Garden of Lies

by Eileen Goudge

  Max began feeling calmer, stronger, better than he had all night.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “For what? Letting you stay over?” She laughed. “Tell you the truth, I’ve been a little lonely since Patsy went away. It’ll be fun.”

  “Just for a few days,” he reminded her. “Until I line up something else.”

  “Stay as long as you like.” She smiled at him. “There’s just one thing we’d better get straight. I’m not the neatest person in the world, as you’ve probably noticed. And I don’t intend to change just because you’re here.”

  “Fine with me.” Better than fine. Wonderful.

  “Now,” she said. “I have a confession to make.”

  “What’s that?”

  She’s actually blushing, he thought.

  “Well, since you mentioned it ... Patsy gave me this joint before she left, sort of a going-away present. It’s been sitting in my underwear drawer ever since. I’ve been too chicken to try it. You want to smoke it with me?”

  Max grinned. “What the hell. Why not?”

  Max felt something heavy inside him, an iron weight on his [382] heart, begin to lift. What was this, hope? It had been so long he’d almost forgotten the feeling. A hundred years. Now he thought, Maybe it isn’t too late for me. Maybe I’m not too old to start over.

  A minute later, he was accepting the burning joint Rose was passing over to him, and, holding it to his lips, he drew in with a deep breath the thick, sweet, perfumey smoke.

  Chapter 25

  A sudden blast of music tore through Rachel’s head.

  She came awake instantly, bolting upright in bed, a sour taste in her mouth. Then she saw. The clock radio. She had set it for six a.m. Now focusing on the glowing red digits, her eyes bleary. Nine-thirty? Oh God. Nancy and Kay would be getting anxious as hell at the clinic. She’d have to hurry, skip her shower, grab something to eat on the way.

  Rachel banged the on-off button with the heel of her hand, and Paul McCartney singing “Rocky Raccoon” was instantly gone. She got out of bed. Her throat felt dry and raw, as if coated with fiberglass, and her temples thumped painfully.

  Then the memory of last night came to her, and she sank back onto the mattress, legs weak, hot tears backing up in her throat.

  David. Her period. The fight with Brian.

  She had wanted to tell Brian. Everything. About David, how it was David who had attacked her, not some stranger. And she’d started to ... but seeing Brian go white with rage ... dear God, she’d imagined that anger turned on her, the shock and fury he would feel if he knew the whole truth. Why she couldn’t get pregnant. And how she had kept it from him all these years. So she had lost her nerve, backed away ...

  Then she noticed Brian’s side of the bed was cold, as if he’d left it hours ago. She vaguely remembered him putting her to bed last night, tucking a blanket around her. But where was he now?

  “Brian?” she called.

  No answer.

  She snatched up his pillow, hugging it to her. A chilling thought struck her: if Brian ever left her, she’d wake up every morning to an empty bed.

  But he hasn’t left me, she reminded herself firmly. He’s only slipped [384] out for a few minutes, to go for a walk, or jog, or to pick up something from the store. He didn’t want to wake me, he probably figured I needed the extra sleep.

  Then she remembered. Of course. Brian always went out around this time for the morning paper, then he walked down to Levy’s for a hot bagel. If she had spent more mornings at home with Brian, instead of always rushing off to the clinic, she’d have known that at once.

  Rachel forced herself out of bed, feeling stiff and bruised. A heavy achiness that sent throbbing waves through her lower abdomen. Cramps. As bad as she could remember.

  She ducked into the bathroom, and fumbled in the cupboard for a tampon. The box was almost empty, only two left. She had put off buying a new box. She’d been hoping so that she wouldn’t need to. Now she thought, I’m a fool. I’ll never get pregnant. I should have told Brian. I should have given him that much. The truth.

  But now as the old misery was welling up in her, she steeled herself against it. Enough, she told herself. You have a job to do, other people to think of besides yourself.

  Rachel scrubbed her face. Then, back in the bedroom, she threw on jeans, a loose sweater. On her way to the door, she moved slowly, cautiously. She still felt so shaky.

  A cup of coffee, she thought. Then I’m off. I’ll stop at the hospital first, check on Alma. Make sure she’s okay. But they would have called me if anything were really wrong.

