Pieces of Sky (30 page)

Emotion swelled in her chest. She gently kissed that downy head, felt the butterfly pulse of the fontanel against her lips, and experienced such a fierce and consuming joy, it brought tears to her eyes.
Victoria. At last.

Dr. O’Grady moved beside the bed. She lifted her free arm to make room for the other baby, but it never came. When she saw the doctor’s face, she knew why. “No.”

“I’m sorry, lass.”

“NO!”

The bed sagged as he sat beside her and began talking in his soft musical voice. She didn’t want to hear and tried not to listen, but his words found their way into her mind anyway. Before she’d even had a chance to savor it, the joy within her died.

“He’s wee but he’s healthy. He’ll grow fast.”

He. Not she. Not Victoria.
“Where is my daughter?”

The doctor shook his head, his faded eyes filled with pity she didn’t want.

“Where is my daughter? I need to know where she is!”

O’Grady rose and went to the window. Pushing the blanket drape aside, he pointed toward the hill rising in sharp silhouette against the evening sky. “She’s up there, lass. Brady buried her beside little Sam. And a fine job of it he did, too, with a wee wooden casket and dozens of roses and a marker he carved himself.” He let the drape fall and walked back to the bed. Tucking the blanket tighter around the tiny figure by her side, he said, “It’s your son who needs you now.”

A son. John Crawford’s son. While Victoria rested in a grave.
God, why?

But God wasn’t listening or He didn’t care. Strength failed her. The darkness beckoned, promised relief from the ache in her heart. Bereft, unable to look at the baby at her side, she turned her face to the wall and closed her eyes.

 

 

SHE DRIFTED FOREVER, WRAPPED IN A MANTLE OF DESPAIR that numbed her mind and sapped her will. Yet even cocooned in her misery, Victoria invaded her dreams—a laughing, beautiful, perfect child who wasn’t to be. Jessica would awaken, her chest aching and her throat clogged with tears she couldn’t shed, only to find that reality was much crueler than the painful yearning of her dreams.

The emptiness was unbearable.

So much easier to drift away, where hours became days, and days became forever.

But Elena gave her no peace. She was always nearby, rousing her to take water or broth or a bitter herbal brew Consuelo made for her. Jessica tried to tell her to stop, that it didn’t matter, that she needed to be with Victoria. But Elena wouldn’t let her go. Persistence outlasted resistance, and eventually, whether she willed it or not, Jessica’s strength began to return.

“You are a mother now,” Elena told her over and over. “Your son needs you.”

She made a halfhearted effort. She knew what she was expected to do. But her milk was slow to come in, and she was so weak she was afraid to hold him, and when she did, it felt like a betrayal of Victoria.

So Elena tended him. She even found a wet nurse to feed him. And ultimately, Jessica wasn’t needed at all. Relieved, she slept the hours away.

Time had no meaning. Isolated and alone, she drifted through hazy dreams while life went on around her. She felt disconnected from it, armored by despair and numbed by apathy, and if not for the single slender thread that bound her to the mesquite tree on that graveyard hilltop, she might have drifted away forever.

She could see it from her bed. For hours she lay staring at it, watching the colors change as the sun moved slowly across the sky. Lacy arms called her to come, but she couldn’t. She hadn’t the strength or the will, and as long as she didn’t have to look at that tiny grave on the hill, she could pretend that it wasn’t there, that it wasn’t real, that Victoria still lived. It was all she had.

 

 

BRADY STAYED OUT OF IT AS LONG AS HE COULD. DOC EXPLAINED that Jessica had had a rough time of it, and although her son was small, he would survive. Just a matter of time.

Yet as the days passed, it became clear that even though Jessica was making a slow physical recovery, she was falling into a rapid mental decline. He knew she was grieving. But after almost a week of listening to her son cry while she slept the days away, he realized he had to do something. He couldn’t sit by and let another woman drift out of his life.

