I squeeze Edith’s hand, thinking of how she loved her roommate so much she’d taken on her own shame of giving birth. I’m still holding her hand when we arrive back at Crantham.
When the back door of the van opens, Dr. Hancock is already out, waiting for us. I can feel Edith tense. Connor grabs her by the arm and hauls her off the van. “Hey!” I cry, but the orderly who rode with us restrains me.
“Search them for anything dangerous they might have picked up,” Dr. Hancock barks.
The orderly runs his hands over my body as impartially as if I were a piece of meat he was tenderizing. “This one’s clean,” he calls.
Connor is treating Edith to a rougher pat-down. When he touches her leg she screams and bolts, running so blindly she careens into me and nearly knocks me off my feet. Connor tackles her and brings her to the floor. The other orderly grabs me and drags me into the building, into the elevator. I don’t fight or struggle; I don’t want to end up in the Green Room again.
He takes me to my room and pushes me inside. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll behave,” he says as he closes the door. I hear the lock click into place.
When I’m sure he is gone I unclench my fist to examine what Edith pressed into my hand: three keys wrapped in red yarn.
I HIDE THE keys under my mattress. When they bring me my dinner and meds on a tray I placidly tip the Dixie cup full of pills into my mouth. As soon as the nurse leaves I spit the pills out into my hand and tuck them with the others I’ve been stockpiling. So that I could kill myself if it grew too painful to live without Chloe. Being separated from her is like having a part of my body gouged out. But now I realize that turning off the pain is not an option. Not when Chloe needs me.
I rinse my mouth out with water, and spit. Then I sit at the edge of the bed watching the sky grow dark and waiting for lights to come on in the house on the hill. I keep thinking about what Edith said about Peter reminding her of Solomon. I can’t think of anything Peter has in common with Solomon, but then apparently I don’t know Peter very well. I think back to things he told me about his childhood: his parents were strict but they had taught him self-reliance; when I wanted to keep Chloe in bed with us he said his mother always said that would spoil a child. But what mother had he been talking about? He’d been in an orphanage for two years. All the parenting books I read said that babies learned how to love by their attachment to their mothers. What happened to a baby who didn’t have that?
They treated me differently, like there must have been something wrong with me for my mother to abandon me.
Or, it occurs to me now, maybe they treated him like a monster because they thought that’s what someone becomes when they’ve lived in an orphanage for as long as Peter did.
I feel chilled by the thought, and guilty for having it. If Peter had told me about being in an orphanage for two years might I have hesitated to marry him? What if I’d known his father was in a mental hospital and had killed himself? Might I have feared he was a monster?
But no, he loved Chloe. I could see that from the moment she was born. He doted on her. Every burp, every smile was a sign of her intelligence and similarity to him. He loved it when people told him she looked like him. It must have been like looking into a mirror—
Something about that idea bothers me. I get up and move to the window. There are lights on at the house now. Perhaps Sky and Peter are sitting in the ornate parlor watching Chloe crawl on the rug, play with her toys. It gives me a pang to think of them in the warm circle of lamplight while I sit here in the dark. How often had Peter felt that, I wonder, growing up in foster homes? He must have always felt like he was on the outside looking in. No wonder he had reacted so badly when he thought I was going to take Chloe away from him. I remember how he had looked at her—
Not so much as if he loved her, but as if he wanted to consume her.
Some kinds of love are as dangerous as hate.
What would Peter do if he thought he was going to lose Chloe? It would be like losing himself. Like looking into the mirror and seeing nothing.
I think of the pain I feel being separated from Chloe, the stash of pills hidden under the mattress. I think of that woman who jumped from a window with her baby strapped to her chest because she thought he would be better off dead than living damaged without her. I think of the moment when I thought that it might be better to take Chloe with me if I killed myself. I rub my arms and blink away a tear. My vision blurs, turning the lights in Sky’s house blurry. They swell and flicker. I rub my eyes, but the light has only grown, reaching up to the sky like—
Flames! The house is on fire. With Chloe inside.
