Five Smooth Stones (141 page)

Looking at her, he felt his throat constrict. What could a man say when his wife came out with something as completely woman as that; what say that wouldn't be clumsy or flip or sound as if he was making fun? He took her hand and rolled the fingers in, closing his own hand over the tiny fist.

"Maybe you're right, hon. But we're a long way out there, in the realms of metaphysics, and predestination, and theology and God knows what. It wasn't nearly as much fun standing in the door as depending on the good old way—"

"You—you thing, you." She grinned at him. "No soul."

"One damned sure thing. Our child wasn't conceived when we thought it was. The infant would be three weeks old now and I'd be sleeping better. Viper."

"Who's a viper?"

"You are, honey chile. Lawd, yes! Losing count, not taking your pill on the right days—"

"Judge, the defendant called my client a viper and a liar and accused her of deceit and treachery and we hereby petition this honorable court—"

"Brad'll handle it, baby."

He stood up slowly, taking his cane from where it was hooked over the back of the bench. "I have to get dressed and beat it." He scratched behind Chop-bone's ears, and the cat, settled now in elderly complacency on the seat of the chair, paws tucked in, responded with dignified thanks. As David limped toward the bedroom, Sara watched him, thinking how much faster he was getting around now, how his body had adjusted to the new handicaps and managed somehow to keep its grace, noting the wide spread of the shoulders and how almost undetectable was the stiffness of one. She remembered the long hours he had spent at the piano, forcing his right shoulder to guide his arm, playing more treble than she had ever heard. "Gramp always said he didn't give a hoot how good a man's right hand was, that it wasn't worth a damn if he couldn't back it up with a solid left. But damned if he meant the left hand to do it all."

After she had cleared the table, she followed David to the bedroom and began making the bed.

"Don't," he said. "Just smooth it up."

"This from you!" 

"I'm scared to have you stoop over."

"I won't tuck in."

"See you don't." He was standing in front of the mirror, chin up, making fearful grimaces as he knotted his tie. "Sara."

"What? Go on. Don't just stand there making faces."

"Are you going to raise a sand if I take that trip to Cainsville with Brad? I mean, after the baby's born."

She was pulling up the plaid bedspread, and stood holding it in her hand. "Raise a sand? I haven't before, have I? I don't when you go to New Orleans. And I didn't when you went to Selma, did I?"

He was watching her in the mirror, and now, smoothing the ends of his tie, he laughed. "Baby, you never said a word, you never made a sound, when I went to Selma. But you screamed to high heaven just the same."

She sighed. "Probably I did. I didn't mean to. You won't go alone?"

"There'll be Brad, and Luke if he can make it."

"And only for a day?"

"Early plane in the morning, rent a car in Capitol City, plane to Washington late that evening with a good connection to Boston that night."

"I'd be a dope to mind, wouldn't I? Or worry."

"That's not saying you won't, but honest-to-God, Sara, it will be all right. A couple of deaths too long delayed have helped."

"That poisonous little puff adder, Scoggins—"

"Stone-cold daid in the market. Apoplexy. As you know."

"I know."

"And the mayor. Mowed down in his prime, he was, by his own tractor, on his own farm. A squashy character he looked, even alive. He must have;—"

"Ick!—"

"Sorry. I forgot your usually strong stomach has weakened—"

He slipped into his coat, walked over to her and drew her close, his arm around her. "It hasn't been easy for you, Smallest. Married to me."

"Or for you—to me."

"Sorry?"

"Stoopid! You don't know, you just don't know, what it was like all that long time—"

"I don't? Sara. Sara." His arm tightened; then he released her, and she walked beside him to the front door.

"Today? Think you can manage to produce today, elephant girl?"

"Elephant girl!"

"I stood in that doorway a hell of a long time ago—"

"So you did, sweet, so you did—"

***

At four o'clock that afternoon David Champlin thumped into the third-floor lounge of Endicott Hospital's maternity wing, Brad just behind him, and glared at Peg Willis. "Why didn't you call me this morning!"

She took his arm, her husky voice deeper than usual with amusement. "Everything's fine, kid. All systems go—"

"She's been here all day!"

