Garden of Lies (63 page)

“What’s that?”

She’s actually blushing,
he thought.

“Well, since you mentioned it ... Patsy gave me this joint before she left, sort of a going-away

present. It’s been sitting in my underwear drawer ever since. I’ve been too chicken to try it. You

want to smoke it with me?”

Max grinned. “What the hell. Why not?”

Max felt something heavy inside him, an iron weight on his [382] heart, begin to lift. What was

this, hope? It had been so long he’d almost forgotten the feeling. A hundred years. Now he

thought,
Maybe it isn’t too late for me. Maybe I’m not too old to start over.

A minute later, he was accepting the burning joint Rose was passing over to him, and, holding

it to his lips, he drew in with a deep breath the thick, sweet, perfumey smoke.

Chapter 25

A sudden blast of music tore through Rachel’s head.

She came awake instantly, bolting upright in bed, a sour taste in her mouth. Then she saw. The

clock radio. She had set it for six A.M. Now focusing on the glowing red digits, her eyes bleary.

Nine-thirty? Oh God. Nancy and Kay would be getting anxious as hell at the clinic. She’d have to

hurry, skip her shower, grab something to eat on the way.

Rachel banged the ON-OFF button with the heel of her hand, and Paul McCartney singing

“Rocky Raccoon” was instantly gone. She got out of bed. Her throat felt dry and raw, as if coated

with fiberglass, and her temples thumped painfully.

Then the memory of last night came to her, and she sank back onto the mattress, legs weak, hot

tears backing up in her throat.

David. Her period. The fight with Brian.

She had
wanted
to tell Brian. Everything. About David, how it was David who had attacked

her, not some stranger. And she’d started to ... but seeing Brian go white with rage ... dear God,

she’d imagined that anger turned on her, the shock and fury he would feel if he knew the whole

truth. Why she couldn’t get pregnant. And how she had kept it from him all these years. So she

had lost her nerve, backed away ...

Then she noticed Brian’s side of the bed was cold, as if he’d left it hours ago. She vaguely

remembered him putting her to bed last night, tucking a blanket around her. But where was he

now?

“Brian?” she called.

No answer.

She snatched up his pillow, hugging it to her. A chilling thought struck her: if Brian ever left

her, she’d wake up every morning to an empty bed.

But he hasn’t left me,
she reminded herself firmly.
He’s only slipped
[384]
out for a few

minutes, to go for a walk, or jog, or to pick up something from the store. He didn’t want to wake

me, he probably figured I needed the extra sleep.

Then she remembered. Of course. Brian always went out around this time for the morning

paper, then he walked down to Levy’s for a hot bagel. If she had spent more mornings at home

with Brian, instead of always rushing off to the clinic, she’d have known that at once.

Rachel forced herself out of bed, feeling stiff and bruised. A heavy achiness that sent throbbing

waves through her lower abdomen. Cramps. As bad as she could remember.

She ducked into the bathroom, and fumbled in the cupboard for a tampon. The box was almost

empty, only two left. She had put off buying a new box. She’d been hoping so that she wouldn’t

need to. Now she thought,
I’m a fool. I’ll never get pregnant. I should have told Brian. I should

have given him that much. The truth.

But now as the old misery was welling up in her, she steeled herself against it.
Enough,
she

told herself.
You have a job to do, other people to think of besides yourself.

Rachel scrubbed her face. Then, back in the bedroom, she threw on jeans, a loose sweater. On

her way to the door, she moved slowly, cautiously. She still felt so shaky.

A cup of coffee,
she thought.
Then I’m off. I’ll stop at the hospital first, check on Alma. Make

sure she’s okay. But they would have called me if anything were really wrong.

Rachel glanced at the phone on the antique schoolroom desk in the front hall, and her stomach

did a ninety-degree drop.

Off the hook.

Last night came rushing back. Letting herself in, the phone ringing and ringing while she

fumbled with the keys. She’d dashed to get it, thinking it might be Brian.
Praying
it was Brian.

