She was discharged from the hospital when the baby was five days old. For the next three weeks she went back there every four hours during the day to nurse him. Sometimes Erich drove her. Other times he gave her the car. “Anything for the baby, darling.”
The girls got used to her leaving them. At first they fussed, then became resigned. “It’s all right,” Beth told Tina. “Daddy will mind us and we have fun with him.”
Erich heard. “Who do you like best, Mommy or me?” He tossed them in the air.
“You, Daddy,” Tina giggled. Jenny realized she’d learned the answers Erich wanted to hear.
Beth hesitated, glanced at Jenny. “I like you both the same.”
Finally, the day after Thanksgiving, she was allowed to bring the baby home. Tenderly, she dressed the small body, glad to hand back the coarse hospital shirt and replace it with a new one, washed once to soften the cotton fibers. A long flowered nightgown, the blue woolen sacque and bonnet, a receiving blanket, the brushed wool bunting lined in satin.
It was bitterly cold out. November had brought snow, ice-tipped, constant. Wind whispered through the trees, stirring the naked branches into restless movement. Smoke wisped constantly from the chimneys in the house, from the office, blew over the ridge from Clyde and Rooney’s home near the cemetery.
The girls were ecstatic over their little brother, each pleading to hold him. Sitting beside them on the couch, Jenny let them have a turn. “Gently, gently. He’s so tiny.”
Mark and Emily dropped by to see him. “He’s beautiful,” Emily declared. “Erich is showing his picture to everyone.”
“Thank you for your flowers,” Jenny murmured, “and your father and mother sent a beautiful arrangement. I phoned to thank your mother but apparently she wasn’t home.”
The “apparently” was a deliberate choice of words. She was certain that Mrs. Hanover was home when she called.
“They’re so happy for you . . . and for Erich, of course,” Emily said hastily. “I’m just hoping I’m giving someone over here ideas.” She laughed in Mark’s direction.
He smiled back at her.
You don’t make remarks like that until you’re pretty sure of yourself, Jenny thought.
She tried to make conversation. “Well, Dr. Garrett, how do you judge my son? Would he win a prize at the county fair?”
“A thoroughbred, for sure,” Mark replied. What was there in his voice? A worried tone? Pity? Did he see something as fragile in the baby as she did?
She was sure of it.
Rooney was a born nurse. She loved to give the baby the supplemental bottle after Jenny breast-fed him. Or she would read to the girls when the baby was sleeping.
Jenny was grateful for the help. The baby worried her. He slept too much; he was so pale. His eyes began to focus. They would be wide with the hint of almond shaping that Erich’s had. They were china blue now. “But I swear I see some green lights in them. I bet they’re like your mother’s eyes, Erich. You’d like that?”
“I’d like that.”
He moved the four-poster to the south wall of the master bedroom. She left the partition open between that room and the small one. The bassinette was kept there. She could hear every sound the baby made.
Erich still hadn’t moved back into their room. “You need your rest a little longer, Jenny.”
“You can come in with me. I’d like that.”
“Not yet.”
Then she realized she was relieved. The baby consumed her every thought. At the end of the first month he had lost six ounces. The pediatrician looked grave. “We’ll increase the formula in the supplemental bottle. I’m afraid your milk isn’t rich enough for him. Are you eating properly? Is anything upsetting you? Remember a relaxed mother has a happier baby.”
She forced herself to eat, to nibble, to drink milk shakes. The baby would start to nurse eagerly then tire and fall asleep. She told the doctor that.
“We’d better do some tests.”
The baby was in the hospital three days. She slept in a room near the nursery. “Don’t worry about my girls, Jenny. I’ll take care of them.”
“I know you will, Erich.”
She lived for the moments she could hold the baby.
One of the valves in the baby’s heart was defective. “He’ll need an operation later on, but we can’t risk it yet.”
She thought of Maude Ekers’ curse: “God damn the baby you’re carrying.” Her arms tightened around the sleeping infant.
