Commitments (6 page)

herself, but that was okay. She'd change into dry things later. For now it was enough that he was calm. She ran a washcloth along his chest and around his neck, then positioned her hand under the cloth and pretended it was a dog - not that he knew what a dog was, despite the endless hours she'd spent pointing at picture books or oohing and aahing over the real thing in the park. But something about the yipping sounds she made and the gentle patter of the puppy's paw on his tummy made him gurgle. She repeated the patter again and again, laughin& praising, coaxing. The results were sporadic, a few gurgles, then silence, another gurgle, then a whimper or two. She continued to bathe him until the gurgles were absent and the whimpers increased to three or four; then, for her sake as much as for his, she took him out. Dried and diapered and dressed in a fresh sleeper, he was precious. She sat in the rocking Page 19

Barbara Delinsky - Commitments

chair by his crib and held him close, loving his softness and his babysweet smell. She read him a story - Green Eggs with Ham - because the pictures were bright and might catch his eye and because she'd always found the cadence catchy. Nicky wasn't being caught by either the pictures or the words, but he was getting sleepy. She helped him along by singing softly - humming actually, with a few words stuck in. '

mmir ... baby ... mmm-mmm ... a word.'The important thing was the movement of the rocker, the warmth of her body, the gentle vibration of the small sound she produced. Carefully, she transferred him to the crib. And then came the one time each day that Sabrina looked forward to. With only the dimmest dresser light on, she bent over the crib and smiled at her son. He looked back at her. He always did at night like this, 58 he was as relaxed as it was possible for him to be Was tired enough to tune out everything but that was directly in front of him. was directly in front of him. She blocked out bright red clown mobile that hung over the crib the vivid yellow cars that raced across the nearby and the turquoise Care Bear that sat between a Cabbage Patch twins at the foot of the crib. , angel?' she crooned ' 4ittle more than a ex. She rubbed his cheek, then his neck. ' a day, has it?' She ran her thumb back and forth er his jaw. ''s mommy's good boy?, she but her voice cracked halfway through when he into a smile. ', that's what I like. That's ti like, Nicky-ricky. How about another one? er one for mommy? A nice big one? A nice big, one? Mommy loves that kind. How about it, -ricky? P tone smile a night was all she got, so when Is eyes began to droop, she turned him onto his ach and rubbed his back for a while. Then she with her elbows braced on the crib rail and ed through her tears. He looked so normal. At night like this when he was when his limbs were loose and his diapered as slightly raised and his hands lay palms and up - by his sides and curls hugged his head, Ahe could pretend that he was like any other three-old. She could pretend that he was dreaming sweet dreams, and that he'd be awake at dawn jumping up and down, clamoring to be free of his crib. Was she lying to herself? Sure she was, and it had nothing to do with better judgment. It had to do with hopes and dreams and the fact that she was desperate. Ninety-nine percent of the time she was realistic; one 59 percent of the time she allowed herself to dream. Only at night. Only when she was alone. Derek Mcgill felt very much alone that night. oh, he was alone every night, but that night it felt worse, and it was all her fault. Up to then, held been in control. He'd learned to slow down his thoughts and narrow them. Prison was too confining for the free run of reason; a man could go mad if he didn't conform. So Derek had conformed. In those idle hours - so many idle hours - he focused his thoughts on the crime held committed, his trial, the work he'd been doing when he was arrested and the connection between the three. He read the papers each day - it was a compulsion, he decided. He didn't think about driving to the North Woods of Maine as he used to do each summer. He didn't think about fastening his shell to the roof of the Saab, driving north from Manhattan and sculling along the Mohawk as he'd done when he had just a single day free. He didn't think about filet mignon, water beds or clothes washed in fabric softener. He didn't think warm or soft or gentle. M S brina made him think warm and soft and gentle. s cell was dim. Stray shafts of light fell through the bars: not enough to keep him awake if he'd been inclined to sleep, but - since he was up - just enough to illumine his surroundings and remind him where he was. Not that he could have forgotten even if he'd been blind. The night was punctuated by muted snores and grunts, the occasional sleep-talker, the shuffling and rummaging of insomniacs, the punctual footfalls of the guards taking count. There'd been many a night before his imprisonment when he'd fallen asleep over the Kem machine at the office, or at home on his sofa 60 the television on, but no broadcast studio or late had ever sounded Page 20

