by P. D. Cacek
Dr. Cross smiled and there were tears in his eyes when he looked at her. “That would be a pretty perfect six weeks to me.”
And she was going to make sure of it. She was going to give Timmy Patrick O’Neal the best six weeks of his young life. Just like God planned for her to do.
Nora smiled. “Can you get me whatever papers I need to sign? I’d like to take him home tonight if I can. I had my neighbor help me move in the old daybed from the back bedroom and set it up for him in the family room, right in front of the TV.”
“You already moved the daybed?” he asked.
“Of course I did.”
Dr. Cross gave her the same look Sidney Poitier had given the Mother Superior in Lilies of the Field when she told him he was going to build for her a chappal, then nodded and walked away, defeated. He would build for her a chappal.
Timmy’s face wore a chocolate-chip ice cream beard from his cheekbones down and he was giggling when she walked up to him.
“Look! Look!” He pointed at the television with a dripping spoon. “That silly cat.”
Nora looked and saw a small mouse drop an anvil on the head of a black-and-white cat and vaguely remembered Marjorie watching the same cartoon.
“Aw, the poor kitty.”
“N’uh, he’s okay. He always gets up.”
“Well,” Nora said and sat down on the sofa next to him. She’d told another tiny lie to Dr. Cross, Timmy really hated being in his wheelchair unless he was tired. He said it hurt his butt. “I’m glad of that. Do you remember who I am, Timmy?”
He nodded but never took his eyes off the screen. “Uh-huh, you’re mama’s friend.”
“That’s right. And my name is…?”
“Mrs. Nora.”
“That’s right, baby. I’m your mama’s friend, Mrs. Nora.”
Then he hiccupped and she knew what was coming next. Timmy turned toward her with tears in his eyes.
“Where’s my mama?”
Nora picked up one of the unused paper napkins off the tray and wiped his face.
“Shh, baby, shh…it’s okay. Don’t cry. Your mama’s in the hospital having your baby brother or sister, remember?”
Timmy nodded and his tears fell on her hand like rain.
“But I want my mommy.”
“I know, Timmy, I know, but once your new brother or sister is born your mommy and daddy and the baby will come get you and you’ll all be together again. Okay?”
“I want her NOW!”
Two nurses and an old woman knitting in front of the big window looked up. One of the nurses started toward them, but Nora shook her head and mouthed, “It’s all right,” and the nurse turned away. It was her own fault; it’d been a while since she’d been around little children that she’d forgotten how selfish and demanding they could be. Little children, and sometimes sick old men, wanted what they wanted NOW and there was no two ways about it. Hank had been that way, but it was different with Timmy…Timmy was just a scared little boy who wanted a mama who would never come.
It twisted her heart into a knot and Nora had to fight the tears building in her eyes.
“Shh, now. It’s okay, hush now, Timmy. You don’t want to make so much noise…your mama taught you better than that, didn’t she?”
It was an old trick, one she’d used on her own daughter and grandchildren, and it still worked. Timmy sniffled and wiped his nose, and a good deal of the melted ice cream covering his face, off on the sleeve of his bathrobe.
“But I really want my mommy now,” Timmy said in a quiet little voice. “She’s been gone so long.”
Nora brushed a tear off his cheek with her thumb. Longer than you know, baby.
“Yes, she has, but sometimes babies don’t want to be born when they’re supposed to be.”
He thought for a minute. “He’s a bad baby, I don’t like him.”
“Oh, no, he’s not bad, just stubborn.”
“What’s stubborn?”
“Stubborn? Well, stubborn means, um…” oh Lord, help me on this one, “…ah… stubborn means being a slowpoke. You know what a slowpoke is?”
Timmy shook his head.
“It means someone who doesn’t move very fast.”
“Like Tommy Turtle!”
Who? “Yes, like Tommy Turtle.”
“And you!”
“Yes,” Nora laughed, “like me. I’m a slowpoke. You’re a very smart little boy, Timmy.”
