Morning Glory Circle (29 page)

Ava’s wrist was throbbing, so she could only watch as Doc gave the baby a warm bath in his office sink. She admired his gentle handling and soothing manner with the frightened infant. The baby’s skin was raw and chapped from diaper rash, so Doc put some ointment and powder on it and diapered him with an incontinence pad he cut down to size.

“I haven’t done any of this in a long time,” he told Ava.

“Neither have I,” Ava said.

Doc swaddled the baby tightly in a clean towel and cradled him against his chest with one arm while he wrote out some prescriptions.

“I’m going to give you a couple prescriptions, Ava, but I know you’ve been through upper respiratory bugs with your children, so you know what to do. A steamy bathroom or a vaporizer, and a mentholated rub will help loosen up the congestion. He’s not dehydrated or malnourished, so I don’t think he needs to be hospitalized. Keep him fed and warm, but not overheated. Call me if he gets worse. I’ll stop in to check on him on my way home.”

“Thank God,” Ava said. “I can take him home with me.”

“He looks like a Fitzpatrick,” Doc said, giving Ava a pointed look.

“I think he probably is,” Ava said.

The doctor looked long and hard at Ava, but did not ask any of the questions she thought he probably had.

“You’ll need to file a report with the police and they’ll want to talk to me,” Doc said. “You think long and hard about what you want to say and I’ll back you up.”

“Thank you, Doc.”

“Once Mildred gets back, she can hold him while I look at your wrist.”

Mandy ran into the newspaper office in a panic. She was still in her bakery apron, hairnet, and plastic gloves.

“The school called,” she told Ed, out of breath. “Tommy’s missin’.”

Ed jumped up, got his keys and jacket, told Hank to stay, and Mandy followed him to his truck, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“We’ll check at home first,” he said. “I’ll call Scott on the way.”

Just as he started the ignition, Bonnie Fitzpatrick came running out of the bakery waving her arms and yelling, “Wait, wait!”

Ed rolled down his window.

“Ava just called; he’s with her.”

“What in the world?” Ed said.

“She said for you to go on over to her place, and they’ll be there shortly. He’s fine.”

Ed drove Mandy over to Ava’s bed and breakfast, and pulled in the back driveway just as Ava pulled in. Ava got out of her van wearing a sling and a cast on her arm, and slid open the door to the backseat. Tommy was sitting back there holding the baby, who was now sound asleep.

Ava put her fingers up to her lips as Mandy and Ed started to ask questions.

“Don’t be mad at Tommy,” she whispered. “He saved this baby’s life.”

Ed carefully took the sleeping baby from Tommy, carried it to the back porch, and waited until Ava opened the door, which she had left unlocked earlier.

Tommy got out of the van. Mandy hugged him hard, and then pulled his hair.

“Ow,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care how brave you been,” Mandy said. “You shoulda called me.”

She kissed his cheek and hugged him again, then wiped her eyes and pinched him hard on the arm.

“Ow, I said I’m sorry,” Tommy said.

“I love you,” Mandy said, “but you gotta quit scaring the life outta me like this. I’m gonna get wrinkles and high blood pressure.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It all happened so fast. That old lady left on a bus this morning and she didn’t have the baby. She left him all alone in the trailer, and he’s real sick. Doc Machalvie said it was good we got there when we did.”

Mandy looked long and hard at Tommy, and tears filled her eyes.

“You done the right thing,” she said. “Lord knows I woulda done the same.”

“I love you, Mom,” Tommy said, and hugged his mother.

“Alright, come on inside,” she said. “I wanna know everything that happened, and don’t you dare leave anything out.”

Tommy and Mandy got the bags full of baby supplies out of the back seat, closed the van door, and went in the house.

Later that afternoon the late college president’s wife and daughter arrived at the bed and breakfast, checked in, and went straight up to their rooms. Delia was covering the front desk for Ava, who was supervising Mandy feeding the baby boy in the kitchen.

“It’s been a long time since I done this,” Mandy said.

“You’re doing just fine,” Ava said. She was frustrated about being unable to hold the baby due to her cast and sling. “It all comes right back to you, doesn’t it?”

Mandy didn’t answer her. Instead she kissed the top of the baby’s head and tears filled her eyes.

“Tommy’s okay, isn’t he, Mandy?” Ava said. “I’m so sorry we didn’t call you right away.”

“It’s not that,” Mandy said. “I just wonder how anybody could abandon a precious little one like that. What kinda person does that?”

“My ex-husband, I think,” Ava said. “He has a history of this sort of thing.”

“You think this here baby is Brian’s?” Mandy asked incredulously.

“He looks so much like Timmy he almost has to be,” Ava said.

“I think all babies look pretty much alike,” Mandy said.

“But a mother never forgets what her own baby looks like. You’re a mother, Mandy, you know what I mean.”

But Mandy didn’t answer; she just kissed the baby again and then wiped her eyes.

Ed had volunteered to take Tommy back to school, prepared to plead his case to the principal. Bonnie Fitzpatrick called soon after, to say she was coming over, unable to stand not knowing what was going on.

“He’s a hungry little fella,” Mandy was saying as Bonnie came in the back door. Bonnie bent around Mandy’s shoulder, took a good look at the child, and then looked at Ava.

“Oh my Lord Jesus,” she said.

“I know,” Ava said.

Bonnie immediately took the baby and the bottle from Mandy and sat down in a kitchen chair.

“You go on back to the bakery now,” she told Mandy. “I left Alice by herself.”

Mandy took the command in stride, as she always did.

“Yes ma’am,” she said, and waved goodbye. “By Ava, thanks for lookin’ out after my son.”

“Please don’t be too hard on Tommy,” Ava said. “It’s my fault we didn’t call you sooner.”

