Olivia

  He smiled.

  "Would you like me to take you to lunch today, Olivia? We haven't done that in a while."

  I thought a moment.

  "Yes, Samuel," I said. "Yes, I would."

  His smile broadened and then he left. I sat there quietly in my office listening to the tick-tock of the miniature grandfather clock on the shelf. Was I a monster for handling Samuel that way? The only one left for Nelson to petition was Belinda and that would be the most futile effort of all. She would do exactly as I told her to do and he wouldn't understand why. He wouldn't understand that I had really been more of a mother to her than our own mother.

  The next evening that was exactly what he tried. He pleaded with- her on the phone and offered to take care of everything if she would just do what he wanted. She came down to the living room where I was reading and listening to music to tell me. She was very excited. In her mind it solved the problem.

  "He knows a place where I can go to have the baby and he'll make sure the baby has a good family. He's right, isn't he, Olivia? I can't raise a baby and I can't put that on you and Samuel. You have your own children to raise."

  "He's not right. We've had this conversation. I don't want to hear another word on it."

  "But I don't want to have a baby, Olivia. I don't want to . . ."

  I rose from my seat with such fury, she cowered before me.

  "You don't want to have a baby? You don't want . ." "Olivia, please."

  "Shall I remind you of a night not so long ago, a night filled with screams, a night that aged your father years in seconds? Shall I take you for a ride tomorrow and march you out to the back of our old house? Should I show you where he's buried?"

  "Stop it!" She put her hands over her ears.

  I drew closer, relentless.

  "Did I ever tell you how it drove Daddy mad? How he heard a baby crying in the night? Did I ever tell you how he cried like a baby?"

  "Stop it! Please," she begged.

  "You will have this baby, Olivia, and it will be brought up in this home. We will bury no more children, not in the ground and not in someone else's family," I said through clenched teeth. "Don't you ever speak to him again. Do you understand? If he calls you, hang up the phone or tell him to talk to me. Are you listening?"

  "Yes, Olivia. Yes."

  "Go upstairs. You need your rest."

  "I'm starting to show, Olivia. I have to wear something to hide it. I can't go out and meet people without their knowing eventually," she moaned.

  "Don't worry about it. Soon, you'll stop going out and meeting people anyway," I said.

  "What?"

  "We're going to tell people that you're away and you're going to stay confined to the house and grounds until you give birth, Belinda. Don't worry about it."

  "Confined?" She looked about, dazed.

  "Just go upstairs. Do as I say," I told her firmly. "But . . ."

  "How many women would be willing to take on the burden of their sister's illegitimate child, Belinda? How many? He or she will grow up with my boys and have the benefits they enjoy. When are you going to show me some gratitude and at least be cooperative enough to help me help you? When?" I screamed.

  "Okay, Olivia. Okay," she said in a small voice. "What should I do?"

  "Just . . . go upstairs," I said. She nodded, lowered her head and left the room.

  The days turned to weeks and the arrangements I had described for Belinda came to pass. To ensure she didn't disobey, I had her phone disconnected. When her bubble gum friends called after that, I had them told she was visiting relatives for a few months. In time, the calls stopped and our lives settled down for a while.

  Samuel did his best to amuse her during this period. He brought her presents, newspapers and magazines, records and tapes to occupy her time. By the middle of the ninth month, Belinda took to remaining in bed most of the day and never getting dressed. She let her hair go and she ate constantly, satisfying every craving, driving Effie mad with requests for this and that.

  "It's not good for her, Mrs. Logan," Effie complained to me. "She's getting too fat. Thelma agrees."

  "When I want opinions on diet, I'll ask. For now just give her anything she wants," I ordered.

  However, I had to admit that when I looked in on her now, she reminded me of one of her stuffed animals, her face bloated, her stomach lifting the blanket into a small hill. Her arms resembled balloons. This pregnancy was a tumor eating away her beauty and good looks. She seemed to have lost all concern about herself anyway. Without her doting friends and her stream of boyfriends, she stopped using makeup. Even her hygiene began to suffer and if I didn't insist she take baths, she wouldn't wash her face and her hands for days. She got so she didn't get off the bed to urinate, but used a bedpan and left it for hours beside the bed until either I or Effie came by to empty it.

