A Deadly Affection (2 page)

“If you'll give me a chance,” I said slowly, “I can show you a better way.”

“What could you possibly have to say that would be of any use to me?” she asked with an angry toss of her head. “You don't know what it's like.” She pounded a fist against her breastbone, eyes glittering with tears. “You don't know how it
feels
. You don't know anything.”

Murmurs of agreement fluttered through the room. Glancing at the others, I saw that if at first they had been frightened by Anna's behavior, now they appeared to be coalescing around her words. I could see doubt hardening their faces, their willingness to believe withering under Anna's scorn. My chance of helping them, of accomplishing what I'd worked so hard for, was vanishing before my eyes.

I gripped my stack of notes. I couldn't lose them now. I had to do something—anything—to gain their trust. I felt my mouth open, and heard myself say, “You're wrong. I do know what you're going through, because I've gone through it myself.”

My words dangled in the air between us, causing me a prickle of anxiety. Psychotherapists weren't supposed to reveal the details of their personal lives; they were supposed to lead by word, not example. But it was too late now to take it back.

“I've lost someone too,” I repeated. “Someone very dear to me. I know what it's like.”

Anna studied me for a long, silent moment. At last, her chin lifted in the barest of nods. With a little sniff, she snapped the blade shut and dropped back against her seat.

Their eyes all turned to me. I shuffled my notes, spilling some pages over the side of the desk in my agitation. Margaret bent to pick them up and handed them to me with a shy smile. I laid them on top of the pile, feeling off balance, aware of a shift in the room but unsure if it was for better or worse. “Well then, if there are no further questions, why don't I begin today's lecture…”

Before anyone could raise a hand, I plunged into my prepared material, eager to be back on familiar ground. I'd worked long and hard on my first lecture, and it comforted me now like an old friend. My little slip couldn't be fatal, I decided as I made my way through the outline, explaining how Mr. Darwin's theory of species evolution applied to levels of complexity within the brain. The material spoke for itself. The women couldn't help but be impressed and encouraged by what they'd heard.

And yet, when the lunch bell rang and I finally laid down my notes, I could detect no visible signs of excitement among them, nor did a single hand go up when I opened the floor to questions. “No questions at all?” I asked, scanning their faces in concern. Where was the interest I'd seen earlier? I had barely brought the class to a close before they were rising from their chairs and heading for the open end of the partition.

I stood and trotted alongside them. “Thank you for coming,” I called to their backs as they filed past. “I'll see you again next Sunday!” As they disappeared into the lunch crowd that was gathering in the adjoining room, however, I couldn't help wondering if I'd ever see any of them again.

I turned slowly back into the room, trying to fathom what had gone wrong. Was it my disclosure that I had suffered too? By making myself one of them, had I compromised my position of authority? The possibility so consumed me that it was a moment before I realized I wasn't alone.

I pulled up short as I saw that Elizabeth Miner was still in her chair. Her head was bowed, and her hands were pressed to her eyes.

“Mrs. Miner?” I walked over and sat beside her. “Mrs. Miner, are you all right?”

She looked up with a sigh, wiping away a tear. “Please, call me Eliza.”

“Of course, Eliza, but won't you tell me why you're crying?”

“It's just that I miss her so much.”

“Miss who?”

“My daughter.”

I glanced toward the patient folders on my desk; I could have sworn it was a son who'd suffocated in the crib sheets. “You had a daughter?”

“A beautiful baby girl,” she said with a quick sunburst of a smile. “I named her Joy.”

I was certain the Reverend hadn't mentioned a daughter. I supposed the child must have died before he'd arrived in the neighborhood. Which meant that this poor woman had lost not one child but two.

“I think about her all the time,” she was saying. “Even though I know I shouldn't.”

“I'm so sorry.”

Her eyes welled with more tears. “They wouldn't even let me hold her,” she said. “They just wrapped her in a blanket and took her away.”

I shook my head in silent sympathy.