I grab the keys from under the mattress, find the one to unlock the door, and run down the hall to the stairs. Once again I hear Edith’s voice telling me that Peter reminded her of Solomon. But it wasn’t Solomon she really meant; it was the false mother, the one who would rather see the baby split in two than let anyone else have it.
Edith’s Journal, December 10, 1971 (cont.)
It was snowing when I got outside. I’d wrapped the baby in the blanket and tucked him inside my coat, but still I worried that something so small wouldn’t survive outside in the cold very long. I could feel him like a second heart beating against my chest.
There was no one around but I headed toward the service buildings like Libby had told me to. The old laundry was there and the powerhouse, but neither was used anymore. It was the least pretty part of campus, so no one much came here. I walked toward the big smokestack of the powerhouse. If I turned right there, I would come to the lake. I stopped on the path and looked up at the smokestack as if it could give me a sign. Miss Mayhew told us in her lecture on St. Peter’s that when a new pope is chosen people wait in the plaza to watch the smoke come out of the Sistine Chapel’s chimney. Black smoke meant they were still undecided; white meant they had chosen a new pope.
But the powerhouse wasn’t used anymore, so I didn’t know how to choose. If I went right I would take the baby to the lake. I could lay him in the reeds at the edge of the water like Moses, only I didn’t have an “ark of bulrushes daubed with asphalt and pitch” and it wasn’t warm here like it had been in Egypt. And there was no pharaoh’s daughter washing clothes downriver to find a baby and bring it up as her own.
That’s what I needed: a pharaoh’s daughter. Then I could leave the baby and know he would be all right and Libby and I could go to Europe together. Later, when Libby was herself again, I would tell her what I had done and she would be glad that I hadn’t left the baby to die. But where could I find a pharaoh’s daughter?
I looked left, away from the lake. I saw a building on a hill with a light on: Baldwin, the infirmary. There would be a nurse on call there. A nurse would know what to do. I could put the baby on the doorstep and knock on the door, then run and hide. I’d watch until someone came and then I’d run back to Main.
I took one look back at the powerhouse—and saw that there was white smoke coming out of the smokestack! It was a sign that I was making the right decision. I couldn’t risk going on the path, though, because it was getting light and someone might see me. So I climbed up the gully behind Baldwin. The snow made it slippery, and the baby put me off balance. Just before I reached the back door I fell. I kept my right hand on the baby and put my left out to brace my fall—and landed so hard I felt something crack. I felt nauseous and had to sit for a few minutes to catch my breath. It was light and the snow was coming down harder. It was pretty, like being inside a snow globe, and part of me just wanted to stay there. I unbuttoned my coat to make sure the baby was all right. He looked right up at me and then he looked up at the sky, at the big heavy flakes falling down, and I thought it was such a perfect moment, why not just stay in it forever?
But then he began to cry, so I got up and kept going up the hill. There was a light on at the back door and a car parked in the lot. That would be the visiting doctor, I thought, and I was glad because he’d be able to make sure
the baby was all right. I walked across the lot and unbuttoned my coat. The baby stared up at me as if asking me what I was doing.
“It’s all right,” I told him. “Someone will be here soon.”
And then the door opened. I looked up, expecting the doctor, but it was a woman. It was Nurse Landry. Thank God, I thought. She was just the right person to help me.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I am out of the building before I can even think whether I should be trying to alert someone that there’s a fire. But if I call for attention they’ll hold me and I can’t bear that. Chloe is in a burning house. Already she could be breathing smoke, already she could be—
I can’t even think of her engulfed in flames. But of course, now I have thought of it and the thought renders my body as weak as water. I stumble but somehow keep upright, racing past the buildings that Edith had called the infirmary and the one she’d called the powerhouse, all parts of her make-believe college where forty-five years ago she carried her roommate’s baby to the infirmary. How she must relive that trip every day of her life! Will I remember this trip the same way? With remorse that I hadn’t been able to save my baby?
