Because of the Rain

by Deborah Raney

  “Believe me, it would not be pleasant.”

  “Is there somebody you can call to take you to the doctor if you get worse? Is Tanya there?”

  “Yes. She called this morning to see if I wanted to have lunch with her. But”––she groaned––“ Lunch? I don’t even want to think about it. Anyway, Tanya said she’ll be home all day, so don’t worry about me. I’m sure I’ll be fine, but I sure feel miserable right now.”

  “I’m sorry. We’ll be praying for you.”

  “Thank, babe.” Anna paused and then a smile came into her voice. “You know what I think, Paul?”

  “No. What?”

  “I think—this might sound crazy—but do you think maybe this is God’s way of giving me an excuse for not being at Grandmother’s funeral?”

  “Oh, wow… I didn’t even think about that.” He chuckled. “I’m so sorry you’re so sick, but you have no idea how happy this makes me. I can hardly wait to tell all your relatives how miserably sick you are!”

  “Well, thanks a lot,” she said sarcastically. But her weak laughter told him she understood perfectly.

  They marveled at the perfect timing of this flu bug, and Anna giggled with him about it––until she had to say a hurried goodbye and rush to the bathroom.

  Paul hung up laughing, reflecting that the Lord certainly did “move in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform.”

  Chapter 20

  Winter’s first snow had fallen the night before, and the streets of Chicago looked like a Christmas wonderland. Thanksgiving had come and gone, and people were just beginning to put up their Christmas lights and hang wreaths on their doors.

  The Marquette house on Fairmont Avenue remained unadorned, however. The decorating had always been Anna’s department. Paul didn’t even know where she stored the boxes of ornaments and lights. Besides, she would be home before Christmas. The doctor in Fort Wayne seemed to think the baby could come earlier than Anna’s December 13 due date.

  And having her home was all he could think about. Thanksgiving had been incredibly lonely. The ad agency had taken on a new large account, and he’d had no choice but to work Friday after the holiday, which meant he couldn’t be with Anna. He and the girls had gone to his mom’s in the morning, then had a late lunch with Jack and Charlotte. It was good to be with people who knew the terrible secret of his life—good to not have to put on a front like he did everywhere else. But he couldn’t enjoy the holiday, knowing how desperately homesick and sad—and alone—Anna must be feeling.

  Still, his time with his daughters had been special. Kara truly did seem to have softened a bit. Though she’d never taken her anger at Anna out on him, he thought he detected a kinder tone in her voice when Anna’s name was mentioned.

  Kara and Kassi had cooked for him and helped with the housework, though there wasn’t much to be done with Shirley coming in each week to look after Paul and the house.

  Kara had even offered to help Paul put up the Christmas decorations. He’d hated to decline her offer. Her thoughtfulness seemed such a positive sign. But he couldn’t bear to have the house looking festive and cheerful when Anna wasn’t there to make it truly so. He was grateful she would be home in time for Christmas. It wouldn’t be a happy Christmas. It would be a time of grieving and healing, but Paul would be joyful just to have her back in their home. And he looked forward to a quiet celebration of her homecoming.

  He’d just buttoned his heavy winter coat, gathered up his briefcase and gym bag, and opened the back door to leave for work when the phone rang. Sighing heavily, he tossed everything into a pile on the kitchen table and hurried to pick up the handset before the answering machine came on.

  “Hello?”

  “Paul Marquette, please.”

  “This is he.”

  “Mr. Marquette, this is Joseph Holden, Orlando Police Department.”

  Paul’s heart began to race. Instantly, his thoughts were carried back to that awful week in Florida. “Yes?” Paul answered.

  “I’m calling with good news, Mr. Marquette. The man who attacked your wife was arrested this morning.” He went on to tell Paul that a man had been brought in for questioning after attacking a woman. After hearing the testimony of witnesses to that attempted rape, several officers had recalled the similarities to Anna’s case and others that had happened in the area. They’d pulled her files and compared notes.

