“I know, darling,” she said soothingly.
She stroked the back of his head idly, and they were silent for a few moments, and then Rick heard the click of the nurse’s heels on the floor, and her voice said, “We want her to rest now,” gently, because the nurse knew what had happened, too.
“I’ll come tomorrow,” Rick said.
“All right, darling. Take care of yourself, please. Promise. Is my mother here?”
“Yes.”
“Tell her I’m all right, just sleepy. Tell her it’s a boy, Rick.”
“I will.”
“They wouldn’t let me see him. They had to clean him up. Is he big, Rick?”
“I... yes, Anne.”
“You’ll come tomorrow? You will, won’t you?”
“Yes.”
“All right now,” the nurse said gently, “time for bed.”
He leaned over and kissed Anne again, and she clung to him for a moment with a happy smile on her face, and then she leaned back and the nurse wheeled the table down the corridor. He stood under the high-vaulted ceiling, thinking nothing, feeling nothing, empty, empty, drained.
He had not known the boy, not known it as Anne had, had never felt the kicks against his stomach, had never felt the life mushrooming within him. But he felt now a great loss and a great sadness, and he stood alone in the high-vaulted room, and he wanted to say something more to his wife, wanted to share this thing with her, wanted to talk it out. He watched the table wheel out of sight, and he stood there helplessly with the sadness inside him, a weary sadness, a sadness beyond tears. He turned at last and walked toward the elevator, and on the way down to the main floor he did not look at the elevator operator, nor did he hear a word his mother-in-law said on the way home. He thought only of the son he had never known — the son he had lost.
He told Anne the next day.
They’d put her in a private room even though he’d originally arranged for a semi-private one. They felt it would be better for her, alone, without seeing another mother and her infant. When he came during visiting hours, he brought flowers, a gigantic bouquet of roses — which were her favorite — and the nurses oohed and ahhed over the bouquet and then arranged the flowers expertly in a vase beside her bed.
He sat near the bed, and she had prettied herself for the occasion. She was still pale, but her hair had been combed and it framed her face with soft gold, and she had put lipstick on her lips, and she looked very pretty even though she looked very tired.
She shifted her weight uncomfortably after he’d kissed her, and then explained, “I’m on a rubber cushion. They cut you all up, did you know, Rick? To make it easier for the baby to come out. I have stitches down there.”
He smiled with a great effort and said, “They’ll heal.”
“My God, I hope so,” she said, opening her eyes wide.
She chatted about the hospital and about one nurse she didn’t like, and then she asked, “When do I see the baby, that’s what I’d like to know? After all, creation is something...”
“Anne...”
“... I don’t do every other day. The least they could do is...”
“Anne...”
She stopped talking and looked at him curiously, and he knew that she knew in that moment, or at least suspected, or perhaps suspected something worse, a deformed child perhaps, something worse than death could have been.
“What is it, Rick?” she asked, her voice very low, her face resigned. Her hands were clenched against the white sheet, and he knew she was bracing herself for what was coming.
“The baby is dead,” he said quickly, hoping to lessen the pain by saying it quickly. “The cord strangled him. It was nobody’s fault, Anne. It just happens... sometimes.”
She was quiet for a very long time. She did not look at him. She stared at her hands clenched on the white sheet and finally she lifted her head.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “please forgive me, Rick.”
He took her in his arms because she’d begun crying, and he wondered why this had to be a time of tears instead of a time of laughter, but he held her close and felt the sobs wracking her body.
“I’m sorry,” she kept repeating, “oh, Rick, please, please forgive me.”
“Honey, honey, don’t be silly. It was something...”
“Rick, forgive me,” she sobbed, “darling, darling, please forgive me.”
“Anne,” he said desperately, wanting her to stop crying, wanting to comfort her and not knowing how, “we can try again. We’re young,” he said, unconsciously repeating Dr. Bradley’s words. “The baby was healthy and normal, honey. It was just an accident, just...”
“And you’re not angry with me, Rick? Rick, please say you’re not angry. Please.”
“I’m not angry, darling. How could I be angry? Honey, I’m happy I’ve got you, that’s all that counts. Sweetheart, I don’t know what I’d do without...”
“Rick, I feel so ashamed of myself. The things I thought about you, and now this, I can’t even give you a baby right, Rick, I’m so sorry and so ashamed, Rick.”
“Come on now, Anne. Come on, honey, it’s all right. Believe me, it’s all right, Anne.”
“You do love me, Rick? Rick, do you love me?”
“You know I do, Anne.”
“Say it, Rick.”
“I love you, darling.”
“Even after what I thought? About those stupid notes, and Lois Hammond? Rick, I’m so ashamed I could die. Rick, please...”
“What notes, darling?” he asked gently.
She told him about the notes then, and he listened, and a tremendous hatred attacked him for a moment, a hatred for the unknown note-sender, but the hatred disappeared because he could not afford the luxury of hate now, and because the honest emotion inside him was something that hatred would never understand.
And when it was all over, when she’d purged herself of the doubt and the suspicion and the fear, she said, “Hold me, Rick. Hold me close, darling,” and he tightened his arms around her and he murmured, “There’s never been anyone but you, Anne,” almost to himself, not even sure she’d heard him.
“We will try again, Rick,” she said, “if you can forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
“The notes...”
“Forget them. Some bastard...”
“We’ll forget them,” she said.
“Yes.”
“And we will try again, Rick? You want to try again?”
“Yes, darling.”
“I do, too.”
They were silent then. They held hands, and they could hear the sound of laughter down the corridor, and they said nothing to each other. He thought again about the loss of the boy, and he didn’t know what he felt exactly, except this emptiness within him. He could imagine how Anne felt, because she had been the one who’d had the baby growing inside her, feeding on her blood, a part of her, and now to lose it. He kept listening to the laughter from down the hallway, and he realized Anne was listening to the laughter, too, and because he wanted to take her mind off it, he began talking, and he told her about the school, and he told her about “The Fifty-First Dragon,” but he did not tell it well because it didn’t seem to matter so much now.
She listened, and she was pleased, but he could see that she was still thinking about the baby she had lost, and he knew that they would neither of them ever forget their first experience with childbirth, even if they lived to be a hundred and had two dozen kids. So he kept talking until it was time to go, and then he kissed her and left her with her own thoughts about the boy, and he wandered down to the elevator trying not to hear the proud fathers everywhere around him.