“Is the operation dangerous?”
“Any operation has potential risk. But most babies come through nicely.”
Again she brought the baby home. The tiny birth fuzz started to fall out. Fine golden shades of down began to replace it. “He’ll have your hair, Erich.”
“I think he’ll stay red like the girls.”
December came. Beth and Tina made up long lists for Santa Claus. Erich set up a huge tree in the corner near the stove. The girls helped him. Jenny held the baby as she watched. She hated to put him down. “He sleeps better this way,” she told Erich. “He always feels so cold. His circulation is poor.”
“Sometimes I don’t think you care about anyone except him,” Erich observed. “I have to tell you, Tina and Beth and I are feeling pretty left out, aren’t we?”
He took the girls to see Santa Claus in a nearby shopping mall. “What a list,” he commented indulgently. “I had to write everything down that they were ordering. The big things they seem to want are bassinettes and baby dolls.”
Luke had come back to Minnesota for the holidays. He, Mark and Emily stopped in on Christmas afternoon. Emily looked subdued. She showed an exquisite leather pocketbook. “Mark’s present. Isn’t it lovely?”
Jenny wondered if she had been expecting an engagement ring.
Luke asked to hold the baby. “He’s a little beauty.”
“And he’s put on eight ounces,” Jenny announced joyfully. “Didn’t you, Pumpkin?”
“Do you always call him Pumpkin?” Emily asked.
“I suppose it sounds silly. It’s just that Erich sounds like too much name for such a tiny little scrap. He’ll have to grow into it.”
She looked up smiling. Erich looked impassive. Mark, Luke and Emily were exchanging startled glances. Of course. They’d probably seen the birth notice in the paper the day after the baby was born, the notice that listed his name as Kevin. But hadn’t Erich explained?
Emily rushed to fill the awkward silence. Bending over the baby again, she said, “I think he’ll have the same coloring as the girls.”
“Oh, I’m sure he’s going to be blond like Erich.” Jenny smiled again. “Just give him six months. We’ll have a Krueger towhead.” She took him from Luke. “You’ll look just like your daddy, won’t you, Pumpkin?”
“That’s what I’ve been saying right along,” Erich commented.
Jenny felt the smile freeze on her face. Did he mean what she thought he meant? She looked searchingly from one face to the other. Emily looked acutely embarrassed. Luke stared straight ahead. Mark was stony-faced. She felt the anger in him. Erich was smiling warmly at the baby.
She knew with absolute certainty that Erich had not changed the name on the birth certificate.
The baby began to whimper. “My poor little darling,” he said. She stood up. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to . . .” She paused, then finished quietly, “I have to take care of Kevin.”
Long after the baby fell asleep she sat by the bassinette. She heard Erich bring the girls upstairs, his voice soft. “Don’t wake up the baby. I’ll kiss Mommy good night for you. Didn’t we have a wonderful Christmas?”
Jenny thought: I can’t live like this.
At last she went downstairs. Erich had closed the gift boxes and stacked them neatly around the tree. He was wearing the new velvet jacket she’d ordered from Dayton’s for him. The deep blue suited him. All strong colors suit him, she thought objectively.
“Jen, I’m really happy with my present. I hope
you’re as pleased with yours.” He’d bought her a white mink jacket.
Without waiting for a reply, he continued to straighten the girls, then said, “The girls really went for those bassinettes, didn’t they? You’d never guess they got anything else. And the baby. Well, he’s a little too young to appreciate them but before long he’ll have fun with those stuffed animals.”
“Erich, where is the baby’s birth certificate?”
“It’s on file in the office, dear. Why?”
“What name is on it?”
“The baby’s name. Kevin.”
“You told me you’d changed that.”
“I realized it would have been a terrible mistake to change it.”
“Why?”
“Jenny, hasn’t there been enough talk about us? What do you think the people around here would say if we corrected the baby’s name? My God, that would give them fuel for the next ten years. Don’t forget we weren’t married quite nine months when he was born.”