He was in his usual evening spot, sitting in his rocker, not far from her open window. He could hear almost everything that went on behind the blanket drape. He heard the baby cry when he was hungry or needed his drawers changed or when Angelina Ortega, the wet nurse, came to feed him. He heard when they brought food and tried to coax Jessica to eat. He heard the worried voices of Consuelo and Elena as they moved about the room. But he never heard a word from Jessica. He never even heard her cry.

It had been another hellacious day. His most productive bull had suffered a snakebite, a cougar had taken five calves from the north herd, and a landslide had filled in one of their best water holes. On top of that came news of a slaughtered family in a charred cabin south of Val Rosa. Not knowing if it was hostiles or Sancho, he had to prepare the ranch for either. He could handle all that. He could even handle the fact that with Jessica laid up, he was back to Consuelo’s chili, and his stomach felt like someone was rooting around in it with a hot iron.

What he couldn’t handle was a quitter.

Behind the curtain, the baby howled for his night feeding.
Christ.

The ache in Brady’s gut moved up into his temples. Squeezing the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, he struggled with his temper. Was there any sound worse than that of a crying baby? Why didn’t they do something?

The kid hit a high note that set off tiny explosions of pain throughout Brady’s skull. He started out of his rocker, then heard the wet nurse come into the room and he settled back, relieved that at last someone had come to tend the poor kid.

Massaging his temples with the tips of his fingers, he listened to Angelina move about, taking time away from her own child to tend another woman’s baby. It came to him how wrong that was—wrong of Jessica to give up her own child, and wrong of him to let her.

Resolved, he shot to his feet. He stomped into the house and down the hall. Without pausing to knock, he flung open the bedroom door so hard it bounced against the wall. Angelina looked up with wide startled eyes from the squalling half-dressed baby.

Jessica remained facing the wall.

He didn’t know if she was asleep or not, and didn’t care. Giving Angelina what he hoped was a reassuring nod, he waited in the doorway while she finished changing the baby’s drawers. When she began loosening the tie on her blouse, he motioned for her to stop. “She’ll do it.” He nodded toward the door. “Wait outside.”

After the door closed behind her, he picked up the baby and crossed to the bed. As he looked down at Jessica, his anger built. He wanted to shake her, demand that she come back, that she acknowledge her son. He didn’t know which enraged him more—her helplessness or his. He’d tried to be patient. He’d tried to be understanding. He’d gagged down Consuelo’s chili and listened to the baby crying and had kept his distance. But enough was enough. This ended now.

“Roll over.”

When she didn’t move, he pinned the baby against his chest with one hand, and grabbed her shoulder with the other. He pulled her onto her back.

She looked up with that same empty stare he’d seen on his mother’s face ten years ago, and it sent his anger to a flash point. He thrust the crying baby toward her. “Feed your son.”

She blinked and looked around. “There’s a nurse—”

“No. You do it.”

Awareness sparked in her eyes. “I—I can’t.”

“You can and you will.” When she tried to pull away, he grabbed for her shoulder, missed, and got her gown instead. The thin fabric tore, exposing one swollen blue-veined breast. He watched her feeble attempts to cover herself and felt half sick. It shamed him to be doing this, but he was too angry to stop now. Shoving her hands away, he laid the baby on the bed beside her.

The baby howled, his tiny fists waving, his face red with indignation.

Jessica shrank back, but Brady trapped her head in his hands and held her fast. He brought his face close to hers. “You’re his mother, damnit! Act like it.”

Realizing he was scaring her, he pulled his hands away and forced himself to step back. It sickened him to see the fear back in her eyes. “Feed him,” he snapped. “If I have to stand here all night, you’ll at least do that for your son.”

It didn’t take all night, and in fact, took little more than half an hour. But by the time it was done, the baby was acting colicky, Jessica was crying, and Brady was about to puke. When it was clear Jessica had no more milk to give, he took the baby from her unresisting arms and passed him out to Angelina. After sending her to the kitchen to finish feeding him, he closed the door and went back to the bed.