“He shouldn’t a left school like that, without callin’ me, but I’m not gonna whup him,” Mandy said. “It turned out alright.”

After Mandy left Bonnie kept looking at the baby, looking at Ava, and shaking her head.

“The spitting image,” she said.

“I know,” Ava said, smiling.

Delia came in the kitchen and put an arm around Ava.

“Looks like you’ve got a new grandbaby,” she told Bonnie.

Bonnie smiled tenderly, and a couple tears fell from her eyes onto the baby’s blanket. Then just as quickly, her face grew stormy, and she looked accusingly at Ava and Delia.

“And where, I’d like to know, is his father, my son?”

Ava shrugged, and reached over to touch the baby’s cheek.

“I don’t really care,” she said. “I know he’s your son and my husband, but a man who would abandon a baby like that, again, has lost the right to claim him.”

“He might not have known the baby was alone,” Bonnie protested. “And no one has told me yet what happened. Why am I always the last one to know anything?”

Ava got her caught up, but left out the part about Brian calling to demand money, so of course Bonnie defended her son.

“You don’t know his side of it,” Bonnie said. “He may be able to explain everything.”

Ava just sighed, and Delia squeezed her arm in support.

“I hate to be a party pooper,” Delia said to Ava. “But you probably better call Sean and find out what legal things you need to do now.”

Bonnie sat the baby up to burp it, and wiped his runny nose.

“You go on and do that, Ava,” she said, as she gently thumped the baby’s back. “I’ll take care of my grandson.”

After Scott slept a few hours and took a quick shower, he decided to go to the bed and breakfast to give his condolences to the late college president’s wife. Now that he had officially separated himself from the case, he couldn’t turn around and investigate it, but because he had been the one to call her with the bad news, he felt he owed her a visit.

He was surprised to find Delia at the front desk in the parlor, and Bonnie walking the floor with a redheaded baby in her arms. Ava came down the hall from the kitchen with her arm in a cast and sling, and got Scott caught up on the day’s events.

“I guess no one thinks to call the police when these things happen,” Scott said when she was done.

“I’m sorry,” Ava said. “It all happened so fast. I didn’t think; I just went.”

“This will have to get reported, though,” Scott said. “I can’t just let you have the baby.”

“I just got off the phone with Sean,” Ava said. “He said I should call you right away. He said I would need to report the baby abandoned, and that you would probably need statements from Doc Machalvie, Tommy, and me. I’m supposed to request that you make me the temporary guardian.”

“It may not be as easy as that,” Scott said. “You’ll need a judge to sign the order.”

“Judge Feinman lives right up the hill,” Bonnie said. “He’ll sign it.”

“A relative would be the logical choice of guardian,” Scott said. “But what do I tell Judge Feinman is the relationship between you and the baby?”

“We think he’s Brian’s son,” Ava said. “So I would be his stepmother, I guess.”

“I’m related to him by blood, though,” Bonnie said. “I’m his grandmother.”

Ava looked at Bonnie and the two women locked gazes.

“A blood test will have to be done,” Scott said, “to prove he’s related to Bonnie. I’m willing to recommend either of you for temporary guardianship, as long as I have Children’s Protective Services’ blessing and Judge Feinman’s approval. Who’s it going to be?”

“Do you promise to hear him out when he shows up?” Bonnie asked her daughter-in-law.

Ava did not break eye contact with Bonnie, but she paused for a long moment before she spoke. Everyone in the room could see her internal struggle, and no one made a sound.

“He’s my husband, Bonnie,” Ava said finally, sweetly. “Of course I’ll listen to whatever he has to say.”

Bonnie looked at Scott and nodded in Ava’s direction.

“Ava can have him. You tell us what to do and we’ll do it.”

When Tommy got out of school his mother was waiting, and she walked him to the station so Scott could take his statement. The Children’s Protective Services social worker was a Sacred Heart Sunday school teacher who knew everyone involved, and she rushed the paperwork through by calling in some favors. Scott took the agency forms, Tommy’s, Ava’s, and Doc Machalvie’s statements, and the guardianship request to Judge Feinman for his signature.

When Scott got to Maury Feinman’s house, the judge was expecting him. He was also eating a hot, freshly baked cinnamon roll, straight out of a big bakery box recently delivered from Fitzpatrick’s Bakery. His secretary Frannie, who was a notary as well as the second lucky recipient of a large bakery delivery, was also in attendance.

“Lucky kid,” Maury said, signing the paperwork. “I wish I’d been rescued by that family.”

Maggie found Hannah sitting in the back row of the viewing room at Machalvie’s Funeral Home, watching everyone arrive for Margie’s funeral.

“Where were you?” Hannah asked. “I’ve been calling around town trying to find you.”

“It’s a long story,” Maggie said. “But it ends with Ava holding a baby Brian abandoned in the trailer park.”

“You are freaking kidding me.”

“No,” she said. “The kid looks just like Timmy did when he was a baby.”

“Get out.”

“I know, right?”

“Rose Hill is a crazy place to live these days.”

“My family is what’s making it crazy, I’m afraid.”

“At least Brian didn’t murder Margie,” Hannah said, gesturing to the coffin up front.

“But where is he?”

Hannah shrugged.

“There are not very many people here yet,” Hannah said, looking around. “Do you think no one will show up?”

“Oh, they’ll be here,” Maggie said. “Nobody in Rose Hill misses a funeral.”

“Or a funeral reception,” Hannah said. “But I think I’m going to pass on that. If you find the body you don’t have to spoon out the potato salad. At least I think that’s the rule.”

“Did you look at her?” Maggie asked Hannah, nodding toward the coffin.

“I skipped that too. I think I’m doing okay, and then suddenly I’m not.”

“But more importantly, how is Sam doing?” Maggie asked sweetly.

“I know, what a big selfish baby, right?”