Heat Wave

by Nancy Thayer

  Carley crumpled to the floor.

  44

  • • • • •

  She woke to find herself lying on a hospital bed. Toby and Maud, their faces tear-streaked, sat in chairs next to her, one on each side.

  “You fainted,” Maud told her.

  “Is Vanessa really dead?”

  Toby’s face made words unnecessary.

  “This is unbelievable.” Slowly Carley sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She felt dizzy.

  “I’m going to call Walker.” Toby put his handkerchief in his pocket and rose.

  “Wait.” Maud put a restraining hand on her husband’s arm. “Who’s Walker?”

  “Vanessa’s lawyer.” Grimacing, he murmured, “She used him for the divorce and rewriting her will.”

  “Her will? How can you think of such a thing right now?” Maud demanded.

  “There’s a child to consider,” Toby reminded her stoically, and left the room.

  Carley stumbled off the bed and over to the sink. She splashed her face with cold water. Oh, Vanessa, how could she be gone?

  When she dried her face, Maud took her arm. “Let’s go back to the visitors’ lounge.”

  Carley allowed herself to be towed down the hall. “Maud, my brain’s stopped.”

  “Mine, too. It’s normal, honey. And I can only imagine how Toby must feel.”

  “Maud—the baby!”

  “Poor little thing.” Maud’s eyes misted over. “Oh, dear God. He has no relatives at all! What’s going to happen to him?”

  Toby approached them as they stood in the corridor. “I phoned Lauren. She’s going to pick up the girls and take them to her house. Lauren’s offered to keep the girls for dinner, overnight if you want.”

  Carley nodded. “Thank you.”

  Toby continued, “As for the child—”

  Kiki came down the hall, her face reddened from grief. Twisting her hands together, she approached Carley. “I need to tell you something.”

  “All right.”

  Kiki closed her eyes, then quickly blurted, “Vanessa told me that if anything happened to her, she wanted you to take the baby. She left instructions with her lawyer.”

  Maud burst out, “No! I should take him! I have boys! Carley, you have girls!”

  Carley stared at Maud. “Are you kidding? You took Vanessa’s husband! She wouldn’t give you her baby, too!”

  “Vanessa did say Carley,” Kiki insisted, her voice quiet. “You can ask the lawyer.”

  “He’ll be here soon,” Toby said. He put his arm around Maud. “Honey. It’s what Vanessa wanted.”

  “Oh, Vanessa,” Maud cried, and buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

  “We’ll have to check the legalities,” Toby said to Carley. “But I don’t think you have to take the child …”

  “But of course I have to!” Carley cried. “If that’s what Vanessa wanted. And who else could tell him about his mother as well as I can? Poor little boy, little baby, I can give him a good home, he’ll have sisters, he’ll have a community, of course I’ll take him!”

  Maud sputtered, “You sold all your baby furniture at the tag sale.”

  “I’ll use the stuff Vanessa bought,” Carley said. “I’ll have Frame help me move it over. I’ll have to buy bottles and formula, though. Van was going to nurse.”

  “I want to see the baby,” Maud said.

  “You’d both better dry your faces and wash your hands first,” Toby told them.

  Obediently they did as he suggested, then gathered together at the nursery. Only one baby was there, lying in the arms of a nurse who sat in a rocking chair. When she saw them, she came toward them, holding the baby out.

  Carley took him. It was automatic, how her arms formed a safe cradle for the infant, how she snuggled him against her breast and gazed down into his little face.

  “Let me see,” Maud begged.

  Carley pulled back the blanket. The infant was red and wrinkled, with thin creased legs and clenched fists that he waved as he made peeping sounds. He had lots of black hair sticking up in all directions.

  “Vanessa’s hair,” Carley whispered.

  She touched his cheek and the little boy turned his head toward her hand. His blurred gaze seemed to search out her face. She unwrapped more of the baby, and they saw his feet and all his tiny toes.

  “I have to hold him,” Maud pleaded.

  Reluctantly, Carley relinquished the infant into Maud’s arms. “This will be our baby,” Maud told Carley. “Oh, no,” Carley said firmly. “This little boy needs one home, one mother, one family. He belongs to me.” She held out her arms. After a moment, Maud gave him over.

