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“Mommy, don’t look so sad,” Beth begged.
“I’ll try not to, Mouse.” They turned away. If I could only feel something, she thought. I am so empty, so terribly empty.
On the way back to the house, she saw Clyde drive into the farm road. She waited for him to find out about Rooney.
“They won’t let her come home for a while,” he said. “They’re doing all kinds of tests and they say maybe I should put her in a special hospital for a while. I said no way. She’s been a lot better since you came here, Miz Krueger. I guess I never knew how lonesome Rooney was. She’s always afraid to leave the farm for long. Just in case Arden suddenly called or came back. But then lately she’s been worse again. You saw.”
He swallowed, fiercely blinking back tears.
“And, Miz Krueger, what Tina said, got out. The sheriff… he’s been talking to Rooney. He had a doll out with him. Told her to show him the way Caroline used to pat the baby’s face, and how Tina said the lady in the painting touched the baby. I don’t know what he’s up to.”
I do, Je
Sheriff Gunderson came out three days later. “Mrs. Krueger, I have to warn you there’s been talk. I have an order to exhume your baby’s body. The medical examiner wants to do an autopsy.”
She stood and watched as sharp spades opened the newly frozen earth, as the small casket was loaded onto the funeral car.
She felt someone standing beside her. It was Mark. “Why torture yourself, Je
“What are they looking for?”
“They want to make sure there are no bruises or signs of pressure on the baby’s face.”
She thought of long lashes throwing shadows on the pale cheeks, the tiny mouth, the blue vein on the side of his nose. The blue vein. She’d never noticed it before that morning when she’d found him.
“Did you notice any bruises on him?” she asked. Mark would have known the difference between a bruise and a vein.
“When I tried the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation I held his face pretty hard. There could be some.”
“You told them that.”
“Yes.”
She turned to him. The wind wasn’t strong but every stir of air sent fresh shivers through her. “You told them that to protect me. It wasn’t necessary.”
“I told them the truth,” he said.
The hearse drove onto the dirt road. “Come back to the house,” Mark urged.
She tried to analyze her feelings as she trudged by his side through the fresh fallen snow. He was so tall. She’d never realized how used she’d become to Erich’s relatively small stature. Kevin had been tall, over six feet. Mark. What would he be? Six four or five?
She had a headache. Her breasts were burning. Why didn’t the milk stop flowing? It wasn’t needed. She could feel her blouse getting damp. If Erich was in the house he’d be mortified. He hated untidiness. He was so neat. And so private. If he hadn’t married her, the Krueger name wouldn’t have been dragged through the mud.
Erich believed she had scandalized his name and still he claimed he loved her. He liked her to look like his mother. That’s why he always asked her to wear the aqua gown. Maybe when she was sleepwalking she tried to look like his mother to please him.
“I guess I’m trying,” she said. Her voice startled her. She didn’t know she’d spoken aloud.
“What did you say, Je
She was falling; she could not stop herself from falling. But something stopped her just as her hair brushed the snow.
“Je
“Je
Maybe that was why she couldn’t keep her thoughts straight. It wasn’t just the house. Oh, God, how she hated the house.
She was riding in a car. Erich was holding her. She remembered this car. It was Mark’s station wagon. He had books in it.
“Shock, milk fever,” Dr. Elmendorf said. “We’ll keep her here.”
It was so nice to float away, so nice to wear one of those rough hospital gowns. She hated the aqua gown.
Erich was in and out of her room. “Beth and Tina are fine. They send their love.”
Finally Mark brought the message she needed to have. “The baby is back in the cemetery. They won’t disturb him again.”
“Thank you.”
His fingers closing over her hands. “Oh, Je
That night she had two cups of tea, a piece of toast.
“Good to see you feeling better, Mrs. Krueger.” The nurse was genuinely kind. Why was it that kindness made her want to weep? She used to take for granted that people liked her.
The fever was low-grade persistent. “I won’t allow you to go home until we’ve licked it,” Dr. Elmendorf insisted.
She cried a lot. Often when she’d dozed off, she’d wake up to find her cheeks wet with tears.
Dr. Elmendorf said, “While you’re here, I’d like Dr. Philstrom to have a few talks with you.”
Dr. Philstrom was a psychiatrist.
He sat by her bed, a tidy little man who looked like a bank clerk. “I understand you had a series of pretty bad nightmares.”
They all wanted to prove that she was crazy. “I don’t have them anymore.”
And it was true. In the hospital she was starting to sleep through the night. Each day she began to feel stronger, more like herself. She realized she was joking with the nurse in the morning.
The afternoon was the hardest. She didn’t want to see Erich. The sound of his footsteps in the hall made her hands clammy.
He brought the girls to see her. They weren’t allowed inside the hospital but she stood at the window and waved to them. Somehow they seemed so forlorn, waving back up at her.
That night she ate a full di
She could sell Nana’s locket to get some money. A jeweler had offered Nana eleven hundred dollars for it a few years ago. If she got anything like that, it would be enough to buy airline tickets and tide her over until she got a job.
Away from Caroline’s house, Caroline’s portrait, Caroline’s bed, Caroline’s nightgown, Caroline’s son, she’d be herself again-able to think calmly, to try to capture all the awful thoughts that kept rising almost to the surface of her mind and then slipping away. There were so many of them-so many impressions that seemed to be eluding her.
Je
The next day she phoned Fran. Oh, blessed, blessed freedom, knowing no one would pick up the extension in the office.
“Je
She didn’t bother to explain that she’d never received them. “Fran, I need you.” As quickly as possible she explained: “I have to get out of here.”
Fran’s usual matter-of-fact laughter disappeared. “It’s been bad, Je
Later she could tell Fran everything. Now she simply agreed, “It’s been bad.”
“Trust me. I’ll get back to you.”
“Call after eight o’clock. That’s when visiting hours end.”
Fran called at ten after seven the next night. The minute the phone rang, Je
“Fran, how good to hear from you.” Turning to him: “Erich, it’s Fran, say hello.”