When She Woke (30 page)

That was what Rafael had called it:
the procedure.
Hannah remembered how the term, along with the other equally clinical and dispassionate words he’d used, had calmed her. She saw in retrospect that they had in fact enabled her to go through with it. You didn’t temporize, much less agonize, over a procedure, you proceeded with it. A procedure didn’t induce regret or require expiation. But how different the scenario became when you substituted words like “murder” and “abomination.” The truth of it, Hannah thought now, lay somewhere in between. She’d ended her pregnancy out of love and fear and necessity. It hadn’t been simply a procedure, but neither had it been an atrocity.

“There wasn’t much demand for abortions at first, because of the scourge,” Stanton was saying. “Back then, women who were clean were
trying
to get pregnant, whether they were married or not. The orphanages were empty, and childless couples were paying fifty-thousand dollars for a baby, and double that if it was white.”

Hannah glanced covertly at Kayla. Her friend’s face remained politely attentive, but there was a flicker of something in her eye, anger or maybe a weary resentment. How many times, Hannah wondered, would you have to hear comments like that before they ceased to bother you?

“But after they found the cure,” Stanton went on, “we started to get more and more calls. There were a whole lot of charlatans and butchers doing abortions then—still are, for that matter—and word of my mother’s skill spread.” He took a long drink of brandy, and his expression turned pensive and a little wistful. “She was so tender with them, so gentle, especially the young ones.”

Like Rafael had been with Hannah, and it had still been awful. It wasn’t hard to imagine how much worse it could have been with a different kind of doctor.

“And of course if they were poor, she wouldn’t take a dime of their money. We had women coming from as far as Colorado and Virginia. And the more of them that came, the more dangerous it got, but that just made Mama more determined.” He paused, lost in memory, and absently removed his spectacles and wiped them with his napkin. Without them, his face looked even more childlike. “Things got even riskier once we joined the Novembrists, but I’d never seen my mother more alive. I honestly believe she felt she’d found her purpose on earth.”

Stanton’s plaintiveness was naked and painful to hear. Hannah wondered whether his mother had ever shown him that much attention, that much tenderness. Although her own mother would have denied it, Hannah had always known she loved Becca more. She hadn’t minded, but then, she’d always had her father.

“When did she pass?” Kayla asked.

“A year ago last September. Pneumonia.” His voice hitched, and the two women murmured condolences. “I told her she was working too hard, but she wouldn’t listen, just kept running herself ragged. I’d gone down to Jackson for the weekend, and when I came back I found her lying unconscious on the bathroom floor. At the hospital she woke up just long enough to refuse consent for the custom antibiotics that might have saved her. Said she was too far gone and we couldn’t afford it anyway.” Stanton finished his brandy and poured himself another. “You know the last thing she said to me? ‘You use that money to finish the tunnel, son. Promise me.’ That was Mama, never thinking of herself.”

Or of you either, I bet.
Hannah felt a stab of pity for him.

“It must have been a great comfort to her to have a son to carry on her work,” Kayla said.

“Frankly, I think she would have disowned me if I hadn’t.”

There was an awkward silence. “Well,” Hannah said, “we’re very grateful to both of you.”

Stanton stood abruptly. “It’s late, and you ladies must be tuckered out. I’ll show you back to your room now.”

“Don’t trouble yourself, we can find it,” Kayla said.

“You could try, but I highly doubt you’d succeed.”

When they reached the front hallway Hannah saw what he’d meant. She examined the paneled wall where she thought they’d come in, but until Stanton said, “By valor and arms,” and the door cracked open, it was invisible.

“For your own safety, I’ll have to lock you in for the night,” Stanton said. “But when you get up in the morning, or if you need anything, just press this little button here. It sends a signal to my port, and I’ll come as soon as I’m able.”

Hannah and Kayla exchanged an uneasy glance. “As soon as I’m able” was a far cry from “right away.” Stanton could leave them down there for a long time. And if something happened to him, not even Simone would be able to find them. They would slowly, inexorably starve to death.

“Don’t fret yourselves on my account,” Stanton said, with palpable irony. “I may be a little on the chubby side, but my doctor says I have the heart of a twenty-year-old.”

Kayla’s eyes were mirrors reflecting Hannah’s own thought:
What choice do we have?
Right now, the only way forward was down.

