Whispering Hearts Read online

  “He’ll do a final exam, and if all is how we expect it to be, we’ll make the transfer hopefully over the weekend.”

  He didn’t come out and say it directly, but I knew that meant the creation of the embryo or embryos had been achieved. More than likely, Dr. Bliskin had shown him his potential child through a microscope. Now that it was about to happen, I felt myself tremble.

  “Get a good night’s rest,” he said, smiling. “All is going well.”

  He went off to tell Samantha. I couldn’t shake off the vision of him doing so and her reacting like a woman who had just been told she was about to be pregnant. I anticipated her coming to see me immediately afterward.

  “Harrison told me what he just told you,” she said after I had said, “Come in.” She looked almost on fire with excitement, unable to stand still. “The moment I met you, I knew this would go smoothly and as quickly as possible. I know you will be happy to get it all started. Of course, you want to return to your career as soon as you can. Someday, Harrison and I, and even our child when he or she is older, will come see you perform.” She stopped pacing and looked at me. “You’re happy about it, right? I mean, happy we’re moving so quickly?”

  She looked like she would faint if I said otherwise.

  I nodded.

  “Okay, okay,” she said, pacing again. “Get a good night’s rest. I’ll be right by your side.” She stood there smiling at me, but looking beyond me, I thought. “This house so desperately needs a child, a future.”

  She hugged me quickly and left. Despite both her and Dr. Davenport’s wish for me to get a good night’s rest, I barely slept. It was truly like angels and demons were debating inside me, only I couldn’t decide who was arguing what. Was it really an angel advising me to go home, to accept a different life from what I dreamed of having?

  Samantha was there minutes after I had risen. It was as if she thought she had to be at my side from the moment I opened my eyes this morning. Perhaps she sensed the turmoil going on within me. When I looked at her at breakfast and in the limousine, I saw how nervous she was, how frightened, and how much she dreaded hearing the words I’m sorry. I can’t do this.

  But I didn’t turn back. Dr. Bliskin put me at such ease with his concern and with the way he looked at me, making me feel as if this was indeed going to be my child. I couldn’t imagine him treating any woman with more loving care. When we looked at each other, we seemed to share a secret beyond what Samantha and Dr. Davenport knew. I guess the simplest way to think of it was he sincerely wanted to safely deliver the baby I would carry, as much for me as for them. Perhaps I was just looking for another rationalization, but when he declared days later that it was time, I didn’t turn and run as I had seen myself doing almost every day I was at Wyndemere.

  On the day of the transfer, like any father who wanted to be present when his wife went to the delivery room, Dr. Davenport accompanied Dr. Bliskin. At first, neither of them would permit Samantha to be present, but she literally shed tears, and they relented. The four of us and Dr. Bliskin’s nurse, Mrs. Topper, witnessed the procedure.

  Afterward, I was left to rest for a while. Samantha wouldn’t leave my side. She sat there, holding my hand. I had no pain of any sort, but I had a strange, ethereal feeling. It was as if I had decided to leave my body until it was all completed. I knew Samantha was holding my hand, but I didn’t feel hers. I didn’t feel anything.

  Despite all the tests, all the medications, and all the descriptions Dr. Bliskin had given me, I did not believe what was happening or would happen. It still hadn’t settled in my reality.

  But I knew that it would. There were months and months ahead of me when I would wake up every day and have it re-announced. Perhaps the first thought I would have the moment I awoke was Someone else’s baby is living inside you. You won’t need to look in a mirror to see the evidence as you begin to show. You will be feeling it throughout your very being.

  And one thing was definite: not a waking moment would pass when I was in Samantha’s company when I wouldn’t be reminded—whether through what she said, how she treated me, or what I saw in her eyes—that I was carrying her child, her future. I felt confident that more than once, in different ways, perhaps, she would also remind me that nothing of myself would be in the child I would deliver.

