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Part II - Unknown Soldier Chapter 6: Big Hands

 

  On Saturday morning just after eleven o'clock, Doug stood at the window of Room 21. He watched the clouds move in the pewter sky, and he thought about the question Laura had just asked him.

  How long has the affair been going oni

  Of course she knew. He'd seen yesterday that she knew; it was in her eyes when he'd told her he hadn't been able to get away from work until long after midnight Friday morning. Her eyes had looked right through him, as if he were no longer truly there. "I don't want to hear it," she'd said, and she'd lapsed into silence. Every time he spoke to her, he was met with the same wall of words: "I don't want to hear it. " He'd known she'd be upset because he wasn't there at David's birth, and that fact gnawed at his guts like little piranhas that meant to devour him to the bones, but then he realized there was more to it. Laura knew. Somehow, she knew. How much she knew he wasn't sure, but just knowing was bad enough. all day yesterday and all night last night it had been either "I don't want to hear it" or cold silence. Laura's mother, who'd come to atlanta yesterday with Laura's father to see their grandson, had asked him what was wrong with Laura, that she didn't want to talk, that all she wanted to do was hold the baby and croon to David. He hadn't been able to say because he didn't know. Now he did, and he watched the pewter sky and wished he could think of something to say.

  "The truth," Laura said, reading his mind in the stiff reluctance of his body. "That's what I want. "

  "an affairi" He turned from the window, a salesman's smile plastered to his mouth. "Laura, come on! I can't believe you -" He stopped speaking because his son was down the hall in the maternity window, and he couldn't carry off the lie.

  "How longi" she prodded. Her face was wan and pale, her eyes tired. She felt light of body and leaden of spirit. "a monthi Two monthsi Doug, I'd like to hear it. "

  He was silent. His mind was searching for cracks like a mouse who hears a footstep in the dark.

  "She lives at the Hillandale apartments," Laura went on. "apartment 5-E. I followed you there on Thursday night. "

  Doug's mouth opened. Hung open. a small gasp escaped his chest. She saw the color bloom in his cheeks. "You. . . followed mei You actually. . . my God, you actually followed mei" He shook his head incredulously. "Jesus! I can't believe this! You followed me like. . . like I was some kind of. . . common criminal or somethingi"

  "STOP IT, DOUG!" The thunder crashed out of her before she could contain it. She was not a yeller - far from it - but the anger sprang forth seemingly from every pore in her body like scalding steam. "Stop the lies, all righti Just stop lying, right now!"

  "Keep your voice down, will youi"

  "Hell, no, I won't keep my voice down!" The expression of shocked outrage on Doug's face was like kerosene on her charcoals. The flames leapt high, out of her control. "I know you've got a girlfriend, Doug! I found the two tickets! I found out Eric was in Charleston the night he was supposed to have called you to the office! Someone called me and told me what her address was! You'd better believe I followed you, and by God I was hoping you wouldn't go to her, but there you were! Right there! How was the beer, Dougi" She felt her mouth contort in a bitter twist. "Did you two enjoy the six-packi My water broke right there in the parking lot, while you were walking to her door! While our son - my son - was being born, you were shacked up with a stranger across town! Was it good, Dougi Come on, tell me, damn you! Was it goodi Was it really really goodi"

  "are you finishedi" He was grim-lipped and stoic, but she saw the shiny fear in his eyes.

  "NO! No, I'm not finished! How could you do something like thisi Knowing I was about to have Davidi Howi Don't you have a consciencei My God, you must think I'm so stupid! Did you think I'd never knowi Is that iti Did you think you could have this secret life forever, and I'd never figure it outi" Tears burned her eyes. She blinked them back, and they were gone. "Come on, let's hear it! Let's hear how you figured you'd have your little piece of cake at home and your little piece of. . . " She couldn't say the word she was thinking. "Your little girlfriend at the Hillandale apartments and I'd never find out!"