Timmy smiled from ear to ear. “You’re slow like Mama’s baby.”
“That’s right…and your mama’s baby is very slow, but it doesn’t know that. You see, Timmy, babies don’t know about things like slow or fast or even what time is.”
“They don’t?” Sniff.
“No.”
“I know what time is. Time is the numbers on a clock.”
“That’s right and you know because you’re a big boy. Which means it will be up to you to teach the baby about time and cartoons and cookies and ice cream and—”
“Howdy Doody!”
Dear sweet child. “Yes, you’ll have to teach the baby all about Howdy Doody. Okay?”
“Okay.”
The crisis over, Timmy turned his attention back to the television and ice cream. They’d had the same conversation, more or less, every time he saw her, but it was different from Henry’s repeated demands and questions. Henry had been sick, but Timmy was just a little boy who wanted his mama. That’s all he was and that was what she was going to believe, because if what Dr. Cross kept telling her was true, that Timmy was suffering from the same disease that took Henry away from her, it would have been too hard even for a feisty old woman like her.
But it might not be true and she had six whole weeks before she needed to accept anything.
And anything could happen in six weeks.
“Do you like it here, Timmy?”
He shrugged. “I like TV. They let me watch TV and give me ice cream. I like ice cream.”
“But what about being in the hospital? Do you like being in the hospital?”
“No.” His eyes were still glued to the TV, but Nora saw him pout. “I’m not sick.”
“No, but you were hurt, remember?”
A new set of tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. “Yeah…Mama’s gonna be mad.”
Nora wiped the tears away again and patted his cheek. “No, she’s not. She’s…very happy you’re okay and that’s why she wants me to take you home with me.” He turned his head toward her. “To stay at my house and help me bake cookies and cakes until she and your daddy and the new baby come to get you.”
The look in his eyes was so strong, so old, that for a moment Nora forgot Henry was dead and almost called out his name.
“My mama wants me to go to your house?”
Nora nodded. “Just for a little while,” she said, “just until the baby’s born.”
“And we’ll make cookies?”
“Yes, in fact, I was thinking about making chocolate-chip cookies tonight.”
Timmy smiled. “Yeah?”
“And it would be so nice if I had someone to help me.”
“I can help you.”
“Then would you like to come home with me?”
Timmy nodded so hard the loose skin along Henry’s jowls shook like Jell-O.
“And stay with me – until the baby comes?”
“Yeah!” Then the face she remembered so well got serious and Timmy leaned toward her, whispering. “I really don’t like it here…the old people scare me.”
“But I’m old, Timmy, don’t I scare you?”
“No! You’re nice.”
Nora gave his cheek one more swipe with the napkin and stood up. “Okay, I’ll go tell the doctors to pack your bags because you’re coming home to live with me.”
&nbs
p; “Until my mommy and daddy come with the baby,” he said. “I hope it’s a brother…I want a brother so we can play and I’ll show him how to throw a ball and ride a bike, but he won’t go in the street because only BIG brothers do that and I’M the big brother.”
Nora didn’t think her shattered heart could break any more than it already had, but she was wrong.
“Of course, baby, just until your mommy and daddy come. You’ll be a wonderful big brother.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Elisabeth
Danny stayed by the door, one hand holding the bouquet of pink and white carnations that his folks had brought, the other holding onto the handle of Sara’s…of the small wheeled suitcase Sara’s mother had packed. He was keeping quiet and out of the way.
Not that anyone noticed.
His mother and Sara’s were busy filling the plastic hospital tote bag with whatever the woman had used during her stay and telling her, the woman, about the house (Sara’s parents’) she was going to and how beautiful little Emily (his daughter) was. That bothered him – how they kept talking about Emily, his baby, his and Sara’s baby, to the woman – and he’d asked his mom to stop. But apparently his request had gone in one ear and out the other.
Just like all the others.
He didn’t want to come to the hospital to help.
