Whispering Hearts Page 23

  Surely, there was a graveyard somewhere for dreams that died.

  When I turned to go back to the house, I saw Samantha standing at the edge of the grass watching me. I had my hands on my stomach. Her baby was kicking more today than ever. Maybe he was angry at the waves of sadness and depression washing over him in my womb. The doctors and scientists might not be right, I thought. Something of the surrogate mother finds its way into the child after all.

  Samantha rushed to join me when I drew closer.

  “Are you all right?”

  I nodded and let her take my arm. We returned to the mansion that was waiting to embrace us both and hold us firmly in the grasp of its shadows, the resonating echoes of every movement within, and the depth of its history. Houses like Wyndemere absorb so much sadness and joy. Mine was just another small swallow. Years from now, I imagined no one would recall it with any vividness. I would have passed through, and on my way through, I would have left a child to be nurtured within these walls, within this family.

  This was possibly all I would have accomplished by coming to America.

  Samantha and I spent most of the remainder of the day in the library. I slept on and off. She had begun to read Rebecca because I had told her how much I had enjoyed it when I was assigned to read it in school. Occasionally, she would pause to recite a paragraph or some dialogue to me. My eyes were drawn to the grandfather clock, my mind quickly calculating the time in England. Finally, right before we were to go to dinner, Dr. Davenport called to speak to me. Samantha remained at my side.

  “I have some international banker friends,” he began. “They checked on financial matters. Your father left your mother and sister very comfortable. You have no worries there.”

  I didn’t even entertain the thought otherwise.

  “Your father’s personal physician laid the groundwork for my visit. They were naturally quite surprised—shocked, to be honest—when I told them what you were doing, but they were mostly concerned about how you were. I assured them you were sailing through it and I would make arrangements for your return. I said ‘visit’ because I didn’t want to leave them with the belief you were finished with your career. They completely understand why it would be awkward for you simply to pop up on the scene right now. I invited them to Wyndemere, but I don’t think they’re ready for any travel yet. I told them you would call as soon as you were up to it.

  “I wouldn’t go so far as to say they approved or even understood why you’ve done what you’ve done, but there is no anger here waiting for you.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “I’ll see you sometime tomorrow. Tell Samantha,” he added.

  “I will.”

  As soon as I hung up, I related it all to her. She clapped her hands and smiled as if everything had been made right again. It was almost as if my father had been resurrected. Nevertheless, hearing how Dr. Davenport had described Mummy and Julia, I was more relaxed and ate better than I thought I would. Mrs. Marlene insisted I be permitted a small piece of her chocolate cream pie. It wasn’t on the designated menu, but Samantha didn’t put up any resistance.

  After dinner, Dr. Bliskin surprised us with a visit when he had finished his hospital rounds. He sat with the two of us for another hour or so before going home. I wondered about his home life, his wife, mainly. Samantha assured me they were still in love and his wife was a perfect doctor’s wife, understanding, giving him the freedom he needed to attend to his patients, and keeping herself quite busy with their children and her friends.

  “Just like me,” she said proudly. “Just like how I’ll be with my son soon.”

  Two days later, I called Mummy and spoke to both her and Julia. Even to myself, I sounded like a little girl again. They were still quite confused and surprised by it all but obviously had decided to push it aside and talk about my return. I promised I would come, but, like Dr. Davenport, I made it sound more like a visit. I added the fact that he had kept my New York apartment for me. Maybe because my father wasn’t there to comment and complain, Julia said nothing negative about it. I think she was quite taken aback by what I had done and was still trying to wrap her mind around all she had learned.

  I did less exercise during the final six weeks. Everyone was after me to do it, but I slept more. I felt like I was holding my breath the entire time. Despite all the preparations, when the moment came, it seemed like a bolt of lightning. My water broke, and Mrs. Cohen was immediately at my side. Dr. Bliskin dropped everything at his office and rushed over. Dr. Davenport did the same. I was informed that even Elizabeth Davenport stood in her doorway, watching and listening. A number of times, I had been told that I wasn’t the first woman who had given birth in Wyndemere.

  The baby cried in Samantha’s arms. He had made no sound during the birthing, even when the umbilical cord had been cut, but the moment he was placed in her waiting hands, he wailed, and so strongly that everyone laughed. I stared with disbelief. It almost didn’t seem real to me that something as miraculous as a baby, even with the kicking I had felt, had emerged from my body.

  They had decided to name him Ryder and immediately began to refer to him that way. He was washed and dressed quickly. My body hadn’t calmed. I still felt as if I was in the throes of it. As soon as she could, Samantha took him out of my room. Mrs. Cohen and Dr. Davenport followed her, but Dr. Bliskin remained behind to assure me I was doing well. Then Dr. Davenport returned, and he and Dr. Bliskin gave each other a look that caught my attention despite how exhausted I felt.

  I was just about ready to ask what was wrong.

  They both stepped up beside me.

  “It wasn’t part of our bargain,” Dr. Davenport began, “but Franklin and I have been discussing it. He’s a proponent of breastfeeding. He has all the clinical and historical evidence supporting how superior it is. You’ll be here a while longer, so we thought, I thought… I’m willing to offer you an additional fifty thousand dollars.”

