Authors: John Saul
Malone nodded. “There’s nothing I can do,” he said. “She’s been dead at least an hour.”
Wiseman sighed. “Any idea what happened?”
“I can’t be sure yet, but it looks like SIDS.”
Wiseman’s eyes closed, and he ran his hand through his hair, brushing it back from his forehead. Damn, he swore to himself. Why does it happen? Why? Then he heard Malone’s voice again.
“Is Steve here?”
“He was calling someone. His mother-in-law, I think. I ordered Valium for Sally.”
“Good. Do you want me to talk to Steve?”
Wiseman, his eyes fixed on Julie Montgomery’s tiny body, didn’t answer for a moment. When he did, his voice was hollow. “I’ll do it,” he said. “I know Steve almost as well as I know Sally.” He paused, then spoke again. “Will you do an autopsy?”
“Of course,” Malone replied, “but I don’t think well find anything. Julie Montgomery was one of the healthiest babies I’ve ever seen. And I saw her two days ago. Nothing wrong. Nothing at all. Shit!”
Malone looked down into the tiny face cradled in his arms. Julie Montgomery, to look at her, seemed to be asleep. Except for the deadly pallor and the coldness of her flesh. No injuries, no signs of sickness.
Only death.
“I’ll take her downstairs,” Malone said. He turned away, and Wiseman watched him until he disappeared around a corner. Only then did he return to the waiting room, where Steve Montgomery was now sitting by his wife, holding her hand. He looked up at the doctor, his eyes questioning. Wiseman shook his head.
“There was nothing that could be done,” he said, touching Steve on the shoulder. “Nothing at all.”
“But what happened?” Steve asked. “She was fine. There wasn’t anything wrong with her. Nothing!”
“We don’t know yet,” Wiseman replied. “Well do an autopsy, but I don’t think we’ll find anything.”
“Not find anything?” Sally asked. The emptiness was gone from her eyes now, but her face was filled with a pain that Wiseman found almost more worrisome than the shock had been. She’ll get over it, he told himself. It’ll be hard, but she’ll get over it.
“Why don’t you two go home?” he suggested. “There’s no reason to stay here. And we’ll talk in the morning. All right?”
Sally got to her feet and leaned against Steve. “What happened?” she asked. “Babies don’t just die, do they?”
Wiseman watched her, trying to judge her condition. Had it been anyone but Sally Montgomery, he would have waited until morning, but he’d known Sally for
years, and he knew she was strong. The Valium had calmed her down and would keep her calm.
“Sometimes they do,” he said softly. “It’s called sudden infant death syndrome. That’s what Mark Malone thinks happened to Julie.”
“Oh, God,” Steve Montgomery said. He saw Julie’s face, her dancing eyes and smiling mouth, her tiny hands reaching for him, grasping his finger with all her own, laughing and gurgling.
And then nothing.
Tears began running down his face. He did nothing to wipe them away.
As the spring dawn crept over Eastbury, Steve Montgomery stood up and went to the window. He and Sally were in the living room, where they’d been all the long night, neither of them wanting to go to bed, neither of them willing to face whatever thoughts might come in the darkness. But now the darkness was gone, and Steve wandered around the room, turning off the lamps.
“Don’t,” Sally whispered. “Please don’t.”
Understanding her, Steve turned the lights back on, then went back to sit beside her once more, holding her close against him, neither of them speaking, but drawing strength from each other’s presence. After a while there was a sound from upstairs, and then footsteps coming down the stairs. A moment later Sally’s mother was in the room. She paused, then came to the sofa and drew Sally into her arms.
“My poor baby,” she said softly, her voice soothing. “Oh, my poor baby. What happened? Sally, what happened?”
Her mother’s voice seemed to trigger something in Sally, and her tears, the tears that should have been drained from her hours earlier, began to flow once more. She leaned against her mother, her body heaving with her sobs. Over her daughter’s head, Phyllis Paine’s eyes met her son-in-law’s.
“What happened, Steve?” she asked. “What happened to my granddaughter?”
I have to control myself, Steve thought. For Sally, I have to be strong. I have to tell people what happened, and I have to make arrangements, and I have to take care of my wife and my son. Then another thought came to him: I’ll never be able to do it. I’ll come apart, and my insides will fall out. Oh, God, why did you have to take Julie? Why not me? She was only a baby! Just a little baby.
