by Selena Kitt
“I do,” she whispered, still fighting tears. She lifted her face and looked at him, her father, and he was, always had been. Nothing was different, even if everything was. “I know where we can find out.”
“Find out what?” Her father tucked a stray strand of blond hair behind her ear. “I think I’ve hit my limit of discoveries for the year.”
“Leah...” Erica’s tears spilled over. She couldn’t contain them any longer. “I know how we can find her.”
She took her father’s hand, just like she had all her life, and led him toward hope.
Father Michael said Magdalene House was an hour’s drive. In the snow, it was more like three. Erica’s father drove, because Father Michael’s car was still in the shop. That moment they’d shared together seemed so long ago, but it was barely a week. She had gone back to the Mayflower the following Monday, but Father Michael wasn’t there. He wasn’t there Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday. She stayed after class on Friday to talk to him, but he had avoided her gaze, saying he was in a hurry, he had a meeting to get to.
She could take a hint well enough.
Erica sat in the backseat, in closer proximity to him than she’d been since, and she couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking, what he was feeling. Her father had exploded in anger when Father Michael had refused to tell them where Leah had been taken. He threatened to go to Patty Wendt and beat it out of her, a threat Erica doubted he would actually carry through, but she wondered.
“You can’t,” Father Michael told Erica’s father. “Patty called me today to let me know she was going to pick up Leah and take her to the bus stop. Leah’s going to New York.”
“Like hell she is.” Robert Nolan stood, fists clenched. “If you don’t tell me where she is, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
Father Michael had finally relented, once Erica had explained about the blood types, assuring him Robert Nolan wasn’t Leah’s father. But she left out the part about him not being Erica’s father either.
“It might be too late.” Father Michael warned them that, according to Patty Wendt, Leah had given birth and was planning on taking her baby to New York.
Erica looked out the window, her forehead pressed to the glass, cooling her flushed face, feeling like a fish in a bowl, swimming round and round, getting nowhere. She lost all sense of time and direction, the snow making the trip long and tedious. She counted white lines on the highway until there was no more highway, and then she counted telephone poles, and then those were gone.
The back roads hadn’t been plowed it all, and the Cadillac skated like they were on glass. They saw car after car that had slid off the road into the deep ditches on either side of the gravel. Erica clutched at the seat in front of her, lowering her head and praying for their safety. She looked up when she felt a hand cover hers. It was Father Michael. Their eyes met and Erica felt everything in his heart, hers beating so fast.
“Lookout!” Father Michael pointed to the car still half on the road, the back end in the ditch. Robert Nolan turned the wheel, but nothing happened. He pumped the brakes and nothing happened. The car simply slid along the gravel ice, heading straight for the other vehicle. Erica closed her eyes and prayed, hearing Father Michael praying too, out loud. Her father was silent, trying to recapture control of the Cadillac.
“That’s Patty Wendt.” Father Michael’s words didn’t sink in until Erica opened her eyes and saw Leah’s mother standing on the other side of the car they had just missed hitting. Her father had managed somehow to avoid it, by inches, pumping the brakes in quick succession to get the hunk of metal to slow on the icy road.
“Fuck.” Robert Nolan swore, putting the car in park. He glanced over, apologizing. “Sorry, Father.”
“I think under the circumstances God forgives you.”
Erica’s father got out of the car, walking over to Patty. She could only imagine what they were saying, hands gesturing, mouths moving, but she was in the fishbowl. She couldn’t hear a thing except the hammering of her own heart, and Father Michael’s. He glanced back at her, looking concerned.
“Are you okay?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Yes.” Erica met his eyes. “I have a broken heart.”
“Oh Erica...” He sighed, his face pained. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “It’s my own fault.”
“No.” He touched her hand, the one hanging onto the front seat, and it was a lovely, painful reminder of the unbridgeable distance between them. “You can’t break your own heart. That much I know.”
Robert Nolan and Patty Wendt were walking back toward the vehicle, not talking anymore. Patty walked over to the passenger side of the car, and Father Michael rolled down the window.
“I guess I’m riding with you.” Patty leaned down to inform them.
Father Michael opened his door, getting out into the snow. “Here, it’s more comfortable up front.” Erica watched as Leah’s mother got into the passenger side and Erica’s father got behind the wheel. Father Michael got into the back with her.
“It’s not far,” Patty said. “You mind if I smoke? My nerves are shot.”
“Yes, actually. I do mind.” Robert Nolan didn’t look at her, hands gripping the wheel, knuckles white.
They drove in silence, everyone’s breath held, the ice slippery black death. Erica felt Father Michael’s hand reaching, clasping, twining his fingers with hers.
“Right here,” Leah’s mother instructed. “Right up here on the left, that driveway after those two stone pillars.”
