By comparison, what hope does the girl stand? Bertha made the pragmatic choice, and she made it without hesitation, excommunicating her from her heart, something Louis has never quite managed to do. And yet what has he done except wallow in self-pity? Where has all his suffering gotten him? Surely it hasn’t improved the girl’s lot.
Thank God David is away, visiting his mother’s relatives in Europe. Louis shudders to imagine inventing excuses for this afternoon jaunt. Mother and I are going for a ride in the countryside. Mother and I need to take the air. More than anything, Louis hates to lie to his son.
As far as he can tell, David remains unaware of the girl’s existence. There was that one awful night, eight years ago, when Delia left the door unlocked and the girl wandered downstairs, attracted by the sound of the radio. For a time Louis had wanted to put a radio in the girl’s room, but Bertha had exercised her veto. A radio would serve no purpose, she argued. The girl wouldn’t understand anything, and the noise might draw attention. Instead they gave her picture books and dolls, which seemed to occupy her. But Louis knew that books and dolls weren’t enough, a suspicion borne out when she appeared. If Bertha had only listened to him and bought a damned radio, the girl might never have come calling, none of this ever would have been necessary… .
That awful night; the arguments that followed. He lost them all, with one exception: he managed to get rid of Delia, whom he had always considered indolent, sensuous, and untrustworthy. Even Bertha had to admit that leaving the door unlocked constituted grounds for dismissal. Although no longer employed, Delia remains on the payroll. Her continued silence costs Louis seventy-five dollars a week.
David has never said anything about that night, never asked about the girl. If he somehow discerned her identityand Louis cannot imagine how he would havethen he seems to have forgotten all about her. They are safe. Hundreds of lies, each one thin, but layered until their accumulated strength allows passage across the chasm.
Dr. Christmas holds a door. Bertha and Louis sit on one side of the desk. On the other side is a seedy-looking fellow with an ostentatious pocketwatch. Christmas locks the door and takes the remaining chair.
“Allow me to introduce Winston Coombs, the Home’s resident legal counsel. I hope you won’t mind if he sits in on our little meeting. As a matter of course, I”
“I don’t see my daughter anywhere.”
“Yes, Mrs. Muller. I have every intention of”
“I came here with one purpose, and that is to see my daughter and what you idiots have managed to do to her.”
“Yes, Mrs. Muller. I would however like to inform you that”
“I don’t care what you would like. This is not the time for you to express preferences.”
Says Coombs, “If I may”
“You may not.”
“Mrs. Muller,” says the superintendent, “all I’d like to do is reassure you and your husband of our intention to take the appropriate punitive measures toward the young man responsible, and”
Then Bertha says something that surprises Louis. “I don’t care one bit about him. As far as I’m concerned, he doesn’t exist. I want to see my daughter. I demand to see her, this instant, and if you continue to do anything other than take me to her I will call my own attorneys, who I can assure you will make Mr. Coombs very sorry that he ever entered the profession.” She stands. “I take it you don’t have her in that closet.”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then walk.”
They exit the building and step onto the back lawn, neatly mown and hemmed in on three sides by trees. Golden light pools in the grass. They follow a stone path into the woods. Fifty feet hence they come to a small house enclosed by a whitewashed fence, a place new to Louis and certainly to Bertha.
Dr. Christmas finds the correct key from a clanging set and holds the gate open for Bertha, who pushes past without a word. The house requires another key, which requires another minute or so of noisy fiddling. Bertha taps her foot. Louis stuffs his hands in his pockets and gazes up through the leaves at the bloody sky.
“And here we are,” says the doctor.
In the foyer they are met by a nurse, who stands as Bertha enters.
“This suite is reserved for patients during their most sensitive or stressful episodes,” says Christmas. “And our finest staff”
Bertha does not wait for him to finish but goes on to the next room. Louis is close behind, bumping into her when she stops short on the threshold.
“Oh,” she says. “Oh, God.”
Louis looks over his wife’s shoulder and sees his daughter. She is lying on a cot, wearing a blue gown through which her belly bulges visibly. Her entire trunk, already short and squarish, looks ominously distended. She blinks at them woozily.
Louis would like to step into the room, but Bertha is gripping the doorposts. Gently, he pries her hands free and enters. The girl sits up, watching him curiously as he drags a chair to her bedside and sits.
“Hello, Ruth.” She gives a bashful smile when he touches her cheek. “I’m very glad to see you. I’m sorry I’ve been away so long. I don’t know what’s kept me.”
The girl says nothing. She glances over Louis’s shoulder, at Bertha, who has begun to make a series of low, mournful chuffing noises.
“Ruth,” Louis says. The girl looks at him. “Ruth, I see thatthat something has happened here.”
The girl says nothing.
“Ruth,” he says again.
Bertha turns and leaves. From the next room, Louis hears her threatening the superintendent but he tries to focus on his daughter. “Ruth,” he says. He had wanted to call her Teresa, after a great-aunt of his; Bertha had a Harriet to name for, as well as a Sarah. But Bertha insisted on a name with no connection to either of their families, which was precisely the point.
Still, love adjusts, and he has come to hold the name dear. Ruth, he says. He picks up her hand and begins to rock back and forth. Ruth. She watches him guilelessly, confusion spreading over her face as he sways and says her name.
THEIR OPTIONS ARE LIMITED. Dr. Christmas hints that he has the capacity to end the pregnancy right away, but when he does so Bertha spits at him. She of the expedient solution; apparently, she clings to some taboos.
The next day their family physicianthe one who delivered the girl, the one who recommended the Homearrives on the afternoon train. He takes a taxi to the hotel and is shown to Mr. and Mrs. Muller’s suite, into which he steps with no small amount of trepidation. Hat literally in hand, he begins to offer an apology-cum-defense.
“Never mind that,” says Bertha. “You’re going to need clothes. We have moved the girl to a nearby cottage for the duration of her pregnancy. There is a nurse with her. The adjacent cottage isn’t for sale yet but we’ll have it soon enough. You will live there until this is finished. Once the baby has arrived we’ll decide what to do with the girl. In the meantime, you will have whatever supplies you require, and we will cover your expenses, as well as whatever losses you incur being away from your practice. Until you can further determine your needs this ought to suffice. Give it to him, Louis.”
As the doctor takes the check, his hands begin to shake, the way they did that night twenty-one years ago. Louis is dismayed. There must be someone bettersomeone younger, with more energy and greater expertise. But Bertha will not budge. No specialist, no matter how good his training, has as much experience as Dr. Fetchett in one area: discretion. He has kept the family secrets well, and now he will be punished for his loyalty.
“I understand your urgency,” says the doctor, “but I can’t possibly leave New York for”