Bloodchild (2 page)

Eventually Harlan would have asked Grant Kaplan to call her and ask her to return to his accounting office on a full-time basis, thinking that she would have needed to stay occupied. It wasn't that she would have been afraid of going back to work. Her added unhappiness would have come from the fact that she had been preparing for this maternity leave and planning ways in which she could do part-time work. Everyone at the firm would have expected that she wouldn't be there in her old capacity. Every day back there would have been a day reinforcing the tragedy.

But instead of all those terrible possibilities, she was leaving in a state of ecstasy, feeling light and happy, floating through the immaculate corridors and out to the car. When they reached the hospital entrance, Harlan rushed ahead of her to open the door and stand back like a professional chauffeur. People waved; even people she had not met wished her good luck. Harlan put her suitcase in the rear with the baby's things and moved quickly to the driver's seat, his face animated.

"Comfortable?"

She nodded and pulled the soft blue cotton blanket away from the baby's pinkish-white cheeks. Although his cerulean-blue eyes were open, he was quiet, content. She thought her milk was like a magic potion. Ingesting it, the baby not only consumed the nutrition he needed, but also he took on some of the essential parts of her. She felt she was giving him more than her milk; she was giving him personality, knowledge, and emotional contentment, for after each feeding the child stared with uniquely mature eyes, eyes that mesmerized her.

Not having had a child before, nor paying much attention to childbirth until she'd become pregnant, she was not sure what part of her reaction was normal and what, if any, was not. Were all mothers as infatuated with their children? Did all of them lie there eagerly anticipating the infant's arrival for each feeding? Did all of them ever dream about it?

One dream was more like a nightmare, even though there was something sensually pleasing about the images. A nurse had brought the baby to her, but this was a nurse she hadn't seen before. There was a man with her. He wore an intern's white jacket and pants, but he didn't look like a medical student or a doctor. She couldn't make out his face. It was draped in shadow, but there was the occasional flash of teeth and the occasional glow from his eyes. He was at her first.

She started to sit up in the bed, but he put his hands on her shoulders, pressing her back and moving the straps of her nightgown off her shoulders and down her arms as he did so. She wanted to resist, but she found herself so weak that she could barely lift her arm. In moments he exposed her breasts.

Then the nurse brought the baby toward her. The man cupped her right breast and squeezed it gently as the nurse held the baby's lips inches from her nipple. She thought the baby's eyes glowed, and then its lips slipped over her nipple and the suckling began. All throughout the feeding the man held her breast firmly and the nurse held the baby. It was as if they were teaching it how to feed.

When she woke the morning after the dream, her right breast ached. The next time they brought the baby to her, she sensed there was something singularly uncommon about the way he looked at her. Lovingly, she thought. She was identified in his mind as his mother.

Very quickly all the maternity nurses began commenting on his behavior. Few, if any babies, it seemed, slept as long during the day and were so alert and active for such long periods of time during the night.

"He would have slept right through the scheduled feeding," one nurse told her.

"You woke him?" she asked angrily.

"Well… it's not usual for an infant to go that long between feedings."

"He feeds well at night. Check your charts," she snapped.

When Harlan arrived, she complained and insisted that they move up her discharge one day, despite Dr. Friedman's concern.

"I didn't have complications," she told Harlan. "My baby did." They had learned that their baby had died from a ruptured aneurysm in the pulmonary artery. That was why the infant had died so quickly. "There is no reason to keep me here longer than women are normally kept," she added curtly.

"Well, he's just being cautious."

"He should have been more cautious before," she replied with uncharacteristic venom. "We've got to take the baby home. They don't know what they're doing here. He's special."

"What?" Harlan started to laugh. "A doting mother already?"

She didn't smile. Harlan was puzzled, but he went to Dr. Friedman and got him to release her a day early.