But it had been David. His voice snarled with rage.
You fucking bitch ... you think you can get

away from me ... I’ll destroy you.
...

She had slammed the phone down, then left it off the hook, terrified he might call again.

As Rachel drew closer, she could hear the disconnected phone’s muted wailing.
Wah ... wah ...

wah ... wah.
Like a baby crying at the other end.

[385] Carefully, as if it were made of glass and might shatter in her hand, she replaced the

receiver.

She remembered the promise she’d made to Alma. Her heart bumped up into her throat.

What if something
had
gone wrong?

What if the hospital had tried to reach her and couldn’t get through?

Please, God,
she prayed,
let her be safe. Let the baby be safe.

Minutes later, she was in a taxi, careening down Second Avenue toward St. Bartholomew’s.

“... eight centimeters. Ninety percent effaced. And not a peep out of her the whole time. You’d

better get in there fast. Looks like she’s ready to let fly.”

Rachel, listening, staring at the stout black charge nurse behind the nurse’s station, felt as if she

had been picked up by a giant, then slammed down. Her thoughts and feelings jumbled, all out of

whack.

Alma. In trouble. Bleeding. Fetal distress.

She pulled herself together, forcing her mind back on track.

“Who’s with her?” Rachel asked.

“Dr. Hardman. He’s the resident on call. We
tried
to reach you.” Mavis’s brown eyes

narrowed, and a defensive tone crept into her voice. “A number of times, matter of fact. ’Course

we didn’t
know
it was an emergency. All the girl would say was that she wanted to
talk
to you.

She seemed upset, that was all. Didn’t say she was hurtin’. So don’t anybody go pointing a finger

at me—” she snapped a file drawer shut,”—as if I don’t have my hands full without playing mind

reader.”

Rachel, heart pounding, took off down the corridor, a fluorescent-lit corridor paved with

ancient marbleized green linoleum that crackled beneath her running feet. No time for excuses.

Later there’d be all the time in the world for blame and regrets.

She imagined Alma waking up in the middle of the night with labor pains. Terrified, wanting

no one but Dr. Rosenthal to deliver her baby. Then, when they told her the doctor couldn’t be

reached, deciding she would wait. Not tell them that she was in labor ...

[386] Stupid, childish. But then, Alma
was
a child. A sweet, scared kid who’d wanted to

believe her doctor was God.

And I let her,
Rachel thought, heart aching.
I’m responsible.

In Delivery Room One, Rachel found a young resident barking orders at a nurse. Hardman.

One of the new crop, still wet behind the ears. His white face, glimmering with sweat, alarmed

Rachel more than the sight of Alma spread-eagled on the table in lithotomy position, feet up in

stirrups, huge belly draped in a sterile blue sheet. It told her he expected trouble. Big trouble.

“Readings?” Rachel asked. She wouldn’t bother to scrub. It’d take too much time. From here

she could see how much worse the edema had gotten. Alma’s feet were swollen, the flesh around

her ankles puffed up the size of cantaloupes.

“Not good,” Hardman said. “Blood pressure one-eighty over one-twenty. I’m getting a tachy

reading on the baby, too.”

“Water broken?” she asked, tugging on gloves.

“Just before you got here. I examined her. Head’s engaged and ready to drop. Dr. Rosenthal, if

you’re going to section her, I wouldn’t wait.” Hardman might be inexperienced, Rachel thought,

but he wasn’t stupid.

Those were her choices. Vaginal delivery or section. The lady or the tiger. But in this case,

behind either door she chose, a tiger lurked.

With Alma’s blood pressure up so high, the strain of pushing a baby through the birth canal

could cause her to burst a blood vessel. But a C-section, on statistics alone, meant an even greater

risk.

Rachel stepped around to the other end of the table, to where Alma’s face formed a bright red

circle against the white sheet. Contorted with her contraction, dark eyes enormous and bulging.

Hypertensive, all right. God in heaven, was she ever.

Then the contraction subsided, and Alma’s lips stretched back in a grim, exhausted smile. Her

lips were cracked, and the smile brought flecks of blood. She clutched Rachel’s hand like

someone drowning.

