Mittman, Stephanie (41 page)

Miss
Rivera held the sheet back for her, and she climbed up onto the gurney more
tired than she had ever been. She was nearly asleep when she heard a man's
voice not far from her bed.

"Why
isn't she on I.V.?" he demanded. "Who the hell admitted this
woman?"

She
opened her eyes and watched him make his way quickly to her side, all
efficiency and business. And yet, when he reached her, a gentle hand smoothed
the hair back from her brow and two brown eyes searched her face as if reading
all her secrets without any effort at all.

"Tired,
huh?" he asked. He tilted her head slightly and touched her jawline. She
winced, and he nodded understandingly, then glanced at her chart.

"I'd
like to have a look at that shoulder," he said, as if asking her
permission before easing the hospital gown down just enough to reveal her
shoulder without
uncovering anything more. He grimaced and shook his head. "Nasty
looking," he told her. "But nothing serious."

He
turned her on her side, gentle fingers poking here and there, asking about
bruises and cuts she couldn't explain even if she had been willing.

"You
must have been very frightened," he said, shining a light in her eyes while
he spoke. "Did you think you might not be found?"

"I
was found," she said like a little girl who'd been separated from her
mother and then insisted it was her mother who had been missing. "Now I'm
lost. Now I'm where I don't belong."

She
sat up, pushing against the doctor's restraining arms, and tried to swing her
legs over the side of the bed. There was no reason for her to be here in the
hospital answering their questions. There was no reason for her to be.

The
doctor replaced the hospital gown, which had slid from her shoulder. His eyes
made her uncomfortable as they bored into her soul. "He isn't worth
it," the doctor said.

"What?"
She pulled at the covers, feeling naked in front of the man.

"The
man you tried to kill yourself over. He isn't worth it." His eyes stayed
on her face.

"I
didn't try to kill myself," Mary Grace said indignantly. "I would
never try to kill myself."

He
nodded, as if accepting what she said, but she knew he didn't. "The ranger
who brought you in said you tried to jump after he hauled you to safety."

"He
was mistaken," she said, but she found it difficult to look at those
penetrating eyes of his. She concentrated on her clothing on the chair.
"I'd like to go home, now."

He
smiled at her and shook his head. "Not just
yet, Mary Grace. Is that what
your friends call you? Or is it just Mary?" He waited, while Sloan's voice
rang in her ears.
Sweet Mary. Sweet, Sweet Mary.

"I'd
like to go home," she said again. Much to her dismay, it sounded more like
a wish than a demand.

"Four
days in the canyons takes its toll on the body. I'd like you to stay for a few
days. We'll keep that I.V. going, get some super nourishment into you, and send
you out of here ready to take on anything. Or anyone."

"There
isn't anyone," she mumbled. "Not anymore."

He
smiled knowingly at her, and he seemed much older and wiser than she had at
first thought. "There will be again," he said, patting her arm. To
the nurse, who had quietly witnessed the whole exchange, he said, "Get
Miss O'Reilly a room. And notify Dr. Ehrlich I'd like a consult, please."

Aside
from the fact that she was unable to account for her time, the doctors thought
she had held up remarkably well. They weren't distressed by her despondency, as
Dr. Ehrlich labeled it later that day. This was a natural reaction to trauma.
They prescribed an I.V. to rehydrate her, and plenty of rest. When Dr. Leeman
failed to reappear, she was relieved that someone else had taken over her case.

She
slept on and off all day. Her dreams were full of Sloan and the baby, and each
awakening found her surprised to be in a hospital in the twentieth century.
Cheery nurses bustled in and out of her room with flowers and words from the
outside wishing her well.

"You're
quite the celebrity, you know," Miss Rivera said as she pushed open the
door with her fanny and set down a vase of flowers from Benjamin Weaver's
grandfather. "You're on TV, and everything."

She
picked the remote control off the bedside table and flicked the TV on for Mary
Grace. A game show
came on, and Mary Grace turned her face into the pillow and tried to go back to
sleep. She didn't care what they were saying about her, anyway. She just wanted
to sleep forever and dream about another life.

The
TV channels flicked by until Miss Rivera squealed. "Look, look! That's
your picture!"

Mary
Grace rolled over. A photograph of her was at the top left side of the screen.
In the center was a woman with a microphone climbing the steps to her family's
house. Roscoe, New York, read the white letters at the bottom of the picture.

Her
mother answered the door. She was grayer and heavier than Mary Grace
remembered, but it had been thirteen years. Remarkably, there was yet another
baby on her hip. There was always a baby on her hip. But not Mary Grace's baby.
No.

"This
about Mary Grace?" her mother asked. She opened the screen door only
slightly, and poked her head out partway. "She in some kind of
trouble?"

"Did
you know your daughter was missing?" the interviewer asked.

"Who's
out there?" a gruff voice asked behind her. Mary Grace's father. His hair
was white, his nose red. His temper was up.

"Are
you Mr. O'Reilly?" The microphone was shoved in his face.

"Who
the hell are you?"

The
microphone was covered for a minute and then her father grabbed it from the
woman's hands.

"Yeah,
I'll make a statement. Mary Grace O'Reilly ain't no daughter of mine. Spends
all her time putting other people's families together, but don't pay no mind to
her own. Don't give a damn about her mother or me. So much for flesh and blood.
We done the best we could, and we wash our hands of her."

The
door slammed, and the reporter stood stunned on the front steps. He'd taken her
microphone with him.

"Family!"
Miss Rivera said with a huff. "Nothing's supposed to be stronger, huh? Be
nice if you got to choose...." She flicked off the TV. "Sorry about
that."