  “You won’t believe this, Mr. Marquette,” Officer Holden said. “It was the cologne thing that tipped us off.”

  After the incident when Anna and the girls had gone shopping at the mall in Fort Wayne, Paul had called Orlando to report Anna’s recollection of the cologne the rapist had possibly been wearing. The officers Paul had spoken with seemed to feel the information was insignificant. He’d tended to agree with them, but nevertheless, he’d felt obligated to report it. And in the back of his mind, he’d hoped perhaps it would prove to be the final piece of the puzzle that would put this beast behind bars where he belonged.

  Now the officer explained what had happened. “Our man struck again just last week, same place where your wife was attacked––there at Longwood. A couple of college kids came upon the scene, and they fought the guy off before he hurt the girl too badly. They held him down while she ran for help. He hasn’t exactly confessed anything yet, but this young lady stayed pretty calm. She identified him, and he fits the brief description you gave us in the hospital. Funny thing was, since this guy was black, none of that really clicked until this gal mentioned the smell of that cologne. But then I got to thinking— French accent, six and a half feet tall, the Longwood location. Something clicked, and I remembered your call.”

  Paul was writing as fast as his fingers could put the letters down. He knew in his excitement he was likely to forget half of what the man was saying. Now, one word stared back at him from the notepad on which he had been scribbling: BLACK. The man was black? There must be some mistake. This couldn’t be the right man. Anna’s attacker had been French. Anna had been sure his accent was French. She would have recognized it, having studied French in high school and college. In fact, that was one of the few things she had been certain about. Paul fought to concentrate on what the policeman was saying—something about them wanting Anna to come to Orlando. To identify the man? To testify against him? He’d lost track of the conversation, but he had to know. “Did you say this suspect is black?”

  “That’s right. He’s French, like your wife thought. French-African—and over here illegally. He’s probably wanted on all kinds of warrants back in France. We’re still checking into that…”

  The officer’s voice droned on, but Paul no longer heard his words. He was still trying to grasp what this news meant for them. For Anna. If it was true—if the man they’d arrested really was the man who raped Anna—then the child she was carrying, the child she was soon to give birth to, would be biracial. And probably dark skinned.

  Stunned, struggling to absorb what the officer was saying, he managed to explain that Anna would not be able to travel anytime soon. He mentioned her pregnancy without telling the man just how irrevocably her pregnancy was tied to the news the officer had just delivered.

  Officer Holden promised to keep them posted on any new developments. “Meanwhile,” he said, “you can rest assured the man is behind bars and won’t be out anytime this century if I have anything to say about it.”

  Paul hung up and sat staring at the phone for a long time, not sure what to do next. It was only Tuesday. On Friday he’d planned to go to New Haven and stay until the baby was born, but he was swamped at the office. For weeks now, he’d been leaving early on Fridays to make the trip to see Anna. The lost hours had left his desk piled with work, and now he simply had to get things in order before he took the three weeks of vacation he’d requested.

  Since John Vickers was the only one at Lindell & Bachman who knew his situation, there would be little sympathy for a request for yet more time off. Paul saw no way that he could be with A
nna before Friday.

  Then it dawned on him that the Whitemans, too, deserved—no, needed—to know this new information. What would the young couple’s reaction be when they heard? It could change everything they’d agreed upon. Still, they had to be told immediately.

  Thoughts raced through his mind more swiftly than he could process them. He thought of the Whitemans’ excitement when they’d learned they would finally be parents. But would it even be right now, knowing what he knew, to give this baby to a white couple? What was best for a child of mixed race? It was a question he’d never pondered. Never had to. Had the contract they signed locked them into an irrevocable arrangement?

  Paul was desperate to talk to Anna. Yet, he’d collected his wits enough to realize that this news would be staggering to Anna. It was simply not something he could tell her over the telephone. Not just that the rapist had been identified, but that his identity might change all the decisions they’d made to this point.

