Here to Stay (8 page)

Five had sensed the arrival of a new dog, but seemed totally uninterested in the arrival. Teddy, like Whiteout, had come for a sniff. Elijah said, “Sorry, Sissy. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Thank you,” she replied, clearly unmollified.

Elijah scooped up the small white dog. He hadn’t meant to lash out at Sissy. The lab he’d visited that day had been very bad. He’d photographed dogs, cats and monkeys that had been abused, removed them to the shelter where most of them had to be put down.

Sissy came forward slowly, looked long at his face,
then reached out for the white dog. “It’s a puppy!” she said in outrage.

Elijah nodded. There had been others from the same litter—this was the only one that could be saved. He had taken her to the vet himself before coming home.

Sissy’s slender hand reached up and touched Elijah’s face, then she petted the puppy. She took her from his arms. One of the puppy’s eyes was mostly closed.

“I think she’s blind in that eye.”

Sissy held back her feelings—wrath at people who could do this to an animal and at Elijah, who’d just had to bring this deaf and half-blind puppy home. Instead, she kissed the puppy’s pink nose and said, “You have a wrinkly little face, don’t you? I bet you’re a smart girl.” Actually, she didn’t bet that at all, but if it was one things dogs had taught her—and, to give credit, Elijah had taught her, as well—it was the necessity of praise. “What are you going to call her?”

Elijah shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t…gotten that far.”

“Well, I have a mess to clean up. The puppies dumped out white shoe polish and walked around the house.”

Elijah couldn’t help it. He laughed. Then he noticed Sissy’s face. She’d been crying. Quickly he offered, “I’ll clean the floor if you make dinner.”

“Other way,” Sissy suggested, frowning. She really hated to cook.

Elijah kissed her. “Want me to watch her? I didn’t bring a crate for her.”

“She can keep me company,” Sissy said. “We have to start getting to know each other.” She added acidly, “And I didn’t hit Martha.”

Elijah looked at her for a long moment. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

A
S SHE SCRUBBED
the carpet, she replayed the things Elijah had said, his protectiveness of weak things. Surely he would be protective of the baby, even if he learned it wasn’t his? Surely he wouldn’t reject her; he hadn’t rejected Maureen, just seemed shocked by what she’d done. Maureen’s baby was due the month before Sissy’s, and both women were looking forward to the cousins being the same age.

Except they won’t really be cousins.

Well, it would be just as though Elijah had adopted the baby. Except he wouldn’t know that the baby wasn’t biologically his.

I can’t lie to him
, Sissy thought.

The white puppy was not interested in exploring, seemed simply to want to stay right beside Sissy. She was probably terrified. Sissy gently stroked the silky head, avoiding the stitches and the one short, floppy silky ear. A man who brought this animal home would not hold it against her that…

She cringed at the thought of telling him. Now wasn’t the time. When the baby was born, she’d see if it resembled Clark or Elijah, and then…

But should I wait that long?

Yes. If the baby was Clark’s, the truth would make Elijah unhappy, and Sissy wouldn’t put the worry into his head until she knew for certain.

She called toward the kitchen, “How about Belle? It means beautiful.”

He didn’t respond. Instead, she heard his footsteps,
and a moment later he stood in the doorway and she heard the stereo in the next room. He pulled her to her feet, gazing down into her eyes.

Her heart thudded, and she wondered at the goodness of a God who had given her this man, who was so in love with her, taking her in his arms to dance with her on a shoe-polish-mottled carpet where a deaf and blind puppy sat waiting trustingly.

She lifted her lips to his, kissing him back, and when that song, their song, ended, he crouched down beside her and the puppy.

“Belle,” Sissy repeated to the dog. “I wonder if she can hear at all.”

“If not,” Elijah said, “I think she’ll learn to read everyone’s vibration—you know, the way our footsteps feel.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Sissy said. “And of course, she can smell us. But I don’t know how I’m going to teach her anything, especially if she can’t see.”

“We’ll figure out how,” Elijah said. “She’ll teach us.”

Sissy gazed at Belle, knowing he was right.

“Think what an accomplishment it will be,” Elijah pointed out. “You’ll be the Annie Sullivan of dog trainers.”

Sissy knew he was thinking of Helen Keller’s teacher. Finally she whispered, “If only I could be.”