“They said it was for the best,” she went on, “that she'd have a much better home than I could provide.”

I stopped shaking my head and stared at her. “You mean she didn't… She wasn't…”

She waited, eyebrows knit, for me to finish.

“Who said she'd have a better home?” I asked finally.

“Why, the doctor. And the nurse who took her away.”

“I see,” I said slowly. “How old were you when this happened?”

She looked down at her lap. “Fifteen.”

Fifteen, and they had taken the baby away. “I gather you weren't married at the time.”

She shook her head, staring at her knees, and mumbled something.

“Excuse me?” I said, leaning closer.

“The doctor said I was wicked to have had her,” she said, forcing out the words, “and that she needed to be raised in a decent home.”

“A woman isn't necessarily wicked because she becomes pregnant out of wedlock,” I said a bit more sharply than I'd intended. “It could just mean that she's young and naive and trusting.”

She said nothing, her face red with shame.

I thought of all the hours she'd been spending in church, hours the Reverend and I had assumed were spent repenting the death of her son. Perhaps it was actually this first guilt she'd been punishing herself for—or perhaps the two were, in her mind, inextricably linked, the sinful conception of the first child having somehow brought about the loss of the second. It was the same old story, I thought irritably: a woman taking the blame for a man's reckless satisfaction of his needs.

Professor Bogard's words echoed in my mind:
It is important for the therapist to be aware of his own attitudes and prejudices to prevent them from intruding in his work with the patient.
Oh, I was aware all right, I thought, reining my anger in.

“Did you ever see your daughter again?” I asked.

“No.” She looked up. “But I keep hoping that she'll come find me.”

“What would you say to her if she did?”

Her tearstained face took on a soft glow. “I'd tell her that I never wanted to let her go, that I wanted to be her mother more than anything in the world. I'd tell her that from the minute I felt her moving inside me, I knew she was a gift from God.”

It seemed to me I could still see traces of that innocent fifteen-year-old in her shining face. From the Reverend's report, I knew that she'd been an only child whose father had died at a relatively young age and whose mother had been preoccupied with keeping the family store afloat. No wonder she had yearned for something of her own to love. I tried to imagine what it would be like to have a baby wrenched from you at birth—to be so filled with life one minute and so empty the next. I knew how strong the craving could be for just one more look, one more touch of a person who was lost to you forever. And they hadn't even given Eliza a chance to say good-bye.

“I told Dr. Hauptfuhrer that God wanted me to have her,” she went on, “but he said it was blasphemy to say so.”

“Dr. Hauptfuhrer?” I repeated in surprise. He was a well-known physician in our part of town, attendant to some of the Upper East Side's most prosperous families. “He delivered your baby?”

She nodded.

“And he arranged to give it away?”

“Yes.”

This struck me as very odd. Hauptfuhrer was a blood specialist of some renown. As far as I knew, he had no particular interest or training in obstetrics. “How did he come to be your physician?”

“Mother met him at the German Hospital when she had her tonsils out.”

I supposed he must have had staff privileges at the hospital and met her while performing his obligatory ward rounds. “Did he give you any papers to sign when he took the baby?” I asked.

“I don't think so. I don't remember any.”

“Well, did he at least tell you where she was going? To one of the city foundling asylums, perhaps?”

“He said he couldn't tell me. He said everything about the baby had to be a secret.”

“Perhaps he told your mother. Did you ever ask her?”

“I couldn't. She was very angry with me. She said I must never mention Joy again, to her or to anyone else.”

So not only had this poor woman suffered a devastating loss, I thought, but she also had been forced to suffer it in silence, without comfort from family or friends.

She leaned toward me. “Do you think…” She hesitated.

“What?” I prompted.

“Do you think I should ask him?”

“I'm sorry; should you ask who what?”

“Should I ask Dr. Hauptfuhrer where Joy is, the next time I see him?”

I stared at her. “You don't mean to say you still use him?”