  The bloom had faded from Doug's cheeks. He stood there, just staring at her with his eyes that glinted like false coins, and he seemed very small to her. He seemed to have shrunken in the space of a minute or so, until his Dockers khaki trousers and his Polo sweater hung on a framework of bones and lies. He lifted his hand and touched his forehead, and Laura saw his hand tremble. "Someone told youi" he asked; even his voice had gotten small. "Who told youi"

  "a friend. How long has it been going oni Will you tell me that, or noti"

  He drew a breath and let it leak out. He was deflating, right in front of her. His face had gotten pasty and pallid, and he spoke with what seemed a great effort: "I. . . met her. . . in September. I've been. . . I've been seeing her since. . . the end of October. "

  Christmas. all through Christmas Doug had been sleeping with another woman. For three months as David grew inside her, Doug had been making his heated runs to and from the Hillandale apartments. Laura said, "Oh my God" and pressed her hand to her mouth.

  "She's a secretary at a real estate agency," Doug went on, flaying her with a small, hushed voice. "I met her when I was doing some work for one of the realtors. She seemed. . . I don't know, cute, I guess. I asked her out to lunch. She said okay. She knew I was married, but she didn't mind. " Doug turned away from Laura, his gaze scanning the clouds again. "It happened fast. Two lunch dates in a row, and then I asked her out to dinner. She said she'd make dinner for me at her apartment. On the way over there I pulled off the road and just sat and thought. I knew what I was doing. I knew I was stepping on you and David. I knew it. "

  "But you did it anyway. Very thoughtful of you. "

  "I did it anyway," he agreed. "I have no reason for it other than an old tired one: she's twenty-three, and when I was with her I felt like a kid again. Just starting out, no responsibilities, no wife, no child on the way, no house payments, no car payments, nothing but the wild blue yonder ahead. That sounds like bullshit, doesn't iti"

  "Yes. "

  "Maybe so, but it's the truth. " He looked at her, his face ancient with sorrow. "I meant to stop seeing her. It was just going to be a one-time thing. But. . . it got away from me. She's studying for her real estate tests, and I helped her with her homework. We drank wine and watched old movies. You know, talking to somebody that age is like talking to a person from another planet. She's never heard of Howdy Doody, or Steppenwolf, or Mighty Mouse or John Garfield or Boris Karloff or. . . " He shrugged. "I guess I was trying to reinvent myself, maybe. Make myself younger, go back to how I used to be before I knew what the world was all about. She looked at me and saw somebody you don't know, Laura. Can you understand thati"

  "Why didn't you show that person to mei" she asked. Her voice cracked, but she held the tears at bay. "I wanted to see you. Why didn't you let mei"

  "You know the real me," he said. "It was easier to fool her. "

  Laura felt the crush of despair settle upon her. She wanted to rage and scream and throw something, but she did not. She said, in a quiet voice, "We did love each other once, didn't wei The whole thing wasn't a lie, was iti"

  "No, it wasn't a lie," Doug answered. "We did love each other. " He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, his eyes glazed and unfocused. "Can we work this outi" he asked.

  Someone knocked on the door. a nurse with curly red hair came in, carrying a small human being wrapped up in a downy blue blanket. The nurse smiled, showing big front teeth. "Here's the little one!" she said brightly, and she offered David to his mother.

  Laura took him. His skin was pink, his skull - reformed into an oval by Dr. Bonnart's gentle hands - covered with light brown fuzz. He made a mewling noise, and blinked his pale blue eyes. Laura smelled his aroma: a peaches-and-cream smell that she'd caught the first time David was brought to her after being
cleaned. around his pudgy left ankle he wore a plastic band that had Boy, Clayborne, Room 21 typed on it. His mewling became a hiccupy sound, and Laura said, "Shhhhh, shhhhh," as she rocked him in her arms.

  "I think he's hungry," the nurse said.

  Laura unsnapped the top of her hospital gown and guided David's mouth to one of her nipples. One of David's hands closed on the flesh of her breast and his mouth went to work. It was a feeling ripe with satisfaction and - yes - sensuality, and Laura sighed deeply as her son fed on the mother's milk.