  The infant had gotten cool with the blanket unwrapped. He waved his scrawny arms and legs and wailed in a thin high cry. Carley hurried to wrap the blanket around him. She held him against her chest, warming his little body all up and down, his tiny head pressed sideways against her shoulder. She kept one hand beneath his bum, and one hand roamed between his back and his soft, sweet-smelling, hot little head. This was the secret women knew, the ecstasy, the moment both out of time and connected to all women throughout all eternity. This was the center of the universe, a woman nurturing a mysterious, miraculous new life. Vanessa’s child.

  Tears of joy and grief welled in Carley’s eyes. “I will be such a good mommy to you,” she whispered to the little boy, kissing his head.

  Footsteps sounded down the hall. Harold Walker, Vanessa’s lawyer, approached at an even, almost ceremonial pace. Walker was a portly older man with a bow tie and a Vandyke beard. He wore a Brooks Brothers navy blue pinstriped suit exactly like one Gus had owned, and his thinning hair was combed into neat rows. He carried a slender leather briefcase.

  He stopped and looked at them all. “I offer my condolences,” he announced. “This is a terrible event. Terrible. I was very fond of Vanessa.” For a moment, he choked up and could not continue. “I would rather not continue while standing in the hallway.”

  “We’ll go to the visitors’ lounge,” Toby said. He placed his hand on Maud’s back, ushering her toward the room. Carley followed with the baby in her arms. Harold Walker slowly proceeded behind her, and Kiki, unsure of her status, lingered in the background.

  They stood in the visitors’ lounge in an unofficial circle, not sure whether to stand or sit. Walker decided for them by taking a seat and indicating they should do the same.

  As soon as everyone was seated, Walker cleared his throat. Reaching down, he unsnapped his briefcase and pulled out a heavy file. “I have here the last will and testament of Vanessa Hutchinson. As you know, she had no living relatives. She insisted on making provisions for her child, should she become deceased at any time after his birth. I will read it to you in all its legal language, but I’m sure you need to know the gist of it as soon as possible and so I will tell you. Vanessa Hutchinson, being of sound mind, asked that Carley Winsted become the legal guardian of her child.”

  Maud made a little moan. Carley held the baby tighter against her breast.

  “Furthermore,” Harold Walker intoned in his slow, stately speech, “Vanessa Hutchinson’s assets, including the house and all her monies, are to go to Carley Winsted, to use as she wishes.” His head wobbled slightly as he came to the final announcement. “That should amount to, once the house is sold, a sum of somewhere around two million dollars.”

  It was Kiki who reacted first. “Holy Mother of Angels!” She stood at the door to the visitors’ lounge, half in, half out.

  Harold Walker shot the midwife a stern reproaching glance.

  “Sorry,” Kiki muttered. “But that’s a lot of money.”

  “The baby will be financially taken care of,” Carley murmured, trying to think it through.

  “Please understand,” Harold Walker said, “this money is not left in trust for the child. It is left directly to you. Vanessa had complete faith in your ability to raise her child.”

  “She never talked this over wit
h me,” Carley said. Gently, rhythmically, she rocked the baby, patting his back, aware the motions were comforting her own body, too. “Why didn’t she ever discuss this with me?”

  “She didn’t expect to die,” the lawyer told her with brief practicality. “No one really does. She was wise to make this will. She came into my office only a few weeks ago, saying that she had recently learned how unexpected things happen in life, and she just wanted to be prepared.” Harold Walker’s face sagged as he continued, “She laughed about it. She was so full of life—well, extremely pregnant, but also, vivacious. She didn’t expect to die. No one expected this to happen.”

  From the doorway, Kiki said, “Placenta accreta cannot be diagnosed in advance. It happens to one in every twenty-five hundred births, with a four percent fatality rate.”

  Carley stared at the midwife. The numbers wouldn’t compute for her, and then Maud put her vague thoughts into words.

  “In Vanessa’s case, it was a one hundred percent fatality rate, and that’s what matters to us.” Her voice cracked as she spoke.