No! I won’t let that happen!
I look up and see an orange glow above the tips of the pines and smell smoke. I scramble down the gully, careless of the branches that whip against my face, and dive into the gap beneath the fence.
He hasn’t left Chloe in the house, I tell myself, he loves Chloe—
He only loves her because she’s his.
It’s such a strange thought that I flinch—and something catches at my hair, as if the thought itself has reached out and grabbed me. What does that even mean? I plead. Of course we love our children because they are ours—
Is that why you love Chloe? Because she belongs to you? Would you stop loving her if she didn’t belong to you?
No, I think. Even if I had to hand her over to Peter, I’d keep on loving her.
That’s not how Peter loves her. If she can’t be his, he won’t love her anymore. He’d rather see her dead than with you. So hurry—
I surge forward, but my hair is tangled in a vine. I struggle, ripping handfuls of my hair out from my scalp, and then I feel someone’s hands on my arms, pulling me through. For a second I think it must be Edith, but then I see it’s a man. I struggle out of his grip, afraid it’s one of the orderlies come to stop me, but then I hear his voice.
“It’s Ben. I was heading to the house and saw you.”
I’m relieved it’s him, but I’d rather that he was at the house saving Chloe.
“You should have kept going to the house. It’s on fire—and my baby’s there!”
I see something pass over his face and then he turns and runs up the path. I take off after him, keeping pace behind him until we reach the ridge and he stops. I try to keep going but he throws out his arm to block me. A wave of heat hits me at the same time so that for a moment I think he’s somehow thrown up this wall of heat to stop me.
I push past him and run into a wall of fire. The house is ablaze. Flames leap out of broken windows. The terrace we sat on this morning is scorched. I spy the playpen Chloe stood in earlier today and cry out.
An answering cry comes from the edge of the terrace and a woman comes flying at me, hair singed, face blackened by soot, the whites of her eyes glowing red in the glare of the fire. She’s a Fury come to wreak her vengeance on me for leaving my child behind. She’s every mother who ever lost a child through neglect or madness. She’s me if I don’t save Chloe.
“Do you have her?” The Fury transforms into Billie. “Do you have Chloe?”
How could I have her? I open my arms wide to show her I don’t.
“What happened?” Ben asks, grabbing Billie by the arms and shaking her. “Where are Ms. Bennett and Marist?”
I want to scream that they don’t matter, but he’s right. Chloe hasn’t gone anywhere on her own. Either Peter or Sky has her.
“They fought,” Billie gasps out, turning to me. “After you left. Sky asked him some questions and he grew . . . resentful.”
I can well imagine.
“And Sky grew willful. She doesn’t like to be crossed.”
I can imagine the two of them, mother and son, pitting their wills against each other, stoking the flames—
We don’t have time for this. “Did she say something to make him think he’d lose Chloe?”
Billie nods, tears streaming down her face, carving white streaks in the soot. “She told him that if it was true he killed Laurel, she’d make sure he never saw Chloe again. She said she would take custody of her. That shut him up. She thought she’d carried the day.”
I knew that quiet well. “He was just biding his time.”
“We went to bed—I’ve been staying over to take care of Chloe—but I woke up to find that she was gone. Then I smelled smoke. I called the fire department and ran up to Sky’s room, but she was gone and when I checked Peter’s room so was he.”
“Is his car gone?” Ben asks.
Billie begins to say something but it’s drowned out by the sound of approaching sirens. “The gates!” she cries. “I have to unlock them for the fire trucks.”
Both Billie and Ben run toward the front of the house. I’m about to follow them when something makes me look up. There’s a light on in the top floor of the tower. At first I think it’s the fire, but the fire hasn’t spread to the tower yet. I squint and look more closely. Yes, the light in the tower is on and someone is standing in the window. A man, holding something in his arms.
