Eden in Winter (22 page)

Putting his key in the ignition, Teddy stopped to look at her. Oddly, it was the expression of concern on his sensitive face that shattered Carla’s self-control.

She sat back, shivering once, and felt the tears running down her face. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a husky voice, though she was not sure to whom.

Teddy simply waited. At length, with no one else to lean on, Carla told him what she had learned.

*

When the exam was finished – the usual indignities somewhat leavened by Dr Stein’s crisp professionalism – he had asked Carla to dress and come to his office. Once she did, he closed the door behind them, gesturing her to a chair with unwonted gravity that suggested their conversation would not be perfunctory or pleasant.

‘So these contractions keep coming,’ he began.

Nodding, Carla watched his face. ‘Every other day or so, usually with spotting. I try to keep myself calm, and eventually they stop. Does that tell you anything?’

‘Nothing definitive. Perhaps it’s simply hereditary, reflecting the problems your mother had carrying a child to term.’ Stein folded his hands in front of him, regarding her with studied calm. ‘It could also suggest problems with the baby. We have the test results back, and they’re somewhat worrisome.’

Carla felt a constriction in her throat. ‘In what way?’

A brief, involuntary grimace left a residue of concern in the doctor’s eyes. ‘Your blood test indicates the probability – though not the certainty – of Trisomy 18. Most babies who have this anomaly die in utero, and there’s also a significant risk of stillbirth …’

‘
Why
?’

‘If – and I emphasize the “if” – your baby has this genetic disorder, it raises the prospect of heart abnormalities, or kidney problems, or other internal organ diseases. Sometimes the esophagus doesn’t connect to the stomach. The heart defects are particularly lethal. But any or all of these problems can lead to a very low survival rate.’ Stein paused to let her absorb this, then added quietly, ‘I’m sorry.’

Stunned, Carla crossed her arms, as though hugging herself against cold air. ‘Is there any hope?’

‘There is. Though there are subtle signs of Trisomy 18 on the ultrasound, they’re inconclusive. The statistical probability that your child has this disorder is just that – a probability, not a certainty. Mostly we’re going off your blood test. The experts in Boston compared it to a group of pregnant mothers whose foetuses have similar indicators. It’s a little like forecasting the weather: we say there’s a twenty per cent chance of rain because, when the meteorological conditions are the same, it rains twenty per cent of the time.

‘Based on that comparison, they place the possibility that your baby has Trisomy 18 at a little over fifty per cent. Which leaves a significant chance that you’ll have a completely normal baby.’ He hesitated, this meagre note of encouragement draining from his voice. ‘But there’s an equal or greater chance of miscarriage, or that your child
won’t survive the birth itself. And, if he does, that he won’t live past infancy.’

Carla felt nausea overwhelming her first spasm of disbelief. ‘What can I do?’

Stein gave her a look of clear-eyed candour. ‘For the baby, nothing. But I have to tell you that termination is an option some women choose. That way, the mom avoids the probability of further suffering – for herself, and for the child—’

‘No,’ Carla cut in angrily, and realized that she had sat bolt upright. ‘I’m Catholic enough to believe that this baby is a life. We still don’t know that there’s anything wrong with him. And, even if we did, I’m going to give him every chance. That’s my obligation as his mother – not to spare myself “suffering” by ripping him out of the womb—’

Stein held up his hand. ‘I’m your doctor, Carla. I had to present the options.’

Carla had the sudden, superstitious fear that to continue this conversation threatened her son’s life. ‘You did,’ she snapped. ‘The subject’s closed.’

Stein’s quiet look of regret tamped down Carla’s rage. ‘Then we need to monitor this,’ he told her. ‘I recommend that you see me every other week. If I understand your wishes, you’ll do everything possible to take this child to term.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then we should talk about delivery. I’d like to contact a high-risk-pregnancy specialist in Boston. At around the eighth month or so, should your pregnancy proceed, you should find a place there until the baby is born. It would be better if he were delivered by a specialist.’

Her anger gone, Carla felt enervated. All she did was nod.

Leaving Stein’s office, she felt as if her life had changed, and that the child inside her, perhaps already doomed, might become another death to mourn. To see Teddy Blaine felt shattering.