  How would that make me feel? Relieved that there would be no evidence I was there? Or even emptier, less significant, practically like an invisible person, and very much like the ghosts that Elizabeth Davenport told Samantha still haunted the darkest corners of Wyndemere?

  Samantha left me to use the bathroom, and Dr. Bliskin came in.

  “How are you doing?”

  “I guess all right. I don’t feel…”

  “Not yet,” he said, smiling. “But someday soon you’ll know it. I’m confident this implanting is going to work. You’re a fertile garden.”

  “Never thought of myself in those terms,” I said, and he laughed. “How many of these have you done?”

  “A number of them, lately more than ever.” He looked at me differently, I thought, or was that again my wild imagination at work? “You’re a very pretty young woman, Emma, and I’m not just referring to your good looks. There’s something beautiful in you that some man is going to see and be so consumed by that he won’t be able to breathe unless he has you beside him.”

  I widened my eyes. I had never heard a doctor speak poetry, and until now, he was comforting and gentle, but I thought he was that way with all his patients… just a doctor with a good bedside manner.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “I’m going to be with you through all this, and not only because Harrison is my best friend.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “The day will come when I’ll deliver the baby forming inside you,” he said. “You’ll have lived with it for so long that it won’t be unusual for you to feel something, some tie to him or her emotionally. When I lift the child and place it in Samantha’s waiting hands, you’re going to feel like you’re giving it up. But don’t.”

  “How should I feel?”

  He smiled. “Like you’re giving it back,” he said.

  And so it began.

  THIRTEEN

  Most of the girls I knew who were my age didn’t foresee themselves as pregnant. Some swore they would never have children, but most admitted to at least having to deal with the possibility when they had sex. They all agreed that it was unromantic, even unrealistic, to carry on about protection while in the throes of passion. Even though I was a virgin, no one seemed to mind my being there when they talked about their sexual affairs. If anything, they believed they were superior because they had experience. I could see them thinking that I should be grateful they cared to share their wisdom with me.

  But they were always talking about pregnancy as if it was a sickness, almost a fatal illness, caused by failure to protect themselves or their boyfriends who failed to wear condoms. It angered them that girls were always blamed for being so stupid as to not insist that they did. A few honestly admitted they would blame themselves for losing control when things got too hot and heavy. They referred to it as a game of Russian roulette with sperm instead of a bullet. They’d say this with wily smiles across their faces, as if that was somehow an achievement, too. They weren’t thinking of pregnancy as a gateway to motherhood.

  I saw it as nothing else. Even though what I was doing had nothing to do with any loving relationship or another expected stage in my development as a woman, I still felt years older than the girl who had first arrived in New York to make her career as a singer. My father once told me that nothing ages you faster than the struggle to survive, and to my way of thinking, that was what I was doing: struggling to survive. The smug girls I had left back home would surely think I had gone mad. There were many days when I wondered myself if I had.

  I was sure both Dr. Davenport and Dr. Bliskin were studying me for signs of regret and what might result if those symptoms be
came intense. After the procedure had been completed, Samantha was certainly as worried and as attentive as I had anticipated she would be. Once Dr. Bliskin confirmed the transfer had been successful, that concern increased tenfold. Everything Samantha had envisioned to ensure that the baby I carried would be healthy became reality. A nutritionist was hired to design all my meals. The descriptions were given to Mrs. Marlene, whom Samantha then told to follow them “exactly.” Portions were meticulously weighed out in grams. Mrs. Marlene made big eyes at me but did what Samantha asked. Dr. Bliskin approved of everything first, of course, and then, when the baby growing inside me was determined to be a boy, Samantha might as well have become my shadow. Dr. Davenport tried unsuccessfully to get her to be less intense. He was gentle about it, always avoiding upsetting her in any way.

  He tried reverse psychology.

  “Don’t make her nervous, Samantha. We must keep her quiet, contented, right?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, with tears in her eyes. “I don’t mean anything. Have I upset you, Emma?” she asked immediately.