Barbara Delinsky - Commitments

like this. The sounds and of prison were unique. It was mankind at its k wanted to know why she'd come. He'd asked over and over again, and she'd hemmed and hawed, finally blurted out something about wanting tanding and warmth. Understanding and from him? It would be laughable if it weren't Id told her, and held meant it, that she was naive. as particularly true if she believed that he had e i g to give. She had no idea of the hell that was life. Boredom. Isolation. Wasted days, one after er. Frustration. Distrust. The constant battle st an inner fury that would easily eat him alive if didn't appease it with carefully sculpted plans for revenge. He wanted to know why she'd come, because he couldn't shake the picture she'd left in his mind. It brought a new and different kind of ache, and he Iresented that. He'd never claimed to be a monk. At the age of thirteen, frighteningly soon ifter he reached puberty, he bluffed his way into the arms of the hottest seventeen-year-old number in the neighborhood, and he never looked back. He'd been a sexual terror by twenty. By the time he reached thirty, held grown more discriminating; and by the time he reached thirty-five, he'd had several long-running affairs. The past few years had been dry by choice: sex for the sake of sex had grown empty, and held been too involved in his job to spare the emotional output that would have made the difference. 61 In that sense, and in that sense alone, his incarcera. tion'had been bearable. He hadn't left behind a special woman. It had been years since held seen his sex drive as a source of status. He hadn't had a bell of a lot to lose in the sexual sense by being imprisoned. He wasn't a prig; he didn't begrudge the men whose muffled moans suggested self-gratification in the night. Nor did he begrudge those who found willing partners, though he'd had no trouble refusing the invitations he received himself. He had contempt, though, for the groups who cornered innocents in isolated spots and caused anguished cries of pain and degradation. Had it not been for razor-sharp reflexes, a mean left hook and the strength born of revulsion, he'd be one of those victims himself. Strength bom of revulsion? It had been bom of fear, too, but even more of anger and frustration and impotence. That night little more than a year ago, in another town, another prison, he needed an outlet for his rage. There was nothing sexual about the way he battered his attackers. It earned him ten days in the hole, a scar he'd wear for life and a reputation that would stay with him for the duration of his imprisonment. No, there'd been nothing sexual about his thoughts that night, or on arty other night. Until now. Sabrina Stone touched him. She'd done it that first time they'd met, when he'd equated her with innocence and serenity, and she'd done it today. She touched him, heated him, made him ache. - Arms folded rigidly beneath his head, he stared at the shadowy cracks on the ceiling. Like a Rorschach test, they took shape, forming a slender body in a large sweater and long skirt with a chic belt and -imported boots. And there was more. In the cracks he saw her 62 She wore it in a vague pageboy - vague because it mussed by the wind, by the collar of her coat, s even by her fingers. And she didn't seem to since not once did she attempt to neaten the d riot. And there was more; he saw the slenderness' her neck, the gracefulness of her wrists, the gentle of her breasts beneath a sweater that should have everything but didn't. And jasmine perfume. q, not perfume. It had been too light, too delicate. poo, perhaps. Or body cream. _' He squeezed his eyes shut and took several deep, ed breaths. He thought about the pathetic somethat had masqueraded as hamburger at dinner, t the guard he'd seen kick an inmate whose sole 0eason for not rising from his cot that morning had @@.@een acute appendicitis, about Crazy Louie's latest

- "@nd dumbest - escape attempt. in time the swelling tween his legs eased. Only then did he open his eyes. The cracks on the ceiling were back to being cracks on the ceiling. But, damn it, he could still smell her. She was all style and class. Everything about her - --,clothes, jewelry, makeup - was understated and very Z1,obviously of fine quality. Page 21

