A Fool and his Honey (at-6), page 11
"There aren't any presents," I said mercilessly. "You always get presents when you have a baby. Even kids living on the poverty edge get presents when they have a baby—maybe just a crib sheet or a receiving blanket from the dollar store, but they get something pretty. This, this is nothing. There's no way on earth she planned on keeping this baby. I'll bet she wasn't ever really pregnant."
"What about the things she brought to our house?" "The diaper bag and the portable crib?" I took a deep breath. "The tags were still on. I think on her way to our house, she stopped at the first discount store she came to and charged them or wrote a bad check for them," I said. "Or maybe she took those things from whoever she took this baby from." Martin flinched.
"We have to talk about it, Martin. No one knew she was pregnant. She didn't go the hospital. Rory just says Craig took her to a midwife. Did you notice how reluctant Shondra was to tell us what the midwife's name was? I'll bet if we ask this Bobbye Sunday, she'll tell us that Regina was never a patient. How do we know this baby is even Regina's? What if—well, what if the money in the diaper bag was ransom money?"
"Rory knew the birth weight," Martin said. "You remember, in the restaurant, when the waitress asked?"
I nodded. "I also know Rory's a liar." Hayden raised his head off my shoulder and goggled at the room. I turned my head slightly, and kissed his cheek. His face wobbled around to mine. He banged his skull against my shoulder, and then came up again to look at me. We rubbed noses. His eyelids fluttered, and he laid his head down on my shoulder again.
"I don't know who bore this baby," Martin said, his fingers brushing Hayden's wisp of hair. "But I think Rory was around when it happened." "So, we need to talk to the midwife. And we need to find out if Craig's big brother knew more about it than his wife did." I was swaying gently from side to side, assisting Hayden's slide into sleep. I eased over to the crib, glared down at the sheet, certain it was dirty. In a whisper, I asked Martin to lay one of our receiving blankets over it. When he'd done that I eased the baby into the crib, propping him on his side with a small firm pillow at his back, and covering him with one of the blankets Ellen had given me. I'd been aware Martin was still in the room, and I stepped quietly over to see what he was doing squatting on the floor.
Martin was plugging in a brand-new nursery monitor he'd extracted from the box he'd had under his arm. He untwisted the tie around the cord and moved the transmitter close to the crib. Wordlessly, he handed me the receiver. He'd already put batteries inside. I looked up at him, and his face told me clearly I better not comment on his acquisition. He must have bought it on his trip to K-Mart this morning.
Martin and I left the room on tiptoe, and half closed the door behind us. The house had been cold when we entered. Since Craig and Regina had been paying their own gas bill, they'd kept the heat turned down, or maybe his friend Karl had lowered the thermostat, but Martin had gone straight to it and moved it up. He stood in the nearly bare living room, looking around him at the gleaming wood of the floors and the soft white of the walls. I knew the memories must be flooding in. As I watched him, I saw him change, the years erase. There were traces in his face of things I never saw on the man I'd married: uncertainty, unhappiness, doubt.
In three quick steps I'd reached him and put my arms around him. I wished I were taller so he could rest his head against my chest and feel protected, just for a moment. It was an awful thing, being a man, I thought; and I pitied Martin for the first time since I'd known him.
With Hayden asleep, we were able to explore the house a little more thoroughly. I opened cabinets and drawers, feeling like the worst kind of snoop, since Regina had arranged all these things in her own system. But I couldn't see a way around it. We'd be here for at least a few days, and we might as well use what was there; it was Martin's house, after all, and Regina's child was with us. Well, a child, maybe Regina's.
Craig and Regina's belongings fell into two categories, like most young married couples‘. They had old things given them by relatives and friends who no longer wanted them, like the couch and chair in the living room and some rather battered pots and pans; and they had brand spanking new things they'd gotten for wedding presents. Regina's engraved thank you notes were still sitting underneath an address book in the kitchen drawer that held the phone book and quick-phone list.
