“Oh, I’m all right.” Sheila sounded tired. She rubbed her hand on the back of her neck and rolled her head on her shoulders. “Sam and I had a bit of a rough day,” she added. “He had his first spanking. At least, his first from me.”
“What?” Liam turned to look at her, unable to hide the shock in his face. Sheila didn’t seem to notice, though.
“He threw a tantrum in the grocery store.” Her eyes looked tired as she watched Sam lift himself awkwardly to his tiptoes as he tried to peer over the edge of the well. “He’s advanced for his age, I guess.” She chuckled. “Moving into the terrible twos at fifteen months.”
Liam tried to stay calm, afraid that if he let her see the anger building inside him, she wouldn’t tell him the truth about what happened.
“What do you mean by tantrum?” he asked.
“Oh, you know. The usual.” She glanced at him. “Or maybe you don’t know, not having had a child before. He was grabbing things he thought he wanted from the shelves, yelling his head off when I took them away from him. He sat down on the floor in the middle of the aisle and wouldn’t stop screaming.”
“He probably just needed a nap.” Liam watched Sam drop into a sitting position and begin slapping his hands against the stucco of the wishing well. He tried to picture Sheila hitting the little boy in the middle of the grocery store. Hitting him. For being a normal fifteen-month-old boy. Liam clenched his fists in his lap.
“He’d already had a nap,” Sheila countered. “He was just being a bad boy. I told him if he didn’t settle down, he’d get a spanking. And he kept right on screaming. So, when we got home I turned him over my knee.”
Liam practically jumped from the bench, turning to face Sheila with his hands held in front of him, fingers spread as though he was trying to keep himself from strangling her.
“Not okay!” He said the only two words he seemed able to force from his mouth. “That’s not okay, Sheila! I don’t want anyone hitting my son. Ever.”
“Oh, Liam, I didn’t hit him. I didn’t leave a mark on him.” She put one hand over her eyes to block out the sun as she looked up at him. “I spanked him. Parents have been spanking their kids since Adam and Eve. Weren’t you ever spanked?”
“No. I wasn’t.” His voice was growing louder, and a woman walking up the path to the nursing home glanced at him as she passed by. He didn’t care who heard him. “Not ever,” he said. “It’s barbaric. It teaches children that violence is a solution. How could you do that to him? How could you hurt him? You, who made me baby-proof every inch of my house? He—”
“Liam, you’re really being silly.” Sheila wore a patronizing smile he wanted to wipe from her face. “I gave him a few gentle swats on his bottom while he was turned over my knee. How else can you teach a fifteen-month-old right from wrong? You can’t explain it to him.”
“Do you honestly think he had a clue why he was being punished?” Liam asked. He paced three feet in one direction and three feet back, pounding his fist into the palm of his other hand. “He misbehaved in the grocery store for whatever reason. For a reason our grown-up minds can’t fathom. For reasons that had meaning to him. Then you warn him you’ll spank him, when he hasn’t ever heard the word before. And then you do it when you get home. How is he supposed to make a connection? I mean, even if it could possibly be considered an appropriate form of punishment?”
“Well, he knows the word now.” Sheila pursed her lips. “He’ll know what I mean the next time I say it.”
“There won’t be a next time, Sheila.” Liam stopped pacing to look at her. “I mean it. This is absolutely nonnegotiable. No one is hitting Sam.”
“When they’re too young to reason with, there’s no other way to—”
“I turned out all right,” he said. “My parents somehow managed to teach me right from wrong without resorting to…the humiliation…the physical violation of smacking the crap out of me. And Mara would never approve.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Sheila said. “You’re overreacting, Liam. I didn’t smack the crap out of him, and you know it. And, as for Mara, she was spanked any number of times.”
She was? He hadn’t known that. They had never gotten around to discussing how they would discipline their child.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I still don’t think she would approve.”
Sam suddenly ran over to him and wrapped his arms around Liam’s leg, clinging, obviously aware that something was wrong between his father and his grandmother. Liam rested one hand on top of Sam’s head.