“But Kevin. You called him Kevin.”
“I explained the reason for that. Jenny, already the talk is dying down. When people talk about the accident, they don’t mention Kevin’s name. They talk about Jenny Krueger’s first husband, the guy who followed her to Minnesota and somehow went over the riverbank. But I can tell you this. If we changed the baby’s name now, they’d be trying to figure out why for the next fifty years. And by God, then they’d remember Kevin MacPartland.”
“Erich,” she asked fearfully, “is there a better reason you didn’t change the birth certificate? Is the baby sicker than I realize? Is it because you’re saving your name for a child who will live? Tell me, Erich, please. Are you and the doctor hiding anything from me?”
“No, no, no.” He came over to her, his eyes tender. “Jenny, don’t you see? Everything will be fine. I want you to stop worrying. The baby is getting stronger.”
There was another question she had to ask him. “Erich, there was something you said in the delivery room, that the baby had dark red hair like the girls. Kevin had dark red hair. Erich, tell me, promise me, that you’re not suggesting that Kevin was the baby’s father. You can’t believe that?”
“Jenny, why would I believe that?”
“Because of what you said about his hair.” She felt her voice quivering. “The baby’s going to be the image of you. Wait and see. All his new hair is blond. But when the others were here . . . The way you picked me up when I said he’ll look just like his daddy. The way you said, “That’s what I’ve been saying right along.’ Erich, surely you can’t think Kevin is the baby’s father?”
She stared at him. The blue velvet gave an almost burnished look to his blond hair. She’d never really appreciated how dark his lashes and brows were. She was reminded of the paintings in the palace in Venice where generations of lean-faced, smoldering-eyed doges looked disdainfully down on the tourists. There was something of that contempt in Erich’s eyes now.
His facial muscles tightened. “Jenny, is there any end to the ways you misunderstand me? I’ve been good to you. I brought you and the children out of that miserable apartment to this beautiful home. I gave you jewelry and clothes and furs. You could have had anything you wanted and still you allowed Kevin MacPartland to contact you and cause a scandal. I’m sure there isn’t a house in this community that doesn’t discuss us over the dinner table every night. I forgive you but you have no right to be angry with me, to question every word out of my mouth. Now let’s go upstairs. I think it’s time I moved back in with you.”
His hands tightened on her arms. His entire body was so rigid. There was something frightening about him. Confused, she looked away.
“Erich,” she said carefully, “we’re both very tired. We’ve been under a strain for a long time. I think what you should do is start painting again. Do you realize how few times you’ve gone to the cabin since the baby was born? Go to your own room tonight and get an early start in the morning. But bundle up; it’s probably very cold there now.”
“How do you know it’s cold? When did you go there?” His voice was quick and suspicious.
“Erich, you know I’ve never been there.”
“Then how did you know . . .?”
“Sshh, listen.” From upstairs they heard a wailing.
“It’s the baby.” Jenny turned and ran up the stairs, Erich behind her. The baby’s arms and legs were flailing. His face was damp. As they watched he began to suck his clenched fist.
“Oh, Erich, look, he’s crying real tears.” Tenderly she bent over and picked him up. “There, there, Pumpkin. I know you’re hungry, my precious lamb. Erich, he is getting stronger.”
From behind her, she heard the door close. Erich had left the room.
30
She dreamed of a pigeon. Somehow it seemed terribly ominous. It was flying through the house and she had to catch it. It mustn’t be allowed in the house. It sailed into the girls’ room and she followed it. It flew frantically round and round the room. It escaped her hands and fluttered past her into the baby’s room. It settled on the bassinette. She began to cry, no, no, no.
She woke up with tears drenching her face and rushed in to the baby. He was sleeping contentedly.
Erich had left a note on the kitchen table. “Taking your advice. Will be at cabin painting for a few days.”
At breakfast, Tina paused over her cereal and said, “Mommy, why didn’t you talk to me when you came into my room last night?”
