Fearful Symmetry

by C F Dunn

  My mobile rang in the depths of my bag and I apologized to the shop assistant and dived in to find it. The taut voice on the other end sounded unnaturally thin and scared. “Emma, where are you?”

  “Maggie, is that you? I’m in the baby shop in town. What’s the matter?”

  “Is Matthew with you?”

  “No, he’s…” I was interrupted by her stifled moan smothered by a booming tannoy message and a metallic clatter echoing down the phone. “Maggie, what is it? Where are you calling from?”

  “Augusta,” she rushed. “In the central hospital with Ellie. She collapsed and went into labour. She managed to call me, but…” She was interrupted by a man’s voice and I heard her answer in the affirmative. She became agitated, urgent. “I must talk to my grandfa… Matthew. It’s important. I can’t reach him on his cell.”

  “It’ll be switched off; he’s in surgery this afternoon. Is she all right?”

  “They did an emergency delivery yesterday morning. She only came round a few hours ago and was able to give them her name and my number. It took me several hours to get here. Matthew needs to know. He said he wanted to know if anything happened. He said…” her voice began to rise unnaturally and I broke through her escalating panic, doing a rough calculation.

  “Have they taken blood samples from the baby yet?”

  “Does it matter? What does it matter?”

  I raised my eyebrows in apology and, turning away from the assistant, took myself to an alcove in the shop away from inquisitive ears. I spoke more calmly than I felt. “Maggie, it is imperative that they don’t get hold of blood samples from Ellie or the baby. Matthew said they do routine screening after twenty-four hours. Do you understand what that means?”

  I heard an intake of breath, imagined her swallowing her fear. “I… don’t know if I can stop them.”

  “See if you can find out. If they haven’t, delay them any way you can.” I thought quickly. “Do what you can, Maggie. Perhaps Ellie can refuse to give permission – she knows what’s at stake. I’ll go to the Memorial myself and find Matthew.”

  It wasn’t far, but the traffic dragged precious minutes into an eternity. By the time I pulled up in front of the hospital, my mounting anxiety had drained colour from the face staring back at me from the rear-view mirror.

  “Ma’am, you can’t stop there!” a uniformed man in blue baggy trousers informed me as I dragged my cumbersome form from the car.

  “It’s an emergency,” I said, clutching my stomach and feeling that it wasn’t so far from the truth as my muscles screamed at my unaccustomed haste. I made it through the doors before he could stop me and leant against the reception counter, puffing and feeling like a bloated sunfish. “Dr Lynes… please… get a message to him. It’s urgent.”

  I received a doubtful frown. “Ma’am, Dr Lynes isn’t in obstetrics…”

  “No, but he is my husband. Please see if he’s out of surgery; it really is very important.”

  He appeared minutes later, still pulling on his jacket, his hair all over the place and worry embedded in his eyes.

  “It’s not me,” I said, before he could ask. “It’s Ellie. She’s all right, but she went into labour and she’s in hospital in Augusta. The baby’s fine and Maggie’s going to try to hold up any tests, but she doesn’t have any authority to stop them, does she?”

  “No, she doesn’t and nor do I. I’m only her uncle, but I do have some contacts there. Ellie can refuse them…”

  “She’s only just regained consciousness, Matthew. Won’t they have run the tests automatically?”

  “I would,” he admitted. “I’d better get up there and see what I can do to pull those bloods. Sweetheart, can you contact Dan and let him know?”

  “Done that.” I tugged his sweater down at the back and neatened his collar. “They won’t let you in looking like a scruff-bag.”

  Flattening his hair back into shape with his hand, he gave me a half-smile that faded almost as soon as it appeared. “I’d like to see them try to stop me. I’ll call you at home when I have any news.”

  “OK, but I’ll be back in a couple of hours; I want to get the buggy sorted out first.”

  “I’d be happier if you went home now.”

  I glanced up at the changed note in his voice. “Matthew, I want to get the buggy ordered.” And feeling an obstinate niggle and because I jolly well felt like it, said, “And then I might pop to college and see if Aydin’s finished his assignment.”