While Martin wandered around checking out the renovation job, and probably reminiscing, I located kitchen things I might need, figured out the stove, and started lunch. Corinth didn't have much in the way of restaurants, and I didn't feel like coping with Hayden in a public place again. Besides, I like to cook, especially when no one else is in the kitchen. I planned a large meal since we'd missed breakfast. When Martin saw me deboning chicken breasts, he pulled on his coat and scarf and went outside to take a walk. He returned with the welcome news that in case we needed it, there was a rack of firewood that looked dry. I thought about Darius Quattermain when Martin mentioned the firewood. I wondered if he was all right, if he would ever feel like delivering wood to my house again. Maybe no one had told him he'd stripped in front of me, but he might remember all on his own. I didn't know what drug he'd taken, or what its aftereffects would be. As I waited for the cooking oil to heat in the electric skillet, I wondered what kind of person would drug another; it was a kind of poisoning, wasn't it? Poisoners were supposed to be sly and patient, I recalled. Anyone could pick up a baseball bat and swing it out of frustration. Well, maybe not anyone, but many people. I was sure the number of potential poisoners in the population must be much lower.
"What are you thinking of?" Martin asked, and I jumped, dropping the chicken breast into the hot oil, which popped me. When he'd apologized and I'd taken my hand out from under the cold running water, I said, "I was just thinking about Darius."
"You were shaking your head, raising your eyebrows in this kind of amazed look, and got this ew expression on your face."
I shook my head, feeling silly. I didn't want to explain my train of thought to Martin. A knock at the front door made me jump again. Martin went to answer it, and a second later a tall young man came with him into the kitchen. I had only to look at his face for a moment to know this was Craig's brother. I wiped my hands on a dish towel, and took Dylan's hand, telling him how sorry I was.
Dylan, who was wearing a John Deere green shirt and some khakis, was dark like his brother, but his build wasn't reedy like Craig's had been. Dylan was more bull-like, solid and stolid, a man who saw his way from Point A to Point B and took the most direct route.
"I would sure like to see the baby," he told me, and seemed surprised when Martin volunteered to take him upstairs to the makeshift nursery. When they came back, Dylan looked like a man with a puzzle in front of him. He accepted a seat at the old kitchen table, folded his hands on it, and began to say what he'd come to say.
"I couldn't set my hands on Rory to bring him with me. Shondra told me you wanted to talk to him."
Since he said this primarily to Martin, Martin nodded. I kept on pottering around the kitchen, feeling this would make the younger man relax a little more. I opened a can of green beans, put them in a very nice saucepan, and began to cook the rice in the microwave (chipped Corningware casserole, aged small microwave).
"My brother Craig," Dylan began, and came to a difficult silence. We both kept our eyes down, waiting patiently. "My brother Craig was not always a good man." Martin made a gesture that could be interpreted as "Who is?" and I made a little noise that was meant to be commiserating. This seemed to encourage Dylan. "Craig likes—liked—things to be easy. But being married and earning a living—being an adult—those aren't easy things." I nodded to myself. That was the absolute truth. "I'm the last person Craig would have told, if he'd had plans to somehow make money off that poor little baby. But I can't help fearing somehow that .was the case. Whatever Craig's plans were, Rory knows them. I hate to speak bad about my wife's brother, just like she didn't like to speak bad about Craig, but the fact is, Rory and Craig are two of a kind, and they deserved each other, just the way I hope Shondra and I deserve each other. If you had Rory in the car with you all the way here, I guess that was your best chance to find out what he knew. I don't pretend to understand why you let him go. Why didn't you turn him over to the police?"
Oooh, good question. I raised my eyebrows inquiringly and transferred my attention to Martin.
"At the time," Martin answered, thinking as he spoke, "I was sure that bringing him here would make things go easier on Regina if the police picked her up. I think—I know—I was sure Regina had killed Craig, and I didn't want to see her in jail, see her stand trial. Particularly since I couldn't understand why. Why she would do that, how she would do that. Regina is the most important thing in my sister's life, she's..." My husband seemed to run out of words. "But letting her get away with murder ain't doing her a favor," Dylan said.