Actually this wasn't the first thing that made him wonder about Dana since their baby's death and the subsequent adoption of the child. Without any logical explanation she decided to change the name they had agreed upon should the baby be a boy. They were going to call him Frank, after his father, but after the first feeding, when Harlan came to her, she had other ideas.

"I want to name him Nikos," she said.

"Nikos? You're kidding. Nikos?"

"I'm not kidding," she said with vivid indignation. "What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing's wrong with it. It's just… well, why Nikos?"

"I don't know. It came to me and I like it so much. Please, Harlan."

Actually it had come to her in a dream, a dream in which she had envisioned Nikos as a handsome young man, only… only in the dream he didn't have the carrot-colored hair. He had black hair; dark blue eyes, the whiteness around the pupils almost luminescent; and skin as pale yellow as old bones.

Harlan shrugged. He was disappointed, of course, but he figured she had been the one to go through all the suffering. If Nikos was the name she wanted… let it be Nikos.

"Okay." He smiled and shook his head. She kissed him gratefully and he went out to see the baby. Nikos was asleep, just like he was every time he came to the hospital during the day. The only time Harlan saw him awake was in the early evening.

Now, in the car, as if Nikos understood he was being taken from the hospital, he lay in Dana's arms, eyes wide open, quietly expectant.

"Looks like he knows he's going home," Harlan said.

"Of course he does," Dana replied. She kissed the baby's cheek and brought him even closer to her breast. "The nurses told me that during the night he was the most alert infant they'd ever seen. He's going to be very smart, aren't you, Nikos?"

"If he says yes, I'll drive off the road," Harlan kidded, and they started away, heading for their home in Centerville Station. "Oh, I'm going to pick up Jillian at ten-thirty tomorrow. She got the flight into Newark."

Dana didn't even acknowledge what he had said. She continued to stare down at the baby, who stared up at her. It was as if mother and child could not take their eyes off each other, even for an instant.

Jillian, Dana's mother, was flying in from Tampa to help with the baby. That was another thing that struck him as unusual—Dana's reaction to her mother's offer after he had finally decided to call and tell her everything.

"You shouldn't have told her the truth," Dana had said. "You should have let her believe Nikos was actually my baby. Now she thinks I'm an invalid and I can't take care of my own infant."

Harlan was surprised at Dana's comment because he knew that she and her mother had a very good relationship. Although Jillian was in her mid-sixties, she looked more like a woman in her early fifties. He had always known her to have a youthful, vibrant view of life, even after the tragic death of Dana's father in a boating accident off the Florida Keys. Jillian was a strong-willed, independent, and rather beautiful woman. When Dana and she were together, they were more like two sisters.

"You can't be serious, honey," he had replied. "Surely you realize she would have learned the truth shortly after arriving, and then—"

"Then nothing. I can take care of my own infant," she had repeated, and had almost gone into a sulk about it. He imagined it was part of the postdelivery blues, something Dr. Friedman had warned him about only the day before. The trauma, then the drama of burying one child and taking on another the same day had to have some effect on her as well. If he hadn't kept himself so busy these last few days, marking student themes, it would have had as dramatic an effect on him, he thought, and left it at that.

She turned the baby so he could see its face. The child was staring up at him, but he couldn't smile. Of course, he thought, it was only his imagination, but the infant looked angry. It was as if… as if it took on Dana's moods instantly, as if all that nonsense about breast feeding developing a strong bond between mother and child were true.

He shook his head and drove on.

Colleen Hamilton paused after she stepped out the south exit of Centerville High and watched as the boys emerged from the gymnasium entrance and ran up to the football field. Already psyched up by the team's impressive winning record, the boys popped out vigorously, shouting after one another. The relatively small junior-senior high school, with a total population of fifteen hundred students, was sitting on top of a volcano of excitement that continually threatened to erupt. That day, the day before the division championship game, was a day filled with anticipation. Twice during the afternoon the high-school students broke out with the school cheer as they passed through the halls from class to class. She thought the excitement had even affected her teachers, putting more enthusiasm into their lectures and questions and more smiles on their faces.

