The Twelfth Child (28 page)

J
ohn, who figured Abigail would never leave the building on a night when the temperature was well below freezing, had waited for twenty minutes, and then gone in search of her.  He’d walked for an hour, up one street and down the other, calling her name, hollering out that he was sorry for the things he’d said.   When frostbite wrapped itself around his feet, he turned back to the apartment building.  He was standing in the kitchen and scratching his head as to where she might have gone, when the distant sound of a siren screamed through the night.   

By morning, John guessed that Abigail’s intention was to stay away until after he was gone, so he sat down at the kitchen table and wrote her a letter, then pulled on his coat and left. 

A
bigail did not wake for three days.  From time to time she’d sense the coming or going of a nurse or doctor, but they floated at the edge of her world and appeared as people other than themselves.  Caught up in a dream Abigail told Nurse Osterly, a woman with snow white hair and six grandchildren, to sit down and get her hair twisted into pigtails.  “You can’t go to school with fly away hair,” she said.  Nurse Osterly shook her head sadly and noted the rambling on a chart.  Abigail told the orderly collecting bedpans that she could smell the roses on Ridge Road and three times she mistook the doctor for Preacher Broody.  “I know,” she said, “you’ve come to punish me for sinning.”    

On the fourth day, when Abigail finally opened her eyes, she had no recollection of Angelo Lucci or the ambulance ride to Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital.  “Where am I?” she asked the bearded face looking down at her.

“Saint Elizabeth’s,” Doctor West answered.  He frowned at the rattling of breath coming through his stethoscope.  “You’ve got pneumonia.”  He stuck a thermometer into Abigail’s mouth and told her to hold it under her tongue.  “I guess that was your intention!” he grumbled like a man with little patience left, “Sleeping outside in zero degree weather, it’s a wonder you’re not dead!”

“I didn’t mean to sleep,” Abigail tried to explain.  “I got lost and –”

“Why didn’t you have boots on?  A proper coat?”

“Something happened.  Something awful.  I ran out not thinking –”

“Not thinking of your baby,” the doctor grumbled, “that’s for certain.”

“My baby!”  Abigail gasped.  She slid her arm beneath the blanket and placed her hand on her stomach; it felt different – knotted and hard like an elbow or a knee – and, the image of a dark-haired baby curled into a comma was gone.  “My baby!” she screamed, “Someone’s taken her!”

“Your baby’s still there,” Doctor West said, his voice softening to a sympathetic tone, “but, I’m afraid we will have to take it, because there’s no heartbeat.”

“No,” Abigail moaned, “You’re mistaken; you’ve got to be mistaken!”

“I wish I were,” the doctor answered, but by then Abigail had started tearing at the bedclothes as if she’d gone mad.  

She lashed out at the doctor with her arms and legs flailing.  “Nobody is taking my baby away from me!” she screamed, “Nobody!  Stay back or I’ll tear your heart out!” She heaved a carafe at the doctor and knocked a picture from the wall.  She then knocked over a washbasin full of soapy water and toppled a tray of dishes to the floor.  Eventually the ruckus grew so loud that four nurses were called to restrain her long enough for Doctor West to administer a sedative.

She was given sedative after sedative for the next two days, but each time she woke up, Abigail started in sobbing all over again.  The nurses, women accustomed to dealing with people in pain, agreed that they had never seen a woman so distraught as Abigail.  One after the other, they’d come into the room to massage her back, adjust her pillow, or slide a spoonful of Jell-O into her mouth.  On the third afternoon, when Nurse Parker discovered a pool of blood on the sheet, Abigail was wheeled into the operating room without further delay.

After they’d taken the baby from her, Abigail didn’t speak a single word for five days.  The doctors and nurses began to speculate that she’d suffered brain damage from prolonged exposure to such severe cold.  On the sixth day, Abigail asked Nurse Bolinski if she’d be kind enough to call Gloria and see if she could come for a visit.   

D
espite their friendship, Abigail had never before mentioned that John slept in her bed, nor had she said a word about being pregnant.  A thousand times she’d started to, but whenever the words came into her throat they turned sour, like bits of rancid food rising up.  Now, Gloria, who had every right to say she’d warned against just such a thing, listened to the story without a word of reproach. 

