Authors: Wendy Corsi Staub

Lullaby and Goodnight (34 page)

BOOK: Lullaby and Goodnight

5.27Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

ads

Yet there’s no use dwelling on what might have been.

She can only accept what is . . . and decide where to go from here.

She thinks of Ryan, all grown up now, working for a bank and planning a Christmas wedding to a woman he now lives with in Brooklyn. It wasn’t hard for Mason Hertz to track him down.

When Anne Marie called him that day from the pay phone to tell him that his daughter might be alive, she expected an incredulous gasp, joyful tears; a barrage of questions at the very least.

But her bombshell was met with silence, followed eventually by a weary “You have to let go, Ms. DeMario. Just like I have.”

“But . . . don’t you want to find your daughter?”

“No, I’m sorry . . . I don’t believe she’s really alive. How can she be?”

Ann Marie opened her mouth to convince him, but he went on, “And even if she is, I just . . . I can’t. I have a whole life now, I’m getting married, and I can’t go back to all that . . . pain. Please try to understand.”

But she couldn’t understand. And she didn’t try.

She hung up, knowing that she alone is responsible for uncovering the truth. She alone carries on in memory of the lovely young woman who is all but forgotten by the rest of the world, her child ripped from the womb and her body nothing more than a discarded incubator left to rot with rat-infested garbage.

Swallowing hard at the memory of the two calls she made on that day in the commuter parking lot, she picks up the telephone on the bedside table and dials.

She won’t call Ryan again.

Nor will she call the Clementses.

A groggy voice answers after several rings.

She looks at the clock, belatedly recognizing the late hour as she says softly, “Jarrett? I’m coming home.”

The water is boiling now, bubbling furiously in the small stainless steel kettle used solely for this sacred purpose.

A pair of tongs are propped against the rim, the pincers resting on the bottom beside the submerged knife, its extended blade camouflaged in the silvery depths.

Five minutes. That’s the length of time necessary for sterilization. Less than a minute to go.

If only the remainder of Peyton Somerset’s pregnancy could tick away as rapidly as the seconds on the stove timer.

But you don’t have to wait until her actual due date. The baby will be able to breathe on its own well before that. All you have to do is get through another few weeks . . .

All the while, resisting the temptation to stoke her paranoia.

The situation has become too precarious. One false move, and it could all come crashing down.

Better to lie low than risk being discovered now, when the plan is teetering on the verge of fruition.

Yes. Far, far better to be invisible, to watch, to wait until the time is right, and then—

The timer emits a low-pitched buzz.

It’s ready.

The knife is removed from its steaming bath with the tongs, and carefully dried on some sterile pads.

Then, in front of the bathroom mirror, the ritual begins.

There is no longer pain on the site of the scar when the blade slices carefully along the crimson line. Not physical pain, anyway.

With practiced expertise, the skin high on the forehead is split open just below the hairline, the blade dragged down a fraction of an inch to gouge the shallow flesh beneath.

Ah, there’s the blood. A scarlet trickle forms a droplet that clings for a tantilizing second before falling onto a ledge of pink tongue that savors the salty warmth.

When the ritual is finished, the knife is washed clean in hot, soapy water.

Then it’s set aside in a drawer, where it will remain until the wound begins to heal once again.

Month Eight

September

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The telephone rings just as Peyton is straining past her enormous stomach to turn over her final card in yet another futile game of solitaire.

“Rita? Are you going to grab that?” she calls, before remembering that her friend ran to Duane Reade to pick up more Tums for Peyton’s worsening heartburn.

The phone is just out of reach on the bedside table. She debates whether to bother answering. It rarely rings these days, and when it does, she’s never the one who picks it up.

Rita fielded the few calls from her office that came early on in her bed-rest sentence, as well as occasional inquiries from concerned family and friends. Aside from her mother’s nightly long-distance check-ins, Peyton’s contact with the outside world seems to have tapered off.

Gil initially popped in a few times, as did Nancy, and Kate, and Julie. But Rita discouraged prolonged visits, telling everyone Peyton needs her rest.

And she does. It feels good to hide away from the world, not having to deal with anything or anyone. It’s as though she’s been indefinitely cast adrift on a sea of tranquility, the weighty problems of the past having been cast away like anchors whose chains have been severed.