Elijah knelt beside her, grabbing her hands. “You can, Sissy. You can do anything.”

Everything
, she thought,
but tell you that this baby might not be yours.

We are not wolves, and neither are dogs. To roll a dog on his back and growl at him is only an approximation of canine communication. And what it teaches the dog is questionable. The essence of good obedience training is to help dogs want to make the choices you want them to make because it’s best for them.

—
Crossover Language
, Elijah Workman, 1988

March 11, 1970

“
I
THINK HE
takes after you,” Elijah said, smiling.

Sissy drew in a breath, looking at her son cradled against her breast. The child had been born with fair hair, with eyes an indeterminate shape. Sissy had sworn that at this moment, on this day, she would tell Elijah the truth, if this baby was not biologically his.

How could you tell with a baby?

The baby had a very distinctive chin, which had Clark Treffinger-Hart written all over it. “I want him to take after you.” And that would never be. In addition to that chin, the baby had other, even more distinctive features of Clark’s. First, a characteristic dip in each
shoulder blade. Second, hair on his shoulders. Clark was blond but very hairy. Sissy remembered once hearing a newborn resembled its father so that he would recognize and protect the child. This was Clark’s child.

And Elijah was clearly ignorant of that childbirth lore.

He smiled and kissed her, and she lifted her eyes to his.

I can’t tell him.

The truth would only make him unhappy.

Kennedy and Gerry had been in and out, admiring the baby, congratulating both of them. Sissy had been tempted many times during her pregnancy to bring the question of what to tell Elijah to her sister, but she’d always stopped herself. Either it would be her secret to carry alone, or she would tell Elijah.

She looked at him, wondering if the truth really would be cruel, if it would be the better part of valor to keep it to herself.

There was the question of inherited family conditions, but Sissy knew of nothing major in Clark’s family.

What she wanted in her heart was to tell Elijah, to hear him say it was all right, to say that he would love the baby as his own. She wanted to give him the chance to do all those things.

I must,
she thought.

He said, “Ezra James?”

Sissy had liked the sound of Ezra Workman; the name was her choice. Elijah, who’d been less keen, had suggested they give their child a name he wouldn’t hate them for later. But Sissy had said,
I like Ezra! He’s a prophet, like Elijah
. Now, she said, “His name means ‘help.’”

“If only James meant ‘his parents get rich,’” Elijah replied.

They both laughed, and he hugged her and the baby. “May I hold our son?”

In that moment, she decided. Ezra Workman was Elijah Workman’s son, and that would be the end of the matter. Yes, she’d be more comfortable if she could tell him the truth and if Elijah would accept it and love her and Ezra to the same degree. But that was too much to expect—from a man like Elijah anyhow, a man who’d saved himself for her. This would be better for everyone. For her, for Ezra, for Elijah.

T
HAT EVENING
, Elijah walked with Ezra in the hall outside Sissy’s hospital room. His mother, Maureen and her new baby Ashley, and his brother Paul had all come to Kansas City to see Ezra. To Elijah’s disgust—and pain for Sissy—the Athertons had not. Instead, Heloise Atherton, with more travel resources than anyone in the Workman family, had said, “Well, we’ll look forward to seeing her next time you’re down here.”

Her husband had cleared his throat but had not argued.

Now Elijah wondered whether Mrs. Atherton would have been up to Kansas City like a flash if the baby had been Sissy’s and Clark’s. He knew the answer. Heloise’s coldness was directed at him.

God, their first grandchild, and they didn’t want to see him as soon as possible? Elijah wondered if, hoped that, at least Alan would break away and come up to see the baby.

Ezra was a beautiful baby, at least Elijah thought so. He marveled at his perfect tiny fingernails, at the smell of him. He didn’t think he’d ever smelled anything truly new before. To his eyes, Ezra looked like Sissy. He
thought the nose would be Sissy’s, straight and narrow and elegant. He didn’t see the Workmans’ trademark bump, which made his family’s noses so hawklike.

As he wandered the corridors with his infant child, nodding to an occasional passerby who smiled at the new father he was, his chest filled with pride.
My son
. He didn’t dream of Little League and football games. He just knew himself to be in love with his child, proud of him, wanting everything good for him.