That afternoon Rooney stopped in to visit and it was she who first realized that the baby had a fever.
She and Clyde had had Christmas dinner with Maude and Joe. “Joe’s doing fine,” Rooney informed Jenny. “Going down to Florida right from the hospital did wonders for him and for Maude too. Both of them that tanned and healthy. Joe gets rid of the brace next month.”
“I’m so glad.”
“Course Maude says she’s happy to be home now. She told me Erich was real generous to them. But I guess you know that. He paid every cent of the medical bills and gave them a check for five thousand dollars beside. He wrote Maude that he felt responsible.”
Jenny was stitching the last of her quilt together. She looked up. “Responsible?”
“I don’t know what he means. But Maude told me she feels real bad that the baby hasn’t been well. Says she remembers saying awful things to you.”
Jenny remembered the awful things Maude had said.
“Guess Joe admitted that he’d had a pretty good hangover that morning; insists it was likely he’d mixed up the poison and oats.”
“Joe said that?”
“He did. Anyhow I think Maude wanted me to give you her apologies. I know when they got back last week Joe went down and spoke to the sheriff himself. Joe’s real upset about all the rumors flying around his accident. You know, because of the wild thing he said about seeing you. He said he don’t know why he ever said anything like that.”
Poor Joe, Jenny thought. Trying to undo irreparable harm and then making it worse by stirring it up again.
“My, Jenny, do you realize that your quilt is just about finished? Real lovely too. That took patience.”
“I was glad to have it to do,” she said.
“Will you hang it in the dining room near Caroline’s?”
“I haven’t thought about it.”
She hadn’t thought about very much today except the possibility that she was sleepwalking. In her dream she’d been trying to chase a pigeon out of the girls’ room. But had she actually been in the room?
There were too many episodes like this now over the past few months. The next time she went in to see Dr. Elmendorf, she’d talk to him about them. Maybe she did need some counseling.
I am so afraid, she thought.
She had begun to doubt whether Erich would ever forgive her for the notoriety that she had caused. No matter how hard they both tried, it would never be right again. And no matter what Erich said, she believed that subconsciously he was not sur
e that the baby was his son. She couldn’t live her life out with that between them.
But the baby was a Krueger and deserved the best medical attention Erich’s wealth could obtain for him. After the baby had the operation and was well, if things hadn’t gotten much better, she’d leave. She tried to visualize living in New York, working in the gallery, the day-care center, picking up the children, hurrying home to start dinner. It wouldn’t be easy. But nothing was easy and many women managed it. And anything would be better than this terrible feeling of isolation, this sense of losing touch with reality.
Nightmares. Sleepwalking. Amnesia. Was even amnesia possible? She’d never had any trouble in the apartment in New York. She’d be bone-tired at the end of the day but always slept. She might not have had nearly enough time for the girls but now it seemed she had no time. She was so worried about the baby and Erich kept whisking Tina and Beth off on outings that she couldn’t or wouldn’t attend.
I want to go home, she thought. Home wasn’t a place, maybe not even a house or apartment. Home was where you could close your door and be at peace.
This land. Even now. The snow falling, the wind blowing. She liked the savageness of the winter. She imagined the house as she had started to arrange it. The heavy curtains down, this table at the window, the friends she’d expected to make, the parties she would have given over the holidays.
“Jenny, you look so sad,” Rooney said suddenly.
She tried to smile. “It’s just . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“This is the best Christmas I’ve had since Arden went. Just watching the children so happy and being able to help you with the baby . . .”
Jenny realized that Rooney never called the baby by name.
She held up the quilt. “Here it is, Rooney, complete.”
Beth and Tina were playing with their new picture puzzles. Beth looked up. “That is very pretty, Mommy. You’re a very good sewer.”
Tina volunteered, “I like it better than the one on the wall. Daddy said that yours won’t be as nice as the one on the wall and I thought that was mean.”