  “I’m all right,” I said, but I did want to complain about how restrictive she was when it came to my movements about the house. This chair was good; this chair wasn’t. I’d sink too far in that soft pillow settee and strain myself getting up. Windows were opened too wide or not wide enough near me. Don’t lift anything heavy was a warning she might have tattooed on her forehead. There were servants for that. Sometimes, I thought she was spying on me to see if I got out of bed too quickly. She was always there to help me bathe and sometimes even to help me dress.

  Perhaps even worse, Samantha was on Mrs. Cohen’s back almost as much as she was on mine. She knew every pill and when it should be taken. She was there practically for every test of my blood pressure. She pummeled me and Mrs. Cohen with questions I knew she had studied and memorized relating to a variety of symptoms important to a pregnant woman, like some morning sickness and fatigue, especially during my first trimester.

  When I began to take my walks, she wasn’t just at my side. She was always holding my arm, keenly aware of every step I took. I think my going up and down the stairway was the most frightening for her, however. I grew to believe she waited and watched for me to start down or turn to start up and then surged forward to be right behind me.

  In the beginning, I was understanding, even a little appreciative, despite the fact that she wasn’t concerned about me for me but for her baby. I really tried never to be frustrated or annoyed. When Dr. Davenport softly attempted to pull her off me, I was almost amused, but as time went by, especially when I was in my second trimester, I know I was a little more irritable. My patience began to grow thinner, but I kept as much of it as I could to myself, swallowing back anything that might bring her to tears.

  During this whole time, I rarely saw Elizabeth Davenport. Whenever I did, she was still wearing black. She took her dinners in her room, and her breakfast was often brought to her as well. Her interest in outside activities waned. I could tell from Dr. Davenport’s remarks that he was increasingly concerned about her. He was urging her to seek therapy. I was afraid to ask or say anything, and the few times Elizabeth Davenport saw me, she looked away quickly. It was as if she couldn’t stand the sight of me, especially toward the end of my sixth month, when I began to show more and had started to wear the maternity clothes Samantha had bought and hung in my closet.

  I told Samantha about Elizabeth Davenport’s reactions to me.

  “She doesn’t approve of what we’re doing and especially your being so much a part of our lives,” she said, her eyes always big when she referred to her. “My mother-in-law is very intense about her privacy and how much access strangers have to Wyndemere. After all this time, she still hasn’t fully accepted Mrs. Marlene as a trusted member of this household. You couldn’t find a more loyal person. Pay no attention to her. Don’t let her upset you. Okay?”

  “I’m fine. Her feelings are not my business,” I said.

  She smiled. “Exactly.”

  It also was at the end of my second trimester when Dr. Bliskin had either been asked or knew to make house calls weekly. Going to his office was no longer possible. The unstated reason was obvious. At this point, Samantha didn’t want anyone but the few trusted servants to know someone other than she was pregnant at Wyndemere. I had practically disappeared inside the house by then, anyway. In fact, I had a nightmare that it absorbed me into its walls. When I told Samantha, she looked it up and revealed that strange dreams were common to pregnant women. She swore she read it in a medical book, but Mrs. Cohen didn’t put too much validity in that.

  After the first trimester, when the potential for a miscarriage had lessened significantly, Samantha had begun telling their friends she was pregnant. She deliberately ate more fattening and richer foods to gain weight and went to a tailor to design a belt of cushioning to give her the “baby bump.” Perhaps after considering Samantha’s feelings, Dr. Davenport never celebrated the successful transfer with a special dinner out as he had once suggested. The path was clear for Samantha to claim it all. I never saw Dr. Davenport tell anyone, of course, but I had the sense that he was leaving that entirely up to her. Whenever they returned from an event or a dinner with one or more of his associates, she hurried up to my room, first to see how I was and second to describe the reactions to her announcement.

