Only Son (12 page)

From her boss, Amy had gotten a list of Safeways in the Pacific Northwest, and she'd sent copies of the bulletin to sixty-two Safeway stores, from Bellingham, Washington, down to Eureka, California. She'd gotten addresses of seventy pediatricians in the region from her doctor, and sent Eddie's bulletin to offices in Eugene, Portland, Seattle, Spokane, and other major cities. Maybe someone—someplace—was looking at Eddie right now and remembering one of those bulletins she'd sent out.

She stared at the bulletin board, and her optimistic heart sank. Someone had covered up half of Eddie's face with an advertisement for a church raffle. Amy set down her bags and tore the raffle poster from the board, then threw it in the trash. Thumbtack punctures marred the picture of Eddie, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Where was the goddamn silver lining to all this? She didn't feel any wiser from this tragedy, she didn't feel closer to God; she wasn't a better person for it. No, she was left with just this big hole in her heart and life the way it had been before her guy-guy came along and made it bright.

Paul was on the phone when she plodded into the kitchen with her bags. She dumped them on the counter, pulled off her coat, and began to unload the groceries. “Where's Mom?” she asked.

He cupped a hand over the mouthpiece. “Living room. Can't you see I'm talking here, hon?”

“Sorry.” Amy pulled a six-pack of Coors from a bag.

“No, don't worry,” Paul was saying into the phone. “I'll be in the office tomorrow all day. It'll get done. No problem…”

Amy stopped what she was doing. She held a jar from the bag and stared at Paul until he hung up the phone. “Did I hear you right?” she whispered. “How can you go back to work when we still haven't found Eddie?”

Paul rubbed his forehead. “Because, honey, it's my busiest season, and I've missed the last two weeks. Want me to lose my job on top of everything else?” His mouth twisted into a frown. “Amy, what the hell is that in your hand?”

She held a jar of Gerber's Custard, Eddie's favorite.

“We can't afford to throw money away like that,” Paul whispered. “There's already enough baby food here to—”

“You don't think we'll get him back, do you?”

“Don't start—”

“You've given up! That's why you're going back to work.”

“How's my sitting around here all day going to bring him back sooner? What good is it accomplishing? If we get him back—”

“What do you mean ‘if'?”

He took hold of her arms. “All right, all right. Say we do get him back, I'll still need a job—some means of supporting him. So don't make me out the bad guy in this. I'm going back to work tomorrow, and that's it.”

She pried herself away from him. Paul started unloading the rest of the groceries, frowning each time he pulled out another jar of baby food. “You ought to think about going back to work yourself,” he said. “Do you good, take your mind off things…”

“But I don't want to take my mind off things, and neither should you.” Besides, she could never go back to her old job. Once they found Eddie, she'd have to stay with him—all the time. “Did you hear me, Paul?”

“Amy, if you want to pick a fight, do it when your mother isn't within earshot. Then I'll take you on. Okay?”

Amy turned away and wandered into the living room, where her mother sat on the sofa, working a newspaper crossword puzzle. She sank down on the other end of the couch.

“Saint and Gabor,” her mother said, studying the newspaper. “Four letters. Second one's a ‘V.'”

Amy stared at her. Every time she and Paul had a fight, her mother would suddenly act interested in something—TV, the dishes, cooking dinner, a crossword puzzle—anything but the confrontation in front of her.

“Never mind. I have it.
Evas
.” She filled in the squares.

“I'm sorry, Mom.” Amy sighed. “You could hear Paul and me, couldn't you?”

Her mother shrugged. “I was working my puzzle…”

“But you heard us just the same.”

Her mother put the newspaper down. “Darling, I think I should be heading back soon. I'm just in the way here.”

“No, you're not. C'mon, that's silly.” She grabbed a sofa pillow and hugged it to her chest. “Don't even talk about leaving. The house seems empty enough as it is. I need you here, you know that. I haven't got anyone else.”

Her mother frowned. “What about your husband?”

“He's quit, Mom. He's going back to work.”

“That's not quitting. He has responsibilities, Amy.”

“You sound just like Paul,” she grumbled.

“Well, maybe you should listen to him, pay more attention to him. He's suffering, too. At a time like this, you should be—” Mrs. Sheehan shook her head. “I promised myself I wasn't going to meddle. That's why I should leave. I'm in the way here.”

“No, you're not….”

“Amy, I see you two hurting each other, and it's hard not to say anything. You ought to cry on your husband's shoulder, not mine. You only go to Paul when you're angry and frustrated. I haven't seen you turn to him for comfort once.”