“We’re not going to Magdalene House?” Father Michael leaned forward between the seats to ask.
“She’s still at the hospital. There were some complications,” Patty explained. “But they’re releasing her today. Here, here, up on the left.”
Erica’s father pumped the brakes, slowing gradually, correcting the vehicle each time it fishtailed, making Erica’s breath disappear and her heart jump in her chest. She squeezed Father Michael’s hand, glad for the comfort. When her father pulled into a parking place in front of the hospital, she finally found her breath again.
“She’s on the third floor,” Leah’s mother said, trying to keep up with Robert Nolan in her heels. He was already striding toward the front entrance. “In the maternity ward.”
“What room?” He glanced over his shoulder, Leah’s mother behind him, Erica and Father Michael bringing up the rear.
“She’s in the general population.”
Erica’s father scowled, opening the front doors of the hospital. The elevator ride up was silent. Erica wouldn’t let go of Father Michael’s hand, but he didn’t seem to mind. He smiled down at her and she thought she could live forever on that one, reassuring, beautiful smile.
It wasn’t until the doors of the elevator opened on the third floor, that Patty Wendt spoke up. “Robert, I just want you to know, I did it because—”
“I don’t give a fuck why you did it,” he snapped.
They all heard the screaming. Erica knew who it was instantly, and she looked at her father, seeing he knew too. There was a woman waiting for the elevator, holding a baby in a hospital blanket. She was older, with short hair, and a heavily made-up face. The woman raised her eyebrows at Robert’s profanity, taking a step back to let them all off the elevator.
“Excuse me,” the woman murmured, flipping the edge of the blanket up, covering the baby’s face. She went around them, stepping onto the elevator, pushing a button. Erica saw Leah’s mother give the woman a long look, both of them silent, staring at each other.
“Leah!” Robert Nolan called her name, and Erica heard her screaming, though her words unintelligible. “Leah, where are you?”
“Sir, please, this is a hospital.” A nurse stepped out from behind the desk, frowning. “Can I help you?”
“Take me to Leah Wendt. You hear that?” Robert Nolan shook Patty Wendt off his elbow. She was grabbing i
t, trying to talk to him. “She’s the one screaming. Take me to her.”
“I’m her mother,” Patty Wendt explained, talking to the nurse. “We’re here to pick her up and take her home. He’s just...” She glanced up at Robert Nolan, at the dark look in his eyes. “He’s anxious to see her. Is that her screaming?”
“You don’t even recognize your own fucking daughter?” Robert took off down the hall, running toward the sound, the deep, desperate wail of a woman in pain.
The nurse called after him, but she couldn’t stop him, and Erica ran too, pulling a limping Father Michael along. She knew it was Leah, would know her voice anywhere, although the guttural screams reverberating through the hallway were more like an animal than a human.
Erica arrived seconds after her father, looking past him into the room. There were eight twin beds set up, all of them filled, women and their babies, and then there was Leah. She couldn’t see her—she could only hear her—because she was surrounded by nurses and doctors who were attempting to restrain her.
“
Leah!” Robert Nolan yelled her name and everyone looked up. He shoved his way past doctors and nurses, finding her strapped to the bed, a needle still stuck fast in her arm. He quickly undid her restraints.
“Rob?” Leah whispered, looking like she’d seen a ghost. Now that she was calmer, the doctors and nurses’ frenzied actions slowed. One of the nurses reached around Rob to grasp the needle, pulling it out of Leah’s arm. She didn’t even notice.
“They took her!” Leah croaked. Her voice was hoarse from screaming. Erica looked at her, dressed up to go home in a familiar dress, black with white polka dots, her heels laying on the floor—she’d obviously come out of them during the struggle.
“She took my baby! She stole our baby!” Leah choked.
Rob took her in his arms, soothing her. “Who?”
“The ghoul!” Leah sobbed against his chest.
“Sweetheart, you aren’t making any sense.” He glanced around the room, at the doctors and nurses who were standing there watching, at Leah’s mother and Erica and Father Michael. “Who’s the ghoul? What’s she talking about?”
“There was a woman who got on the elevator...” Erica piped up, meeting Leah’s eyes for the first time. She smiled at her friend, her chest flooding with recognition and love. “She was carrying a baby.”
“Was she wearing a black and white checked suit? Lot of makeup? Dark hair?” Leah gasped, clawing at the front of Rob’s suit, as if she could climb him, climb past him.
“Yes,” Erica replied.
“Did you see her, Mother?” Leah looked at Patty Wendt, eyes narrowed. “Did you see her?”
Patty’s mouth thinned. She crossed her arms and looked away. “It might’ve been her. I wasn’t really paying attention.”
“My baby!” Leah sobbed. “My baby, my baby!”