A door ahead of him swung open, and a tall figure strode in, looking about, and instantly spotted Elijah. A bright smile broke over Alan Atherton’s face and was mirrored in Elijah’s.

Alan hurried toward him. “Is that my grandson?”

“H
EY
, S
ISSY
.” Elijah spoke softly from the doorway. Sissy looked up, her arms already reaching for Ezra, which made Elijah’s heart swell with love for her. “You’ve got another visitor.”

She saw her father, and her eyes instantly welled up. She lifted a graceful white hand, trying to stop the tears, but her father came to her bedside and embraced her. He said, “This Ezra of ours is the handsomest child I’ve ever seen. And lucky in his parents.”

Unexpectedly, Sissy sobbed against her father’s chest.

Alan said, “Your mother’s afraid she’s coming down with something, or she would have been here. She didn’t want to risk giving it to Ezra, but she insisted I come. Not that she had to twist my arm too hard.”

The lie was smooth, and Elijah breathed some relief, seeing that Sissy, who hadn’t heard her mother’s voice on the phone, had bought it. Of course she wanted her
parents to see Ezra. Even more, she must have wanted
them
to want to see him. Elijah pushed aside his own anger at her mother’s cruelty. He hoped instead that Alan’s news about her pending cold
was
true, though Heloise hadn’t mentioned it earlier.

It was past visiting hours, but Elijah had spoken to one of the nurses, and she’d said, “Just be very quiet. It will be fine. I dare say it’s good for everyone.”

Elijah had thanked her heartily and reminded himself to tell her supervisor later what a fine nurse she was.

After Mr. Atherton left and Ezra slept in a bassinet beside Sissy—a forward-thinking practice when many hospitals still separated mother and child during many of the hours after birth—Elijah looked into Sissy’s eyes and said, “I thought the day we were married was the happiest I’d ever known. But this day tops it.”

He saw her swallow, and thought for a minute that she might cry again. “Are you all right?”

She nodded with a tremulous smile. “Completely.”

June 21, 1970
Echo Springs, Missouri

K
ENNEDY WAS EXPECTING
her first child, and Heloise Atherton spoke of that as she sat with Sissy in the Atherton’s kitchen, holding Ezra. She told Sissy, “They’re registered at Neiman Marcus, of course. Kennedy threw that shower for you, so you have some things for your baby.”

Sissy wanted to snatch Ezra back from her mother. As though sensing this, her son began to fuss, and Sissy felt her breasts start to leak. She took Ezra to feed him,
and her mother said, “It’s good you’re nursing. It will keep you from getting pregnant again first thing. I suppose he doesn’t believe in birth control.”

Thinking of Elijah, Sissy wanted to cry. Birth control? She
longed
to have Elijah’s baby. She loved Ezra totally, would have changed nothing about him, yet there was something wrong in her marriage and it was the lie of Ezra’s paternity, which could only be right when she bore Elijah’s child. That, she told herself, would fix everything between them. And really, she was the only one who felt that way, because Elijah was perfectly happy. From his point of view, she’d given birth to his son, and their lives were perfect.

From her point of view, though, a lie was all that kept her from losing his love.

Sissy actually felt tears fall from her eyes as Ezra latched on to her nipple. She glared at her mother. “Why do you hate him?”

“Hate him? I certainly don’t hate him. He’s your husband. He’s part of the family now.”

Sissy heard this as,
He’s part of the family now, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
“You say mean things about him.”

“Of course I don’t, Sissy. He’s the person you chose. He doesn’t know the people we do. He’s different, but he’s your husband.”

Sissy thought of Martha at home, of Martha who was such a perfect puppy. When she was three or four, Sissy would breed her to a dog of her choosing. Sissy was still thinking of names for her kennel. The kennel that would show this bitch across from her the truth about breeding.

She said, “I’m beginning to think I’m different, too.”

“Of course you’re not. You’re our daughter,” her mother said simply.

Sissy tried to imagine how her mother had come to be the way she was. Why did class
matter
to her so much? Her mother was from Boston and spoke of her debut there. She and Sissy’s father had met at a dog show. He was breeding golden retrievers at the time, but easily switched to shepherds.

“What does he do for the Humane Society?” Heloise asked. “Tell people they shouldn’t have pets?”

Sissy stood, still nursing, and tried to grab up Ezra’s diaper bag. The zipper wouldn’t close all the way, so it gaped.