  “At some time in the near future,” Harold Walker said to Carley, “you will have to come in for a formal reading of the will, and to sign some paperwork. At present, I will take it upon myself to find the head of social services here at the hospital so that you can legally take the baby home with you. When you’re ready, of course.”

  “He’ll be fine in the hospital,” Kiki rushed to assure them.

  Carley brought the baby back against her body. He was awake, nuzzling. “I need to speak with the nurses about feeding him.”

  “Carley,” Toby suggested, “why don’t you let the nurses have the baby just for a while.” Toby put a gentle hand on her arm. “Carley, I think you and I will have to be in charge of the funeral.”

  “The funeral.” The word slashed her heart in half. “But it’s so soon!” Carley protested. “Maybe—don’t we—Vanessa—”

  The lawyer said, “She left no instructions about her funeral.”

  “But aren’t we rushing things?” A confusion of fears collapsed in Carley’s chest, sending splinters of pain into her heart.

  “Honey,” Kiki said softly, “Vanessa’s gone. We can’t bring her back.”

  Toby said, “Carley, let’s give the baby to the nurses, and I’ll take you in to see Vanessa one last time.”

  It was not Vanessa who lay so still in the hospital room, a sheet covering her face. Vanessa, Carley’s Vanessa, could never lie so still. The lustrous dark eyes were closed, the creamy skin was already slack, the body unresponsive as Carley bent over to embrace her friend one last time.

  But surely all that had been Vanessa was not only flesh and could not be destroyed so easily. Perhaps Vanessa was somewhere nearby, invisible, spiritual, ethereal. Carley whispered to this Vanessa, promising to take care of her baby, to teach him who his mother was, to surround him with his mother’s love. She bent over the bed, pressing her warm body against her friend.

  “Carley.” Toby touched her back. “We have to leave her.”

  Carley kissed Vanessa good-bye.

  Maud, Kiki, and Harold Walker sat in silence in the visitors’ lounge. Carley saw the exhaustion and strain on their faces and knew it reflected her own. The thought of the sweet new baby pulled on Carley’s instincts like a drug, but she knew she had to attend to the past before she could go into the future. Yet, she was so extremely tired.

  Maud’s face drooped bleakly, as if she’d lost weight in the past few hours, and Carley knew that even though Maud had taken Vanessa’s husband, still, Maud had loved Vanessa. Not as much as she loved Toby, true, but still, she had loved Vanessa.

  Carley dropped down onto one of the ugly green vinyl chairs. She didn’t think she had the energy to stand. “Maud,” she said, “would you help us, please? With the funeral?”

  Maud’s eyes flew to Carley’s. “Anything. I’ll do anything.”

  “I think we should have it at St. Paul’s. Vanessa went there. Will you phone the minister and make the arrangements?”

  “Yes. What else?”

  “This is Saturday. Let’s make it Tuesday, okay? We can have the reception at my house because there’s so much room. I have some food in the freezer …”

  “We’ll need alcohol and lots of it,” Maud said. “I’ll get it. Toby can help me carry it in and set it up.”

  “And maybe tomorrow you could call me and we can discuss songs Vanessa might like to have sung? Or poets she especially loved? And a scholarship of some kind, in Vanessa’s name, let’s think about that. She worked for so many good causes.” This was coming back to her, Carley realized, this list of practical details, this moving forward, step-by-step, over the mundane, specific slates of necessary errands, like stepping on stones over a bottomless pool, crossing from death back to life. She had done this before, just over a year ago, when Gus died.

  Toby’s jaw was clenched. “I’ll take care of seeing that Vanessa’s body gets over to the mortuary.”

  Carley stared. Vanessa’s body. “Thank you.”

  “What about the baby?” Maud asked.

  “I’ll talk to social services,” Harold Walker reminded her. “Because of paperwork and legalities, it will be easier to allow the baby to remain in the hospital for a few days.”

  “And our nurses are wonderful,” Kiki put in. “They’ll take such good care of him, Carley, you know they will.”

