Читать книгу With This Child... - Sally Carleen - Страница 9

Prologue

I switched your baby for theirs. You buried their child. Your baby is alive.

Cars zipped past on the street in front of Marcie Turner. A locust chirruped from a nearby tree. A dog barked in the distance. The world around her continued, while Marcie stood frozen in the heat of Tulsa in July, staring uncomprehendingly at the last two lines of the letter.

A neighbor approached the mailboxes where Marcie stood, and she knew she had to move. She had to get inside, before anyone else came by, before anyone else saw her so completely out of control.

Moving like a robot, she unlocked the security door, entered the air-conditioned lobby of the building and took the elevator to the fifth floor, to the security and privacy of her condo.

She went inside, closed the door behind her, turned the dead bolt and put on the chain, as if she could lock out the sorrow and fear that lurked just over her shoulder, the way she’d locked them out.for years.

Her footsteps made no sound as she crossed the plushly carpeted living room, and for one crazy moment, she wondered if this was all a dream, if she even existed at all.

She slid onto a stool at the polished walnut breakfast bar and studied the envelope again, the ominous message that had prompted her to rip open the letter the moment she pulled it from the mailbox.

To be delivered to Marcie Turner at my death.

It had Dr. Franklin’s return address, and Marcie had known immediately that it could only relate to one thing.

Her hands trembled as she forced herself to read the two typewritten pages again, to see if she’d imagined the insane story they had to tell:

Dear Marcie:

I must be dead or you wouldn’t be reading this.

I can’t go to meet my Maker with this secret on my soul, but I don’t have the guts to tell you face-to-face.

You know I’ve always wanted the best for you, and so has your mama.

It wasn’t easy on her raising you alone after your daddy died when you were just a little thing. It hit her hard when you got pregnant your junior year in high school. Raising that baby would have made it tough for you to get a good education and have a better life than she did.

You were always so easy-going, and your mama thought at first she could talk you into giving your baby up for adoption, but I knew you’d never agree to that. When I gave you the news, your whole face lit up with love, and I knew this would be the first time you defied your mama.

I guess you think I’m taking my time getting to the point, but to tell the truth, I’m not all that anxious to get there. My head thinks I did the right thing, but my heart’s not so sure.

To get on with it, right after you had your baby, I did an emergency C-section on another woman. Did you know Lisa Kramer? She was a few years older than you, and her folks lived a little ways outside of town, so you might not have. Anyway, she was a real nice girl. Married a fellow named Sam Woodward that she met at college, and they moved to McAlester so he could coach football at the high school. But she came back home to have her baby. That baby had a defective heart, only lived a few hours. Lisa had problems, and I had to do a hysterectomy.

Your baby, however, was born alive and kicking. Your mama was there, of course, and while you were resting and Lisa was in the recovery room, we went down to the cafeteria to get a cup of coffee. I was pretty upset, knowing Lisa’s baby was dying and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. I’d already told Sam, and he was all broken up. I dreaded telling Lisa when she came out of the anaesthetic. I knew how much she wanted children, what a good mother she would have been, what a nice fellow Sam seemed like.

Your mama said it was a shame Lisa’s baby wouldn’t live when it would have had such a good life, and it was a shame your baby, precious as she was, would ruin your life and have a tough time growing up with a single mother. She sat there in the hospital cafeteria and looked at me, and I knew what she was thinking even before she said it.

Marcie, I want you to know this wasn’t an easy decision for either of us. We both wanted to do what was best for you and for your baby. I falsified all the records, and only your mama, my nurse and I know the truth. Lisa and Sam never knew their baby died.

May God forgive me because you probably never will, I switched your baby for theirs.

You buried their child. Your daughter is alive.

Marcie lowered the pages to the wooden surface of the bar. She needed a drink... iced tea, wine, a soft drink, water, anything wet. But she couldn’t seem to move.

It wasn’t possible. She’d have known if her baby was alive.

She’d dreamed about her every night that first year, but surely that was normal, didn’t mean anything.

After she managed to lock away the pain, the dreams had stopped.

Now this letter, almost thirteen years later, was asking her to unlock that pain, to think about her baby again, to hope and pray and dream that she was alive, that she’d be able to see her and hold her.

She couldn’t do that.

Dr. Franklin had been old, probably senile. She’d pitch this insane letter and get on with the life she’d so painstakingly built for herself.

But she couldn’t do that, either. It was too late.

Even this glimmer of hope had revived the old pain, the old love.

If there was even the slightest chance her child was alive, she had to know.