"She wouldn't let me." Peg turned to Brad. "What'll we do with the guy, Brad?" then back to David. "She said she could labor and bring forth for one but she was damned if she could do it for two. I see what she meant. She had me call as soon as your offspring seemed more imminent—"

"The last damned minute—"

"By the time I got to the telephone, called, and came back

up, they were taking her to the delivery room. Things were happening that fast."

"That can be bad, can't it?"

"No! My God! Brad, rustle up some coffee—"

For an hour David prowled the room, sat, stood up, growled when spoken to and growled when not spoken to, finally retreating into tense silence. He was standing by a center table leafing through a magazine, seeing nothing, when Suds came into the room, pink and beaming.

"Congratulations, dad! It's a boy, six seven, and Sara's fine!"

David dropped the magazine to the table and leaned forward, resting his weight on his hands. Sudsy's hand hit him between the shoulders. "Did you hear me?"

"Sure. Sure I heard you. You're not kidding? About Sara?"

Peg ran over, hugged him and kissed him resoundingly on his cheek. "Of course he's not. I tried to tell you, dope. It's wonderful!"

David looked uncomprehendingly at Suds. "Six seven?"

"Weight. Pounds and ounces. What did you think it was, height? Or quantity?"

"Can I go up now?"

"Wait for half an hour. She'll be wide awake then. That lad was in a hurry, a real hurry. Frye had to slow things down a bit. I promised Sara I'd run over from the office for the big moment, and I barely made it."

David said, "I'm going up now—"

'There's no point—Wait, here's the boss of the project."

Dr. Anthony Frye entered, and David thought he had never seen a more incompetent-looking man. There was only a thin veil over the hostility in David's eyes when he looked at the doctor. For a moment, his thoughts left Sara as he tried to read the other man's face. What was the smug-looking bastard thinking now, breaking the news of a son to the black husband of the white woman who had borne that son? What was he thinking, this man who could be the archetype of the ordered, conventional white world into which he brought God knew how many babies each year to lead ordered, conventional white lives? There was no answer in the smiling face that, David had to admit, did not bear at that moment any evidence of giving the matter even superficial thought.

"Mr. Champlin, you can relax now." The doctor's eyes were bright. "I'll turn you over to young Dr. Sutherland here for care and treatment. Everything is one hundred percent The boy, the mother, the friends." He laughed a practiced laugh. "Everyone's fine except the father, eh?"

"I'm all right. I want to see her now—"

"Wait a bit. Your son was in quite a hurry, Mr. Champlin. I don't think I've ever run as fast, comparatively speaking, to catch a train. We had to put your wife under to slow things a bit. And there was a little repair work—" He held up a hand reassuringly. "Bound to be. Makes for discomfort, nothing worse, and no fooling around with surgery later." He spoke to Suds now. "The whole thing was rather amazing, wasn't it, Doctor?"

"Great," said Suds.

"Once in a while," said Frye, his eyes on David again, "one finds an obstetrical case in which the patient is, quite literally, in a state we can only call euphoria, without drugs. It is not too unusual. It's almost a state of ecstasy. Your wife was angry because we had to put her under."

Peg said, "I've been trying to tell him—"

"I believe I told you when we first met that I follow the in-room policy? Your baby will be in the room with his mother. They'll have a chance to get acquainted. And while some obstetricians send their patients home practically from the delivery room, I keep my patients hospitalized five days. A little rest and coddling does no harm. She'll be up and have bathroom privileges in the morning. I'll talk to you both before she goes home." The doctor walked over, held out his hand, and David looked at it dazedly for a minute, then shook it, grinning. Best obstetrician in New England, Suds had said, and by God, he'd been right Not a bad guy, either.

"Thanks, Doctor," said David. "Thanks a million."

The doctor hurried out, and Brad lit a cigarette and said, "Would anyone like to know that I'm here?" He looked at David, his eyes quiet and unsmiling, affection deep within them. "You know how I feel, brat. Everything's going to be fine."

David smiled his thanks and turned to Suds. "I want to see her the minute she's awake. Tell her I'm glad it's a boy."

"You will. As if she didn't knew, Stoopid."

"She doesn't," said David. He went to one of the room's big armchairs and let himself down into it with a thud. "Suds, my wife—"

"Sara?"