  Rachel glanced at the phone on the antique schoolroom desk in the front hall, and her stomach did a ninety-degree drop.

  Off the hook.

  Last night came rushing back. Letting herself in, the phone ringing and ringing while she fumbled with the keys. She’d dashed to get it, thinking it might be Brian. Praying it was Brian. But it had been David. His voice snarled with rage. You fucking bitch ... you think you can get away from me ... I’ll destroy you. ...

  She had slammed the phone down, then left it off the hook, terrified he might call again.

  As Rachel drew closer, she could hear the disconnected phone’s muted wailing. Wah ... wah ... wah ... wah. Like a baby crying at the other end.

  [385] Carefully, as if it were made of glass and might shatter in her hand, she replaced the receiver.

  She remembered the promise she’d made to Alma. Her heart bumped up into her throat.

  What if something had gone wrong?

  What if the hospital had tried to reach her and couldn’t get through?

  Please, God, she prayed, let her be safe. Let the baby be safe.

  Minutes later, she was in a taxi, careening down Second Avenue toward St. Bartholomew’s.

  “... eight centimeters. Ninety percent effaced. And not a peep out of her the whole time. You’d better get in there fast. Looks like she’s ready to let fly.”

  Rachel, listening, staring at the stout black charge nurse behind the nurse’s station, felt as if she had been picked up by a giant, then slammed down. Her thoughts and feelings jumbled, all out of whack.

  Alma. In trouble. Bleeding. Fetal distress.

  She pulled herself together, forcing her mind back on track.

  “Who’s with her?” Rachel asked.

  “Dr. Hardman. He’s the resident on call. We tried to reach you.” Mavis’s brown eyes narrowed, and a defensive tone crept into her voice. “A number of times, matter of fact. ’Course we didn’t know it was an emergency. All the girl would say was that she wanted to talk to you. She seemed upset, that was all. Didn’t say she was hurtin’. So don’t anybody go pointing a finger at me—” she snapped a file drawer shut,”—as if I don’t have my hands full without playing mind reader.”

  Rachel, heart pounding, took off down the corridor, a fluorescent-lit corridor paved with ancient marbleized green linoleum that crackled beneath her running feet. No time for excuses. Later there’d be all the time in the world for blame and regrets.

  She imagined Alma waking up in the middle of the night with labor pains. Terrified, wanting no one but Dr. Rosenthal to deliver her baby. Then, when they told her the doctor couldn’t be reached, deciding she would wait. Not tell them that she was in labor ...

  [386] Stupid, childish. But then, Alma was a child. A sweet, scared kid who’d wanted to believe her doctor was God.

  And I let her, Rachel thought, heart aching. I’m responsible.

  In Delivery Room One, Rachel found a young resident barking orders at a nurse. Hardman. One of the new crop, still wet behind the ears. His white face, glimmering with sweat, alarmed Rachel more than the sight of Alma spread-eagled on the table in lithotomy position, feet up in stirrups, huge belly draped in a sterile blue sheet. It told her he expected trouble. Big trouble.

  “Readings?” Rachel asked. She wouldn’t bother to scrub. It’d take too much time. From here she could see how much wor
se the edema had gotten. Alma’s feet were swollen, the flesh around her ankles puffed up the size of cantaloupes.

  “Not good,” Hardman said. “Blood pressure one-eighty over one-twenty. I’m getting a tachy reading on the baby, too.”

  “Water broken?” she asked, tugging on gloves.

  “Just before you got here. I examined her. Head’s engaged and ready to drop. Dr. Rosenthal, if you’re going to section her, I wouldn’t wait.” Hardman might be inexperienced, Rachel thought, but he wasn’t stupid.

  Those were her choices. Vaginal delivery or section. The lady or the tiger. But in this case, behind either door she chose, a tiger lurked.

  With Alma’s blood pressure up so high, the strain of pushing a baby through the birth canal could cause her to burst a blood vessel. But a C-section, on statistics alone, meant an even greater risk.

  Rachel stepped around to the other end of the table, to where Alma’s face formed a bright red circle against the white sheet. Contorted with her contraction, dark eyes enormous and bulging. Hypertensive, all right. God in heaven, was she ever.