Amy rubbed her eyes. “He doesn't want anything to do with me, Mom. And I don't really blame him. If I were a better mother, this wouldn't have happened.”

“Then I guess I wasn't a good mother either,” Mrs. Sheehan said. “It could have happened to me a hundred times over, all the times I'd leave one of you kids in the car for a minute—or in the shopping cart seat, because I needed something down another aisle in the market. When you were a toddler, I'd park you in the toy section so I could shop in another part of the store. You've heard me tell that story about losing you in Marshall Field's when you were four….”

Amy managed a smile. “Only about a hundred times. But you found me a half hour later, and I was all right.”

“Yes, I was lucky. That's the only difference between what happened in Marshall Field's twenty years back and what happened two weeks ago with Ed. Luck. You can't go on blaming yourself, honey. And shutting the door on Paul, because you feel he blames you, isn't going to help either. It just happened. And it could have happened to anyone—even the best of mothers.”

Amy stared at a picture of Eddie across the room and thought of how she didn't have much chance to be a good mother to him.

“I'm going to get him back, Mom,” she said. “No matter what Paul says, no matter what happens, I'm not giving up on him. I'm going to get Eddie back.”

“Please, don't be sick,” Carl whispered. He hovered over Sam in the crib. The baby cried, not his shrill screams from hunger or crankiness. No, these cries were weak, heartbreaking. He had sweat so much that his golden hair was in damp, dark ringlets. Yet he shivered, too. Carl tucked a blanket around him and tried to get him interested in a rattle, but Sam didn't even look at it. He just cried and clutched his “blanky,” a small, yellow cotton blanket that rarely left his hand nowadays. It was filthy and smelled, because Sam often sucked his fingers through it. Even his blanky didn't seem to comfort him now.

For the last three days and nights, Carl had tried to convince himself that the baby wasn't really sick. He kept hoping it was just Sam teething—or at the very worst, a flu bug that would pass. Still, Carl worried. What if he had pneumonia or something? He'd had the baby only three weeks. He couldn't risk taking him to a doctor yet, not so soon after all the newspaper stories. Hospitals and baby doctors probably kept files of recently reported missing children. They'd recognize the baby. They'd take Sam away from him, and he'd end up in jail.

“Go to sleep now, Sammy,” he said, with tears in his eyes. “Please, just sleep and get well. You'll be okay….”

But the baby was sick and he knew it. Sam needed a doctor's attention—not his new father's useless prayers.

There was no one Carl could turn to for advice. All he had was a stupid book called,
Know Your Baby
, and that didn't explain Sam's sudden listlessness, why he couldn't keep his food down, why he sweat so much and slept so little. Carl looked up every symptom in the baby book, and he read the same thing each time: “
…If this persists, consult the child's physician
.”

But he didn't know
anybody
in town. Even if he risked taking Sam to a doctor, there would be countless questions he couldn't begin to answer—about the baby's regular pediatrician, the vaccinations he'd received, his medical history…

Carl had been too afraid to even take the baby out of the apartment. And he hadn't ventured outside much either—except for the frantic sprints to the store for food or Pampers while Sam slept. He still felt like a fugitive. And it still seemed as if the baby wasn't his yet—like those suspicious “gifts” his father used to give him; Carl had always been too afraid to take them outside, show his friends, or get too attached to them.

He wondered now if the baby might die on him.

Sam choked on his cries, and he shook violently beneath the blanket. “Hush now, Sammy,” Carl pleaded. “Sammy? Sam?”

The baby didn't even focus on him. Carl reached down and felt his forehead.
Christ, he's burning up
.

Carl rushed into the bathroom and ran a washcloth under the cold water. When he got back to the crib, Sam was throwing up. Carl quickly turned him over on his stomach so he wouldn't choke on the vomit. He caught some in his hand as the baby retched again. It was all down the front of his Big Bird T-shirt and on his yellow blanky. Finally Sam stopped. Carl tried to clean him up with the damp washcloth. He just lay there, shaking in the soiled blankets of his crib.

Carl realized he could no longer keep this baby a secret.

 

The landlady answered the door wearing a flowery housecoat and pink curlers in her silver hair. She was a stout woman in her late sixties with the face of a veteran Walgreens' waitress.

“Hi, Mrs. Kern,” Carl said. He nervously rocked Sam in his arms. The baby was naked, but swaddled in a clean sheet. “I'm Carl Jorgenson—y'know, in 208? I hate to bother you, but my son is very sick. He's got a fever. I'm new in town and don't have a doctor yet. Could you—”

“Come right in, honey,” she said. “I got the number of my granddaughter's pediatrician by the phone. I keep it here, because I baby-sit so much. How old is he?”