“Leah, you knew this was coming. You signed the papers,” Leah’s mother reminded her.
“She tricked me!” Leah looked up at Rob. “You have to believe me. She tricked me! She said they were hospital release papers, not adoption papers!”
“We could still catch her.” Erica turned and bolted down the hallway. She didn’t look to see if anyone was coming, but heard footsteps. Instead of waiting at the elevator, she went for the stairs, flinging the door open.
“Hurry!” Father Michael urged, both of them flying down the stairwell. Father Michael pulled ahead of her, in spite of his limp, using his cane to go down two steps at a time.
Father Michael opened the door at the bottom of the stairwell, even though it said “emergency exit only.” Erica figured this qualified. An alarm went off, but neither of them paid attention, they were both scanning the parking lot, looking for the woman with the baby.
“There!” Erica cried. A red Buick was parked at the curb, idling. “She’s right there!”
The woman had put the baby in the backseat and was walking around to the driver’s side. She saw them pointing at her, and Erica saw the alarm in her eyes. She quickly got into the vehicle.
Erica reached the car as it was pulling away, moving to stand in front of it, but Father Michael grabbed her around the waist, not letting her sacrifice herself. Erica beat on the side of the vehicle as the woman pulled out. She saw a brief glimpse of the baby wearing pink in a baby bed in the backseat. It was crying.
“Excuse me,” a voice said from behind them. “Can I help you?”
“No!” Erica cried, watching the vehicle pull out of the parking lot and disappear. “No, no, no!”
“I’m head of security. Is there a problem?”
Erica turned in Father Michael’s arms, struggling, but he held her fast.
“We can go after her!” Erica grabbed onto Father Michael’s cassock, looking up at him, pleading. “We can go after her! Come on!”
“We came in your father’s car,” he reminded her. “I don’t have keys.”
“You!” Erica pointed at the security guard. “Do you have a car? We have to follow that woman. She stole a baby!”
“Why don’t we go inside and talk about this.” The security guard looked between the two of them, frowning. “We can call the police and sort it out.”
“No!” Erica cried. “We’re losing time.”
But there was nothing more to be done. The security guard called the police and they said they’d come so Leah could make a report of a kidnapping. Father Michael stopped to use the bathroom, and Erica stood outside the gift shop, looking at all the pink and blue baby gifts, her heart aching, not just for Leah, but herself as well. She’d never considered pregnancy before, except for focusing on it not happening. Now that she’d seen Leah’s baby, albeit briefly, and all those babies in the nursery, her empty womb ached like it never had before. And she knew why.
She’d finally fallen completely, madly, head over heels for someone. He just happened to be someone she could never, ever have.
She smiled when Father Michael joined her window shopping. They walked slowly back to the elevator. He was leaning heavily on his cane and she noticed.
“It is bothering you?”
Father Michael used his cane to push the elevator button. “Some. That was quite a sprint we pulled.”
“We are madcap capers, aren’t we?” Erica smiled. “A regular Martin and Lewis.”
“I was thinking more Shakespearean.” He smiled as they got on the elevator. “Maybe Romeo and Juliet.”
“Star-crossed lovers.”
“Mm hmm.”
She sighed. “I wish we could have a happy ending.”
“Me too.”
“Will you kiss me? One last time? I won’t ever ask again, I promise.”
He gathered her in and she wrapped her arms around his neck, every bit of feelings they had for each other welling in their eyes, and he kissed her. She clung to him as their mouths met and their bodies took over, the heat of their embrace pushing them both to the edge of sanity. Father Michael crushed her to him so hard she thought he might break her spine, but she didn’t care. She gave back as good as she got, practically climbing him like a tree, wrapping herself around him like a persistent vine.
“Erica!” he gasped, trying to break free, but she didn’t want to let him go. And she could tell he didn’t really want to either, but the elevator doors were about to open. She kissed him again, a quick one, and let go, straightening her skirt and blouse.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized, rubbing at his lips where she had left lipstick at the corners. “You get me so carried away.”
“Don’t apologize.” He was breathless. “It’s my fault.”
She sighed as the elevator reached the third floor.
“Hey, Erica.” Father Michael leaned on his cane as they walked down the hallway. “I hear the Mayflower has great coffee.”
“Especially fresh in the morning,” she agreed, glancing sideways at him.
“Same time?” he asked as they neared the room.
She grinned. �
��Same place.”
They found Rob sitting on the little twin bed with Leah in his lap, her cheek resting against his chest, her eyes closed. The doctors and the nurses were gone. Patty Wendt sat in the chair near the bed. Erica’s father saw them and glanced up, putting his finger to his lips in a gesture of quiet.
“
The police were here already.” Robert Nolan frowned. “We filed a report. But they didn’t sound very hopeful.”