  Then the contraction subsided, and Alma’s lips stretched back in a grim, exhausted smile. Her lips were cracked, and the smile brought flecks of blood. She clutched Rachel’s hand like someone drowning.

  “I knew you’d come,” she panted. “I waited.”

  “You’re almost there, kiddo,” Rachel squeezed her hand back, fighting the lump that had risen in her throat. “Almost to home plate. [387] The main thing is, don’t be scared. Just think about the baby. Pretty soon you’ll be holding him in your arms.”

  “Her,” Alma corrected. “It’s gonna be a girl. I just know it. I’m going to name her-—ooohhhh, Doctor, it hurts. It feels like I’m burning up down there.”

  Rachel gestured the nurse over. “Hold her up like this, almost sitting. That way she won’t have to work so hard. You—” she shot a look at Hardman, “—untie her feet.”

  “But, Doctor, it’s not proto—”

  “I don’t care whether it’s protocol or not!” she hissed at him. “Just do it!”

  Hardman shot her a doubting look, but unbuckled the leather straps that bound Alma’s feet to the heavy metal stirrups. He looked more frightened now than before, a dark half-moon of sweat staining the front of his green surgical cap.

  If I were having a baby, Rachel thought, the last position I’d want to be in is flat on my back, feet strapped in stirrups. Easier on the mother this way. More natural.

  Now she could sense Alma getting ready to push. Rachel positioned herself, took a good look at the cervix, saw that she was ready, then urged gently, “Okay, sweetie, push now. Give it all you’ve got.”

  Alma screwed her face up and pushed, turning crimson with the effort, a ragged groan tearing from her throat.

  The head was coming now, a circle of matted dark hair the size of a quarter, growing bigger, then receding. Rachel reached for the episiotomy scissors, waiting to see if Alma was going to tear. While at the same time listening to Hardman call out the pressure, which was climbing higher, higher. Rachel, anxious, scared, felt her heart beating in great leaping bounds, as if she herself were running a race.

  God, let me win this one, she prayed.

  Then the baby’s shoulders presented, as if in answer to her prayer. “She’s in a hurry!” Rachel crowed, gently rotating the bunched shoulders in a forty-five-degree turn, cradling the baby’s creamy little head with her other hand.

  The rest of the infant came in a slippery rush. “A boy!” Rachel shouted. She grabbed the cord clamps, clipped them onto the pulsing, turquoise-colored umbilical cord.

  [388] Alma was weeping, tears streaming down her face. “A boy,” she echoed in soft wonderment. “Can I hold him?”

  “Of course you can. He’s yours. You can even nurse him if you like.”

  Rachel placed the tiny baby, still attached to the cord, in Alma’s arms. His little raisin of a face nuzzled her breast, then found her nipple and began to suck.

  A wave of sadness swept over Rachel. I’ll never have that. I’ll never know what it’s like.

  But she’d won the race, that’s what counted. The baby was safe. Alma was okay.

  She felt strong, jubilant, as if she’d climbed the Matterhorn and planted her flag on top.

  A little while later, she was gulping lukewarm coffee in the doctors’ lounge. Hardman rushed in, still in his wrinkled, sweat-stained greens. His face looked almost green, too. Before he opened his mouth she knew that something terrible had happened.

  “It’s Alma Saucedo. She passed out in Recovery. Won’t come out of it. They’re taking her up to OR now.”

  Rachel lurched to her feet, heart leaping. Dear God, she thought. What have I done?

  When she got home, sometime after ten p.m., Brian wasn’t there. There was a note stuck to the refrigerator with a butterfly-shaped magnet:

  Friend dropped by. We went out for a bite. Don’t wait up.

  P.S. I fed Custer.

  Rachel sagged against the door, resting her forehead on the cool white enamel.

  Come home, she willed him. I need you. Now. Right now. I need you now, please. More than ever before.

  But how could she expect that of him? It wasn’t fair. How many hundreds of nights had he waited here for her, alone in this apartment? How many times must he have needed her when she wasn’t here?

  [389] She stared at the note. A friend. But which friend. He didn’t say. He could be anyone. Or she ...

  This friend, it could be Rose.