Mary
Grace turned over and tried once again to sleep. Over and over in her head she
played out every moment she'd spent with Sloan, the good ones, the bad ones,
the last one, when suddenly he was gone and all she could hear was his
anguished cry.

She
ignored the knock on her door, hoping whoever it was would go away. When she
heard it again, she burrowed deeper into her pillow. The metal latch made a
clunk as the door opened, and she heard footsteps behind her back. Maybe if
they thought she was asleep...

"M.G.?"
No one had called her that in at least ten years. Not since she'd left St.
Andrew's. A hand touched her shoulder, and she rolled on to her back.

If
he hadn't been wearing the clerical collar, she would never have recognized
him. Without it, she could have passed him on the street, sat across a lunch
counter from him, bought his used car, and she would never have guessed who he
was. But in his priestly garments he could not go unrecognized.

"Father
Dougan." Her voice was a croak, as if she hadn't spoken in a long time.
The truth was she hadn't spoken his name since they had sat in Father Kenney's
office and been told what was to become of their future.

"I
was very worried about you," he said. He dragged a chair toward her bed.

"Since
1981?" She looked down and made sure that she was fully covered by the
bedsheets, pulling on them until they nearly went to her chin. As she looked at
the
black rabat covering his chest, the silver cross hanging boldly against it,
every intimate moment in the darkened cubicle came back to her in which her
life had taken an irreversible turn. And now, none of it seemed to matter the
way it once did.

"I
mean, I heard you were missing." He seemed very uncomfortable. She pulled
her eyes from his neck and let them wander over his face. There were her son's
eyes. There was his nose. From the picture her baby's family had let her keep,
she could see it had already begun to sharpen despite the fact that he was
barely two years old. Dennis's cheeks had none of the pudginess of their son's,
but the family resemblance was there all the same.

"It
seems I've been found." She looked around her room. Surely the trooper, or
the police, had found her purse and brought it to the hospital. She tried to
sit up, but the I.V. pulled at her arm.

"Can
I get you something?" Dennis offered. "Anything?" He stood
indecisively, as if he didn't know how to help.

"My
purse. Do you see my purse anywhere?"

He
looked around and shook his head.

"M.G.,
I've come because I..."

"Check
the closet. Please." It had to be there somewhere. In it was her only
picture of her son. Tattered and worn, it had traveled with her the three
thousand miles she'd moved when she left home. It had accompanied her on every
search, as if in finding someone else's child she could somehow reclaim her
own.

"It's
not there," he said after searching the top shelf and throwing an eye at
the floor of the closet. "Unless it's small enough to fit in your
boots."

"No,"
she said quickly, knowing what was snugly resting in her left boot. Damn. And
damn again.

"I
hoped..." Dennis began. "M.G., I don't even know where to begin. I'm
so sorry. How feeble that sounds. I... I've come to fix everything. That
is..."

"Oh,
Dennis!" When she had indulged herself in the fantasy that he would come
back to save her, she had always used his first name. Dennis would come to her
grandmother's and offer to marry her. Dennis would be there for the birth of
their child and stop them from giving the baby to someone she didn't even know.
Even after she had given birth, her fantasies continued. Dennis would come back
and together they would search for their son, reclaim him, and be a family. In
the end, though, when he failed to materialize, she finally filed him away and
labeled him Father Dougan, someone she once knew.

"I
know it's been a long time and that I can't ever make up for the pain I've
caused both you and... should I say our son, or our daughter?"

"Father,
you shouldn't say any more. Think of your position. You can't do any good here.
You should go, now, before somebody from the press gets wind of your visit.
They come in and out...."

"A
son or a daughter, M.G.?" He stood at the foot of her bed, and when she
tried to look at him, the sun blinded her. It was just as well. The tears she
thought were over filled her eyes, and she squeezed them shut.

"A
son. Eight pounds, four ounces. Twenty-one inches long. Born September 18,
1981." Had she ever in her life uttered those words aloud? She didn't
remember if she had.

He
came and sat by her side, his dark form blocking the sunlight so that she could
see the wide smile on his face. "A son," he said. "Thank you,
Mary Grace."

"You'd
better go," she said, seeing in his eyes the same pride that lit Sloan's
face when he stared in wonder
at Ben's smallest achievement. Did either of them
need to know the truth?

"I'm
not going anywhere," Dennis said, taking her hand in his. His palm was
clammy and soft, not toughened by reins and hard work like Sloan's. His
fingernails were clean, and there was a smell about him of Irish Spring or some
other soap that was more chemical than fresh. "I spent the last thirteen
lousy years in Zimbabwe, doing the work of the Lord, and now I'm back, M.G., to
do what I should have done thirteen years ago. I'll take care of you. Both of
you. If you'll let me."

There
was so much hope in his face that it was painful to deny him. "It's too
late," she said quietly.

"No,"
he told her. "It doesn't have to be. We can explain things to him. Explain
that it was all my fault. I mean I'm glad he was the result, but he shouldn't
think that you... I could tell him it was all my doing. It
was
all my
doing."

She
smiled weakly at him. What did it matter now? "You couldn't have done it
alone," she said quietly.

He
raised his eyebrows. "You think you were at fault?" he asked.
"Even a little? Mary Grace, you were a child. I swore you were pleasing
God and helping me be sure of my calling. I've lived with the guilt so long....
It would be a relief to..."

Guilt.
Fault. They made no difference to the outcome. "It's too late," she
said again, this time more firmly. It was kind of him to try, and maybe what he
said was even true. Still, it didn't matter anymore. The naked pain on his face
reflected her own.
Go away. I can't help you. I can't even help myself.
The
salty taste of tears found its way into her mouth.