The school was a low, plain brick structure with a small, well-kept lawn and a fenced-in play area to one side. To the other side, a wing of unadorned red brick stretched towards the woods. They entered the sparsely furnished lobby and were immediately met by a stout, matronly woman wearing a navy skirt, dull cardigan, and an excessive number of gold bracelets and rings. "Mr. Samuels, " she said, "it's good to see you again. Thank you for calling ahead." She turned to Kate. "Dr.
Bennett, I'm Sally Bicknell, supervisor for the evening shift. Welcome to Stonefield."
"Thank you, " Kate said uncertainly. "I'm not exactly sure where I am or why we're here, but thank you, anyway."
Sally Bicknell smiled knowingly, took Kate by the arm, and led her down the hall to a large, blue velvet curtain. "This is our playroom," she said, drawing the curtain with some flair to reveal the smoky glass of a one-way mirror. The room beyond was large, well lit, and carpeted. There were two tumbling mats, a number of inflatable vinyl punching dummies, and a stack of large building blocks. Mo one corner, her back toward them, a chunky girl with close-cropped sandy hair hunched over a row of large cloth dolls. "She's never in bed much before two or three in the morning," Sally Bicknell explained. "Kate, " Samuels said. "I brought you here because I thought that seeing this might help you understand some of my urgency as regards your moving forward with starting your family. Mrs. Bicknell."
The evening shift supervisor rapped loudly on the glass three times, then three times again. The girl in the playroom cocked her head to one side and then slowly turned around. "Kate, meet your sister-in-law, Lindsey."
The girl was, physically, a monster. Her eyes were low set and narrow, her facial features thick and coarse, with heavy lips and twisted yellow teeth. What little there was of her neck forced her head to the right at an unnatural angle. Her barrel chest merged with her abdomen, and her legs were piteously bowed. "That can't be, " Kate said softly, her attention transfixed by the grotesquery. "Jared's sister Lindsey…"
"Died when she was a child, " Samuels finished the sentence for her.
"I'm afraid his mother and I chose not to tell him the truth. It seemed like the best idea at the time, considering that we were assured Lindsey would live only a few years. She has Hunter's Syndrome. You are familiar with that, yes? " Kate nodded. "Severe mental retardation and any number of other defects. Her mother, my wife, was nearly forty when she gave birth."
Kate continued staring through the glass as the gargoylelike child-no, woman, for she had to be in her thirties-lumbered aimlessly about the playroom. Reflected in the window, Kate saw the faces of Sally Bicknell and her father-in-law, watching for her reaction. You are the monster, Win Samuels, not that poor thing, her thoughts screamed. What do you think I am, a piece worker in a factory? Did you think this… this demonstration would frighten me? Do you think I know nothing of amniocentesis and prenatal diagnosis and counseling?
Did you think I would just brush off the enormous lie you have been telling my husband for the past thirty years? Why? Why have you brought me here? Why haven't you included Jared?
"Take me home, " she ordered softly. "Take me home now." The antique clock on Win Samuels's huge desk said two-fifty. It had been nearly two hours since Kate had abandoned her efforts to sleep and wandered into the study searching for reading matter distracting enough to close her mind to the events of the evening. Something was wrong. Something did not sit right in the bizarre scenario to which her father-in-law had treated her. But what?
On the ride home from Stonefield, Samuels had quietly assailed her with statistics relating maternal age to infertility, fetal death, chromosome abnormalities, genetic mutation, spontaneous abortions, and mental retardation. He had, over many years apparently, done his homework well.
The few arguments she had managed to give him on the accuracy of intrauterine diagnosis were countered with more facts and more statistics. Still, nothing the man said could dispel her gut feeling that something was not right. At one time during his presentation-for that is what it was-she came close to crying out that their whole discussion was quite possibly a futile exercise, because a production error at Redding Pharmaceuticals might have already cost her any chance of seeing her forties, let alone conceiving in them. From the direction of Samuels's room on the second floor, she heard a door open and then close softly. Seconds later, the sound was repeated further down the hall. Jocelyn Trent had returned to her room. The study, now divested of its fire, was chilly and damp. Kate shuddered and tightened the robe Jocelyn had given her. It was only around midnight in San Diego. Jared wouldn't mind a call, she thought, before realizing that she had forgotten to ask Win at which hotel he was staying. As she reached for a pad and pen to write herself a reminder, she noticed Samuels's Rolodex file. She spun it to "A." The man was right about having a card for the Ashburton Foundation. On it were an address and a number that had been crossed out. A second, apparently newer, address and number were written in below. Kate copied the new address and added a note to check in the morning on Jared's hotel. She glanced at the clock. Three-fifteen. How many surgicals were scheduled for the day? Five? Six? Too many.
Desperate for sleep, she took her note and an anthology of Emily Dickinson and padded up two flights of stairs to her room. Forty-five minutes of reading were necessary before Kate trusted the heaviness in her eyes and the impotence in her concentration enough to flip off the light. The realization that her drowsiness was continuing to deepen brought a relieved, contented smile. Then, in her final moments of consciousness, she sensed a troublesome notion. It appeared, then vanished, then appeared again like a faint neon sign. It was not the trip or the school or even the girl. No, it was the address-the address of the Ashburton Foundation, not the newer Washington, DC, address, but the one that was crossed out. With each flash, the neon grew dimmer, the thoughts less distinct. There was something, she thought at the moment of darkness, something special about Darlington, Kentucky. Something…
Tuesday 18 December
Soundlessly, Kate unlocked the heavy oak door and slipped out of her father-in-law's home into the gray glare of morning.
The deserted streets, sidewalks, and stone steps were covered with an immaculate dusting of white. Over the three days past, a blizzard had crushed the midwest and moved, unabated, into the midatlantic states.
Stepping gingerly down Beacon Hill toward Charles Street, Kate wondered if the feathery snow was, perhaps, the harbinger of that storm. She had slept far too little. Her eyes were dry and irritated, her temples constricted by the ache of exhaustion-an ache she had not experienced so acutely since her days as a medical student and intern. She thought about the surgicals scheduled to begin at ten o'clock and run through most of the rest of the day. With tensions thrusting at her life from one direction after another like the spears in some medieval torture, she debated asking one of the others to take over for her. No way, she decided quickly. As it was, the members of her department were stretched beyond their limits. Stan Willoughby's repeated requests for an additional pathologist had been laughed at. No, she was expected to do her part, and she would find whatever concentration it took to do it right. As she made her way toward the cab stand near White Memorial, Kate began her morning ritual of mentally ticking off the events and responsibilities of her day. The cab was halfway to Metro when she ended the ritual, as she inevitably did, by scrambling through her purse for her daily calendar, certain that she had forgotten something crucial.