  Rachel shook off the suspicion. No, ridiculous. Brian was not seeing Rose.

  He loves me. He married me, not her.

  Yes, a cool inner voice answered, but that was a lot of years ago. Suppose since then he’s changed his mind? Suppose he regrets his choice?

  Rachel cranked on the faucet, hard, as if the rushing of the water could drown out these thoughts. She filled the kettle, and put it on the stove. A cup of tea would soothe her. Maybe some honey and lemon, the way Mama used to fix it when she was a little girl, sick in bed with a sore throat.

  When was the last time she’d talked to Mama? A week, more? Mama used to call practically every day. But of course lately she’d been so busy herself.

  Rachel realized with a start that she missed her mother.

  They differed in almost everything, how they lived, thought, dressed, behaved. But Mama was the one person she could count on always to love her, no matter what.

  Rachel quickly dialed.

  “Rachel!” Sylvie sounded surprised, and thrilled, as if Rachel were a long-lost friend calling from Nairobi. Had it been that long? “Oh, darling, I’m so glad you caught me. I was just on my way out the door.”

  “I won’t keep you then.” Rachel felt disappointed. Then thought, Selfish, expecting her to drop everything for me.

  “Don’t be silly. It’s just another one of those dreary fund-raisers. They won’t discover the cure for cancer any sooner if I’m late. Anyway, I would have called you myself, but I’ve been running from morning to night. I was up at D and D all morning, then this afternoon—”

  “D and D?”

  “Designers and Decorators showrooms. On Third Avenue. The most wonderful wallpapers and fabrics and—darling, are you all right? You sound a little funny. Are you coming down with something?”

  Rachel laughed. “No. I’m just not used to the new you, that’s all.”

  [390] “The new me?” Now Sylvie laughed. “Heavens, that sounds so awful. Like one of these new, super-improved detergents. Have I changed that much?”

  “You’re—” Rachel struggled to find the right word, “happier, I guess. Since you started doing this house for Nikos. But I’m glad for you. Honestly.” She was a little jealous, too. She yearned to feel as happy as her mother sounded.

  “You don’t sound as if you approve, somehow.” A pause. “Is it Nikos? The fact that we’re spending so much time together lately?”

  “No, of course not.
I like Nikos. You know that. He’s very sweet, and obviously crazy about you. Are you sleeping with him?”

  “Rachel!” She heard the hiss of a sharply indrawn breath. Then another sound. Smaller, almost inaudible. The tiniest of chuckles. “You never get tired of shocking me, do you? And the answer is no. Nikos and I are just friends.”

  “Friends sleep together sometimes.”

  “Honestly, I just ... oh dear, there he is now. He’s waiting for me downstairs. Did I tell you he was taking me? I have to run now. Was there something special you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “No, Mama.” Nothing special. Just everything.

  Rachel ached at that moment to be a little girl again, to crawl into her mother’s lap, to rest her head against the sweet-smelling softness of Mama’s chest.

  “Well, then ...”

  “Good-bye, Mama. Have fun. Give Nikos a kiss for me.”

  When she hung up, the tea kettle was whistling. Rachel snatched it off the burner, and poured some hot water in a mug. She rummaged for a tea bag in the cupboard. Everything smelled stale. When was the last time she’d gone shopping? Or cooked a dinner?

  Rachel felt hungry, but she also felt too exhausted to cook anything. She carried her mug into the living room and flicked on the television. Same old thing. Excerpts of the Watergate hearings, which had been broadcast live earlier in the day. John Dean in his horn-rims earnestly leaning forward to speak into the microphone. His wife, Mo, seated behind him, elegant, stoic, her platinum hair screwed into a bun so tight it looked as if only that might be holding her together.

  But how could Rachel feel sorry for Mo Dean, so beautiful, so obviously healthy? Even her suffering seemed somehow to have [391] been designed to cast her in the spotlight, to tweak the viewer’s heartstrings.

  Rachel thought of Alma Saucedo. How many people would ever know or care about her plight? This very minute, lying in a coma upstairs in Neurology. A massive cerebral hemorrhage. She probably would never regain consciousness.

  Or hold her baby.

  Rachel’s stomach tightened.