  Eventually, I instructed Thelma to keep the children away from Belinda's room.

  "She'll give them nightmares," I said.

  Thelma was very worried about Belinda and how we were handling the pregnancy. She wasn't the type to interfere, but she stopped by my den-office one night to express her concern.

  "I appreciate that, Thelma," I told her, "but for now it has to be this way."

  "Why, Mrs. Logan?" she pursued.

  I put aside what I was doing and sat back.

  "It's really none of your business, but you've become part of our family so I'll tell you," I said and then went on to describe the disgrace. Without mentioning a name, I explained that Belinda was carrying an influential person's baby and we were trying to protect the child as well as Belinda. I asked her to just cooperate and understand and it satisfied her.

  "I'll need you to spend more time with the children. I have to give more to Belinda right now," I said.

  "Oh, of course, Mrs. Logan. Please call on me for anything," she said and I thanked her.

  For Belinda every day seemed harder than the one before it now. She knew she was drawing closer and closer.

  "When's the doctor coming, Olivia?" she asked me one evening. "He's never been to see me."

  "We're not having a doctor, Belinda. I told you. I have made arrangements with a midwife. It's more discreet." "Why does it have to be discreet?"

  "People don't know about the pregnancy. Let's try to keep it that way as long as we can. I'm only trying to protect your reputation," I said.

  "My reputation? My reputation?" She laughed and looked at the wall as if someone was standing there, as if the room were crowded with male admirers the way it once was. "Did you hear that? She's worried about my reputation." She laughed again, each roll of laughter coming like a cough and then continuing like uncontrollable hiccups.

  "Stop it, Belinda."

  "My reputation." She shrieked and laughed madly.

  I stepped up to the bed and hovered over her, my hands in fists.

  "Stop this nonsense this instant!" I commanded.

  Her laughter wound down until it became a subdued sob and then she closed her eyes and sighed as if she had passed away. I stood there, waiting. Her eyes opened and she smiled up at me as if nothing in the world was wrong.

  "Please tell Effie I'd like some ice cream-- strawberry. No, butternut crunch with chocolate syrup and some marshmallow sauce."

  "Fine," I said.

  "I had a pain today, Olivia. It hurt a lot," she said.

  "It's no wonder you have pains lying there like some pig in mud, but you know what labor pains are. That's when we've got to become concerned."

  "It was a labor pain. It's starting," she said with a nod. "I should see a doctor. I don't care about my reputation."

  "I'll call the midwife and she'll examine you tomorrow," I told her and gave Effie her request for ice cream.

  The midwife was a Brava who ministered mainly to poor people, but had on occasion handled situations for the well-to-do that had to be kept as secret as possible.

  Her name was Isabella and she looked like she was nearly seventy, alt
hough I knew she wasn't much more than fifty-four, fifty-five. She wore her smokegray hair long and stringy to her shoulders. Her face was leathery with wrinkles even in her chin. Belinda gasped the first time she set eyes on her. Later, she told me she thought she was a witch.

  "She's put a curse on me!" she said.

  "Don't be ridiculous," I told her, but she looked even more maddened after the examination.

  Isabella predicted that it wouldn't be much longer before Belinda delivered, maybe a week. As it turned out, she had underestimated, for the very next day, Belinda went into such terrific labor, Effie had to call me home from work. I sent for Isabella immediately, but she was delivering another woman's baby just north of Hyannis. All afternoon, Belinda shrieked and squirmed in her bed. Effie and I did all that we could to make her comfortable, but nothing seemed to help.

  "She oughta go to a hospital, Mrs. Logan," Effie finally said.

  "The midwife will be here soon," I told her. Samuel, who had come home, too, stood outside the door looking very somber.

  "We're making a mistake trying to do it this way, Olivia. Let's just bring her to the hospital."

  "She'll be all right, Samuel. Many women have had their children at home. In fact, most have."

  "Not these days, Olivia."