Legally unable to interfere with Peyton’s medical leave, Tara has all but ceased to exist. Candace stopped by last week to drop off the pretty handmade quilt now draped over the side of the crib beside the bed. She mentioned that Alain’s position remains open.

“I bet it’ll be yours if you want it, whenever you come back,” she confided.

If you want it.

Peyton, who has always known exactly what she wants, and how she’s going to get it, is no longer certain of anything.

Funny how now that she has all this time to lie here and think, her thoughts are more muddled than ever.

She might be inclined to throw herself headlong into her career as soon as the baby is born.

Or she might be tempted to give up on Kaplan and Kline, on corporate America altogether.

The same uncharacteristic indecision hasn’t just infiltrated her views on her professional life. She still isn’t sure who, if anyone, to ask to be her labor coach. Rita keeps telling her there’s time, that she can get through it without a coach if she chooses. Peyton doesn’t know what to think about it.

Then there’s Allison.

Is she still alive? Was she a victim, or an instigator of her own disappearance?

In the dead of night, when Peyton has trouble sleeping, she believes Allison is dead, and that something sinister is lurking nearby, ready to strike her as well. She’s sure that the Bible and the bloody placenta are harbingers of catastrophes soon to come.

Then the sun comes up, Rita arrives to bustle around the apartment, and Peyton invariably decides Allison ran away, and that she herself merely fell victim to relatively benign pranks that may—or may not—have been played by a man she foolishly allowed herself to fall for.

The phone is still ringing. No caller ID on the bedroom receiver, either.

I should answer it. It might be Rita.

What if it’s Tom?

When she first came home from the hospital last month, he repeatedly tried to see her, tried to convince her to at least talk to him.

Finally, in a single, terse telephone conversation, Peyton apologized for the sudden breakup, but informed him that she was no longer equipped to focus on anything but the baby. When he persisted, she dutifully handed the phone over to Rita, who was loyally standing by.

The midwife told him under no uncertain terms that the slightest mental anguish could be dangerous for both Peyton and the baby.

“You need to leave her alone, Tom,” she said firmly. “And if you don’t, I’ll get the police involved.”

That was the last time he called.

Rita has since reported that she’s seen him from the window, lurking outside the building on occasion. But he’s never attempted to come in.

Not that he can. The place is a fortress. Peyton has learned to feel safe here even when Rita goes home at night, thanks to the dead bolts, the bars, the alarm—and the six-inch carving knife she secretly keeps under her pillow.

Now, as she reaches for the phone, Peyton prays she isn’t walking into an unwelcome confrontation with Tom—or another hangup. Rita told her there have been a few this week, most likely coming from pay telephones whose numbers don’t appear on caller ID.

“Peyton, turn on the news,” a female voice exclaims in response to her tentative “hello.” “Channel seven. Now!”

“Who is this?”

“It’s Julie. Hurry!”

It takes her a moment to locate the remote control amidst the stacks of cards on the rumpled bed.

“Do you see this?” Julie’s voice rises in panic. “Oh God . . .”

“What is it, Julie?” Peyton aims the remote at the television, presses Power, and changes the channel.

Then, yes, she sees it.

And she realizes, in one sickening flash of recognition, that her life is in grave danger.

After a vigorous morning at preschool, the droopy-eyed triplets have been lulled into placidity by a
Blue’s Clues
video, peanut butter and jelly triangles, and milk-filled sippy cups.

With any luck, Anne Marie thinks, they’ll stretch out on the couches after they eat and fall asleep for a while. That will give her a chance to read this morning’s newspaper, still untouched on the kitchen table, and to return several phone calls from mothers of overtly social preschoolers requesting play dates with one or another of the vivacious Egerton boys.

It’s hard to remember now that there was ever a time when the trio lay in adjoining isolettes in the neonatal intensive care ward, their monitors bleating whenever one of them drifted too close to oblivion.

The nightmarish vigil lasted for weeks, with Anne Marie and Jarrett seeing each other only in passing, taking turns keeping watch over their delicate children who had been born too soon.

That was the turning point in their marriage, she realizes, looking back.

They had made it unscathed through courtship and commitment, then through the trials of infertility when she attempted to conceive as her age closed in on forty.

She didn’t dare tell Jarrett that she knew she could carry a child, that she had already been pregnant and given birth, already been a parent.