“Why, yes, I have to, for my headaches; he gives me the prescription. Of course, we never talk about what happened. But maybe this time… Oh, Doctor, do you think I should ask?”

I knew what I ought to say. I ought to advise her to forget about the past. It was my job to help her suppress the guilty, unhappy thoughts that resided there and imagine a brighter future. But I couldn't force the words to my lips. Because deep down, I didn't believe that she should have to accept her loss. Surely no one had a right to take a mother's child against her will—even if that mother was young, even if she had behaved foolishly. Eliza had a chance, a small chance but a chance nonetheless, of righting that injustice. Her son was gone forever. But her daughter was still alive and conceivably living in the city. It might be possible for the two to establish relations.

Of course, doing so would have repercussions; the sensibilities of the daughter and her adoptive family, if there was one, would have to be taken into account. But the idea of getting back someone you'd loved and lost—someone you blamed yourself for losing—held a powerful attraction for me. Part of me, the impulsive part, wanted to say, “Yes, Eliza, I think you should go to him straightaway and demand that he tell you what's become of her. I believe you have every right to know.”

But of course, I didn't. Because I had learned not to listen to that part. It had taken me years, fighting against the grain, but I had at last reached the point where my rational intentions, and not my reckless impulses, were in charge. I asked instead, “Is that what you want to do?”

“I'm not sure.” She frowned. “I do want to find her, more than anything, but…”

“But?”

“But what if I do, and it turns out she hates me?” she blurted out. “I don't think I could bear it.”

“Why would she hate you?”

Her eyes swam with fresh tears. “She might think I gave her away because I didn't want her.”

“But that's not what happened, is it?”

“No, I did want her! I had it all planned. I was working nights at the bakery next door, earning extra money so I'd be able to have a girl come in and sit with the baby during the day while I helped Mother in the shop.”

“You mean, you didn't know they weren't going to let you keep her?”

“Not until they took her away. I begged my mother to make them give her back, but she said we were lucky that Dr. Hauptfuhrer was willing to help and must do exactly as he said.”

“Was Dr. Hauptfuhrer aware of how you felt?”

“Yes! I told him I could be a good mother, but he wouldn't listen! He said he knew what was best.”

In my mind's eye, I imagined her, womb aching and half in shock, pleading to keep what every instinct told her was hers—and being roundly ignored. “And looking back on it now, do you agree?” I asked. “That he knew what was best?”

Her huge eyes fixed on mine. “No,” she said slowly, a trace of defiance in her voice. “I loved her. I would have taken good care of her, no matter how hard it was.”

I said nothing, letting her savor this new perspective. “Perhaps he was the one who acted badly, then,” I suggested after a moment.

I could see her turning this idea over in her mind. I didn't expect a reply; I had only wanted to plant the possibility. I glanced around the room, the same room that had seemed so barren just moments before, and felt the seeping warmth of accomplishment. Perhaps the morning hadn't been a complete disaster after all.

She continued gazing into the distance, apparently lost in thought.

I touched her arm. “Eliza?”

She swiveled toward me. “I'm going to do it. Tomorrow.”

“Do what?”

“Ask Dr. Hauptfuhrer.” She stood. “It's her birthday in two days, on January 8. Wouldn't it be wonderful if, this time, I knew where she was?”

I rose beside her. “You realize he may not have kept track of her. And even if he has, he probably won't tell you.”

“He might,” she said, smoothing her skirt front with her palms. “If I insist.”

The notion of this unassuming woman insisting on anything was so incongruous that I couldn't help smiling. “Eliza…”

“I have to try,” she said, her cheeks flushing. “I owe her that.”

I hesitated, wondering whether I should attempt to dissuade her. But before I could say anything more, she had picked up her coat and started for the door.

At the partition's splintering edge, she stopped. “I'm going to telephone him as soon as I get home, to tell him that I'm coming. That way, I won't lose my nerve.” She smiled hesitantly. “Will you wish me luck?”