“Six months.” Carl followed her into the kitchen. The dimly lit apartment smelled of stale peanut butter and was cluttered with a child's toys. The chirping from a caged pair of canaries competed with Sam's weak cries.

“Has he been upchucking?” Mrs. Kern asked as she riffled through a notebook by the telephone.

“Yes,” Carl said, past the tightness in his throat. “I didn't know what to do….”

“Dr. Durkee's office isn't far from here—”

“I haven't got a phone yet. Could I use yours?”

“Sure thing, honey. You just give him to me.”

 

Mrs. Kern had written down directions to the doctor's office—only twelve blocks away. She'd also gone back to the apartment with them, deaf to Carl's polite objections that it wasn't necessary. “Getting a baby ready to go out is like making a double bed,” she'd said. “It's easier with two people doing it.” She'd helped get Sam dressed, and even carried him down to the car. Sam had seemed to find comfort in her chubby arms; and she'd immediately taken to him, too. “You be sure to tell me how this little angel is doing when you get back from Dr. Durkee's,” she'd said, after Carl had buckled Sam into the McMurrays' car seat. “Tell me first thing when you get back. Never mind about the garage doors. I'll get them.”

But Carl was unsure if he'd ever return from the doctor's office—if he'd even make it there at all. He hadn't driven this car since that day he'd taken the boy. The police could have a description of it; and the Oregon plates were a dead giveaway.

Sam was quiet now. He babbled softly and clung to his blanky, which reeked of vomit. The smell filled the car. While the convulsions had stopped, Sam still didn't look well. Tiny red spots seemed to emerge on his face and hands. At the first stop sign, Carl reached over and felt the tiny bumps—maybe chicken pox or the measles. They were even in Sam's scalp.

Carl stepped harder on the accelerator; and at the same time, he dreaded reaching their destination. He tried to convince himself that no one there would recognize Sam from that blurry photo in the newspaper two weeks ago.

He found the address—a two-story, redbrick building across the street from Swedish Hospital. Approaching the glass doors with Sam in his arms, he wondered if this was the last time he would hold him.

The waiting room was modern, with soft, indirect lighting and an array of hanging plants. Muzak played at a discreet volume. A brunette in her late twenties sat on a long, green sectional, paging through a copy of
Highlights
from one of the chrome-and-glass end tables. Her toddler daughter fussed with a Fisher Price toy in the little play area. The woman stared at Carl as he walked in with Sam. Instinctively, he turned away and clutched the baby closer to his chest, then he hurried up to the receptionist's window. “I'm Carl Jorgenson,” he muttered to the nurse. “I called for Dr. Durkee.”

“Oh, yes. This must be Sam. We're ready for you.”

A moment later, the nurse was leading them into a small examining room. She pulled a pen out of her frizzy brown hair and consulted a form on a clipboard she carried. “You said on the phone he was throwing up and had a fever…”

“Yes. He's been a bit under the weather for about three days now,” Carl answered, rocking him gently. “But it wasn't until this afternoon it got really bad. And driving here, I noticed these spots. See? They weren't there when I called you.”

Her eyes narrowed as she studied the baby's dotted face and felt his forehead. “Has he had a R/M shot?”

Carl hesitated. He shifted Sam into his other arm.

“Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Jorgenson,” she said. “You can put him on the table and take off everything except his diapers. Okay?”

Carl started to peel off Sam's little jacket. The baby was crying again, but with more strength in his voice. He didn't seem so clammy and hot anymore. Still, the awful rash had spread all over his face, neck, and hands.

“I need Sam's full name, please,” the nurse said, leaning over the table, pen to clipboard.

“Sam Jorgenson.” Carl spelled it.

“No middle name?”

“Uh—no,” he answered, struggling with Sam's overalls.

“Date of birth?”

“Um, six-ten-seventy-seven.”

“Oh, June tenth? That's my birthday, too.”

Actually, Sam's was the seventh of June. But that newspaper account of the kidnapping had carried the baby's birthdate. Why make it any easier for them to see a connection?

He'd been prepared to lie about everything. All those years of covering up for the old man had made him an expert liar. But Carl answered truthfully when she asked for his name, his address, then his phone number. “I haven't got a phone yet,” he said. “I'm new in town. Just moved up from Santa Rosa.”

“Your employer?”