Barbara Delinsky - Commitments

The difference between her and the other visitors in that room had been ludicrous. She shouldn't have come. She didn't belong here. ,..'@,,-But God, she'd looked lovely. Tired, perhaps, and tense, but he'd seen all that before. She'd still been lovely. And he ached for her as he hadn't ached for a woman in months and months, which was absurd. This woman was as off-limits as any woman could get. Item one, she had problems. She had a child who needed every last bit of her love and attention. And she had a husband - not just any husband, but one who had a fair amount of prestige and power. Derek wasn't sure where she found the strength to contribute 63 to that particular relationship once she'd finished taking care of her son, but that wasn't his worry. The fact was, she was married and married well. Item two, he had problems. He was a man standing at the crossroads of life, looking down one bleak path after another. He was in prison, stuck there for at least another nine months and beyond that at the whim of the parole board. He was a man with talent and no place to use it, if the grim predictions of his agent were to prove correct. And he was from the wrong side of the tracks. Lord, how he'd fought that. He'd left home at eighteen, on the day of his high school graduation, and he'd been determined to put as much distance between himself and his past as possible. He'd enlisted in the Marines, done a stint in Vietnam and been thoroughly disillusioned. But he'd been in too much of a rush to take the time to protest the killing and maiming of innocent people. If gaining distance from his roots was his goal, he had too far to go to-dally. He enrolled in college, earned a degree in political science, then one in communications. Long before graduation, he was delivering on-the-hour middle-ofthe-night news summari s at a local radio station. From there, he made a steady climb. He bounced from city to city, which was fine since he loved travel and adventure; but more important, each move meant a job that was one step up the ladder. At the age of thirty-five he was named one of the three principal correspondents on Outside Insight. That had been four years ago. The sense of triumph he'd felt then had been incredible. He'd made it. He'd hit the big time in a big way. An honest way. A lawful, respected way. That was one of the things that hurt most now - it 64 n a goddamned waste of time and effort. Held his tail off all those years. Held earned each ry promotion. He'd paid his taxes on time and Held been the yo-yo to return the extra ten that the supermarket clerk had mistakenly ' in change. y he'd gone by the book. And still he'd been

. He was right back where he started - no, because now he wore the stigma firsthand. dn the hell would Sabrina Stone want to have to do with him? Warmth and understanding, said. Apparently her husband didn't provide but Derek could have guessed that months After that day on her terrace, held studied each scrutinized each picture of Nicholas Stone. A of those photos had included Sabrina, and in those olas had always been a step ahead of her, with his to the flash and his eyes on the world. Sabrina was in need. But she was beautiful and ligent. She was wealthy. She was Society. If it was th she needed, she could surely find it in dozens ling and suitable pairs of arms. She didn't need E, slumming. ch brought him back, to square one. Why in the had she corne? . had sent her to drive him mad. That was there was to it. It was psychological torture, pure simple. Annoyed and frustrated, he rolled to his side. The t creaked. He heard the distant sound of the guards'

tsteps and automatically began to count. Five paces, P, search. Five paces, stop,. search. The footsteps ew nearer, louder. He was fully prepared when a of light searched his cell, then searched his face, en left. 65 He lay quietly, listening to the footsteps systematically recede. He inhaled, exhaled; he counted the beats of his heart. He closed his eyes and pictured nothingness. He concentrated on Page 22

Barbara Delinsky - Commitments

nothingness. He tried to make his mind mirror nothingness. It usually worked, but it didn't now. She was still with him. Abruptly he was up, sitting on the edge of the cot. He flexed his fingers, alternately extending them and curling them into fists. He wanted to touch - suede, leather, mohair, skin - woman's skin, Sabrina's skin. Since he couldn't, he thrust an impatient handful of fingers through his dark hair and swore under his breath. He hadn't thought prison could get worse, but it had today. Held been aware of intellectual stagnation and emotional vegetation. But sensual deprivation had only hit him now. Bolting upright, he began to pace. He padded to the bars, wrapped his fingers around them for a minute, turned, strode to the rear wall of the cell, turned, strode forward again. Sabrina had been telling the truth about why she'd come. He knew it in his gut, knew it with a confidence that increased with each oblong he paced. She wanted comfort. She really did. That told him something. She'd felt it, too, the rapport on the day they'd met. She was reacting to it at some level, though how conscious the level was he just didn't know. He did know that every one of his reasons for steering clear of her was valid. And still he wanted her. Which was why he felt so alone. And why he couldn't possibly let her come again. 66 weeks later, he came closer to death than he to come. Acting on impulse, he violated a basic of penitentiary self-preservation: He tried to break a fight between two other inmates. The incident in the shower room. There was no ' to I= the blow when a razor connected with his neck. it been an inch farther forward, it would have re the jugular. Ffis skin was stitched and by evening he was back in cell, but the throbbing kept him awake for much the night. The next morning, he penned a brief note, ed it in an envelope and dropped it in the prisoners' slot.