*

At the end of her narrative, Teddy fleetingly touched Carla’s arm, a gentle brush of his fingertips. ‘How can I help?’

Carla touched her eyes. ‘Please just keep doing what you’ve done. And don’t tell Adam. There’s nothing he can do.’

‘Does he know you’re afraid of losing the baby?’

‘No,’ she answered softly. ‘After all, he’s not the baby’s father, is he?’

She felt, rather than saw, his quiet acknowledgment of the complexity of her position, and that of Benjamin Blaine’s ostensible sons – only one of whom, though Teddy did not know this, would be her unborn child’s brother. ‘I should take you home,’ he said at length. ‘Don’t forget your seat belt.’

They drove to the guesthouse in relative silence. Arriving, Teddy noted the Ford parked in front. ‘Company?’

‘I’m sure not. Sometimes Whitney has gardeners here, or handymen. But they don’t come in when I’m not home.’

Teddy faced her. ‘Count on me for the groceries. And if you have some emergency – day or night – call me.’ He paused, then added, ‘Actually, you don’t need a reason. You’re pretty alone here.’

She gave him a faint, rueful smile. ‘Pretty much. My own doing, but that’s what I needed.’

‘I know the feeling,’ Teddy said with a wry understanding. ‘When people take a certain kind of interest in you, it tends to make you antisocial. I’ve been like that for months now.’

Carla gazed at him, reminded by this elliptical reference that, in the minds of many, Teddy remained implicated in Ben’s death. ‘Thanks for taking me,’ she said, and got out as quickly as she could.

*

Alone again – except for the baby, Carla reminded herself – she paused in front of the guesthouse.

Its walls would close around her soon enough; since her forced inactivity, the hours and days had passed too slowly. Still, she had done her best, scrupulously maintaining her morning ritual of prayer. She researched healthy foods, and all the ways where she could help her body sustain this baby. Mercifully, Whitney Dane’s lifetime accumulation of hardcovers had spilled over to the guesthouse, and so Carla’s regimen of self-improvement included consuming novels she should have read long before –
The Brothers Karamasov, Tender is the Night
, and, more contemporary, David Foster Wallace’s brilliant but occasionally head-scratching
Infinite Jest
. She scoured the
New York Times
online and, until she reached her daily saturation point of cleverness and bloviation, followed politics on Cable News. But the baby, her only companion, was the source of constant worry. When was the last time, Carla asked herself, that she had laughed aloud, or been overcome by gratitude for the sheer wonder of being alive?

She could no longer remember. At times she felt like a house that had never been furnished, or brightened with warm colours. For years she had been a striver, desperate to outrun her stunted beginnings. Then she had become Carla Pacelli, more vivid in the minds of others than in her own. Then she was Carla the alcoholic, standing in the ruins of
her barely examined past, stirring the embers for clues, struggling to maintain a semblance of dignity, to construct a personal code of honour, the foundation for a new life – all the while pursued by a tabloid press that feasted on her affair with Benjamin Blaine, the meaning of which was too personal to her to make excuses to anyone else. Though Carla could be merciless in self-appraisal – a necessity, she believed – she gave herself credit for trying. But this wilful effort to wrest sobriety and grace from turmoil did not create much space for spontaneity, or joy. And now there would be more days spent killing her allotted time on earth, darkened by the shadow of heartbreak over the transcendence she longed for as the mother of this child.

Reflexively, she touched her stomach. Had she felt him stir last night, as she had assured Dan Stein with a mother’s insistence, or had she merely felt the pulse of her deepest hopes? She truly did not know.

But it was time for her to sit again, the sole protection she could give her child. She walked slowly to the unlocked door and opened it.

Standing in the doorway, Carla felt herself start.

The antique rocking chair where she often sat, imagining that her child enjoyed this gentle motion, was occupied by a thin, dark-haired woman, who scrutinized Carla with probing brown eyes. Carla knew very well who she was – the reporter from the
Enquirer
who gnawed at Ben’s death like a vulture. Her proprietary air stoked Carla’s fury.

‘What are you doing here?’ she snapped.

‘Waiting for you,’ the reporter said with wilful calm. ‘Whether you like me or not, we really do need to talk.’

Carla fought for self-control. ‘If I’d known you were coming,’
she said coldly, ‘I would have invited you. But I didn’t, so you’re trespassing. Get out.’