  Anna’s emotions had been fragile recently. She’d always been affected that way during the final months of her pregnancies. And of course, this pregnancy had its own unique set of complications. But how could he talk to her on the phone each day until Friday and pretend nothing had changed?

  But wait… Emma had gone to New Haven for the week. She’d called him before she left Friday night, as she nearly always did before she went to visit her daughter, generously offering to stop by his house and pick up anything he might want to send along to Anna.

  Paul composed himself and dialed Emma’s cell phone, praying that she and Anna weren’t together.

  Emma answered on the first ring.

  “Paul. Hello. How are you?” The warmth in Emma’s voice reminded him that she would help Anna through this.

  “Hi, Emma. Anna doesn’t happen to be with you, does she?”

  “No. I haven’t seen her yet this morning, but I thought I heard the television downstairs a few minutes ago. She’s not answering her phone?”

  “I didn’t try calling. I’ve just had some…news.” He’d been so close to saying bad news. But for him to call this bad news would be insensitive, would likely seem insulting to Emma. He truly wasn’t thinking of the news as bad because it meant the child would be of mixed race. But it was bad news in that it complicated things and created a whole new realm of questions about what was best for the baby. And he knew it would be terribly upsetting for Anna.

  She’d worried incessantly that her child would face feelings of rejection because of being adopted and because of the birth father’s crime. Now she would have the added worry about issues of race that would certainly affect the child.

  But Emma would understand all that. Even the fact that they’d almost certainly caught her rapist would cause Anna great consternation. She’d tried desperately to put the rape out of her mind, had accepted that they would never find the rapist, and therefore, she would never have to face him. Paul knew Anna took great comfort in that supposition.

  Now he tried to organize his thoughts as he revealed to Emma what he’d discovered. “Here’s what’s going on. I received a call from Orlando a few minutes ago. They are fairly certain that they have found Anna’s rapist.”

  “Oh, my. That’s good news… I guess.”

  “It is, yes. But of course it’s going to be upsetting to Anna. I think she’s hoped she’d never have to hear of him again. But, Emma, there’s more.” He paused, clearing his throat. “The man they arrested is French-African—that’s why Anna noticed the accent. But…he’s black. Of course, you realize this means that the baby she’s carrying is biracial.”

  “Oh Paul,” Emma breathed into the phone. “What can I do?”

  Relieved to hear only compassion in her voice, he said, “It’s absolutely unfair to put this on you, but is there any way you could be with Anna when I call her tonight? She’ll need someone, and I know you’ll be able to comfort her, to…help her process all this. I simply can’t get away from the office before Friday, but neither can I keep this news from her.”

  “Of course, Paul. Of course, I’ll be there.”

  They agreed on a time for Paul to call, and Emma assured him she would be right beside Anna when he told her.

  Anna was lying on the sofa trying to get comfortable when she heard Emma’s familiar knock on the door to the basement apartment. A Christmas special was on the television, but the volume was turned so low it was barely audible. She’d had trouble summoning the Christmas spirit, but the sounds from the TV set helped ease her loneliness somewhat.

  Before she could answer the knock, Emma called out her name. “Anna?”

  “Come on in. It’s not locked.”

  Emma opened the door and stuck her head around. Seeing Anna in a reclining position, she hurriedly motioned for Anna to stay put. “Don’t get up. I was just wondering how you were feeling.”

  Anna sat up and patted the couch beside her. “Sit down. I’m feeling fat—that’s how I’m feeling.” She sighed, and in a sing-song voice she recited the pitiful litany that had been running through her head all day. “I can’t lie on my side without the baby kicking me. I can’t lie on my back because it hurts too much. For obvious reasons I can’t lie on my stomach…” She looked down at the object of her discomfort, and they both laughed.

  “You really are getting huge, girl. How much longer do you have to go?” Emma teased.