Martin and I blinked and looked at him.
There was not a thing to say.
He was absolutely right.
Chapter Seven
We had more company that evening. After a quiet afternoon we'd had a light supper. I'd just washed the supper dishes. Martin, in between trying to get in touch with the midwife and with Rory Brown (we'd found a working phone), had boiled a used batch of bottles and nipples and set them out to drain on a clean towel. I'd put a load of linens and a few clothes through the washing-and-drying cycle. The isolated position of the farmhouse had begun to make me think of us as cut off from the world, a not-unpleasant idea; so the sound of the car and the knock at the front door came as something of a jolt. Martin walked through the living room to the front door and switched on the outside light. There wasn't a peephole, and the door was solid wood with no glass window, so he just had to open the door on trust, a habit we'd discarded. Big-city crime was drifting from Atlanta through outlying suburbs like Lawrenceton at an alarming rate.
I don't think Martin could have looked very welcoming, but the couple on the steps didn't seem alarmed. They were smiling in a friendly way, and they maintained their smiles even when faced with Martin's stern expression. I ventured out into the living room when I heard the man say, "Hi! I'm Luke Granberry, and this is my wife, Margaret. We have the farm to the south of here."
"Martin Bartell." My husband held out his hand and Luke shook it exactly the right amount.
"We can just barely see the farm from our house, and we noticed more lights on tonight than there have been, so we felt we ought to check it out," Margaret said. Luke Granberry seemed to be about thirty or so, and Margaret was within five years of that, more or less, I estimated. The closer I got to her, the stronger I was willing to bet on the "more."
Hers was the most beautiful skin I'd ever seen, pale and smooth as silk, with fine webbing at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Her hair was red, flaming red, bushy and full. She wore it pulled back from her forehead with a cheap barrette. As she bent to shake my hand, I noticed she wore no jewelry besides her plain wedding ring.
"Please come in," I said. "I'm Martin's wife, Aurora." Martin stood aside to let the neighbors in. As Luke Granberry edged past Martin, I could see that our visitor was the taller and broader. He had huge shoulders and a mildly handsome face, distinguished mostly by high cheekbones that made his small brown eyes seem perpetually scanning the distance for some adventure. His dark hair and brown eyes made his wife look even paler.
"Regina told us about you," Margaret said. "The aunt and uncle, right?"
"Yes, I'm Regina's mother's brother," Martin said. "Barby's brother," Luke said. He looked at Martin as if trying to see a trace of Regina in his face. "We heard a rumor that there was some problem... ?" Luke spread his big hands in a gesture that seemed to imply that the Granberrys wanted to help, if only they knew how.
"Regina is missing," I said. Unfortunately, because I didn't know these people and so couldn't burden them with our emotions, I sounded like Regina's disappearance was just a little whim of hers. I was sorry the minute the words left my mouth.
"We're sure she'll turn up just any time," Martin said, to give me some support.
We really do care, we just have a positive attitude, his voice implied. "Where are Craig and Rory?" Margaret asked, looking around the room as if she expected we'd stuck them in a corner.
"Please come in and have a seat," I said, glancing anxiously at Martin. "I'm afraid we have some bad news about Craig." I had no idea if these neighbors had known Craig well, and could not gauge how much preparation they needed for the bad news.
Since there was only the couch and one chair in the living room, seating was a pretty cut-and-dried process. The Granberrys took the couch, which I indicated with a hostessy sweep of my hand, and I perched on the edge of the chair so my feet could touch the floor, Martin standing just behind me. I looked back at Martin, but his face gave away nothing.
"Ah... Craig is dead, I'm afraid." I gave them my most serious expression, which Martin always said looked as though I suspected I was having a heart attack.