  "Just go see what you can find out about the midwife. Maybe she's back from Hyannis, Samuel."

  He lingered as Belinda screamed again and again, squeezing my hand, pleading with me to do something.

  "There's nothing to do, Belinda. The baby's getting ready to be born."

  "It wasn't like this before!" She grabbed my wrist and pulled me down with such strength, I was astonished. Then she whispered, "I'm being punished for what I've done. That witch cursed me. Help me!"

  "Stop it," I told her. "Be a grown-up for a change." I tore her grip from my wrist, but she clung to my dress. I had to pry her fingers away.

  "Stop acting like an idiot. I'll get you some water and some cold towels for your face."

  "Don't leave me! I don't want to be alone like I was the last time. I'm afraid."

  "You're being absolutely ridiculous," I said and left the room, closing the door to shut off her cries of agony.

  For a moment I stood there in the hallway trying to decide what I wanted more, Nelson's baby to be born healthy and well, or Nelson's baby to die just like Belinda's first child had.

  I covered my face in my hands and shook my head. Daddy's dying words echoed. "Look after Belinda, take care of Belinda:"

  "Belinda, Belinda, Belinda!" I screamed in the dark confines of my own mind. "What about me, Daddy? What about what I feel, what I suffer?"

  I took a deep breath, gathered my wits and went downstairs to find Samuel rushing out of the house. "Isabella's back. I'm going to get her," he said.

  "Good."

  I took my time returning to Belinda's room. The fact is I left her screaming and squirming in agony by herself for nearly a half hour. I heard her throw something against the wall. I heard a thump and then I returned to her room.

  When I opened the door, she was giving birth, her eyes so wide I thought her head would tear apart.

  "Why did you leave me? Help me!"

  For the first time in my life, I felt nailed to the floor, unable to do anything, mesmerized, rendered paralyzed by the sight before me. I could see the child's head! Belinda screamed and reached down like some wild animal trying to ease the fetus from its womb.

  I heard the sound of footsteps on the stairway and turned to see Thelma hurrying up, Effie right behind her.

  "What's happening, Mrs. Logan?"

  I just nodded at Belinda.

  "Oh dear, she's having it!" Thelma cried and rushed to the bed.

  In the end it was Thelma and not the midwife who delivered Belinda's child.

  A girl.

  Ironically, although she wasn't mine, she was the daughter Samuel had wanted.

  Belinda had no interest in her own baby after the birth. She didn't offer a single suggestion for a name. In the end it was Samuel who had always wanted a girl to name after his mother, Haille, who named Belinda's child.

  The night Haille was born, I sat in my den and called Nelson at home. His maid answered the phone and then he came on, his voice subdued.

  "She had a girl," I said. "We're calling her Haille after Samuel's mother."

  "The baby is all right?"

  "As far as we can see, yes," I said.

  "And Belinda?"

  "She's not all right. She'll never be all right," I reminded him.

  "Do you need anything?" he asked, his voice testy, reluctant.

  "Not at the moment. If you want to see the child, come by tomorrow night after ten," I said.

  "You're making a mistake, Olivia," he said in a tired, defeated voice.

  "I don't think you have the moral right nor the insight to make that conclusion, Nelson."

  "Okay," he said. "I'll be there after ten."

  He was. He would do whatever I asked him to do from now on, I thought. Haille was like a whip in my hand. As long as she was in my home, Nelson would be at my beck and call. It gave me a sense of power. It wasn't love, but for the moment, it seemed to satisfy me.

  I quickly realized that something dreadful had happened in the dark corridors of Belinda's mind after she gave birth. She became very withdrawn, almost catatonic. Whenever she saw the baby that night, she looked at it as if she were surprised to see it. It was as though she had lost her memory of her pregnancy and especially the delivery. Even days later when she rose from her bed and moved about the room, she was like someone who had emerged from a coma. She wore a strange, blank look on her face, smiled and laughed at the silliest things, behaving as if she were not much older than Jacob. In fact, she wandered into his playroom often and sat amusing herself with his toys until I would come home and demand she shower and dress. I had Effie put her on something of a diet, but she cheated, sneaking around the house, nibbling on crackers and cookies and even stealing the children's desserts.