I let out a cry and run toward the tower door, which blessedly isn’t locked. I bolt up the first flight of stairs. On the second floor I smell smoke. The door to the library is ajar, a chair toppled over, books strewn everywhere. Sky’s cane on the floor. She must have risen from her sleep, smelled the smoke, gone to find Chloe, and seen Peter take her.
I can hear voices coming from the top floor. Sky followed Peter here and somehow hauled herself up the stairs. I grab the cane and close the door that connects the tower to the house, hoping to keep the fire at bay for a few extra minutes. I begin up the stairs slowly and quietly but then I hear Chloe cry and sprint the rest of the way up, heedless of hiding my arrival.
Sky is standing in the middle of the room in flannel pajamas, hair sticking up in crazy peaks, eyes wide and frightened. She’s staring at something behind me. I turn.
Peter is perched on the windowsill, legs stretched out and crossed indolently as if he were having a convivial chat with a colleague. He’s pushed the window out and broken the rod that keeps it from opening too far. There’s nothing but empty space behind him, and a three-story drop to the flagstone terrace beneath him. He holds Chloe balanced on his knee with one hand. Her face is red and puckered as if she’s been crying, but otherwise she looks all right.
I take a step toward them and Peter pulls Chloe closer to him—and to the open window. “What’s the matter, Daph? Isn’t this one of your fantasies? Dropping Chloe from a window?”
I swallow the bile rising in my throat. “It’s one of my nightmares, yes,” I say, “but even in my worst nightmares I never believed you could hurt her. You love her.”
“Of course I love her,” he says, his voice catching as he looks down at Chloe. “I did all this for her.” He waves his hand in the air and I flinch to see him take it off Chloe. He’s holding something, a piece of paper floating in the breeze from the open window.
I look down and see that the floorboard I’d hidden my ID under has been pushed aside. My driver’s license and the picture of Thomas Pitt, age three, are lying on the floor. It’s Laurel’s will that Peter’s brandishing in his free hand.
“Do you know how rich we would have been? Stan promised to invest all of Laurel’s millions in the fund. He showed me the will. He gave me this copy of the will to prove that he’d have control of Chloë’s money if she died. How was I to know Laurel had changed the damned thing?” He crumples the paper up and
tosses it out the window. “The only way to hang on to the money was for everyone to think that Laurel was still alive. Chloe—my Chloe—would have been an heiress. Now what will she be? The daughter of a convicted criminal and a crazy mother? Imagine the life she’ll have. What the other kids will say. Bastard. Reject. Trash. Children can be so cruel.”
He aims the words over my head—at Sky—but I don’t turn to see her response. I can’t take my eyes off him and Chloe. I have to hold them on the edge of the windowsill with the power of my gaze.
“I never meant to take her from you,” I say.
He snorts. “As if I’d ever have let you. But the police will take me away. Once everyone knows you’re Daphne Marist and the woman who died is Laurel.”
I can hear the sirens getting closer. Billie must have gotten the gates unlocked. They’ll start putting out the fire in the main part of the house. Will they realize that we’re here in the tower? Is anyone coming to help? If they saw Peter at the window they could set up a net to break his fall, but will they do it soon enough? I have to talk him away from that ledge.
“It could have been a suicide,” I say.
Peter’s smile chills me. “That bitch was too selfish to kill herself. And too stupid not to take a drink from a man she was lecturing on spousal abuse. You should have heard the things she called me. Thought she could run off her mouth in my house and I’d just stand there and take it.”
“So you drugged her,” I say.
Behind me I hear Sky say, “I’ll get you the best lawyers. You’ll plead insanity—”
“So I can wind up like my father?” Peter scoffs.
“You’re nothing like your father,” she says. I think she means to reassure him that he’s not crazy like his father was, but it comes out bitterly.
“Then like you?” He points in Sky’s direction, but I’m afraid to turn around and see what he’s pointing at.
The Other Mother Page 25