He busied himself pulling off Sam's socks. “Um, I don't have one. My father passed away recently and left me enough money to—to look after Sam full-time. I'm a single parent. My wife died in a car accident last month—down in Santa Rosa.”
You're telling her too much
, he thought.
Wait until she asks
.

The nurse was silent for a moment as she looked at her clipboard. “I'll need your wife's full name, please.”

“Anne Marie Brewster Jorgenson.” He'd just seen a “That Girl” rerun while feeding Sam that morning. In the show, Anne Marie had considered changing her name to Marie Brewster. Carl spelled it out for the nurse as he pulled the T-shirt over Sam's head. The pimplelike rash covered his stomach and legs.

The girl drew a thermometer from the silver canister on the counter, shook it, then slipped the tube under Sam's armpit. “Could you hold that there for me?” She picked up her clipboard again. “Are you insured, Mr. Jorgenson?”

“I'm—switching companies. I'll get back to you on it. I'm prepared to pay for everything myself.”

“The baby's regular physician?”

“He's—in Santa Rosa,” Carl answered, holding Sam still.

“We'll need his name and address so we can have Sam's records transferred up here—that is, if you want Dr. Durkee to be Sam's pediatrician.”

“I don't have the address on me. I—think I have Sam's medical records at home. I asked for them when we moved. I put them in a drawer or a box someplace. I'll try to remember the records for his next appointment.”

She looked up, a tiny frown on her face. “Yes, well, we'll need them.” The nurse pulled the thermometer from under Sam's arm, then studied it. “Ninety-nine point two,” she announced, writing on her clipboard. “Dr. Durkee will be right with you, Mr. Jorgenson. You and Sam make yourselves comfortable.” She gave him a slightly strained smile. Carl wasn't sure she believed a word he'd said. She left the examining room and closed the door behind her.

Climbing onto the table, Carl set the baby in his lap. “At least you're not dying, Sammy,” he whispered. He felt the tiny red bumps on Sam's stomach. But the spots covering his face and scalp seemed to be fading already. He could almost gauge Sam's speedy recovery by his increasing restlessness. The baby wiggled and kicked in his lap. Carl tried to keep him still as he watched the second hand sweep around the clock on the wall. They'd been waiting ten minutes.

Carl began to worry. Once again, he wondered if pediatricians kept records of recently missing children. He heard the nurse whisper to someone on the other side of the closed door: “
…from Santa Rosa, he said, but he didn't…
”

Sam let out a bored cry, and Carl gently rocked him. “Sammy, please,” he hissed.

“
…something wrong. I really think so
,” he heard the nurse say in a hushed voice. But Sam kept crying, and Carl could hear nothing else. He watched three more minutes go by on the clock.

At first, the distant wail of the siren seemed like nothing more than an echo of Sam's crying. But then it became louder. Carl looked toward the single window in the examining room. The venetian blinds shut out any view of what was going on outside. He hugged Sam tighter. He could no longer hear the nurse—only the siren drawing closer and closer.
They've called the police
, he thought, staring at the door. It was too late to make a run for it. They had his name, his address…

Suddenly, the door opened. “Mr. Jorgenson?” It was a tall man in his mid-forties, with glasses and unkempt, curly salt-and-pepper hair. He wore a navy blue crew neck sweater beneath the white coat. “I'm Bill Durkee.”

Carl was still listening to the siren. He just stared back at the doctor, who stepped inside and closed the door. “You're one of Hester Kern's tenants, I understand,” he said, pulling a stethoscope out of the cabinet drawer.

“Yes, I just moved here from Santa Rosa,” he managed to say. The noise of the siren suddenly stopped—just when it seemed right outside the building. He thought he heard the nurse whispering to someone.

“Does she baby-sit for Sam, too?”

“Who?”

“Mrs. Kern,” the doctor said. “She looks after her granddaughter five days a week, I figured—”

There was a knock on the door. Dr. Durkee turned to open it. Carl sat frozen, clutching Sammy to his chest. The nurse stuck her head in. “Mr. Jorgenson?” she said. “I think you left your headlights on.”

He quickly shook his head. “No, I didn't.”

“Is that your silver Chevy in the lot?” she pressed.

He nodded.

“Well, the lights are on.”

It was a trap. They wanted him to leave the baby, so the cops—waiting outside—could pounce on him. They were being very clever about it.

The doctor smiled at him. “It's okay, go ahead. You don't want a dead battery.” He reached for the baby.

Carl wanted to pull away, but reluctantly, he let the doctor take Sam. Moving to the door, he turned and took one long, last look at his son.