Worth waited in silence.
Nona clasped her hands together, directing her gaze at him. “When you hear an infant cry, Worth, you want to comfort it, feed it, ease its distress. Inside that house, it was such a strange, hot, intense world—did I tell you that the baby was premature? You. You were premature, Worth, you were seven and a half months old when you were born. You were bald and had no eyelashes or eyebrows, no fingernails. We could not weigh you, but I’m sure you weighed no more than five pounds. You were tiny, Worth. Absolutely beautiful, but so defenseless. Ilke did not have enough milk for you. Herb managed, through his army contacts, to procure formula, and bottles, and the three of us took turns feeding you, because you were always hungry.” Nona leaned forward, her voice suddenly strong, powerful with the force of her emotions. “Try to envision it, Worth. Outside the little brick house spread devastation and ruin and chaos. Buildings were still collapsing, beams and roof slates and window glass giving way as houses and shops and churches and hospitals settled. Unexploded bombs were everywhere. You could not trust the ground to lie still beneath your feet. Trees lay across sidewalks, their roots dry and crooked, reaching out like the arms of the dead. And the dead were everywhere. You never knew when you might see a hand extending from a pile of debris. You never knew when you might see rats gnawing at something in a mound of broken timbers. Women roamed the street weeping, tearing their hair, their skin. Men staggered through the streets. Some of them howled.”
“Nona,” Worth cautioned, “you’re upsetting yourself.”
“No. I’m upsetting you, and I mean to. I want you to try to see, really see, what it was like, for me and for your father and for your mother. We lived in a world utterly changed by war. We lived in a world of ruin and shambles. And here you were, a new life, helpless but alive and kicking, giving us all something to hope for. You were like a flower, sprouting from a field of wreckage.”
For a moment, the three of them sat quietly, reverently. Nona’s old heart was racketing around in her chest like a squirrel trapped in a cage. She forced herself to take deep breaths. She took another sip of Scotch.
Gathering her strength, she continued. “It was a friend of your father’s who told us about the bomb. The bomb that killed your mother. Your father wept. I wept, too. I had not come to know Ilke well. I was there only two weeks, after all. But from the beginning she had understood how I felt about the baby, about you. She was so generous with you. She let me help take care of you, she let me rock you and carry you, and after the first week, when it became evident that you needed more nourishment than she could supply, she allowed me to give you the bottle.” Tears she could not prevent fell down Nona’s face. “We should have hated each other. I suppose, any other time, we would have. At least resented. She was so beautiful, Worth. Look at the picture. She was much more beautiful than I. And her laugh—it was like silk. Her speaking voice I didn’t find so attractive, all those gutturals and coughing sounds. But her laugh … and when she sang lullabies to you, her voice was as sweet as honey. She was very young. She was twenty-one when she died.”
Helen reached over and lifted the album from Worth’s hands. She studied the photo of Ilke Hartman. “She was beautiful, it’s true. But not more beautiful than you, Nona.”
“You’re being kind. But believe me, I know the truth. Look at her eyes. Look at the shape of her eyes, and the light eyebrows, and how they wing upward at the outside. Like Worth’s. Look at the picture, and then look at your face in a mirror, Worth.”
Worth shook his head. “I don’t know if I can take this all in.”
“Give yourself time,” Nona advised.
Helen asked, “So you adopted the baby?”
Nona said, “I claimed the baby. I stayed in Bremerhaven, with your father and Worth, for two years. In August we wrote home that I had had a premature baby. And Worth was a frail, sickly infant. In fact, he was small and under average height for the first five years of his life. He was slow to crawl, slow to walk, he didn’t even speak until he was three.” She shook her head, remembering. “Imagine our surprise when you suddenly shot up, a strong, healthy, active boy.”
“Did the Wheelwrights never suspect?” Helen asked.
Nona laughed. “Not once. They were only too eager to believe that I had given birth to a weakling. And then, as Worth became a person, they fell in love with him, just as everyone did.”