  "There we go. " The nurse offered a smile to Doug, then reclaimed it when she saw his sallow face and sunken eyes. "Well, I'll leave him with you for a while," she said, and then she left the room.

  "His eyes," Doug said, leaning over the bed to look down at David. "They look like yours. "

  "I'd like you to leave," she told him.

  "We can talk about this, okayi We can work everything out. "

  "I'd like you to leave," Laura repeated, and in her face Doug found no mercy.

  He straightened up, started to speak again, but saw no use in it. She paid him no further attention, all her attention being focused on the baby cradled against her breast. after a minute or so in which there was no sound but that of David's mouth sucking on Laura's swollen nipple, Doug walked through the door and out of her sight.

  "Make you big and strong," she crooned to her son, a smile relighting her face. "Yes it will. Make you big and strong. "

  It was a hard world, and people could burn love to cinders and crush the ashes. But in this moment of time the mother held her son close and spoke softly to him, and all the hardness of that world was shunted aside. Laura didn't want to think about Doug and what was ahead for both of them, so she did not. She kissed David's forehead and tasted his sweet skin, and she traced the faint blue lines of veins in the side of his head with a forefinger. Blood was rushing through them, his heart was beating, and his lungs were at work: the miracle had come true, and it was right there in her arms. She watched him blink, watched the pale blue eyes search the realm of his sensations. He was all she needed. He was everything she needed.

  Her parents returned in another fifteen minutes. Both of them were gray-haired, Miriam firm-jawed and dark-eyed and Franklin a simple, jocular smiler. They didn't seem to want to know where Doug was, possibly because they smelled the smoke of her anger lingering in the room. Laura's mother held David for a while and koochy-kooed him, but she gave him back when he started to cry. Her father said David looked as if he was going to be a big boy, with big hands fit for throwing a football. Laura suffered her parents with polite smiles and agreements as she held David close. David cried off and on, like a little switch being tripped, but Laura rocked him and crooned to him and soon the infant was sleeping in her arms, his heart beating strong and steady. Franklin settled down to read the newspaper, and Miriam had brought her needlepoint. Laura slept, David nestled against her. She winced in her sleep, dreaming of a madwoman on a balcony and two gunshots.

  at one twenty-eight, an olive-green Chevy van with rust holes in the passenger door and a cracked left rear window pulled to the loading dock behind St. James Hospital. The woman who got out wore a nurse's uniform, white trimmed with dark blue. Over her breast pocket her plastic tag identified her as Janette Leister. Next to the name tag was pinned a yellow Smiley Face.

  Mary Terror spent a moment pulling a smile up from the depths of her own face. She looked fresh-scrubbed and pink-cheeked, and she'd put clear gloss on her lips. Her heart was hammering, her stomach twisted into nervous knots. But she took a few deep breaths, thinking of the baby she was going to take to Lord Jack. The baby was up there on the second floor, waiting for her in one of three rooms with blue bows on the doors. When she was ready, she climbed the steps to the loading dock. a laundry hamper and a handcart had been left there. She guided the hamper to the door and pressed the buzzer, and then she waited.

  No one answered. Come on, come on! she thought. She pressed the buzzer again. Damn it, what if no one could hear the buzzeri What if a security guard answeredi What if someone instantly saw through the disguise and slammed the door in her facei She was wearing the right uniform, the right colors, the right shoes. Come on, come on!

  The door opened.

  a black woman - one of the laundry workers - peered through.

  "I locked myself out!" Mary said, her smile fixed and frozen. "Can you believe thati The door closed and here I am!" She started to push the hamper before her through the doorway. There was a second or two when she thought the woman wasn't going to give way, and she said merrily, "Excuse me! Coming through!"

  "Yes ma'am, come on, then. " The laundress smiled and backed away, holding the door open. "Blowin' up a rain out there!"

  "It sure is, isn't iti" Mary Terror took three more long strides, the hamper in front of her. The door clicked shut at her back.

  She was inside.