"Quit clowning, for God's sake. This is serious. Maybe a matter of life and death. Sara told me you once rustled up a drink for her here. Man, I could sure use one—"

CHAPTER 89

David always tried to handle with tact his knowledge of Brad's dislike of flying. When he could take a train, Brad did so and reveled in the trip; when time pressed he flew. And suffered, thought David, settling himself in the aisle seat beside the older man, trying to bring his stiff leg as far under the seat in front as he could so the stewardesses wouldn't trip over it. If his stiff leg had done nothing else, it had provided him with a valid excuse for spending the money to travel first class. Which he had always done anyhow when he was alone, putting up the extra money when he checked in at the ticket counter, thereby preventing reprimands. Brad's first experience with travel hadn't been on a southern bus with a redneck driver; his own reaction was still adolescent, he knew, but he got a lot of satisfaction out of it. And, he reflected, so did his legs, both of them.

He glanced sideways at Brad, trying to decide whether this was one of the times when he would welcome distracting conversation or one of the times when he wanted to be let alone to turn green in peace. Their plane trip always started with a stock phrase from Brad. "No statistics, please."

David let his seat back a notch and said, "What you ought to do is take a nice long trip in a bus, southern route. You'd be yelling for a plane."

"Hrrmph."

If I talk to him I won't, so help me God, I won't mention the baby again. The poor guy's had it. David took a newspaper from his pocket, flipped it open.

"Been a long time since anyone could say there's nothing in the paper. Vietnam, South America, Louisiana. Ever been in Bogalusa? I have. Remind me to call Isaiah from Cains-

ville.... That five-day hospital stay worked out fine. I wouldn't have left Sara alone at home with the baby, that's for sure...."

"You certainly underestimate that young woman.... We're taking off—"

"I was trying to keep it from you.... How the devil do they manage to get them so perfect? Hands and feet, right number of toes and fingers, ears.... It's early to say, but I think he's going to be about your complexion... Hell, I forgot to cable Hunter.... Remind me to call Isaiah Watkins from Cainsville, huh?... Did I tell you Sara's going to nurse the baby? Says maybe she'll finally get a figure.... It's a lot better for the baby, Frye says.... Oh, God, I wasn't going to mention the baby again.... Here comes the gal with the breakfast. You want?"

"No. Yes. Just coffee. You can have the food. Go on, talk about young David. I gave you the routine for months after we had Carolyne."

David looked at his tray and drew a deep breath. He couldn't remember having an appetite like this since he'd been at Pengard. It had started with Sudsy's drink in the hospital and grown inordinately ever since. "That tray bothering you, Chief? I'll call her and have her take it—"

"There's nothing wrong with me two feet on the ground won't cure. I'm not airsick. Just hurry up and finish your tray and then take mine and I can get some work done on this table thing."

David choked back a laugh and tackled his breakfast. If he'd stop thinking about the baby, he'd stop talking about him. "Remember that psychiatrist Cloninger we had on the Sampson case? He told me that every time he got on a plane he froze solid."

"Just proves it's not true that psychiatrists need their own therapy."

The stewardess poured more coffee, and David said, "I've always gotten a bang out of flying. But I don't believe I'll encourage young David to take it up as a career—"

"Eat."

"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir."

What had changed his attitude, he wondered? The change hadn't come about all at once, when he had first seen his son. He had been far too limp with reaction, too preoccupied with the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. That night he and Brad and Suds had gotten fairly well polluted and he had been asleep almost before he got into bed, yet the change had taken place by the next day when he sweet-talked his way upstairs outside visiting hours and found Sara's bed empty, with the sound of a shower coming from the bathroom, and the laughter of two women, Sara and a nurse.

He stood by the bassinet,, looking down at the baby, not touching or wanting to touch, afraid to touch, just wanting to communicate, knowing he couldn't, but willing it with his mind so hard he thought the words must be audible and comprehensible even to a mind just eighteen hours old. "We'll make out, kid. I can't do it the way Gramp did, but I'll try. That's a promise. It's too bad you had to miss out on Gramp. He'd have known the answers to a lot of questions you'll ask." Reckon me'n' Gram's got to teach you about God some more. Come on, li'l man, right now we gets ourselves some ice cream. Now David reached out and touched a soft cheek with a gentle finger. "Your mother won't always understand. And I won't either. But don't you ever forget, youngster, we love you." He smiled suddenly and whispered aloud, "Sorry, son, about not wanting you before."