Her mother said, “You really should have something better.”

Sissy, crying, knew her mother wasn’t talking about the diaper bag. She looked her mother in the face and said, “You’re making me hate you. I love Elijah. Please stop doing this.”

Her mother saw her tears. “Honey, don’t overreact.”

Through a face that felt as though it was falling apart, Sissy managed to show her teeth as she left.

July 3, 1970

T
HEIR FIRST WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
fell on a Friday, and Sissy didn’t really expect Elijah to remember. If he did, she wasn’t sure what she would feel. The lie between them, the lie she swore to keep till death, was changing her in ways she hadn’t anticipated. She felt that she’d been granted the greatest of life’s graces and had destroyed it somehow.

But how could she have come out of it all right? If she hadn’t made love with Clark before the wedding, she might have actually married him. And if she told Elijah that Ezra wasn’t his son, it would hurt him. It might destroy him.

Elijah came in the door at six to find her perfecting Belle’s heel by holding a treat next to her own calf as they walked back and forth across the living room. Belle knew how to heel, had learned quickly, but Sissy was constantly in search of the stop-on-a-dime automatic sits she was used to seeing in the obedience ring.

Sissy glanced up and saw the flowers in Elijah’s arms. It wasn’t the traditional bouquet of red roses but a potted orchid.

“Happy anniversary,” he said.

“It’s beautiful.” Sissy had always loved orchids, and Elijah had bought her an orchid corsage for the one formal dance to which he’d taken her when they were in high school.

“I got you a present, too. I guess you got the kennel last year,” he said, referring to his okaying her plan on their wedding night, “so I thought I should keep up the dog tradition.”

He handed her a small white leather change purse shaped like a dog’s bone.

Sissy laughed, reached up and kissed his mouth, clutching the purse in her hand.

She turned toward the stereo. “We have to dance!”

He said, “Aren’t you going to look in it?”

Sissy looked at the purse in surprise. They were so careful with money. She had made Elijah a card. She’d been trying to knit him a sweater for some time, but it
wasn’t going very well. With luck, it would be done by winter time.

Carefully Sissy unzipped the bag. Inside was something small wrapped in white tissue paper.

“I have the box,” he said.

It was a ring, a sapphire eternity ring.

“They’re the color of your eyes,” he said. “And there’s no stone to stick out and catch on things.”

Sissy’s eyes flooded, and she wished for something that would cost no money, that she could tell him the truth about Ezra and that he would love her as much as he loved her now. She held out the ring and offered him her left hand so that only he could remove the wedding ring and slide it back on after the sapphires.

He said, “Is it all right?”

She clung to him, then heard Ezra’s soft cry from the next room. “It’s perfect,” she lied. The ring was perfect; it was their marriage that no longer was.

March 14, 1971
Kansas City

S
ISSY EMERGED
from the obstetrician’s office into morning sunlight, Ezra toddling beside her, holding her hand.
Yes!
She was pregnant. Elijah’s baby. Now, when Elijah made love to her, she could feel as though it was really for her, not as though she must inhabit some other place for fear of his seeing into her mind. She was in love with Elijah, and to all appearances, he was mad about her.

But it’s not real. He can’t really love me because I’m not who he thinks I am.

Strangely she both resented this and deeply feared
Elijah’s learning the truth. She truly wanted his love, even if it was his love of a shell he believed to be her.

But with another baby, a baby that was his biologically, she would become the person he thought she was. Right? He couldn’t not love her after she’d
actually
borne his child.

At work, Elijah was still investigating the abuse of animals in research labs. He made frequent trips to Washington to testify before Congress on behalf of animals. Sissy appreciated what he was doing, but disliked the people he worked with because she bred German shepherds, and the people at the Humane Society never hesitated to butt in and say it was a terrible thing to do.

Which simply wasn’t true.

But she recognized how careful Elijah was never to criticize her for what she did, and to be as much a part of the kennel as he could be, even working with the dogs in obedience, using his own methods, which sometimes had phenomenal results. He’d told her, “I try to figure out each dog’s strongest drive and use that in training. Martha isn’t that interested in food. She loves praise.” Drives? Yes, well, Sissy had almost broken her ankle thanks to the results of Whiteout’s favorite drive—digging.