Nona sank back into her chaise. Her heart had eased, the pounding receding to its calm and regular beat. She had done it. She had finally told Worth the story of his birth. She studied his face, searching for a sign of his reaction.
Worth had taken back the album and put on his glasses and scrutinized the photo. He raised his head, slipped off his glasses, and folded them. His face was calm when he said, “I know what you’re doing, Mother.”
“Oh?” She raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “And what is that?”
“You’re trying to persuade me to accept Suzette’s baby as my own blood.”
“Well, yes, I suppose I am. I suppose that’s exactly why I chose to tell you this now.”
Worth shook his head. “I admire your inventiveness. This is quite a fabulous story you’ve concocted, and it makes me appreciate even more your own opinions on the matter of this new baby, but it doesn’t make me change my mind.”
“Oh, Worth.” Nona closed her eyes against his disbelief, his stubborn righteousness. What could she do? She had a thought. “Worth, I will take a DNA test. That will prove you are not my son, won’t it?”
At this, Worth sagged in defeat. He ran his hand over his face.
Helen asked, “Did Ilke name her son?”
Nona nodded. “She did, of course. She named her baby Hans.”
“Hans!” This spurred Worth into a kind of helpless action. He rose from his chair and strode around the bedroom, shaking his head like a bull trying to shake off spears. He clenched his fists, needing to hit something, having no available target. Turning suddenly, he shouted at Nona, “How could you love a child named Hans? How could you love a German?”
Nona’s reply was simple. “How could I not love you?”
Worth wrenched his gaze to Helen. “You know what this means, don’t you? If Nona is telling the truth, it means our children are German.”
Helen offered a gentle smile. “Oh, Worth, I don’t think so. I’ve never noticed a proclivity for sauerkraut or beer. They can’t yodel. They don’t—”
“How can you be flippant at a time like this!” Worth thundered. Facing Nona, he demanded, “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
Nona stretched out a beseeching hand, but Worth would not take it. “Your father and I discussed it often. But then again, not as often as you might think. Our lives were busy. You favor your father in your looks: the strong square jaw, the set of your head on your neck, the angle of your ears, your straight patrician nose. Only your eyes are like your biological mother’s, but of course I have blue eyes, too, as did Herb. We could not think what good would come of telling you. At first you were too young, and then you were too much yourself. Had there ever been a medical exigency, we might have told you, but Worth, think about your life, remember it. When could we have told you? When should we have told you? And why? You are my son. I love you as much as I love Grace. I always have. In fact, I know that Grace believes I favor you. Isn’t that right?”
Worth didn’t reply. Exhaustion was weighing down on Nona’s chest and shoulders. It was as if this secret had filled her life and her body like a second set of lungs, and now it had been excised and she was empty. She was hollow. She wanted to say, Worth, do you know I am too feeble to carry even baby Zoe across a room? In that same way, I can no longer carry your pride, your anger, your pain, in my heart. But she only said, “Do you know, my dear ones? I am suddenly very tired.”
Helen asked, “Would you like us to help you back to bed?”
“Thank you, no. I think I would prefer to rest on my chaise. But my shoes—” She looked at
her son. “Worth, would you help me, please?”
His jaw was set in a lock Nona knew so well. For a moment he hesitated. Then he asked, coldly, politely, “Would you like me to remove your shoes?”
“Please.”
He bent on one knee to unlace and slip off her shoes, and Nona saw the top of his head, saw the bald spot beginning in the midst of all his silver hair, and she saw as if through layers of time, how his hair had been thick, white blond, slightly wavy, and once, so long ago, how his scalp had been bald, delicate, defenseless, an infant’s bare scalp with its vulnerable fontanel. He had been a sickly baby, relentlessly crying in a thin, high wail, needing constant attention, sleeping only when someone held him.
They had taken turns, Herb and Anne, rocking and walking the infant, for those first few days when Ilke rested, recovering from the sudden birth. Nona could remember the speckled pattern of linoleum on the kitchen floor, the rag rug in the hall, the handsome ivory and green oriental carpet in the parlor. The framed photographs of Ilke Hartman’s parents and sister on the mantel. The curtains, heavy striped silk. The comfortable chair, upholstered in velvet and stuffed with horsehair, where she had often sat, for the few moments the infant would allow her to rest. Outside the house had been chaos and destruction. Inside the house was warmth and order and new life.