He wanted to cry too, wanted to bury his head in his wife’s bosom, and let go of his pain, and yet he knew he couldn’t. Not now, perhaps not ever. He met his mother-in-law’s steady gaze.
“Nothing happened to her,” he said, forcing himself to keep his voice steady. “She just died. It’s called sudden infant death syndrome.”
Phyllis’s eyes hardened. “A lot of nonsense,” she said. “All it means is that the doctors don’t know what happened. But something happened to that child. I want to know what.”
Her words penetrated Sally’s grief. She pulled herself from her mother’s embrace and faced her. “What do you mean?” she asked, her voice strident. “What are you saying?”
Phyllis stood up, searching for the right words. She knew where the blame lay, knew very well, but she wouldn’t say it. Not yet. Later, when Sally had recovered from the shock, they would have a talk. For now, she would take care of her daughter … as her daughter should have taken care of Julie.
“I’m not saying anything,” she maintained. “All I’m saying is that doctors like to cover for themselves. Babies don’t just die, Sally. There’s always a reason. But if the doctors are too lazy to find the reason, or don’t know enough, they call it crib death. But there
is
always a reason,” she repeated. Her eyes moved from Sally to Steve, then back to Sally. When she spoke again, her voice was gentler. “I’m going to stay here for a few days—I’ll take care of Jason and the house. Don’t either of you worry about anything.”
“Thanks, Phyl,” Steve said quietly. “Thanks.”
“Isn’t that what mothers are for?” Phyllis asked. “To take care of their children?” Her eyes settled once more on Sally, then she turned and went back up the stairs. A moment later they heard her talking to Jason, and Jason’s own voice, piping loud as he pummeled his grandmother with questions. Sally was silent for a long time, then she spoke to Steve without looking at him.
“She thinks I did something to Julie,” she said dully. “Or didn’t do something. She thinks it was my fault.”
Inwardly, Steve groaned at the hopelessness in his wife’s voice, and reached out to hold her. “No, honey, she doesn’t think that at all. It’s just-it’s just Phyllis. You know how she is.”
Sally nodded. I know how she is, she thought. But does she know how I am? Does she know me? Her train of thought was broken as Jason came pounding down the stairs. He stood in the middle of the floor, his pajamas falling down, his hands on his hips.
“What happened to Julie?” he asked.
Steve bit his lip. How could he explain it? How could he explain death to an eight-year-old, when he didn’t even understand it himself? “Julie died,” he said. “We don’t know why. She …she just died.”
Jason was silent, his eyes thoughtful. And then he nodded, and frowned slightly. “Do I have to go to school today?” he asked.
Too tired, too shocked, too drained to recognize the innocence of her son’s words, Sally only heard their naive callousness. “Of course you have to go to school today,” she screamed. “Do you think I can take care of you? Do you think I can do everything? Do you think …” Her voice failed her, and she collapsed, sobbing, back onto the sofa as her mother hurried down the stairs. Jason, his face pale with bafflement and hurt, stared at his mother, then at his father.
“It’s all right,” Phyllis told him, scooping him into her arms. “Of course you don’t have to go to school today. You go upstairs and get dressed, then I’ll fix your breakfast. Okay?” She kissed the boy on the cheek and put him back on the floor.
“Okay, Grandma,” Jason said softly. Then, with another curious glance at his parents, he ran up the stairs.
When he was gone, Steve put his arms around his wife. “Go to bed, sweetheart,” he begged. “You’re worn out, and Phyllis can handle everything. We’ll take care of you, and everything will be all right. Please?”
Too exhausted to protest, Sally let herself be led upstairs, let Steve undress her and put her to bed, let him tuck her in. But when he had kissed her and left her alone, she didn’t sleep.
Instead, she remembered her mother’s words. “Isn’t that what mothers are for? To take care of their children?” It was an accusation, and Sally knew it. And she knew, deep in her heart, that she had no answer for the accusation. Perhaps she had done something—or not done something—that had caused Julie to die.
Hadn’t she considered aborting Julie? Hadn’t she and Steve talked about it for a long time, trying to decide whether they really wanted another child? Hadn’t they, finally, talked until it was too late?