The woman stared pointedly at Carla’s stomach. ‘You’re pregnant with Benjamin Blaine’s child. Now you can help me find out which Blaine killed him.’

For an instant, Carla was caught between anger and curiosity, the instinct that one of two men had murdered Ben, then lied about it. The report of the medical examiner’s inquest was still pending, but the testimony, at least what Carla knew of it, felt hauntingly incomplete. Then she focused on her first priority – the health of her baby, and therefore her own peace of mind. ‘When you find out,’ Carla retorted, ‘I assume you’ll tell the world. In the meanwhile, you’re not welcome here.’

Ferris ignored this. ‘I don’t know who pushed him,’ she continued with an assurance that made Carla squeamish. ‘But Adam Blaine knows. He broke into the courthouse, stole the investigative files, and choreographed a cover-up. I met with him twice, feeding him information about the case, before I knew what he was doing.’

Carla fought back her surprise. ‘Then you can prove all that without bothering me.’

‘I can’t. But you seem to have become strangely close to a very frightening man. Perhaps you know what I only suspect – that he’s a skilled practitioner of the darker arts. Lethal ones, in fact.’

The memory of Adam’s fleeting confession briefly silenced Carla. With considerable effort, she said, ‘You’re everything I despise about the media, wrapped up in a single person. If you’re not gone one minute from now, I’m calling the police. And if you ever break in here again, I’m getting a court order
and suing you and the
Enquirer
. The dog vomit you collect doesn’t give you a licence to invade my home.’

‘However humble,’ the reporter replied in an insinuating tone. ‘A bit of a comedown from your rented McMansion in Bel Air. That should remind you how much you owe to a dead man who remembered you in his will. Unless, like his grasping and toxic family, you view his death as a convenience.’ Her voice sharpened. ‘Quite probably, Adam Blaine is an accessory to murder. Now, you’re in a position to learn things from him. I’ll give you time to decide whether your debt to Benjamin Blaine means less than your interest in his son’s attentions – whatever form they may have taken. If so, you’ll be his partner in the murder of your unborn child’s father.’

Suddenly pale, Carla opened the door wider, forcing herself to stare at this woman until, it seemed, she had willed Amanda Ferris from her chair.

Pausing in the doorway, the reporter gave Carla a last, long look. ‘My card is on your kitchen table. If you decide this wasn’t a mercy killing, call me.’

Carla turned away. When she heard the woman’s footsteps on the porch, she closed the door behind her. But the house no longer felt like a refuge.

For a moment, Carla stood there, shattered by all that had happened. When she sat at the kitchen table, she saw Ferris’s card atop a place mat. She wished that she could purge this place of her presence. But throwing away the reporter’s card felt like complicity in a crime she could not yet name.

Placing it in a desk drawer, Carla sat in the rocking chair vacated by her tormentor, hoping to soothe a child she might never meet in life.

Before the morning brightened, Adam and Steve Branch took off for the Pakistani border, leaving Rotner and Hamid behind.

The Mitsubishi was baulky starting. The problem was electrical, Branch concluded – that was why the dashboard lighting went in and out. Putting up the hood, he did a hasty fix on the wiring, his demeanour focused but untroubled. Adam was beginning to like the laconic Seal; Branch struck him as a highly skilled version of a certain American type, the man who could fix things and was undaunted by a challenge. There was comfort in this. For the next few hours their fates were intertwined.

Adam felt less certain about their vehicle. The electrical problems might recur, and the S.U.V. had a right-hand drive with a gear shift operated by the driver’s left hand, something neither man had experienced. Electing to find this amusing, Branch volunteered to drive. It became Adam’s job to keep watch to the front, back, and sides, ready to react at the first
hint of trouble. Both men had A.K.-47s beneath their seats.

They passed through the outskirts of town, Adam noting the pedestrians or peddlers along the patchy dirt road, then a cluster of stooped labourers making bricks with mud, clay, and hay, laying them out to dry in the sun. Without turning, Adam said, ‘Wonder how many centuries they’ve been doing that.’

‘No way of telling,’ Branch responded. ‘But we could drive past here decades from now, and their grandkids will be doing the same damn thing. Here, a century lasts a thousand years.’