“I murdered my baby,” Abigail sobbed.  “That’s what it comes right down to –”

“Hush,” Gloria said and held Abigail to her chest tenderly as she would hold Belinda.  “Blaming yourself won’t bring that baby back.  Sometimes awful things happen; nobody knows why.”

Abigail dropped back onto her pillow, “I know why,” she moaned tearfully. “That baby died because of me.  Instead of thinking about her, I was thinking about myself.  I killed my poor innocent baby, because I couldn’t stand the hurt of hearing John say he’d never intended to marry me.”   

“He’s the one you ought to blame,” Gloria answered, but by that time Abigail had cemented the last brick into a wall around her heart with the guilt sealed inside.  

F
our days after Abigail came home from Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital, she heard the scrape of a key unlocking the apartment door.  It happened early in the evening, but she was already half-asleep and so believing it to be Gloria with yet another pot of soup, she didn’t bother to get up until she heard the footsteps, familiar footsteps, heavier than Gloria’s.  Footsteps that stopped for a moment, then sounded in the hallway leading to the bedroom.  Abigail bolted up and swung her feet to the floor but before she could reach for her bathrobe, John was standing in the doorway with a look of great concern.  “Are you alright?” he asked, then without a moment’s hesitation crossed the room, sat beside her on the edge of the bed and took her hand in his.  “I’ve been out of my head with worry,” he said.

“Worry?” Abigail echoed absently, “about me?”

“Of course, about you!”  He gave a sigh of exasperation, “Not answering the telephone, was that your way of punishing me?  Didn’t you read the letter?  What more can I say?” He stood and began pacing the room like an expectant father.  “I’ve apologized every way possible.  I’ve said keep the baby.  I promised we’d find a way to make it work.  I don’t know how yet, but we will.  I love you too much, Abigail.  I love you too much to ever walk away.”

“It’s too late,” she answered, turning her eyes from his face.          

“Aren’t you listening?  I’ll be a father to the baby, whatever it takes.”

“It’s too late,” she repeated.

“Don’t say that,” he pleaded, “I’ve told you I’m sorry and I am – truly, from the bottom of my heart.  The whole thing, you being pregnant, saying I ought to marry you, it came as such a surprise – I know I reacted badly.  I’ll make amends.  Get a divorce, if necessary.”  When Abigail didn’t reply, he took hold of her shoulders and turned her face to his.  “Please,” he begged, “don’t turn away from me, think of what we mean to each other, think of what it would mean to the baby, having both parents.”

“She’s gone,” Abigail said, her voice wavering on the edge of tears.

“What?”

“I killed our baby.”

“You had an abortion?”  John gasped, but upon seeing the sadness in Abigail’s eyes, he, himself, answered the question.  “No,” he said, “you’d never do that.”

Abigail spoke in a voice so melancholy it seemed to be that of a dead person.  “God, forgive me,” she said, “I was so wrapped up in my own hurt that I didn’t stop to think about my baby.  A baby, tiny as she was, couldn’t survive in that awful cold.  She froze to death.  Froze to death inside of me.  The doctor wouldn’t say that’s what caused her to die, but I know.” 

“Oh, Abigail,” John sighed.  He wrapped his arms around her but it was like trying to embrace a curtain or a towel, a thing that hangs limp and lifeless.  “We’ll start over,” he said.  “It can be just as it was, me and you, together.  Only this time I’ll be more considerate, I’ll find a way to make things right.”

“Right?  How can you possibly make things right?”

“We’ll get married. Not immediately, of course.  I’ll have to divorce Kathleen, and she’s probably not ready for this, so it’s gonna take time, but eventually –”

“What about your boys?” Abigail asked.  “Will you divorce them too?  Get rid of them, the way you would have gotten rid of our baby?”

“That’s not fair!” he snapped, “I’m only trying to please you!”

“Please me?  Please me by hurting other people?”

“Jesus Christ, Abigail,” he moaned, “what do you want?  Tell me.  I’ll do whatever you ask; just tell me what will make you happy.”