  "You sure 'nuf must be lost!" the laundress said. "How come you to be down herei"

  "I'm new. Just started a few days ago. " Mary was moving away from the woman, guiding the hamper down a long hallway. She could hear the whisper of steam and the thunk-thunk-thunk of washing machines at work. "Guess I don't know my way around like I thought I did. "

  "I hear you! 'Bout have to carry a map to get around this big ol' place. "

  "You have a good day, now," Mary said, and she abandoned the hamper next to a group of other hampers parked near the laundry room. She picked up her pace, heading deeper into the hospital. The laundress said, "Bye-bye," but Mary didn't respond. She was focused on the path that would take her to the stairwell door, and she walked briskly through the corridor, steam pipes hissing above her head.

  She came around a curve and found herself about twenty paces behind a female pig with a walkie-talkie, going in the same direction as she. Mary's heart stuttered, and she stepped back out of sight for a minute or two, giving the she-pig time to clear out. Then, when the corridor was clear, Mary started toward the stairwell again. Her eyes ticked back and forth, checking doorways on either side of the corridor, her senses were on high alert, and her blood was cold. She heard voices here and there, but saw no one else. at last she came to the stairwell, and she pushed through the door and started up.

  as she ascended past the first floor, she faced another challenge: two nurses coming down. She popped her smile back on, the two nurses smiled and nodded, and Mary passed them with damp palms. Then there was the door with a big two on it. Mary went through it, her gaze checking the black tape that held down the latch and cheated the alarm. She was on the maternity ward, and there was no one else in the corridor between her and the curve that led to the nurses' station.

  Mary heard a soft chimes that, she presumed, signaled one of the nurses. The crying of babies drifted through the hallway like a siren song. It was now or never. She chose Room 24, and she walked in as if she owned the hospital.

  a young woman was in bed, breastfeeding her newborn. a man sat in a chair beside the bed, watching the process with true wonder. They both turned their attention to the six-foot-tall nurse who walked in, and the young mother smiled dreamily and said, "We're doing just fine. "

  The man, woman, and their son were black.

  Mary stopped. She said, "I see you are. Just checking. " Then she turned and walked out. It would not do to take Lord Jack a black child. She went across the hall into Room 23, and there found a white woman in bed talking animatedly with another young couple and a middle-aged man, joyful bouquets of flowers and balloons arranged around the room. The woman's baby wasn't with her. "Hi," she said to Mary. "Could I have my baby, do you thinki"

  "I don't see why not. I'll go get him. "

  "You're a big one, aren't youi" the middle-aged man asked, and his grin flashed a silver tooth.

  Mary gave him a smile, her eyes cold. She turned away, walked out of the room and to the door that had a blue bow and the number 2
1 on it.

  She was nervous. If this one didn't work out, she might have to scrub the mission.

  She thought of Lord Jack, awaiting her at the weeping lady, and she went in.

  The mother was asleep, her baby cradled against her. In a chair by the window sat an older woman with curly gray hair, doing needlepoint. "Hello," the woman in the chair said. "How are you todayi"

  "I'm fine, thanks. " Mary saw the mother's eyes start to open. The baby began to stir, too; his eyelids fluttered open for a second, and Mary saw that the child's eyes were light blue, like Lord Jack's. Her heart leapt; it was karma at work.

  "Oh, I drifted off. " Laura blinked, trying to focus on the nurse who stood over the bed. a big woman with a nondescript face and brown hair. a yellow Smiley Face button on her uniform. Her name tag said Janette something. "What time is iti"

  "Time to weigh the baby," Mary answered. She heard tension in her voice, and she got a grip on it. "It'll just take a minute or two. "

  "Where's Dadi" Laura asked her mother.

  "He went down to get another magazine. You know him and his reading. "

  "Can I weigh the baby, pleasei" Mary held her arms out to take him.

  David was waking up. His initial response was to open his mouth and let out a high, thin cry. "I think he's hungry again," Laura said. "Can I feed him firsti"

  Couldn't chance a real nurse coming in, Mary thought. She kept her smile on. "I won't be very long. Just get this over with and out of the way, all righti"

  Laura said, "all right," though she yearned to feed him. "I haven't seen you before. "

  "I only work weekends," Mary replied, her arms offered.