  “He can email you…”

  “Or I might see if Elena wants to go out for a pizza.”

  Matthew took in the stubborn set of my jaw and sucked his teeth. “All right,” he relented. “Do whatever you must, but when you get home, make sure you lock down all the shutters and doors.”

  I stuffed my hands in my pockets feeling this was all getting out of proportion. “Come off it. No one’s likely to come after me. Anyway, it’ll take ages for the blood analysis to come back – if they pick up anything unusual in it at all, that is. After all, they won’t be looking for freaks, as Joel so subtly put it once, will they?”

  “They won’t fail to see the anomalies. They won’t know what they are at first, but when they do they will want further tests done. We don’t give them anything – anything, Emma – that makes us out of the ordinary. Please, do whatever it is you feel you have to, but then get home, lock yourself in, and keep safe.” All his customary humour had evaporated, leaving tension thrumming his vocal cords. He didn’t press his point; he didn’t need to. He simply said, “I must go,” planted a kiss on my forehead, and left, leaving me feeling adrift and ever so slightly thwarted.

  The security guard was surprised to see me getting back into my car and squeezing behind the wheel. “False alarm,” I mumbled, and then to ameliorate my previous abrupt behaviour, “Thanks for letting me park here.”

  Back in the baby shop and with a distinct lack of enthusiasm, I inspected and bought the buggy – a robust, rather glamorous three-wheeled stroller far removed from the cumbersome thing I remembered from my own childhood – and then considered going to college. I felt cross inside, manoeuvred, resistant to what amounted to an order to return home. It rankled – a feeling I hadn’t had since Dad last gave me a command, and I hadn’t expected to experience it with my own husband. Obedience had never been one of my virtues; I would have made a lousy wife in the seventeenth century. Accepting the receipt and pocketing my bank card, I tutted to myself, and the assistant’s mouth turned down. I left rapidly, having profusely apologized, and, glowing with embarrassment, found my way back to the car.

  My temper hadn’t improved by the time I approached the range of buildings making up my home. The only light evident in the gloaming came from the Barn. As I passed along the drive, it was abruptly cut off as Pat closed the last shutters against the night. She must have been given the same message. I mooched into the kitchen through the back door and chucked my coat over a chair. Despite the temptation to throw all the doors and windows open to the world and yell, “Come and get me!” I shut each one systematically, locking the bars into place. Like a prison.

  I had never felt that way before.

  I had spent so many months wanting to be here with Matthew that even if acutely aware of the dangers the family faced, I never stopped to imagine what it might be like in reality. What were the chances that anything would come of Ellie’s reckless disregard for her own safety? This was so far-fetched, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it? Fear fluttered and settled leaden in my gut against which Rex kicked, making my stomach heave.

  Pat placed the mug of tea next to the plate of plain toast and I smiled in gratitude. “Thanks. I never know which is worse: to occasionally throw up or constantly want to pee.”

  She sat opposite me at the table with a watchful, motherly expression I supposed I would one day learn to adopt. “It gets worse towards the end, believe me. Every fifteen minutes with Dan – but he was a big baby and kept kicking my bladder. You think it’ll go
on forever and then one day your life changes. It doesn’t feel real until you hold your baby, and then you don’t want to do anything else.”

  “That’s just about what Matthew says.” I nursed my mug, rotating it between my hands and watching the concentric ripples shudder, disturbing the tranquil surface.

  “What’s the matter, sweetie? You seem a bit out of sorts. Ellie and the baby will be fine, you wait and see. Dan and Jeannie are bringing them home just as soon as they can, and Matthew will stay only as long as he has to; he’ll want to get back to you the moment he’s sorted this little problem out.”

  “So you think this battening down the hatches is an overreaction?”

  She eyed me with a keen look. “No, I didn’t say that. Has something rattled your cage?”

  I gave a brusque laugh. “Cage just about sums it up. Don’t you ever feel trapped by what might happen – this having to be ever-watchful and on your guard?”