She pulled herself from his grip and turned toward the window.  The sky was already darkening, but far off on the horizon she could see a glimmer of lingering sunset.  How greedy the red ball of sun seemed, clawing at the sky, refusing to step aside and allow the moon its rightful due.  Abigail wanted to cling to John as the sun clung to the day, she wanted to feel his arms around her, feel his lips pressed to hers, and know that he’d be beside her year after year until they both grew old and silver-haired.  From where she stood, Abigail saw the entrance to the park, the stone archway, beyond which was the bridal path. Nothing would ever drive out the haunting memory of that icy cold night.  Theirs was a love born of sin and strewn over with lies and heartbreak, a love for which she had suffered an unjustly cruel punishment.  

“Go home, John,” she said without turning back.  “Go home to your boys.”

“Abigail, please.  Can’t you see I’m trying –”

“Don’t.  What kind of life would we have together?  Do you think there’s ever any joy for people who carve their happiness out of someone else’s hurt?  And what about your boys?  You gonna have them grow up with no daddy?”

“I’ll visit the boys often as I can.”

“The way you do me?  When you’re passing through some nearby town?”

“Abigail, you know damn well, I came to see you every chance I got!”

“It was never enough.  You’ve no idea how often I cried myself to sleep missing you.  Sometimes I tried to picture the way you’d look coming through the door, but there was always a piece of you missing – an eye, an ear, an arm, always something.  Now I realize it was because the whole of you never did belong to me.” 

“Things will change.  I’ll ask for a smaller territory, I’ll be here more often.”

“It’s too late,” Abigail said, “way too late.”       

John pleaded with her throughout the night but she stood firm in her resolve.  When he said that he loved her more than life itself, Abigail turned her face to the wall so he couldn’t see the flow of tears coming from her eyes.  Just as the first light of dawn flickered across the sky, he pulled on his overcoat and walked out the door.  Abigail stood at the window and watched him cross the street, he didn’t turn back, didn’t look up at the window to see if she was there.  He climbed into his car and started the motor.  For several minutes he sat there like he was thinking maybe he’d forgotten something, and then he drove off.

“I’ll never let myself fall in love again,” Abigail sobbed as she watched him go, then she threw herself across the bed and cried more tears than she’d ever dreamed a person could have.   Hours later, when she staggered into the kitchen for a drink of water, Abigail found the door key she’d given John lying on the table. 

That evening Abigail gathered up the fancy dresses, slips and nightgowns that John had given her and packed them in a valise along with the pair of worn slippers and a pipe he had never smoked.  She could not bring herself to get rid of the things, so she closed the valise and slid it beneath her bed.  Two years later, she deposited it on the doorstep of the Salvation Army.

F
or years after she’d seen the last of John Langley, Abigail would stretch her neck or turn full around to catch a glimpse of some dark-haired man passing by on the far side of the street.  On those occasions when she’d encountered someone who walked with his swagger, or spoke in his teasing tone of voice, she’d lie awake all night, looking at the moon and wondering if she’d done the right thing in sending him away.  In the dark of night, her bed seemed to grow larger, and the space that John had once occupied felt barren as the inside of her body.  When morning came, Abigail would gather herself together and recall her reasons for turning him away. 
Thy shalt not covet thy neighbor’s husband.  Thy shalt not steal.  Thy shalt not lie.

It was one thing to lay claim to the love of a man free to give it, it was quite another to steal someone from his family.  Forbidden love was a sin for which Abigail had paid dearly – she had lost both her baby girl and the only man she’d ever love.

Abigail filled the years of emptiness with other children; toddlers who’d gather round in a circle as she read nursery rhymes or fables of fairies and flying elves, little boys she’d introduce to swashbuckling stories of pirates and princes, teenage girls longing for tales of romance.  “Just remember,” she’d say with a smile, “true love seldom comes riding in on a white horse.”  The girls would nod politely, but Abigail could tell, their heads were filled with the same foolish fantasies as hers had been.

In nineteen-eighty-four Abigail retired from the Richmond Library; she’d been there for forty-eight years and was hoping to make fifty as did Miss Spencer, but at seventy-two her knees were beginning to ache and her eyes no longer focused in on the clarity of words. 

Four-hundred and twenty-six people crowded into the library for her retirement party – many were parents who came to the library as youngsters and then returned with their own children, so that they might also listen to the magical tales of Miss Abigail.  The Mayor came along with two City Councilmen, one of whom was a woman.