"Oh, it's true, he's dead!" Margaret said. She turned to her husband, the thick red hair sweeping across her shoulders. Her white hands clutched his. "Luke!" "I'm so sorry," Luke Granberry said, in a slow and solemn voice that I thought would be perfect for reading Poe out loud. I hastily put a cap on that thought, since I'd actually opened my mouth to say it, and instead pursed my lips and shook my head, as if the tragedy were too horrible for words. "So you'd already heard?" Martin asked.
"The counterman at the hardware store said he'd heard it from Hugh Harbor, yes. But we didn't think we knew the Harbors well enough to call and ask them what the facts were. We heard Hugh is really sick... and we didn't see Craig's funeral announcement in the paper."
"The body hasn't been released by the medical examiner yet," I said, finally managing to strike the right tone. Sober concern, that was appropriate. For the first time, I realized I was sleep deprived in a serious way. As if hearing his psychic cue, Hayden began to make noises upstairs. It was amazing how clearly his little voice came over the receiver, which I was clutching in my left hand. I'd been afraid to put it down.
I half turned to Martin, said, "I'll check, honey," (as though Martin had moved). I plodded up the stairs, to see the little arms and legs nailing above the edge of the bumper pads.
He wasn't crying, so I figured he wasn't hungry. Maybe you were supposed to hold off on the bottle until they asked for it? Since the only way for a baby to ask for a bottle was to cry, wasn't that kind of mean? On the other hand, sticking food in their mouth every time they were awake would create a bad pattern... Gosh, there was nothing easy about this. You might as well get your answers by interpreting the pattern of chicken bones tossed under the full moon. I propped Hayden back on his side and began to pat him. To my pleasure, he went back to sleep.
While I'd been tending to Hayden, the Granberrys had been establishing common ground with Martin. I'd hoped they'd be a source of information about Regina and Craig, but I knew we'd have to let a polite conversational time lapse before questioning them. They'd been talking about the possibility of snow during the night, and I came in on the tail end of the weather discussion. Margaret liked babies. I could tell by the way her eyes latched onto the nursery monitor as I came into the room.
"I didn't realize you and Martin were parents," she said slowly. "How old is your baby?"
Martin, who'd gotten a straight chair from the kitchen, looked resigned. I said, "He isn't ours." After they refused a drink, I eased back into the chair, tired as I'd ever been in my life.
"You're baby-sitting?"
"This is Regina's baby," Martin said.
"Regina's baby?" If such a thing were possible, the pale Margaret, whom I was beginning to warm to, turned a shade whiter. She stared at us, stunned. Even her next-door neighbors hadn't known Regina was going to have a baby? My doubt that Regina had ever given birth was beginning to consume me. "Regina's baby?" Luke asked. He seemed just as startled as his wife. "Where on earth has it been?"
"With Regina missing and Craig dead, we had to step in," Martin said smoothly, as I opened my mouth to tell them the whole story. "That was the best plan," I said, just to justify my open mouth. Obviously, the Granberrys were curious, but too polite to ask any more questions. After some idle talk about how long we might stay, and a polite offer on our visitors' part to help in any way they could, the Granberrys rose to leave. Margaret was holding Luke's hand, and I thought that was sweet. I love to see people who've been married a while still act like lovers. Though, I considered, she might actually need the support. Margaret was looking a little shaky.
"We didn't know Regina was going to have a baby," I said, kind of throwing out a line, as Luke and Martin were shaking hands.
Margaret nodded. "She was very secretive about it, apparently. Listen, if you get lonely, give me a call? Our number's in the book. If Martin has catching up to do with friends here in town, you may be at loose ends. Or maybe you'll need me to baby-sit."
"Thank you," I said. "I'll call you. And thanks for coming to check on the house. We appreciate your being concerned."
"We've tried to keep an eye on the house since we heard about Craig," Luke said. He looked from Martin to me, to make sure we both understood his sincerity. "If you need anything, anything, while you're here, just let us know. We'll be glad to see you."
As I gave Hayden his bottle later, I said, "They seemed nice, Martin. I think we should try to get together with them again and see if they know any more about Craig and Regina than the little we know. It sounded to me like they saw them fairly often. What do you think?"