As Stanton was about to shut the door, he stopped and tapped his forehead with a stubby finger. “I almost forgot. What’s your favorite breakfast?”

“French toast,” Hannah said.

“And bacon and grits,” Kayla added.

“Then that’s exactly what we’ll have,” he said, smiling his little boy’s smile. “Sleep well, my dears.”

B
UT
H
ANNAH
D
IDN’T
sleep well, despite her exhaustion. Her claustrophobia reared up, and she jerked awake multiple times in the night, troubled by nightmares of being buried alive. In the morning she woke up disoriented, to the sound of water running. She felt panicky until she turned on the light and saw the two beds, the yellow walls, the orchid. She wasn’t at the Straight Path Center; she was at Stanton’s, with Kayla.

When Kayla was finished, Hannah took her time showering and dressing, trying to recover the sense of calm she’d felt last night in Stanton’s trunk, but it eluded her. They climbed the stairs together, and Hannah pressed the button with a shaking hand. But her fears proved baseless, and a scant two minutes later Stanton was opening the door and wishing them good morning. The promised breakfast was as tasty as supper the night before, and when he pressed seconds on them, they accepted without even a token protest.

“Where’d you learn to cook like this?” Kayla asked.

“My grandmother taught me, behind my grandfather’s back. He thought cooking was an unmanly pursuit. He was a tough old bird, lost an eye in Korea. He’s buried in Friendship Cemetery. I don’t suppose you passed it as you came into town?” The women shook their heads. “It’s a military graveyard, over sixteen thousand soldiers are buried there. Columbus was a hospital town during the war. Thousands of casualties, both theirs and ours, were brought here and were laid to rest together in the cemetery.” Hannah was puzzled. Why would Korean casualties have been brought to Mississippi? “Then in April of ‘66, a group of ladies decided to decorate the graves with flowers, and that was the first Memorial Day.”

“Ah,” Hannah said, “you mean the Civil War.”

Kayla laughed. “You’re in the Deep South now. There
is
no other war.”

“Spoken like a true daughter of the Confederacy,” Stanton said, with an approving bob of his head. “And now, I must leave you ladies for the afternoon. I’m one of the Friends of Friendship, and I give volunteer tours of the cemetery every other Friday. I’ve never once missed my shift, and I wouldn’t want to raise any eyebrows by starting today.”

Back in the basement, Hannah paced, feeling unaccountably jittery, while Kayla lay contentedly on her bed with a plate of brownies resting on her stomach. “Tell you what,” she said, her voice garbled by the food, “for a couple of desperate fugitives, we sure are eating like queens. You’ve got to try one of these. They’re incredible.”

Hannah didn’t respond. Something was nagging at her, like a finger tapping on her spine. “All right, out with it,” Kayla said.

“You don’t feel like there’s something a little … off about Stanton, and this whole situation?”

“Apart from the fact that he didn’t give us any milk to go with these brownies, no. But tell me why you do.”

Hannah sat down at the end of Kayla’s bed. “I was thinking about how much he told us. About himself, his family. If we got caught we could identify him in two seconds flat. I mean, how many tiny middle-aged men can there be in Columbus, Mississippi, who live in a Victorian mansion and had a midwife for a mother? Why would he reveal all that?”

Kayla let out an amused
humph.
“You don’t have much experience with alcohol, do you? A person’ll tell you all sorts of things after polishing off a bottle and a half of wine and two glasses of brandy.”

“Maybe, but he was stone cold sober a few minutes ago when he told us he was a volunteer at the cemetery. I mean, he was pretty darn specific. Think about it. What do we know about Susan and Anthony’s real lives, or Simone’s? Nothing. Because unlike Stanton, they were careful not to reveal anything in case we were caught.”

Kayla shook her head. “But they trust him completely, even Simone, and she’s hardly the trusting type. And if he means us harm, why put a hundred-dollar plant in our room and feed us crawfish étouffée? The fact is, he could’ve turned us in to the police or killed us ten times already if he’d wanted to. The man had us in the trunk of his car—he could’ve taken us anywhere. Or locked us in the tunnel and left us to die, or drugged or poisoned these brownies.” Kayla popped the last bite into her mouth and offered the plate to Hannah.

“True,” Hannah said. Kayla was right; she was being paranoid. She took a brownie and bit into it. “Mmm.”