  “I’m used to it, I guess. Do you?”

  “I didn’t, or at least not in a way that made me feel crowded in, but Matthew sort of… ordered me home.” I broke off because that last bit made me sound critical of him and disloyal, and I intended neither. “I think it made me feel hedged in, and I’m used to doing what I want, when I want.”

  She clapped her hands and laughed. “Ah, well, that comes with the territory. Once you’re married you have to give a little and take a little until you know each other well enough not to need say anything. Sometimes you have to bend like prairie grass. The wind’ll blow but your roots’ll hold you firm and you’ll be the stronger for it. I expect Matthew wanted you home safe.”

  “I expect he did,” I said drily.

  “And Ellie should have known better. I don’t know what’s gotten into her lately.”

  “Perhaps she’s testing her boundaries,” I mused, recalling her throwaway remark about being an invincible Lynes and Matthew’s own reflections on his reckless youth. “Anyway,” I said, draining my mug, “pregnancy certainly makes you restless. It’s played havoc with my thought processes. Maybe Ellie’s finding the same.” Collecting Pat’s mug, I went to the sink and ran the tap. She joined me with a clean tea towel.

  “If she goes about shaking trees when she doesn’t need to, she might stir up a nest of red wasps and Heaven knows what might come of it. We don’t want any sort of trouble, do we? We’ve all had enough of that recently.”

  I sobered at the memory. “No, we certainly don’t. This all seems so ordinary that sometimes I forget how different Matthew and his family are. And then I remember what’s at stake.” I gave an involuntary shudder and Pat took the mug from me as it chinked against the tap.

  “That’s why we take precautions, sweetie. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best,” she quoted with a smile. “Lock your doors and windows and say your prayers.”

  “That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way,” I murmured half to myself, then rallied and regained my humour. “Let’s just hope that Matthew’s intercepted those tests.”

  “And drummed some sense into that granddaughter of mine.”

  “Once he’s stopped being the proud great-great grandfather,” I pointed out, to which she laughed.

  As it was, Matthew didn’t return until the early hours. He phoned some time before, principally, I guessed, to check I was safe, but was cagey on the phone when I asked if he had been successful. “Can you be overheard?” I asked, and he had said, “I’ll tell you about it when I get home,” and ended the call.

  I lay drowsing until I heard the distant sound of his car and the discreet click of the front door as it shut, and then his quiet movements around the house as he systematically checked the doors and shutters of each room. Finally, he slid into our bedroom, went through the same routine, and only then noticed me watching him in the dim light from under the door.

  “I’m sorry, did I wake you?”

  “I couldn’t sleep.” I wriggled upright against my pillows and switched on the bedside lamp. “Well?”

  He dragged his sweater over his head. “There shouldn’t be a problem. If the CDS… sorry, Child Development Services – contact her about retesting, Ellie will state her religious objections to more samples being taken. That’s her only plausible opt-out.”

  “Retesting? So they had taken samples?”

  “They had. Unfortunately there was a mix-up in the system and the baby seems to have developed the blood profile of an octogenarian smoker with severe gout.” He smiled and a little of the tension left him. “At least it will keep the lab busy long enough for Ellie and Charlie to leave in the morning.”

  “Charles? Is that his name?” I lay back against the pillows. Charlie – Guy’s son. Guy’s son.

  Matthew stood at the end of the bed, his shirt unbuttoned. “He’s a sturdy little chap; he looks just like Dan did at that age.”

  “Not like Guy?”

  Removing his shirt, he turned away. “No, not like Guy.”

  I woke to the distant whine of a drill and, on venturing downstairs in my PJs and dressing gown, found Matthew on his knees by the front door, shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow, revealing his muscled forearms.

  “What on earth are you doing?”

  He removed the screwdriver from between clenched teeth. “A bit of DIY.” He lifted a planed panel of wood he had leant against the front door and held it against the sidelight, and proceeded to drive screws into one of the heavyweight hinges.