  "Shhhhh, shhhhh, don't cry," Laura told her son. She kissed his forehead, smelling the peaches-and-cream aroma of his flesh. "Oh, you're so precious," she told him, and she reluctantly placed him in the nurse's arms. Immediately she felt the need to grasp him back to her again. The nurse had big hands, and Laura saw that one of the woman's fingernails had a dark red crust beneath it. She glanced again at the name tag: Leister.

  "There we go," Mary said, rocking the infant in her arms. "There we go, sweet thing. " She began moving toward the door. "I'll bring him right back. "

  "Take good care of him," Laura said. Needs to wash her hands, she thought.

  "I sure will. " Mary was almost out the door.

  "Nursei" Laura asked.

  Mary stopped on the threshold, the baby still crying in her arms.

  "Would you bring me some orange juice, pleasei"

  "Yes, ma'am. " Mary turned away, walked through the door, and saw the black father from number 24 just leaving the room to go toward the nurses' station. She put her index finger into the baby's mouth to quiet his crying, and she went through the stairwell's door and started down the stairs.

  "She had dirty hands," Laura said to her mother. "Did you notice thati"

  "No, but that was the biggest woman I ever laid eyes on. " She watched Laura position herself against her pillows, and Laura winced at a sudden pain. "How're you doin'i"

  "Okay, I guess. Hurting a little bit. " She felt as if she'd delivered a sack of hardened concrete. Her body was full of aches and pains, the muscles of her back and thighs still prone to cramps. Her stomach had lost its bloat, but she was still sluggish and heavy with fluids. The thirty-two stitches between her thighs, where Dr. Bonnart had clipped the flesh of her vagina open to allow extra room for David's head to slide through, was a constant irritation. "I thought the nurses had to keep their hands clean," she said when she'd gotten herself comfortable again.

  "I sent your father downstairs," Laura's mother said. "I think we need to talk, don't youi"

  "Talk about whati"

  "You know. " She leaned forward in her chair, her gaze sharp. "about what the problem is between you and Doug. "

  Of course she'd sensed it, Laura thought. Her mother's radar was rarely wrong. "The problem. " Laura nodded. "Yes, there's sure a problem, all right. "

  "I'd like to hear it. "

  Laura knew there was no way to deflect this conversation. Sooner or later, it would have to be spoken. "Doug's been having an affair since October," she began, and she saw her mother's mouth open in a small gasp. Laura began to tell her the whole story, and the older woman listened intently as Laura's son was being carried through a corridor where steam pipes hissed like awakened snakes.

  Mary Terror, her index finger clasped in the baby's mouth, strode through the corridor toward the loading dock's door. Before she reached the laundry area, she stopped where the hampers were parked. One of them had towels at the bottom, and she put the baby down amid them and covered him up. The infant gurgled and mewled, but Mary grasped the hamper and started pushing it ahead of her. as she passed through the laundry where the black women were working, Mary saw the laundress who'd allowed her in.

  "You still losti" the woman called over the noise of washers and steam presses.

  "No, I know where I'm going now," Mary answered. She flashed a quick smile and went on. The baby began to cry just before Mary reached the exit, but it was a soft crying and the noise of the laundry masked it. She opened the door. The wind had picked up, and silver needles of rain were falling. She pushed the hamper out onto the loading dock and scooped the infant out, still wrapped in a towel. Then she hurried down the concrete steps to her van, which she'd traded for her truck and three hundred and eighty dollars at Friendly Ernie's Used Cars in Smyrna about two hours before. She put the crying baby onto the floorboard on the passenger side, next to her sawed-off shotgun. She started the engine, which ran rough as a cob, and made the entire van shudder. The windshield wipers shrieked as they swept back and forth across the glass.

  Then Mary Terror backed away from the loading dock, turned the van around, and drove away from the hospital named after God. "Hush, now!" she told the baby. "Mary's got you!" The infant kept crying.

  He'd just have to learn who was in control.

  Mary left the hospital behind, and swung up onto a freeway, where she merged into a sea of metal in the falling silver rain.