“Look,” he said to Sheila, attempting to lower the angry pitch of his voice, “I appreciate all you’ve done for Sam. But please, just promise me you won’t hit him again.”
“I can’t promise that, Liam,” she said. “I think you’re being absolutely ridiculous.”
“I don’t want you hitting him!”
Sam let out a wail and clung harder.
“Then I just won’t take care of him anymore,” Sheila said, standing up. “You can find someone else to do it. And you can pay for it yourself.”
Liam closed his eyes in frustration. “That’s not what I want,” he said. Bending over, he lifted Sam into his arms again, and this time the little boy buried his face against Liam’s neck.
“Then I’ll spank him when he needs it.” Sheila folded her arms across her chest.
Liam couldn’t respond. He felt helpless and realized that, if he tried to say something, anything, more to Sheila, his voice would break. He pressed his cheek against Sam’s head.
“When Mara is well enough,” Sheila said, “she’ll agree with me. I can assure you of—”
“She’s never going to get well, Sheila!” he said angrily, eliciting another cry from his son, but he couldn’t stop himself from spitting the words at her. “Don’t you understand that?” he asked. “Never. She is in this nursing home for the rest of her life. She’s never going to understand that Sam is her son. She doesn’t even know you’re her mother.”
Sheila’s face was red, her cheeks puffed out as though they might explode. Turning on her heel, she walked back down the pathway toward the parking lot.
Liam sat on the bench, his body shaking, and watched her go.
“It’s okay, Sam,” he whispered, and the little boy relaxed against his neck once more. “It’s okay, sweetheart.”
Although he couldn’t see the parking lot because of the landscaping, he heard Sheila’s car door slam and the engine turn over, and he felt pleased that she was leaving. He would have to find a way to repair the damage he’d just done to his relationship with her, but he didn’t want Sheila in Mara’s room with him and Sam today.
“I’m sorry you had a rough day, Sam,” he said, rocking the boy a little. “I’m so sorry.”
Damn, this was hard! There was so much he wanted to talk to Mara about, so much he needed to talk to her about. He wanted to tell her what Sheila had done to Sam, to ask if, perhaps, Mara did approve. How did she feel about it? Maybe he had projected his values about parenting onto Mara, since she could no longer speak for herself.
He wished he could tell Mara that her mother was stuck in denial. That he was, too, at times. It was so comfortable there, in that imaginary place where there was always hope. Hope was both friend and enemy, he knew: it kept him going, but it also prevented him from planning realistically for the future. And in his darkest moments, he was certain Mara’s future was in that bed in the nursing home. He honestly didn’t know how to plan his life around that indisputable fact.
When he and Sam arrived home after their visit with Mara, they played with blocks and read books. All the while, Liam had only one thing on his mind: he wanted to talk to Joelle. He told himself it would be a mistake, but the thought would not leave his head.
He managed to avoid calling her until after he’d gone to bed that night, when the image of his confused baby son being turned over Sheila’s knee filled his mind. Without stopping to think, he lifted the receiver from
the night table and dialed Joelle’s number.
“Hello?” Her voice was thick, and he knew she’d been sleeping.
“I’m sorry to wake you,” he said. “I just have a quick question.”
“What is it?” She sounded instantly awake. He pictured her sitting up in bed, her long, dark hair messy from sleep and her heart beating quickly as she realized it was him on the phone.
“Do you know how Mara felt about spanking?” he asked.
There was a beat of silence on Joelle’s end of the line. “I…I don’t know specifically,” she said, “but my guess is she wouldn’t want to handle discipline that way. Are you having some trouble with Sam?”
He laughed, the sound almost alien to his ears. It had been a long time since he’d laughed about anything with Joelle, but he quickly sobered. “No,” he said. “I’m having trouble with Sheila. She spanked Sam today.”
“What happened?”