Her gynecologist knew about her past pregnancy, of course, but he believed the lie she told him—that she had been pregnant as a teenager and given up the baby for adoption. She asked him not to tell her husband and he was legally bound to oblige.

He gave her a list of esteemed fertility specialists.

Among them she spotted a chillingly familiar name: Dr. William Lombardo. He had evolved from the straightforward obstetrician-gynecologist he’d been just a few years earlier, when he was Heather’s doctor at the Staten Island branch of his practice.

He’d never had a chance to deliver Anne Marie’s grandchild; now he would not have a chance to treat Anne Marie herself. She chose a stranger, a specialist in Connecticut who eventually assisted her in conceiving the triplets and becoming a mother again.

God bless him, she thinks as she removes a mug of this morning’s reheated coffee from the microwave and sinks into a kitchen chair.

She wonders wearily, as she does every afternoon around this time, where the first half of the day went.

She thought she’d have more time to herself now that the boys are in school. But by the time she drops them off at nine and runs a few errands, it’s already eleven and time to head back for a pre-pickup parking spot.

It’s been a hectic few weeks, settling into the new fall routine. Too hectic to have done much soul-searching.

Not that Kelly Clements isn’t in the back of her mind every moment of every day.

She just isn’t sure where to put her yet.

While supportive, and forgiving of the lies his wife told him, Jarrett is reluctant to go to the police.

Anne Marie knows he must be worried about appearances, as always.

Of course he claims he merely wants to protect the boys from the upheaval of a long-term, potentially high-profile investigation.

“My daughter was abducted and murdered,” Anne Marie has been forced to remind him more than once, as loath to say the terrible words aloud as she is to let the resolution languish indefinitely. “My granddaughter is living with strangers who are passing themselves off as her parents.”

“They
are
her parents, legally,” Jarrett has reminded her, more than once.

Yes. The birth certificate. So far, nobody in Jarrett’s furtive team of attorneys and investigators has found any reason to question it. They’ve reportedly even found a witness who will attest that Mrs. Clements was visibly pregnant and delivered Kelly herself.

“It’s all a con,” Anne Marie screamed at Jarrett when he told her that.

“Maybe it is,” he agreed with maddening calm.

At least he didn’t reiterate, yet again, that there isn’t a shred of evidence other than Anne Marie’s fierce, purely instinctive conviction that Kelly Clements is Heather’s baby.

She’s determined to prove it through DNA testing.

But until they reach that milestone, Anne Marie is forced to inhabit this oddly bustling limbo as if nothing has changed.

She swallows some coffee and reaches for the newspaper, deciding to relax for a few more minutes before getting out the calendar to schedule play dates.

She leafs through the front section with its grim global headlines, then takes the last few sips of her coffee while skimming the local section for anything that might capture her interest before she tosses the paper into the recycling bin.

The name jumps out at her in bold black and white for the second time in her life, as though summoned to the page by her thoughts of mere minutes before.

Dr. William Lombardo.

If Rita hadn’t stopped impulsively at the newsstand to pick up a couple of magazines for Peyton, she might not have found out for hours.

By then it could have been too late.

But she happens to glance down at the
Daily News
as she’s paying for
People
and
Glamour,
and there it is, utterly unexpected, a pair of familiar faces staring out from beneath a sensational tabloid headline.

Oh no. Oh God.

She doesn’t even wait for the man to give her the change for the twenty she’s just handed him, but takes off running down the avenue, through the pouring rain, magazines in one hand and plastic drugstore bag in the other.

Is she being followed?

She checks over her shoulder at every intersection she must wait to cross, half expecting to see somebody dogging her zigzag pattern toward Peyton’s apartment.

But she makes it safely to the door.

She’s hurriedly pushing her key into the lock when she hears pounding footsteps splashing down the street.

She looks up to see Tom Reilly racing through the downpour in her direction, waving his arms at her.

In a panic, she manages to get the door unlocked, slips through, and slams it behind her just as he reaches the steps.

“Rita, wait, no!” he shouts.

Ignoring him, she rushes down the stairs with a fervent prayer that she’ll find her patient intact. She can hear Tom pounding on the door upstairs, to no avail. He must know the building, inhabited by professionals, is deserted at this time of a weekday morning, same as always.

“Peyton?” Rita calls, bursting into the apartment. “We have to get you out of here, sugar pie.”

She finds her in the bedroom, staring at the television, tears streaming down her face.

She already knows.