  They both stared down at me.

  “Fifty thousand dollars!”

  “It’s best if it’s begun within the first hour,” Franklin said.

  “A wet nurse,” I said, more to myself. “But Samantha…”

  “I’ve discussed it with her; we both discussed it with her. She wants what’s best for Ryder. She’ll be right beside you all the time.” This time, his smile was more of a warning. “I know this is more than you expected to do, and it will keep you here longer. However, I intend to do more than just give you money. I want to see what I can do to help you get a start on your singing career, too, when the time comes.”

  “But… I was to go home to see my family.”

  “You can pump and store breast milk for up to two weeks if we freeze it,” Franklin said. “Of course, you’ll be leaking a bit,” he added.

  “It could give you a good reason to return to America sooner,” Dr. Davenport said. “If you don’t, I’ll give you a good part of the fifty thousand anyway.”

  “How long would I…?”

  “Six months is good,” Franklin said. “Many go longer but start to introduce foods. It varies. I’ve had women stop after three months, too.”

  “Six months?”

  “I’m sorry,” Dr. Davenport said. “We should have discussed this with you sooner, but…”

  “But it took a while to convince Samantha despite what you are both claiming,” I finished for him.

  He nodded, and Franklin smiled.

  I looked up at the ceiling. The money was overwhelming. When I was really back in New York, I wouldn’t need another roommate, maybe ever. I could dress better and go to each and every audition I wanted. Maybe Dr. Davenport could get me some other opportunities. He seemed to know so many important and powerful people. Now, without being pregnant, there was no reason for me not to have more freedom here, either.

  I looked at the two of them. The anxiety in their faces made me want to laugh. Perhaps I was going a little crazy.

  “Okay,” I said. “Bring
Ryder back.”

  Both smiled like two successful conspirators.

  I was more interested in the look on Samantha’s face when she returned with Ryder. She seemed a little confused but not as upset as I had feared. I had made up my mind that if they had lied to me and this was going to disturb her, I would refuse. She cradled Ryder lovingly and gently brought him to me when Mrs. Cohen set up my pillows.

  “I want to know how it feels,” she said. “I want to know everything so years from now, when I tell him, he’ll believe me.”

  I nodded, and she brought him to my breast.

  As I had anticipated, time at Wyndemere was different after I had given birth and begun to breastfeed. I almost thought when Samantha and I began to breastfeed. I had yet to do it once without her beside me, sometimes even lying beside me, both of us touching Ryder, both amused at his hunger. Every time the question of my leaving to visit Mummy and Julia arose, I put it off. I called them often, and they were continually asking when I would arrive. Soon, soon was my chant. I questioned it myself. Was I growing too attached to Ryder? Was it because I didn’t want to disappoint Samantha and Dr. Davenport? Was I afraid to go home, afraid to enter that house, knowing my father wouldn’t be there? The very idea of visiting his grave was a nightmare.

  Dr. Bliskin still stopped by from time to time. Now that Samantha wasn’t worrying about my every move, she didn’t join us for our walks or remain in the living room when we talked. Despite what Samantha had assured me about his marriage, he rarely mentioned his wife or even his own children, for that matter.

  One night, when Dr. Davenport was home early and Franklin had stopped by, he remained for cocktails. I wasn’t permitted any alcoholic beverages because I was breastfeeding, but I didn’t mind. I went to the piano and played and sang some of the songs I used to sing at the Three Bears. Of course, they were all very complimentary, and Dr. Davenport reinforced his offer to “find me a great way to take off into a real singing career.” I thought they had all had too much to drink. Both doctors looked like they had needed to relax or, like Mummy used to even tell my father, “Oh, Arthur, let your hair down.” “What hair?” he would say, and they would laugh. There was laughter once, too, I thought.

  During these months, I did a lot more with Samantha. We went shopping, had delightful lunches, and read and watched television together. Dr. Davenport seemed busier than ever. We learned that patients were coming from as far as a hundred miles away to be under his care. His reputation was growing that much.

  Finally, at the start of the fourth month after Ryder’s birth, I asked Dr. Davenport to make my arrangements for a visit home. He had offered to do so almost weekly during the first two months. Samantha was quite nervous about it, not so much because she was afraid of any interruption in Ryder’s feeding as because of her fear of what I now saw as the possibility our friendship would end, that I wouldn’t return. She actually accompanied me to the airport.

  Mrs. Cohen was still at the house, mainly to care for Elizabeth Davenport, who was practically a recluse by now. Mourning her husband and seeing herself as much less in the social world had taken their toll. Aging was making her mad, too. Her plastic surgeon, perhaps afraid of Dr. Davenport, refused to perform any more procedures, claiming her skin would tear like tissue. She even stopped dyeing her hair, no longer sending for her personal stylist.

  “How far we’ve come together,” Samantha said at the departure gate. She was holding on to my hand. “I owe you so much.”

  “I’ve been paid very well,” I said, smiling.

  “Money is the least of it,” she said.

  I almost said Not for me, but held back, thinking she would be hurt. Instead, we hugged, and I promised to call her soon after I had arrived.