  “More shutters, Matthew?”

  He tested the panel, adjusted the hinge, and looked up. “These will help insulate the house. You shouldn’t have to suffer a Maine winter just because I don’t feel the cold.” And he swung the shutter into place, plunging the hall into gloom.

  Who was he kidding? I pulled my dressing gown around me, feeling a chill that came not from the thin frame of the door, but from within me. “I thought you said the blood tests shouldn’t be a problem?”

  He put the screwdriver on the floor next to him before answering. “It’s time I reassessed our security. These sidelights and the fanlight above the door have always bothered me – there’s little security in them. These should do the trick.” He swung an iron bar I hadn’t noticed until now, its newly sawn ends catching the light. It clunked into place, securing the entire width of the door and its flanking sidelights. “I’ll paint it and do something with the ends so it won’t look so utilitarian. There,” he said, standing back. “What do you think?”

  I didn’t answer him; I couldn’t, and by the time he looked around all he could have seen was my retreating back as I climbed the stairs to our room.

  CHAPTER

  9

  Meadow Rose

  I grew used to the subtle changes in my surroundings, of course I did, just as I adjusted to the sudden shift in the family locus when Ellie returned, bringing with her the scrap of life Guy had bequeathed in the form of his son.

  “Emma, they’ve been back almost a week.”

  “I know, I know. I didn’t want to overwhelm her with visitors.” How feeble an excuse was that? Matthew believed it no more than I did.

  “Ellie needs your support. She doesn’t have a husband to…”

  “I know!” I snapped, regretting the sudden hurt in his eyes. “Don’t you think I don’t know that?” I said, more evenly. “Do you think I don’t know the reason there is no one her child can call ‘Dad’? I’m aware of it every minute of every day.” I felt him near me, his arms go around me, his closeness reminding me just how alone Ellie must feel.

  “Go and see her – not just for her sake, but for yours. Don’t let Guy drive a wedge between you and this child. Charlie deserves to be loved and accepted in his own right.”

  I hovered, feet away from the minimalist crib resembling a huge scooped-out egg in which the baby lay, asleep.

  “Go ahead, pick him up.”

  “I don’t want to disturb him.”

  Ellie sprang to her feet, lithe as a hind, all hint of a
traumatic birth healed and forgotten. “He’ll sleep right on through.” She picked him up. “Isn’t he adorable? He’s so good and he hardly cries at all.” The baby’s face screwed into multiple folds as he neared waking. “Here,” Ellie thrust him into my arms. Holding him gingerly, I looked at him. How could she translate this little thing into love? What could she see that I didn’t?

  “He’s… nice,” I ventured, wondering if that was the right thing to say.

  “Isn’t he?” she beamed. “And he just loves the bear you gave him. What is it called again?”

  “Paddington.”

  “Oh, sure. Paddington. He’ll love the cute case and boots when he’s older. And he’ll want to wear that hat.” She laughed and he stirred. I gave him back to her before he woke, and she crooned a few bars of a tune. I waited. I waited for her to turn mournful eyes on me and remind me of what I had done to her – to her son – to Guy. But she didn’t; instead, she settled back in the chair her parents had bought for her to nurse him in. I shuffled.

  “Come and sit down; I bet your back’s hurting, isn’t it?” she observed. “That’ll be the oestrogen and relaxin flooding your joints. It helps make them more flexible, but it can be a pain.” She laughed at her own joke, adoring her son.

  “Yes, Matthew said it might happen.” I remained standing. Behind me, the back door opened, letting in cool night air and Jeannie, carrying a bag of nappies. I greeted her frown with a cautious smile. “I’d better be going,” I said, moving out of the way.

  “Sure, OK. Come and see Charlie again soon, won’t you? He’s growing so fast he’s already on the next size of diapers.”

  I left her exchanging baby news with her mother, and slid open the secret door between the Stables and my own home, re-entering a world I knew and understood. Leaning against the kitchen table, I released the tension I had been holding for the past half-hour.