“I knew you’d come,” she panted. “I waited.”

“You’re almost there, kiddo,” Rachel squeezed her hand back, fighting the lump that had risen

in her throat. “Almost to home plate. [387] The main thing is, don’t be scared. Just think about

the baby. Pretty soon you’ll be holding him in your arms.”

“Her,” Alma corrected. “It’s gonna be a girl. I just
know
it. I’m going to name her-—ooohhhh,

Doctor, it
hurts.
It feels like I’m burning up down there.”

Rachel gestured the nurse over. “Hold her up like this, almost sitting. That way she won’t have

to work so hard. You—” she shot a look at Hardman, “—untie her feet.”

“But, Doctor, it’s not proto—”

“I don’t care whether it’s protocol or not!” she hissed at him. “Just do it!”

Hardman shot her a doubting look, but unbuckled the leather straps that bound Alma’s feet to

the heavy metal stirrups. He looked more frightened now than before, a dark half-moon of sweat

staining the front of his green surgical cap.

If I were having a baby, Rachel thought, the last position I’d want to be in is flat on my back,

feet strapped in stirrups. Easier on the mother this way. More natural.

Now she could sense Alma getting ready to push. Rachel positioned herself, took a good look

at the cervix, saw that she was ready, then urged gently, “Okay, sweetie, push now. Give it all

you’ve got.”

Alma screwed her face up and pushed, turning crimson with the effort, a ragged groan tearing

from her throat.

The head was coming now, a circle of matted dark hair the size of a quarter, growing bigger,

then receding. Rachel reached for the episiotomy scissors, waiting to see if Alma was going to

tear. While at the same time listening to Hardman call out the pressure, which was climbing

higher, higher. Rachel, anxious, scared, felt her heart beating in great leaping bounds, as if she

herself were running a race.

God, let me win this one,
she prayed.

Then the baby’s shoulders presented, as if in answer to her prayer. “She’s in a hurry!” Rachel

crowed, gently rotating the bunched shoulders in a forty-five-degree turn, cradling the baby’s

creamy little head with her other hand.

The rest of the infant came in a slippery rush. “A boy!” Rachel shouted. She grabbed the cord

clamps, clipped them onto the pulsing, turquoise-colored umbilical cord.

[388] Alma was weeping, tears streaming down her face. “A boy,” she echoed in soft

wonderment. “Can I hold him?”

“Of course you can. He’s yours. You can even nurse him if you like.”

Rachel placed the tiny baby, still attached to the cord, in Alma’s arms. His little raisin of a face

nuzzled her breast, then found her nipple and began to suck.

A wave of sadness swept over Rachel.
I’ll never have that. I’ll never know what it’s like.

But she’d won the race, that’s what counted. The baby was safe. Alma was okay.

She felt strong, jubilant, as if she’d climbed the Matterhorn and planted her flag on top.

A little while later, she was gulping lukewarm coffee in the doctors’ lounge. Hardman rushed

in, still in his wrinkled, sweat-stained greens. His face looked almost green, too. Before he

opened his mouth she knew that something terrible had happened.

“It’s Alma Saucedo. She passed out in Recovery. Won’t come out of it. They’re taking her up

to OR now.”

Rachel lurched to her feet, heart leaping.
Dear God,
she thought.
What have I done?

When she got home, sometime after ten P.M., Brian wasn’t there. There was a note stuck to the

refrigerator with a butterfly-shaped magnet:

Friend dropped by. We went out for a bite. Don’t wait up.

P.S. I fed Custer.

Rachel sagged against the door, resting her forehead on the cool white enamel.

Come home,
she willed him.
I
need you. Now. Right now. I need you now, please. More than

ever before.

But how could she expect that of him? It wasn’t fair. How many hundreds of nights had he

waited here for her, alone in this apartment? How many times must he have needed her when she

wasn’t here?

[389] She stared at the note.
A friend. But which friend. He didn’t say. He could be anyone. Or

she ...

This friend, it could be Rose.