  She avoided Haille, sometimes acting so terrified of her own child that she would tremble and cry. It was as if she thought the baby might return to her womb and she would have to give birth again.

  Sometimes, right in the middle of my talking to her, Belinda would burst into tears. When I would ask her why she was crying, she would just shake her head and moan, "I don't know. I can't help it."

  Frustrated, I would leave the room. The truth was I was frightened by her behavior, frightened at my inability to change it or stop it.

  Nelson didn't see her the first time he came to see Haille. Belinda's door was shut and she was asleep. I greeted him at the front door myself and led him up the stairs to the nursery. Samuel, who was reading in our bedroom, came out to see Nelson. They shook hands, but said little to each other. I brought him to the nursery and he entered slowly. Thelma wasn't there, so it was just Nelson, myself and Samuel.

  "Pretty, isn't she?" Samuel said when Nelson peered into the bassinet.

  "Yes."

  "I bet she's going to be a beauty, huh, Olivia?" Samuel said.

  "We'll see," I said.

  "She does look healthy," Nelson said, his voice thick with surprise.

  "Babies born out of wedlock can be healthy, too," I remarked. He grimaced.

  Then he straightened up and looked at both Samuel and me.

  "Can I talk you people out of this? Can I offer to have her placed in a good home?"

  "No," I said sharply. I looked at Haille. "She's a Gordon now. Maybe she'll never know who her father really is, but she'll always know this part of her heritage," I said.

  "When Olivia's determined about something, Nelson, she's unmovable," Samuel said, smiling.

  Nelson glanced at me.

  "I know," he said. He looked at the baby again. "Do you want any money now?"

  "When I need something from you," I said. "You'll be told."

  He turned away from me quickly.

  "How about a d
rink, Nelson?" Samuel offered him. He put his arm around Nelson's shoulder.

  "Sure," Nelson said. He glanced at me furtively once more before leaving with Samuel.

  I gazed down at the sleeping infant. She was pretty. I didn't want to admit it to Nelson, but I had expected her to be uglier, even possibly deformed because she was Belinda's child. My emotions were frazzled. Part of me had hoped she was going to be that way, and yet a part of me was happy she was a perfect little girl. She would dazzle people right before Nelson's eyes and he would look at me with an aching heart. It still seemed like delicious revenge.

  In the months that followed, Belinda finally got so she took some interest in herself again and did her hair and her makeup, but now, she overdid her makeup and she looked foolish, even clownish. It didn't matter what I told her. She would look at me and smile, agree and then keep doing what she was doing. I grew disgusted and talked to Samuel about sending her away for a while.

  "Perhaps a holiday would get her back to normal, not that I ever approved of what she called being normal," I said.

  Samuel agreed and we looked into a trip for her, perhaps visiting some of our relatives in Charleston. She had been there years and years ago.

  Work became demanding again. Our business went into a dramatic upswing and I had less and less time to spend at home and worry about Belinda anyway. Then, one afternoon, Effie called to tell me Belinda had left the house.

  "Did someone come for her?"

  "No, Mrs. Logan."

  "Well, did she say where she was going?" I chastised myself for not hiding her car keys.

  "Yes," she replied with some hesitation.

  "Well?"

  "She said she was going home, Mrs. Logan."

  "Home? Did you see her drive away?" I asked quickly.

  "She didn't take the car, Mrs. Logan. She just started walking."

  "Walking? All right, thank you, Effie," I said and went to tell Samuel.

  When we found her less than an hour later, she was strolling on the main highway. Cars were whizzing by, sometimes dangerously close, but she didn't seem to notice or care. Samuel pulled up in front of her and I got out quickly.

  "Belinda, where are you going? What are you doing?"

  "Oh, hi Olivia. I was just . . ." She looked about as if first realizing where she was. -I was just going somewhere." She laughed. "I forgot exactly where," she said. "Silly, I know, but it's such a beautiful day it seemed a crime to stay inside."