“He was screaming in the grocery store,” he said. “It doesn’t really matter what happened. He’s a baby. He can’t do anything bad enough to merit a spanking.”
“You sound so upset.” The tenderness in her voice made the muscles in his chest contract. “I am upset,” he said. “But then I realized I had no idea how Mara would feel about it. About spanking.”
Another beat of silence. “Hon,” Joelle said. “It doesn’t really matter how Mara would feel about it. What matters is how you feel.”
“I can’t stand the thought of anyone hurting him,” he said.
“Then don’t let them,” she said. “He’s your son. You make the rules.”
“I…” If he said another word, he’d lose his resolve. “Thanks,” he said quickly. “I’ve got to go. I’ll see you at work.” He hung up abruptly. He pictured her staring at her phone with a puzzled look on her face, wondering if she’d said something to make him hang up like that. He’d wanted to ask her more questions. How did he stop Sheila from hitting Sam, for example, when he was completely dependent on her in so many ways? But he’d been afraid that any more conversation on the subject, any more words of loving comfort from Joelle would put an end to his carefully maintained defenses. It had happened before, and he feared it could happen again, because what he really wanted was to have her here in bed with him, holding her close, his hands tangled in her hair, one of her legs nestled between his, all night long.
14
IT WAS OBVIOUS TO JOELLE THAT LIAM WAS AVOIDING HER THE following day. He’d not been in his office when she arrived at work, and he skipped out early from the peer supervision meeting he, Joelle and Paul held each week in the conference room. But Joelle had even bigger things on her mind than Liam’s phone call of the night before.
As of today, she was twelve weeks pregnant, and she was finally going to say those words out loud to someone other than herself. She found it difficult to concentrate on the patients she saw in the maternity unit that morning, because she was on the lookout for Rebecca Reed, who never seemed to be in the corridor or at the nurses’ station the same time she was. In the afternoon, Rebecca would be seeing patients in her office, and although that office was in the maternity unit, she would be too busy to take time out for Joelle.
Her pregnancy was still quite easy to hide. She definitely had a rounded belly, and she’d bought a few loose-fitting dresses and tops to wear, so that when she truly had to wear baggier clothing, the change in style wouldn’t be so obvious to her co-workers. She no longer needed to use the bathroom every few minutes, but she was beginning to get a strange achy feeling in her groin that made her glad she was finally going to see a doctor. She had to know her baby was all right.
She didn’t spot Rebecca until nearly noon. The doctor was talking with Serena Marquez at the nurses’ station, a stack of patient charts in her arms. Joelle greeted the two women briefly, not wanting to interrupt their conversation. Taking a seat at the counter, she hoped Serena would leave the station before Rebecca did, and she was in luck. One of the nurses asked Serena to check on a patient, leaving Rebecca and Joelle alone at the counter.
Rebecca sat down, opened one of the charts she’d been carrying and began to write. Almost immediately, Joelle moved to the seat next to her, and Rebecca looked over at her with a quick smile before returning to her notes.
“Sorry to interrupt, Rebecca,” Joelle said, “but would you have some time today to talk with me? Maybe after you’re done seeing your patients this afternoon?”
“Do you have a problem patient?” Rebecca asked without taking her eyes or her hand from the chart.
“Yes,” Joelle said. “Me.”
Rebecca stopped writing. She looked at Joelle, her eyebrows raised and frank curiosity in her face. “Sure,” she said. “I’ll be done around five. Can you come to my office then?”
“Thanks,” Joelle said. “I’ll be there.” She stood up and started walking toward the cafeteria, thinking she would go to Rebecca’s office a bit after five in the hope that the doctor’s staff would have left by then. The fewer people who saw her there, the better.
She spotted Liam sitting alone at their usual table near the cafeteria window and took a seat across from him, glad he had not skipped lunch in an effort to avoid her.
“Where’s Paul?” she asked as she opened her napkin and rested it on her lap.
“He’s swamped,” Liam said. “He’ll be late.”