“What did I tell you?”

But after just two bites Hannah set the remainder back on the plate. It was too rich, too sweet. Cloyingly so. “I can’t eat any more of this.”

Kayla gave her a disbelieving look. “You’re crazy, you know that?”

Hannah shrugged. She couldn’t disagree.

S
TANTON
C
AME
F
OR
them an hour before sunset. They ate a quick supper, and then it was time to go. He led them back through the tunnel to the garage, stowed their packs in the backseat of the car and opened the trunk.

“We’d best say our goodbyes now,” he said. “There won’t be time once we get to the car.”

Hannah and Kayla thanked him for his kindness, but he brushed their gratitude aside with the now-familiar “It’s personal.”

“Good luck surviving the renovations,” Kayla said.

Stanton smiled. “It’s a painful process, but it’ll be worth it in the end. And now, I’m afraid it’s back in the trunk with you two.” With his customary gallantry, he helped them climb in and get settled. He took hold of the lid with one hand and contemplated them. “I
am
sorry about this,” he said, with sincere, almost tender regret. “But you won’t have to endure it for long.” He brought the lid down gently, shutting them in. Hannah heard him get in the car, start the engine and turn on some classical music. They backed out, accelerated. She could feel panic rising, wanting to erupt out of her throat, fists and feet.

Kayla made a scratchy, hissing sound in the back of her throat. “Good evening, this is your pilot speaking,” she said, with artificial cordiality. “Welcome to ClaustrophobiAir. We hope you enjoy your confinement. If there’s anything we can do to make you feel more cramped and suffocated, please don’t hesitate to ask one of the flight attendants.”

Hannah smiled, despite her fear. What would she do without Kayla?

Ten or fifteen minutes later, the car stopped. Hannah heard the driver’s door open and the crunch of Stanton’s footsteps, and then another door was opened and a second set of footsteps approached the car. Suddenly, the lid of the trunk popped open. A flashlight shone into her eyes, blinding her, and then shifted to Kayla. The finger that had been tapping on Hannah’s spine earlier became a fist, pummeling her.

“Nice,” a male voice said, drawing out the word lasciviously. Before either of the women could move, the lid slammed shut again.

“Hey!” Kayla yelled. She jerked upward, and Hannah heard the
thwack
of her head hitting the lid. “Ow! Shit!” She started kicking the lid of the trunk. “Let us out of here! Stanton!”

“Settle down!” the stranger barked, with a sharp rap on the lid.

Kayla was breathing in loud, harsh gasps. “Shh,” Hannah whispered, fighting down her own terror, straining to hear what the two men were saying.

“…too bad,” the stranger said. There was an unintelligible response from Stanton, and then the stranger said, “Bet she woulda fetched triple that if her renewal wasn’t up so soon. I never seen the bidding get that fierce over a ticker.”

Bidding? Ticker?
Hannah’s body went cold. She felt a dawning horror as she apprehended what was happening.
No, he can’t have, he wouldn’t have, he fed us crawfish étouffée and brownies.
Her mind cowered from its own conclusions, casting in all directions for alternatives but finding none.

Stanton had sold them.

She pictured herself and Kayla last night, primping in front of the bathroom mirror in their sexy outfits, lit up by that bright row of bulbs, the kind you’d find in a starlet’s dressing room—or on a film set. Dear God, he must have been filming them the whole time. There must have been a camera behind the mirror, streaming their images to his waiting clients, because of course, they’d want to examine the merchandise before putting in their bids. The auction would have taken place later, after she and Kayla went to bed, or this afternoon perhaps, when Stanton was supposedly out playing tour guide. But
ticker
…?

“Oh God, he means me,” Kayla moaned. “I’m the ticker.”

Bile surged up into Hannah’s throat as she grasped the meaning of the term. That was why Stanton had been so annoyed that Kayla hadn’t gotten her renewal; it decreased her shelf life, and hence, her value.
Tick, tick, tick.
Kayla would go into fragmentation any day now, and Hannah sometime in February. And when they did, when they became so fragged out that they’d outlived their usefulness to their owners …“You won’t have to endure it for long,” Stanton had promised. They wouldn’t be taken for renewal; their captors wouldn’t dare risk it. They’d be disposed of like a couple of empty milk cartons.