  For a few moments, they didn’t speak. Through the windows they could see the light draining from white to the dove gray of evening. Someone’s stomach growled hungrily, and everyone smiled at this, this humble reminder that life was going on. Needs, desires, continued.

  “We should go home,” Toby said. “We’re all exhausted.”

  “Carley,” Maud reached out to touch Carley’s arm, “come to our house. Have a drink with us, and dinner—”

  “Thanks, but I need to be with the girls, and they’re at Lauren’s. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  Kiki brought out Carley’s coat, gloves, and purse from the labor room where the morning had begun. Carley hugged them all, even Harold Walker, whom she hardly knew. He escorted her down the stairs and out to her car.

  She sat in her SUV, arranged things as she always did, her purse on the floor of the passenger seat, her seat belt on, the key in the ignition, and then she paused. She was wading through time as if through high water. Cars rolled in and out of the parking lot while she sat there, and her thoughts were not racing, they were slow, and heavy with significance.

  “Vanessa …” Carley whispered, looking down at her hands on the steering wheel. She set her hands in her lap and closed her eyes. At once her memory conjured up a clear image of Vanessa the day she returned to the island. The day she sat in Carley’s living room and confessed that she was pregnant. The day Vanessa said, “It may be selfish of me to want this baby for myself. But I’ve never wanted anything more. Nothing has ever felt so right.” And Carley thought of Maud in her kitchen, flushed with unabashed passion from her love affair with Toby. In her whole life, had Carley ever been selfish? It was clear to her at this moment what it was she wanted. What stopped her from taking it?

  She took her cell phone out of her purse. She hit a number. She heard the electronic ring.

  “Carley?”

  “Wyatt,” Carley said. “Please come home. I need you.”

  45

  • • • • •

  Wyatt arrived on Sunday afternoon. He’d left Vermont at six in the morning, driven fast, left his car in Hyannis to have shipped over on the Steamship car ferry, which took two hours, and grabbed a plane to the island, which took only twenty minutes.

  Carley waited for him at the airport. She had spent the night at Lauren’s, grateful for the warmth and noise of the Burr family. She’d sat Cisco and Margaret down and talked to them about Vanessa’s death. Both girls cuddled against her, crying. Carley gave them a few moments to absorb the blow. Then she told them they were going to adopt the baby b
oy. Immediately Cisco and Margaret sat up, eyes wide. They peppered Carley with questions about the baby, and then to Carley’s amazement, Cisco, temperamental teenaged Cisco, actually grabbed her younger sister’s hands and together the girls jumped up and down, squealing with joy. A baby!

  That morning Carley had spent on the phone with Toby and the minister and the mortician and the nurses at the hospital. She had dropped by the hospital to hold the baby for a few moments before going on to the airport.

  Now Wyatt’s plane had landed.

  She saw him coming toward her over the tarmac. He wore the Tibetan wool hat Margaret had given him at Christmas and a navy blue North Face ski parka. His nose and cheeks glowed with the special rosiness that came from sun on snow. When he saw Carley waiting, his mouth crooked up in a smile that was almost shy.

  Suddenly, she felt shy, too. She felt as if she were being strapped into a roller coaster, the most spectacular one on the planet, and the ride was about to begin. Her heart pounded. Here was her adventure, for if all went well, she would live with this man while she raised all three children, and she would live with him when they went off to college and began lives of their own. She would argue with him, and bring him tea and ask him to rub her back. She would—she would start with the first step, the first detail, the first day, today. She would ask him to move in with her and the kids. She would ask him to help.

  He came through the sliding doors into the waiting room where people gathered at the low shelf for their baggage to be unloaded. He walked up to her and stopped just in front of her.

  “Wyatt.” He had come home. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth, pressing her body against his as if she could meld with him.

  He held her tight.

  Because it was February, the three B&B rooms were unoccupied, but Carley wanted Wyatt as close to her as possible without upsetting her daughters, so that night he put his luggage in one of the guest bedrooms on the second floor, just a door away from Carley’s bedroom. They agreed they’d talk with the girls about this later. Now was the time to focus on Vanessa’s funeral, and then, to bring the baby home.