She remained to watch the players come out. With their shoulder pads and black-and-gold uniforms, most looked like clones. Some already wore their gold helmets, and as they appeared, the mid-October Upstate New York sun ignited them, making it look as if they each wore a crown of fire. Characteristically Teddy Becker appeared with his helmet in hand, his ebony hair still neatly styled, and lumbered along slowly, calmly, almost arrogantly, for he was the first-string quarterback. She waved and he stopped, holding his arms up to express his disappointment that she wasn't staying around to watch the practice.

Every day for the past two weeks she had been lingering after school to watch Teddy practice or play; but today she had to hurry home, for her brother and her sister-in-law were bringing home their child. It was still difficult to believe that it was an adopted child and that all that had happened really had happened. She almost wished Harlan had never told her the truth. She probably wouldn't have figured it out, because when she had seen the baby in the hospital, she thought it looked so much like him.

When Harlan had first told her that Dana was pregnant, Colleen felt mixed emotions. She was happy for them because she knew how much they wanted a child, but she couldn't help but wonder how the baby's arrival would change her own life. She had always felt obligated to them for taking her into their home, and she especially felt obligated to Dana, even though Dana rarely, if ever, made her feel uncomfortable or unwanted.

They had a big enough house. It was a two-story, eight-room, light blue Colonial on Highland Avenue, a quiet, dead-end street in Old Centerville Station. The previous year Harlan had replaced the wooden siding with aluminum and had the two tall pillars in front refinished. They painted the white shutters a glossy white, and now, because he had replaced the roof shingles as well, the house looked brand-new.

There were four rooms downstairs: the living room with a picture window facing the street, a dining room, the kitchen, and a den-office in the rear. All four bedrooms were upstairs. Even with the baby taking the large room in the west corner, there was still a guest room. Harlan and Dana had their own bathroom and Colleen had hers. Since she had come to live with her brother after their father's fatal heart attack, she had never felt she was crowding them. In fact, she couldn't think of one uncomfortable moment.

It was painful to leave her old school, where she had made so many friends, but with her mother dead ten years, a victim of cancer, and now with her father deceased, she had no choice. She was just a senior in high school.

Harlan had always seemed more like a father than a brother to her, anyway, because there was such an age difference between them. Her parents had had him when they were very young, and then they had tried to have another child, but her mother had had a miscarriage and the prospects of her having a successful pregnancy diminished. Her parents never gave up, however, and surprisingly, when Colleen's mother was in her early forties, she became pregnant with her. She was a change-of-life baby.

Colleen always liked Dana because Dana never treated her like a child. Even before she had come to live with her and Harlan, Colleen often had had serious and intimate discussions with Dana about boys and romance. Once, when she thanked her for being so frank and mature with her, Dana said, "I know what it was like when I was your age and how I hated being treated like a child when I already had had my period and had the same feelings and thoughts."

Dana was more like a big sister to her and certainly welcomed her into her home openly and warmly. A trust had already been built between them. She could come to her with her problems and Dana would listen; and Dana wouldn't hesitate to tell her about her problems, either, even if they related to Harlan. They had quickly become female allies. Harlan was always jokingly complaining about being outnumbered.

And so, as difficult as it was for her to leave her friends and home, the transition was made quite easily and comfortably because of Dana. Now what troubled her was her anxiety concerning how the baby would change Dana and her relationship with her. She anticipated that they would shortly expect her to be their built-in baby-sitter, but she was resigned to this, thinking she had to have some way to repay them for their kindness and love.

Anyway, it was her last year of high school. Next fall she would be off to college. She was a good student, always on the honor role, and she had dreams of becoming a doctor. Harlan had already told her there was a substantial trust fund for her. Financing her college education was not going to be a problem. In many ways she was better off than a number of her fellow students.