He didn’t want to participate in the deception.
He didn’t want anything to do with her.
For all the good it did.
So he stood there, holding flowers and the suitcase handle, and listened while his mother and Sara’s gushed and prattled on and showed pictures of their new grandchild to the stranger in his dead wife’s body.
If he’d been a different kind of man he would have told them all to go to hell and left, just gone away.
But he wasn’t that kind of man and his daughter needed him.
For her part, the woman nodded each time she was shown a picture, but kept her gaze low and only spoke when pressed. She sat prim and proper in the wheelchair a nurse had brought for her – patients couldn’t leave under their own power, hospital policy – her back straight as an arrow, her feet – tucked into Sara’s favorite pair of Hush Puppy sandals – flat against the wheelchair’s footrests, her hands clasped in her lap. Besides the sandals, she wore a short-sleeved white sweater Danny didn’t remember and one of Sara’s sundresses that he remembered too well. The dress was pale blue with little yellow flowers, and Sara had bought it when she was only two months pregnant – ‘I’ll need something nice and loose and cool to bring the baby home in.’
The woman hadn’t wanted to wear the dress at first, calling it indecent because it was ‘so flimsy and loose’ but his mother had finally convinced her it was ‘what all the girls wear these days’.
It was like standing deathwatch all over again. Danny wouldn’t look at her like he hadn’t looked at Sara, but that was okay because no one noticed him doing that either.
“Danny?”
He blinked. “What?”
His mother was standing in front of him, smiling. “I said, let me have these and I’ll put them in the car.”
It took a moment for Danny to process what his mother wanted, but when he finally did, he shook his head and stepped back.
“No, it’s okay, I can do it.”
“I know you can,” his mother said, “but I thought I’d put them in my car, to save you a trip if you needed to get back to work.”
And then he understood. This way he wouldn’t have to drive to Sara’s parents’ house, where it had been decided she’d stay.
With the baby.
Danny hadn’t actually given any thought to what would happen once his daughter was able to come home because there shouldn’t have been anything to think about. Emily was supposed to come home with him and Sara where they’d live happily ever after.
But since that wasn’t going to happen, a decision needed to be made.
He didn’t ask, but Sara’s parents told him they didn’t think he could…or should have to deal with the needs of a new baby with everything he’d just been through and everything that he still needed to do. He had a full-time job and, even though he’d be home nights and on weekends, Emily needed not only round-the-clock care, but also a stable home environment and routine. Why on Earth should he spend money on a day nurse when his daughter already had a full-time (non-working) grandmother who was willing and eager to care for her?
The grandmother in question, naturally, being Sara’s mother, who had the time and space and guilt/grief card, which she played with all the finesse of a Mississippi riverboat gambler.
Wasn’t it only fair that Emily live with them since they had lost their only daughter?
And how fair was it for him? he’d wanted to ask.
But never did.
So, less than a week after Sara died and the imposter took her place, Emily’s crib and changing table, the toy box and shelves and Sara’s rocking chair were picked up and moved into his in-laws’ newly painted and papered guest room.
His parents had put up a good show of disappointment, but both of them worked at opposite ends of the San Fernando Valley and since they had full access to Emily, as did he, day or night, with special weekend ‘sleepover’ privileges, it seemed the best solution all around.
The best solution, and that had been the same reasoning they’d used when they suggested the woman, Elisabeth, stay with them when she was released from the hospital.
Which was fine with Danny. He could make sure he wouldn’t see her when he came to visit his daughter. His parents, as well as Sara’s, were happy he agreed with the plan. Dr. Ellison was outright enthusiastic about it.
“I can’t help but think that with all she had to endure in her past life, this time around Elisabeth has found the perfect home.”
Je-SUS. Danny had almost barfed when he heard that…barfed and then punched the Great and Wonderful Dr. Ellison flat on the nose. After which he’d stand over the body and finally ask the good doctor the question that had been digging a hole into his brain since August 24th: was this ‘new life’ responsible for his wife’s death?