He’d sounded so miserable on the phone the night before, so distressed at the thought of Sam being hurt. He had to have been in a deep, dark crater to have called her. Awkward though it had been, she’d been thrilled he’d turned to her the way he used to.
“How are you?” she asked him as she raised her glass of milk to her lips.
“I’m all right.” He looked directly at her. “Sorry I bothered you last night,” he said.
“It was no bother,” she said. “Did you decide how you’re going to handle the situation with Sheila?”
“I’ve got it covered, thanks.” He tore open a packet of sugar and poured it into his coffee, a barely perceptible tremor in his hand. Like hell he had it covered, she thought.
“Oh.” She leaned toward him, wishing she could touch that trembling hand. “Let me help you. You don’t need to—”
“Hi, Paul,” Liam interrupted her, looking above her head, and she turned to see Paul about to set his tray on the table.
“Will this day never end?” Paul said as he lowered himself into the chair.
“What’s going on?” Liam asked with sudden enthusiasm, as though he wanted nothing more than to talk with Paul about his cases.
“Three new AIDS admissions, one of them a fourteen-year-old girl,” Paul said. “Two child abuse cases. One little boy about to die. You know, the usual.”
“I might be able to help you out later,” Joelle said to Paul. Her load today was comparatively light.
Liam began questioning Paul about the details of his cases, exhibiting insatiable curiosity that Joelle knew was born of his desire to avoid talking about his own problems, and she grew quiet. As soon as she had finished eating, she excused herself and went up to the general surgery floor to see if she was needed there. It was too hard to be around Liam when he was shutting her out, cutting himself off from the friendship she still longed to give him.
That afternoon, she whisked through her referrals, then helped Paul with his cases, not allowing herself any free time. She didn’t want that much time to think. At five o’clock, someone else would finally know what was happening to her body. The contents of her mind and heart, though, would have to remain hidden.
At quarter after five, she sat down in the chair across the desk from Rebecca Reed and offered the doctor a weak smile.
“Thanks for seeing me,” she said.
Rebecca shoved aside a stack of charts to give Joelle her full attention. “So,” she said, “what’s up with you?” Even at the end of a long day, the doctor’s blond hair was still neatly, sleekly, pulled back into a clasp at the nape of her neck,
and her face looked freshly scrubbed, her skin smooth and glowing.
Joelle had spoken about her personal problems once before with Rebecca, many years earlier, when she and Rusty had been unable to conceive. Rebecca had been her usual cool and clinical self, giving Joelle the names of several fertility specialists, spelling out their credentials and offering her own opinion of each of them, but she’d offered Joelle no words of sympathy, no hand-holding, and Joelle had not expected any. That was not Rebecca’s style. She didn’t expect any sympathy now, either. What she needed was excellent clinical skills embodied in a woman who was certain not to either meddle or gossip.
“I have to ask for complete confidentiality,” Joelle began, and Rebecca smiled.
“Is there any other kind?” she asked.
Joelle could not smile back. “Right. I guess not,” she said. She looked squarely at Rebecca and took in a breath. “I’m pregnant,” she said.
Rebecca raised her eyebrows and for a moment seemed speechless. “Wow,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “Wow.”
“Lousy timing, isn’t it?” Joelle asked.
Rebecca folded her arms across her chest and shook her head in what Joelle thought was wonder. “Well, there was a time when I would have congratulated you on this news and broken out the Perrier,” Rebecca said, “but I’m not quite sure what to say right now. Is this good news for you or not? Or would you prefer not to discuss it?”
“It’s a…mixed blessing, I guess.” Joelle ran her fingertips over the smooth edge of Rebecca’s desk. “It wasn’t planned. I’m not married, of course, and I have no plans to be. But still—” she looked at Rebecca “—you know how much I wanted a baby.”
“When was the first day of your last period?” Rebecca asked.
“My periods are so irregular,” Joelle said. “I couldn’t begin to tell you. But I do know that I’m exactly twelve weeks pregnant as of today.”