  “Imagine,” she said. “We’ve been married barely two years, and everyone’s comment was something like ‘It’s about time.’ I get the feeling that some of them thought Harrison had to marry me and they were disappointed it wasn’t true.”

  Then she declared, “Well, now it is.”

  I had the eerie feeling she was standing there in front of me, waiting for me to congratulate her as well. The look on my face brought her back to earth.

  “As far as they know, of course,” she added.

  Later, when I had a moment alone sitting outside and gazing at Lake Wyndemere, its calm surface glittering in the twilight like strings of diamonds, I smiled to myself, thinking how the world of make-believe never really leaves us. When adults pretend, we have all sorts of ways to react, ranging from accusing them of rationalizing and being unable to face reality to declaring that they are mentally ill. My father was certainly the opposite in the extreme. I couldn’t even imagine him as a little boy playing with toy soldiers.

  Little girls, on the other hand, easily develop imaginary relationships with their dolls and imitate their mothers. In a very real sense, Samantha was doing that now. However, her excitement, the way I could see she was blossoming, enjoying herself and her marriage, was lovely. I had no problem with that and didn’t want to do or say anything to darken the glow of joy that had come into both her and Dr. Davenport’s eyes.

  In fact, before long, I was doing whatever I could to enhance her pretending. I eagerly shared every aspect of my pregnancy with her, helped her to empathize until I found myself occasionally feeling as if she was truly the pregnant one. Nothing brought a bright smile to her face more than my suggesting that. Sometimes it felt like we were conjoined. If I was nauseous for one reason or another, she was. When I was tired and needed to rest, she did. And when I was hungry, she ate, no matter what time of the day or how soon after we had just eaten.

  “I want to know the exact moment you feel our little boy kick inside you,” she told me. “No matter when, even in the middle of the night. Just come to my door and knock, okay?”

  “Yes, of course,” I said.

  And when it happened close to my fifth month, I did exactly that so she could put her hand on my stomach and feel him, too. Maybe I was imagining it, but sometimes during the day, I would catch her putting her hand on her imitation stomach and smiling as if she actually could feel her son introducing himself.

  Meanwhile, practically every day since Dr. Davenport and Samantha learned that their baby was a boy, she was working on the room that would become the nursery. She had taken over the bedroom next to hers, and, with E
lizabeth Davenport’s frowns of disapproval practically floating around Wyndemere, Samantha had all the furniture removed and placed in the attic for storage. She was going to replace everything. I think to keep her occupied and give me as well as the servants and Dr. Bliskin some relief, Dr. Davenport gave her carte blanche to decide every aspect of the room’s decor and furnishings. It did keep her busy visiting furniture showrooms and meeting with flooring and wallpaper salespeople, and the more people saw her in what looked clearly to be pregnancy, the happier she was.

  However, it was a particularly difficult time for me, because when the laborers were brought in to carpet the floor and wallpaper the room, as well as change lighting fixtures, I was confined to my room so that no outsider would see me. Once they left for the day, Samantha came running to open my door. I felt like I was being released from a prison cell, solitary confinement, although my beautiful bedroom would hardly qualify as such.

  Periodically, she would lead me by the hand to the nursery and review the changes and additions with me. As soon as the furniture she had chosen was delivered and the deliverymen had left, she wanted my opinion. Having had no experience with nurseries or designing and decorating a room, I offered only compliments. Almost every time I had been in there with her, she’d asked me the same question when we left.

  “You’d want your baby to be in that nursery, wouldn’t you?”

  I could feel the underlying flow of insecurity. After all, no matter how she pretended or how literally she imitated me, she still knew she wasn’t the one carrying the child who would live in this mansion. Until the day I delivered, what I saw, felt, and heard was very important to her. She thought that might affect her child, even though Dr. Bliskin had assured her that nothing from my DNA would become part of the baby in my womb. She told me that often, but not meanly. She was simply looking for confirmation.

  “Of course, he knows all about that,” I said. “I’m sure that’s right.”