Jessica lay curled toward the wall again. This time he felt no anger, just a deep sense of loss and resignation, knowing she would probably never trust him again.

“Look at me.”

Slowly she rolled over. She looked ravaged, worse than after the stage crashed, worse than when she was fevered. More than anything he wanted to gather her in his arms, and tell her he would find a way to fix this and make everything right for her again.

He reached out to brush a limp curl from her face.

She jerked her head away.

Surprised by the jolt of pain her action brought him, he let his hand fall back to his side.

“You’re going to do this, Jessica, because he’s your son and he needs you. And because none of this is his fault, any more than it is yours.”

She didn’t respond, but if an expression had substance, he would be bleeding to death.

“Even if I have to come in here a dozen times a day to make sure you do. Understand?”

He waited, watched the emotions play across her face—fear, despair, fury—and he was glad, because at least now she was feeling something.

“I understand you’re a bloody bastard,” she finally said.

“So you’ve said.” Then, because he was so relieved to see that spark of temper back in her eyes, and because he’d been wanting to do it ever since he’d walked through the door, he leaned down and gave her a quick kiss. Drawing back before she could bite him, he said, “Sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

 

 

SHE COULDN’T SLEEP. BRADY HAD SHATTERED THAT CAREFULLY erected wall between her and her pain, and now she could find no rest, no peace.

She hated him. Despised him. How dare he do this to her.

Her anguish was immeasurable and unbearable. She had no defense against it but anger. Seething with fury, she lay staring out the window, wondering how to go on from here.

She glanced over at the cradle.

At John Crawford’s son.

It might not be the baby’s fault or hers, but they would both carry that curse forever, no matter what Brady said. Couldn’t he understand that? Didn’t he know what she was going through?

She sat up and peered over the side of the cradle.

Red fluff showed above the edge of the blanket. She heard a faint snuffling, as if his nose was stuffy from all his crying. He was very small.

Then why did she feel so threatened? Was it because he was male? A smaller version of the man she despised? Would the sins of the father . . .

With a cry, she slumped back, her mind in such turmoil her limbs shook.

He was just a baby. A redheaded baby who looked more like her than his brute of a father.

Her baby.

For a long time she stared up at the adobe ceiling, listening to her son breathe while tears slid down to dampen the hair at her temples.

It was a litany she repeated over and over, until slowly the knot in her chest loosened. After a while, anger faded into numbness then weary acceptance. Finally, too exhausted to fight it any longer, she closed her eyes and slept.

She awoke to see dawn creeping across the sky. She waited until it bathed the tombstones in golden light and backlit the mesquite tree in a fiery nimbus, then on trembling legs, she rose. Moving quietly so she wouldn’t wake the baby, she pulled on her robe and stepped into her slippers, then left the room.

Her body was so sore she had to brace her palms against the walls for support as she shuffled down the hall. By the time she made it out onto the porch, she panted with exertion. Once she’d caught her breath and her eyes had adjusted to the harsh morning sunlight, she carefully made her way down the steps into the yard. The scent of roses was so overpowering it made her gorge rise. Against the stone foundation the blossoms looked like bright splashes of blood.

As she crossed the yard, the hound scrambled out from under the porch. He kept his distance, watching her slow progress with sad canine eyes, as if waiting to see what she was up to before committing himself to action. He probably sensed her dementia. Animals were good at that. After a few moments he lost interest and, with a yawn and a stretch, crawled back into the shade under the porch.

Chickens laid a trail of droppings as they moved from her path. Sharp rocks cut into the thin soles of her slippers. She should have worn her walking boots rather than these useless satin slippers. She should have taken more care. She shouldn’t have fainted and fallen down the steps.

Before she had traveled a hundred feet, Elena and Consuelo tracked her down. “Where are you going?” Elena called from the porch as Consuelo came down the steps toward her.

“I need to go.” She waved a shaky hand toward the hill. “Up there. I need to see—”