But they had loved Julie once she was born. Loved her as much as Jason, maybe even more.
Or had they?
Maybe they had only pretended to love her because they knew it was their duty: You have to love your children.
Maybe she hadn’t loved Julie enough.
Maybe, deep inside, she still hadn’t wanted Julie.
As she drifted slowly into a restless sleep, Sally could still hear her mother’s voice, see her mother’s eyes, accusing her.
And her daughter was dead, and she had no way of proving that it hadn’t been her fault.
She couldn’t prove it to her mother; she couldn’t prove it to herself.
As she slept, a germ of guilt entered Sally Montgomery’s soul, a guilt as deadly for her soul as a cancer might be for her body.
In one night, Sally Montgomery’s life had changed.
R
ANDY CORLISS POKED AIMLESSLY
at the bowl of soggy cereal. He had already made up his mind not to eat it.
Five more minutes, and his mother would be gone.
Then he could throw the cereal into the garbage, swipe a Twinkie, and be on his way. He stared intently at the minute hand on the clock, not quite sure if he could actually see it moving. He wished his mother would buy a clock like the ones at school, where you could really see the hands jump forward every minute, but he knew she wouldn’t. Maybe if he asked his father next weekend …
He mulled the idea over in his nine-year-old mind, only half-listening as his mother gave her usual speech about coming right home after school, not answering the door unless he knew who was outside, and reporting his arrival to Mrs.-Willis-next-door. At last she leaned over, kissed him on the cheek, and disappeared into the garage adjoining the kitchen. Only when he heard her start the car, and knew she was really gone, did Randy get up and dump the loathsome cereal.
At five minutes after eight, Randy Corliss went out into the bright spring morning and began the long walk that would take him first to Jason Montgomery’s house,
and then to school. All around him children his own age were drifting from their homes onto the sidewalks, forming groups of twos and threes, whispering and giggling among themselves. All of them, it seemed, had plenty of friends.
All of them except Randy Corliss.
Randy didn’t understand exactly why he had so few friends. In fact, a long time ago, when he was six, he’d had lots of friends. But in the last three years, most of them had drifted away.
It wasn’t as if he was the only one whose parents were divorced. Lots of the kids lived with only their mothers, and some of them even lived with just their fathers. Those were the kids Randy envied—the ones who lived with their fathers. He decided to talk about that with his father this weekend too. Maybe this time he could convince him. He’d been trying for almost a year now—ever since the time last summer when he’d run away.
Last summer hadn’t been much fun at all. Nobody would play with him, and he’d spent the first month of the summer watching the other kids, waiting for them to ask him to play ball, or go for a hike, or go swimming, or do any of the other things they were doing.
But they hadn’t, and when he finally broke down and asked Billy Semple what was wrong, Billy, who had been his last friend, only looked at him for a long time, then stared at the cast on his leg, shrugged, and said nothing.
Randy had known what that was all about. He and Billy had been out playing in the Semples’ backyard one day, and Randy had decided it might be fun to jump off the roof. First they had tried the garage roof, and it had been easy. Randy had jumped first, landing in the Semples’ compost heap, and Billy had followed.
Then Randy had suggested they try the house roof, and Billy had looked fearfully up at the steep pitch. But in the end, not wanting to appear cowardly, Billy had gone along with it. The two of them had gotten a ladder and climbed to the eaves, where they had perched for a
couple of minutes, staring down. Randy had been the first to jump.
He had hit the ground, and for a second had felt a flash of pain in his ankles. But then he had rolled, and by the time he had gotten to his feet, the pain was gone. He’d grinned up at Billy.
“Come on!” he’d yelled. “It’s easy.” When Billy still hesitated, Randy had begun taunting him, and finally, just as Billy made up his mind, Mrs. Semple had come out to the backyard to see what was going on. She’d appeared just in time to see her son hurtle down from the roof and break his right leg. Furious, she’d ordered Randy out of the yard, and later that afternoon she’d called Randy’s mother to tell her that Randy was no longer welcome in her home.
Enough, she’d said, was enough. She’d hoped that it wouldn’t come to this, but after today she had to join the rest of the mothers in the neighborhood, and forbid her son to play with Randy Corliss anymore.
The fact that it had been an accident had made no difference. Randy was a daredevil, a bad influence.