids,’ Camilla said. ‘And I don’t think Pinky adores me. We’re all good friends.’
‘But you are aware of your influence?’ Mrs. Lee demanded.
‘Mac and I both feel the responsibility. We try never to abuse it.’
‘Oh, Mrs. Xanthakos, that was not our intention—’
Camilla stood up. ‘It’s time for me to nurse Frances. Thank you, both of you. I love the rocking chair.’ She smiled at Mrs. Lee. ‘I’m sure that was your idea, and I’m very grateful for it.’ She was not certain what the two women were going to make of this visit. Something, that was sure.
That night she reported the conversation to Mac. He was sitting propped up in the big brass bed, reading. She said, ‘When the children begin to talk, it’s going to be difficult. What is Taxi to call us? Except when somebody reminds me he’s my brother, I feel like his mother. I certainly don’t want him to call me Sis.’
Mac put down his book. ‘Taxi’s not quite a year old. It’ll be a while before he talks. We’ll deal with the problem when it arises.’
‘I wish we could move. Corinth is too small, too gossipy—’
The book fell on the floor as Mac put his arms around her. ‘If I’m not called to another parish in a year or so, I’m going back to seminary, get my doctorate. After all, I have to keep up with my wife. I think I could get into a program at General Seminary. Would New York be big enough for you if they accept me?’
‘New York’s home for me. I was born there. But I love our rectory, our first home. I love the youth group, and most of the congregation. But I let people like Mrs. Lee throw me off balance. Oh, Mac, I don’t want my foolish little mother’s tragedy blown all out of proportion.’
‘At least they don’t know all of it.’
‘God help us if they did.’
“God, your mother started a real mess, didn’t she?” Raffi continued throwing the ball of socks up in the air and catching it.
“Yes.” Camilla wanted to add, ‘Please stop playing with your socks,’ but held her peace.
“And no one had any idea who she’d been fuc—who she’d been having sex with? I mean, who was my dad’s father?”
“Not then.”
“Didn’t you try to find out?”
“We had enough to do, taking care of two babies. Mostly we didn’t even wonder, we were so exhausted. When Mama and Papa asked us to come to the beach for a week right after Easter, we jumped at the chance.”
‘It will do you good to get away from Corinth for a few days,’ Olivia said. ‘And now that we’ve added a little wing to the cottage, there’s plenty of room for the grandchildren.’ Once Rafferty had sent Taxi to them, Olivia had not voiced aloud any further reservations she had about him. She had come to Corinth for several visits, and Taxi, toddling around on shaky small legs, followed her everywhere, holding on to her for support, climbing into her lap. The eager search for love which had been inappropriate in the grown Rose was delightful in the little boy. He was growing, filling out, until he was almost as sturdy as Frances. By Easter he was sleeping through the night, and while Camilla missed her hour with him in the kitchen, she was grateful for the extra sleep.
Taxi wailed in the car on the way down to Florida until Camilla had to unbuckle him from his seat and hold him in her lap. Frances was slumped over in her car seat, sleeping. Camilla said, ‘Taxi may be afraid we’re going to abandon him.’
‘Possible.’
‘This is the first long trip he’s had since Father sent him to us.’
‘I wish he’d stop howling.’
‘He’ll be asleep in a few minutes.’
At last his stiff little body drooped in Camilla’s arms.
When they arrived at the beach and he saw the familiar figures of Art and Olivia hurrying out to greet them, he was eager to get out of the car, to be picked up and hugged. Mac unbuckled Frances, still fast asleep, and carried her.
Art and Olivia had added two more bedrooms and another bathroom to the cottage, and had continued the porch, so that it wrapped all the way around the house. Like many beach places it was up on stilts. Part of the underside was used as a garage. Art had rigged up a shower, so they could rinse off salt water and sand when they came in from the ocean. The weather was warm enough for wading, but would not be comfortable for swimming for another couple of months.
Olivia said, ‘If you want a wet suit like those surfers down toward Saint Augustine, it’s all right with me.’
Camilla shook her head. ‘I must be getting old. I’m quite willing to wait until it’s warm enough for a bathing suit.’
After the children were fed, Olivia served the grownups sandwiches and iced tea out on the ocean side of the veranda. The children were in the playpen, too excited to nap. Taxi was standing, holding on to the side of the playpen and bouncing. Frances, trying to imitate him, fell backwards, landing on a pile of stuffed animals. Sometimes she bellowed with frustration, sometimes she sent out merry peals of laughter. Her bellows never lasted long. If Taxi continued to thwart her by standing, she would crawl to him, put her arms around him, and pull him down, and the two of them would roll about like puppies.
‘What a delight to watch,’ the bishop said.
Camilla said, ‘Frances is doing much of the work of freeing Taxi to be a happy little boy.’
Olivia commented, ‘What a radical change.’
Mac said, ‘We still have a way to go.’
Cami
lla explained, ‘Taxi was frightened on the way here. I think he was afraid we were going to take him somewhere and abandon him. Not consciously, but somewhere deep inside.’ She helped herself to a small sandwich. ‘It’s really exciting, what you’ve done to the house.’
‘You approve?’ the bishop asked. ‘Eventually we’ll insulate the old part, and put in some kind of heat for winter. North Florida can be mighty cold, particularly in February.’
‘Thank God this house is high up on the dunes,’ Olivia said. ‘Some of the new places down on the beach with only a flimsy sea wall are going to have a hard time of it when there’s a hurricane.’
‘It’s a wonderful house,’ Camilla said, ‘and the new rooms are perfect, on the other side of the living room from your bedroom, so you won’t be disturbed by the children.’
‘Do you have enough bookcases?’ Mac asked.
‘Of course not,’ the bishop said. ‘There’s no such thing as enough bookcases. I hope you noticed the one in your bathroom, full of English murder mysteries and other stimulating reading.’
Mac grinned. ‘What’s in yours?’
‘More of the same. Plus a few books on astrophysics, so we can talk with Camilla.’
It was the beginning of a happy week. The first morning, when Camilla and Mac went into the children’s room, Frances was asleep in her crib, but Taxi was not there. For a moment Camilla’s heart lurched with terror. Where—
She hurried into the living room and saw Art coming toward her, carrying Taxi. He explained, ‘Sometime in the middle of the night I felt breathing on my face, and there was this little one. So he got into bed with Olivia and me and spent the rest of the night.’
‘Papa, I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. He was a charming bedfellow, no trouble at all, and didn’t wake up till just a few minutes ago.’
Mac laughed. ‘His crib at home has much higher sides than the one you have for him. He couldn’t have climbed out of that. Tonight we’ll try to keep him where he belongs.’
The bishop set the little boy down, who kept his balance by clinging to his grandfather’s leg. His grandfather?—Yes, Camilla thought. Please, yes.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Art said. ‘Let be whatever will be.’
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