  “I predict this child will weigh in at ten pounds. At least I hope so. I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever get my figure back. Not that it was anything to brag about before, but—”

  Her cell phone interrupted her. Anna saw Emma’s smile dim and her eyes darken as she stared at the phone. Did Emma know something she didn’t?

  Anna looked at the caller ID. It was Paul. “I’d better take this,” she told Emma.

  Instead of excusing herself, Emma sat down beside her.

  Something was going on. Trying to read Emma’s expression, she answered Paul. “Hi, honey. What’s up?”

  “Hi, babe. How are you feeling?”

  “I’m fine…”

  “Good. Is Emma there with you?”

  “Yes …” Something was wrong. She could hear it in his voice. “What’s wrong, Paul? Something’s happened, hasn’t it?”

  “Yes, Anna.”

  She struggled for breath. “Are the girls okay?”

  “Yes. Yes, the girls are fine. It’s…nothing like that. But…I had a call from Orlando today.”

  As she listened to Paul’s gentle voice, Emma reached out and took her hand. Anna saw that she was watching her face intently. Whatever it was, Emma already knew what was coming.

  “Anna,” he said, speaking slowly and precisely. “They found the man who raped you.”

  She listened in shocked silence as Paul explained about the phone call he’d received earlier today.

  She felt an odd hysteria rising up inside her as the implication of his words soaked in. She squeezed Amma’s hand. “Paul, what… what are you telling me? What are you saying?”

  “Anna… Honey, please calm down.”

  “Do you mean… ?” She couldn’t finish the sentence. She felt drained. As the truth of his news sank in, she felt every ounce of strength seep out of her body. She crumped against Emma’s strong body and sobbed. How much more did God expect them to take?

  She had carried a picture of this child in her mind—a little blond replica of Kara and Kassi when they’d been small. Except, for some reason she’d always felt she was carrying a boy. More than once, it had crossed her mind that this might turn out to be the son they’d never had. And she pictured a little Kevin, the name she and Paul had always wanted to use for a boy.

  At times it had been hard not to think of this baby as her own. At first, after she’d finally accepted that she was truly pregnant, she’d had to continually remind herself that she would be giving this child up, that it would not be her singing lullabies and reading fairy tales in the rocking chair. She realized that it would be difficul
t to give those things up, because those were the things that would redeem the circumstances of this birth. Those were the things that would heal this child who’d been sired by a criminal, rejected by his own mother, given away to be adopted by strangers. Anna had so many fears for this baby, fears for too many things that would be her fault.

  After they’d met the Whitemans—after that decision had been made—she’d worked through her feelings, putting some of those fears to rest. She’d pictured the same little blond boy being loved and cared for by Matt and Jeanine. He would look in the mirror and see that he looked much like his mother. Or his father. Sometimes Anna wondered if she’d chosen the Whitemans in part because they looked like they could be the parents of the baby she imagined. They would protect him from the awful truth of his past. They would become the branches on his family tree, and when the time came, they would soften the blow of her rejection. When the baby was older, the Whitemans would make excuses for a father who didn’t know the ramifications of his sin. She’d truly been comforted by that picture.

  Now she was being told that her child would probably carry with him every day—in the very color of his skin—the burden of being different from his parents. Of wondering why his friends all looked like their mother or their father, and he so obviously did not really belong with the people he called “Mommy and Daddy.” Could a child survive the double blow of such differences—not only being adopted and having a horrible secret about his past, but of having his very appearance cry out the news to the whole world?

  Anna remembered her own daughters making family trees in second grade, and she wondered how this little one would fill in the branches, how he would answer his teachers when they asked him from which country his ancestors had come. And when strangers in the grocery store asked the Whitemans, “And whose side of the family does he look like?” how would they reply? In truth, that question would now probably be left unspoken, wondered silently with curious sideways glances.

  But the child wouldn’t miss those stares. And as he grew, he would understand their meaning only too well.