Anne had not slept with Herb those two weeks. He remained on the sofa and left for work every morning and returned every evening, bringing whatever food supplies he had scrounged from army supplies or bought on the black market. Anne never went to work at Stangarone’s. She was too busy keeping house, making stews; women today had no idea how much time the preparation of meals used to take. And how everything had to be saved. She could make one chicken last the three of them for four days. First, the luxury of roasted chicken. Then, a casserole made with back meat and noodles. Then, a stew from the bones and flour dumplings. Finally, a soup, with whatever vegetables could be found to add.
The lion’s share of the food went to Ilke, who was nursing the baby, or trying to, not very successfully. Anne lost a great deal of weight while she was in Germany, but so did everyone, and the good news was that Ilke’s parents had a wine cellar, so every night she and Herb allowed themselves a glass or two, and that luxury settled their nerves. She did not touch Herb. He did not touch her. When they spoke, it was only about the baby, or the outside world; the news from America, the docking of more ships, the arrival of more displaced persons.
The second week, when Ilke rose from bed and declared herself fit and put on a maternity dress that hung off her, displaying her newly slender figure, that week Anne had not been jealous, but she had been, perhaps, on guard. Ilke washed her hair, and what had been matted with sweat and tangled from her writhing in labor now lay in shining pale gold silk, framing her beautiful pale face. Ilke did not seek out Herb. She seldom spoke to him, and when she did, it was in English, her broken, faltering English, and Anne appreciated this, because she knew that Herb understood some German, and Herb and Ilke could have conversed in a language Anne did not comprehend. But Ilke’s love and energies were all directed toward the infant. She walked him, she nursed him, or tried to, and she wept with frustration when her milk was not ample.
Nona suddenly recalled another kindness of Ilke’s. Whenever she handed the baby over to Herb, she said the same thing she said when she handed the baby to Anne: Here, little one, go to your friend. Or, Now your friend rocks you, my love. She never called Herb “Papa.” Perhaps it was not really a kindness so much as a matter of self-defense. Perhaps she did not believe that Herb would claim and support the child throughout his entire life, or perhaps she didn’t, in her secret heart, even hope for that. Perhaps she hoped Herb would return to America, forget the child, and she would marry a German who could claim the baby as his own.
For Anne, it had been a through-the-looking-glass experience. Nothing seemed quite real. Each day was isolated from every other, each moment devoted to the necessities of the present, with no time to plan for the future.
Nona remembered piercingly how pleased she had been when she lifted the baby from Herb’s or Ilke’s arms, and the baby had grown calm as she gently jiggled him, walking her path through the house. The baby had responded to Anne as if he understood that she was keeping him safe. Herb was not always so successful, although he tried. Perhaps his uniform was too stiff against the infant’s cheek, perhaps his male voice was too brusque or deep or loud, perhaps, like many men, he did not feel comfortable and capable with an infant, and the baby sensed this. But in a way, Anne felt chosen by the infant. She loved him. She purely loved him.
She did not feel sexually attracted to Herb. She was always busy, and she was always very hungry, and she felt occupied and capable and alive. When Ilke’s nipples became cracked from the baby’s demanding and unsatisfied suckling, it was Anne Ilke came to, not Herb. In those days men did not share such experiences. Anne remembered a friend who had used A & D ointment, and Ilke had some in the house and used it sparingly and found relief. How proud Anne had been of herself! She had been so pleased that, when Herb came home, she told him about Ilke’s cracked nipples and her own advice—and Herb had blushed scarlet and left the room, grumbling under his breath. She had remembered then that Ilke’s breasts, Ilke’s nipples, had once been objects not of milky sustenance but of sexual pleasure. Had Herb lain next to Ilke, suckling her, fondling her? Of course he had. Jealousy had twisted through her then. She had gone to her bedroom and wept, stuffing the pillow in her mouth to hide her sobs. Oh, she had not been without jealousy and bitterness. But then she slept. And then the baby cried, and Ilke asked her to walk him so she could sleep, and Herb was already asleep in his room, exhausted from his day’s work. And Anne had taken the baby in her arms, and looked down into his face, and everything but a profound and amazed love had disappeared.