Danny knew it wasn’t, of course. Sara was already dead, but it’d been a nice thought.
“Yeah, okay. Thanks, Mom.” Letting go of the suitcase handle, Danny reached out with his left hand. “Give me your keys and I’ll put these in the trunk. I need to stretch my legs and then maybe I’ll head out.”
Why not? He’d already done his part – signed all the required release papers and insurance forms and whatever else they’d stuck under his pen for both his daughter and the woman. He could leave anytime now.
Then, after work he could go home and maybe take a little tour of the empty Offshore Mist-and-white nursery.
“Here ya go.” His mother pulled the key ring from her purse and handed it to him. “Put the suitcase in the trunk and the flowers on the back seat. Try to prop them up if you can.”
“Okay.”
Danny took the keys and hooked the suitcase handle with his index finger as he turned. The suitcase wasn’t heavy. There were very few things in it, new things, things that had never belonged to Sara – a small toiletry case, a half dozen or so panties that Sara would have called ‘grandma drawers’, an ankle-length nightgown, a brush, a mirror, and the ghost of Sara’s perfume trapped in the dark blue lining.
“Danny?”
It was Sara’s mother this time. He stopped just outside the door.
“You know you can come over, if you like.”
He nodded. “I know, but I really should get back to the office. They’ve been great about my taking time off, but….”
Sara’s mother nodded. “But you will come over for dinner tonight, right?”
Right, the ‘special’ dinner tonight where both families were supposed to gather ’round the tab
le to get to know and welcome the woman named Elisabeth into their lives. It was a lovely gesture and one that Dr. Ellison, the doctor who’d taken charge of these…people…thought was a wonderful idea. Everyone thought it was a wonderful idea, except Danny, of course. Danny thought it was a crap idea. He didn’t want to get to know the woman and he especially didn’t want to welcome her into his life.
The fact that Sara’s parents were taking her in and giving her a home almost made him physically ill. It was like everyone except him seemed to forget that the woman, Elisabeth, who’d supposedly died in 1914, didn’t have a home anymore.
Not here, not now, and not in Sara’s body.
Sara was dead and Danny would have given anything if the woman joined her.
“You will, won’t you, Danny?”
“Yeah. Maybe. Okay.”
“I’m planning to put dinner on the table around seven,” Sara’s mother said, “but why don’t you come over early so you can have a little more time with Emily? She loves her daddy.”
Danny swallowed hard and nodded, then turned and walked to the elevators. Emily wasn’t even a month old. If she ‘smiled’ it was just because she had gas. She didn’t know him any more than she knew that the woman whose body they took her from wasn’t her mother.
Her real mother had died and Emily would never get to know her.
Danny knew life wasn’t fair, but up until August 24th, he thought death might be.
When the elevator doors opened, two nurses in pediatric-cute scrubs got off and smiled, said hello and asked how things were going. Danny smiled back and gave them a thumbs-up with the hand holding the bouquet as he took their place in the elevator. He thought they might have been the nurses who took care of Emily during her first few – terrifying – days in the NICU, but he wasn’t sure. He’d seen so many doctors and nurses during Sara’s last days and Emily’s first ones that all their faces had begun to blur together.
He’d been going back and forth to the hospital too long, first with Sara, then with Emily, but now he was finally leaving and – knock on wood – would never have to come back.
The only trouble was that as hard as it had been, it gave him something to do. Going back to the house to catch a couple hours of sleep or to shower and change was at least something. Now it was just him and the house, the empty, messy house because for the first few weeks after he’d watched Sara die on the operating table, it was all he could do to wake up, go to work and then head out for the hospital, where he’d gulp down dinner in the cafeteria before heading up to the NICU and put on a sterilized paper gown so he could sit down next to Emily’s incubator before a nurse – maybe one of the nurses from the elevator – told him to go home and get some rest.