  Julia met me at Heathrow Airport. She looked like she had aged worse than Elizabeth Davenport. I could almost see the shadow of depression and sadness hovering around and over her. Instead of smiling and rushing to hug me, she shook her head. It was her way of reminding me that we were too unalike to be sisters. The years between us had sifted out most of our resemblances. Who illustrated better how two siblings could grow up in the same home, the same family, and yet be so different?

  “Hi,” I said. I was afraid to hug her.

  She nodded and took my suitcase, as if she thought I was too weak and fragile.

  “I can carry it,” I said.

  She looked at it in her hands. “This is the one you took when you left.”

  “Yes.”

  “I promised Mummy I would not ask you mean questions. She wants your visit to go well. It is just a visit, isn’t it? You’re going back to that… place?”

  “Yes,” I said. “That place: America.”

  “All right,” she said when we got into her car. “I won’t ask questions. You just tell me what you want me to know.”

  I never stopped talking during the whole trip, describing everything I could remember, anyone I could remember, from the first day I had arrived in New York. I even told her about Lila Lester, the woman on the plane who worked for a perfume company and gave me a ride to my apartment from the airport.

  Sometime on our ride home, I realized she was finding everything I said more fascinating than she wanted. Occasionally, when I described something like my audition at a club or dealing with customers at the Last Diner, she looked at me with what I thought was more envy than disgust. Perhaps because I wanted it to be true, I told myself she was impressed with her younger sister after all. I had done things she could never imagine herself doing.

  “You really wanted this career in show business,” she concluded after hearing why I became a surrogate mother.

  “Still do. Maybe more than ever.”

  When our house came into view, I felt my body tighten and my heart beat faster. The sight of our front door, the memory of when I walked out to the waiting taxi, and my father’s final look of rage all came rushing back.

  Julia realized something wasn’t right with me. “Are you all right?”

  I nodded because I was afraid to speak. He would burn my letters at the door.

  We got out and approached it slowly. Whatever anger Julia had dressed herself in, especially for our confronting each other, dissipated. She looked like she was going to cry for me. She unexpectedly took my hand, and we entered the house. Mummy was waiting in the living room. She looked up at me, and without either of us saying a word, we hugged and began to cry. I thought we’d never stop.

  Later, she mentioned how much weight I had gained. I think she was referring mainly to my swollen breasts, but I imagined my face was still fuller. When we had something to eat, I told her some of what I had told Julia on the way home. She listened, looking amazed most of the time. We spoke about everything we could to avoid speaking about my father, but it eventually came to that, to the day he died, to the funeral and after. Julia said she would take me to the cemetery the next day. Mummy thought it best if I went without her.

  “You make your own peace in this world,” she said.

  There was no doubt in my mind that she had aged years since I had left, probably mostly because of my father’s death. She reminded me of Elizabeth Davenport in that way, but in nothing else. I thought Mummy’s sorrow was more honest and certainly less about herself.

  Once, when I was explaining to Leo Abbot why I didn’t want to go home, I referred to Thomas Wolfe’s novel You Can’t Go Home Again. It came to mind when I ventured out of the house and walked the streets I had walked as a child. I found myself wanting to avoid anyone I knew. Besides the questions I wouldn’t answer, I feared the looks of disdain and disapproval. I never thought my hometown would become so forbidding. When I rushed back to the house, I did what I had promised, did it for myself as well, and called Samantha. I could hear how happy she was that I did call. She was crying. She talked about things Ryder had done, his smiles and gestures, and swore to me that he missed me.

  “He’s not pleased with his bottle,” she said, and then, prac
tically whispering, added, “It’s a nipple without love.”

  I laughed and realized I had tears in my eyes, too. Afterward, when Julia returned from work, the moment I dreaded had come. We were going to the cemetery.

  “This doesn’t seem real to me,” I told her on the way.

  “Oh, it’s real,” she said. “There’s nothing more real in life than death.”

  How deep did your dissatisfaction with yourself have to go in order for you to think like that? I wondered.

  “Did you know he had all this planned out?” she asked.

  “All this?”

  “Their plots, of course, but also his tombstone, its size and shape and what he wanted written on it. Mummy says he did all that years ago.”

  Why wasn’t I surprised?

  The only word on his stone that surprised me was beloved. I didn’t think I ever realized that he believed he was. It didn’t seem that important to him. Respected and admired were words I would have thought of before I had thought of beloved husband and father.

  “Do you think this is my fault?” I asked Julia as I looked at the grave.

  I was pleased that she didn’t reply instantly. I glanced at her and then back at the tombstone.

  “No,” she said, which surprised me. Julia was so much more like him. She wouldn’t rationalize or fabricate. “He gave his anger free rein; he let it diminish him. There was another way. Some understanding would have helped, helped us both,” she confessed.

  I looked at her, surprised.

  “His father shaped him and, like following a straight line, brought him to this place.”

  She looked away and at the other graves, a sea of them, really. I thought she had never looked so beautiful. I was jealous of her for a change, jealous of some peace she had found in herself.

  “I’m not going to try to understand you, Emma. You are who you are, and you do what you do because of that. He’d still be alive today if he’d accepted that truth.”