Now her son, her sixty-year-old son Worth, finished removing her shoes. He rose. His face was stiff and closed. It would take time for him to heal.
“One question,” Worth said. “Are you going to share this news with anyone else? I’m sure Grace will be thrilled. But what about Oliver, and Charlotte, and Teddy? Will you tell them?”
“I won’t tell anyone else,” Nona assured him. “It is my duty, I believe, to give you this information, and Helen, as your wife and the mother of your children, should know as well. It’s up to you, the two of you, to decide whether or not to tell your children.”
Worth snorted angrily. “Teddy’s going to laugh his ass off.”
“Worth,” Helen remonstrated softly.
“Teddy loves you,” Nona assured her son. “He idolizes you. He believes he can never live up to your standards.”
Worth shook his head. “Well, Nona, it seems that I don’t even live up to my standards.”
“Then perhaps,” Nona suggested, “the standards need to change.”
Worth scrubbed his face with his hands. He looked angry and anguished, and Helen rose and went to him. “Worth. We can—”
Abruptly, he threw her hand off him. “I can’t deal with this. I’m going back to Boston.”
Helen started to object and then nodded. “Yes. Perhaps you should.”
Twenty-five
During the intense heat of the late Sunday afternoon, Charlotte strode along a furrow, furiously hoeing the weeds out of the beds of kale and eggplant and chard.
“No, too hot, too hot!” Jorge had called, rushing up to her. “I hoe. I hoe!”
“Not today,” Charlotte told him. “I need to hoe today. You can go work on the beans.”
Catching her look—she was clearly not in the mood for argument—Jorge had hurried off to another part of the garden.
During the ride from the hospital after seeing the newborn baby, her parents hadn’t spoken, but anger oozed from their pores until Charlotte thought she could actually see the air turning a bilious green. Clearly they did not want to talk in front of Charlotte. But she knew what the argument was about. Her fathe
r did not want to accept Suzette’s baby as his grandchild. Deep in her heart, Charlotte was glad her mother was standing up to him.
But when she had been lacing up her work boots in the mudroom, her parents did talk, and Charlotte had overheard them. Her mother had actually threatened divorce—and the words had been like a hard kick in Charlotte’s stomach. They took her breath away. Would her mother actually leave her father? It couldn’t happen. A frantic energy filled her, but she didn’t know how to use it. Her mother had stormed up the stairs, and her father had followed, and she knew this was a battle they had to fight out by themselves.
Well, the garden always, always needed weeding, and today she was grateful for the work. Charlotte took down the CLOSED sign at the farm stand, put out some lettuces and vegetables so they wouldn’t go to waste, then stomped into the garden with a hoe.
A taxi came slowly up the lane toward Nona’s house. Charlotte stared. It had no passengers, so no one was arriving. Anyone who would be leaving would be driven by Grace or Helen, so this was a little odd.
She continued to work but stopped again when, a few minutes later, the taxi came back down the lane toward the main road.
Her father was sitting in the back, alone.
“Dad!” she called, waving her hands.
He didn’t seem to hear. The cab bore him away.
She set back to work, hoeing with maniacal energy.
Sometimes Charlotte allowed herself to wonder about her family, about its genetic makeup. Why were she and her brothers such fuck-ups? Perhaps that was too strong a word. Or imprecise. Oliver, for example, was a great success, both in his loving long-term relationship and in his work, but he had clearly abandoned his family and any part he might have in it, choosing to live as far as possible from the East Coast. Had he been drawn there simply by career opportunities or did he just not want to deal with the whole Wheelwright business? Someday, Charlotte would ask him.
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