'If he's such a monster, then if he ever learns about the baby,' her mother worried, 'maybe you won't be safe even in San Francisco.'
'He'll never know. We have to make sure he never knows.'
Her parents were silent, contemplating.
From the corner of the desk, Celestina picked up a framed photo of the social worker and her family. Husband, wife, daughter, son. The little girl smiled shyly through braces. The boy was impish.
In this portrait, she saw a bravery beyond words. Creating a family in this turbulent world is an act of faith, a wager that against all odds there will be a future, that love can last, that the heart can triumph against all adversities and even against the grinding wheel of time.
'Grace,' the reverend said, 'what do you want to do?'
'This is a hard thing you're putting on yourself, Celie,' her mother warned.
'I know.'
'Honey, it's one thing to be a loving sister, but there's a world of difference between that and being a martyr.'
'I held Phimie's baby, Mom. I held her in my arms. What I felt wasn't just sentimental gush.'
'You sound so sure.' great 'When hasn't she, since the age of three?' her father said with affection.
'I'm meant to be this baby's guardian,' Celestina said, 'to keep her safe. She's special. But I'm no selfless martyr. There's joy in this for me, already at just the thought of it. I'm scared, sure. Oh, Lord, am I scared.
But there's joy, too.'
'Brain and heart?' her father asked again.
'All of both,' she confirmed.
'What I insist upon,' said her mother, 'is coming down there for a few months at the beginning, to help out until you get organized, until you figure out the rhythm of it.'
And thus it was agreed. Although sitting in a chair, Celestina felt herself crossing a deep divide between her old life and her new, between the future that might have been and the future that would be.
She was not prepared to raise a baby, but she would learn what she needed to know.
Her ancestors had endured slavery, and on their shoulders, on the shoulders of generations, she now stood free. What sacrifices she made for this child could not rightly be called sacrifices at all, not in the harsh light of history. Compared to what others had undergone, this was easy duty-, generations had not struggled so that she could shirk it. This was honor and family. This was life, and everyone lived his life in the shadow of one solemn obligation or another.
Likewise, she wasn't prepared to deal with a monster like the father, if one day he came for Angel. And he would come. She knew. In these events as in all things, Celestina White glimpsed a pattern, complex and mysterious, and to the eye of an artist, the symmetry of the design required that one day the father would come. She wasn't prepared to deal with the creep now, but by the time that he arrived, she would be ready for him.
Chapter 26
After undergoing tests for brain tumors or lesions, to ascertain whether his seizure of violent emesis might, in fact, have a physical cause, Junior was returned to his hospital room shortly before noon.
No sooner was he abed once more than he cringed at the sight of Thomas Vanadium in the doorway.
The detective entered, carrying a lunch tray. He put it on the adjustable bed stand, which he swung over Junior's lap.
'Apple juice, lime Jell-O, and four soda crackers,' said the detective. 'If you don't have enough of a conscience to make you confess, then this diet ought to break your will. I assure you, Enoch, the fare is far better in any Oregon prison.'
'What's wrong with you?' Junior demanded.
As though he'd not understood that the question required a reply and had not heard the implied rebuke, Vanadium went to the window and raised the venetian blind, admitting such powerful sunlight that the glare seemed to crash into the room.
'It's a sunshine-cake sort of day,' Vanadium announced. 'Do you know that old song, 'Sunshine Cake,' Enoch? By James Van Heusen, a great songwriter. Not his most famous tune. He also wrote 'All the Way' and 'Call Me Irresponsible.' 'Come Fly with Me'-that was one of his, too. 'Sunshine Cake' is a minor tune, but a nice one.'
This patter poured out in the detective's patented drone. His flat face was as expressionless as his voice was uninflected.
'Please close that,' Junior said. 'It's too bright.'
Turning from the window, approaching the bed, Vanadium said,
'I'm sure you'd prefer darkness, but I need to get some light under that rock of yours to see your expression when I give you the news.'
Although he knew it was dangerous to play along with Vanadium, Junior couldn't stop himself from asking, 'What news?'
'Aren't you going to drink your apple juice?'
'What news?'
'The lab didn't find any ipecac in your spew.
Any what?' Junior asked, because he had pretended to be asleep when Vanadium and Dr. Parkhurst had discussed ipecac the previous night.
'No ipecac, no other emetic, and no poison of any kind.'
Naomi had been cleared of suspicion. Junior was pleased that their brief and beautiful time together would not forever be clouded by the possibility that she was a treacherous bitch who had tainted his food.
'I know you induced vomiting somehow,' the detective said, 'but it looks like I'm not going to be able to prove it.'
'Listen here, Detective, these sick insinuations that somehow I had something to do with my wife's-'
Vanadium held up a hand as though to halt him and spoke over his complaint: 'Spare me the outrage. Besides, I'm not insinuating any thing. I'm flat-out accusing you of murder. Were you humping another woman, Enoch? Is that where your motivation lies?'
'This is disgusting.'
'To be honest-and I'm always honest with you-I can't find any hint of another woman. I've talked to a lot of people already, and every one thinks you and Naomi were faithful to each other.'
'I loved her.'
'Yeah, you said, and I already conceded that might even be true.
Your apple juice is getting warm.'
According to Caesar Zedd, one cannot be strong until one first learns how always to be calm. Strength and power come from perfect self-control, and perfect self-control arises only from inner peace. Inner peace, Zedd teaches, is largely a matter of deep, slow, and rhythmic breathing combined with a determined focus not on the past, or even on the present, but on the future.
In his bed, Junior closed his eyes and breathed slowly, deeply. He focused on thoughts of Victoria Bressler, the nurse who waited anxiously to please him in the days ahead.
'Actually,' Vanadium said, 'mainly I came to get my quarter.'
Junior opened his eyes but continued to breathe properly to ensure calm. He tried to imagine what Victoria's breasts would look like, freed from all restraint.
Standing near the foot of the bed in a shapeless blue suit, Vanadium might have been the work of an eccentric artist who had carved a man out of Spam and dressed the meaty sculpture in thrift-shop threads.
With the stocky detective looming, Junior wasn't able to stroke his imagination into an erotic mood. In his mind's eye, Victoria's ample bosom remained concealed behind a starched white uniform.
'Cop's pay being what it is,' Vanadium said, 'every quarter counts.'
Magically, a quarter appeared in his right hand, between thumb and forefinger.
This could not be the quarter that he had left with Junior in the night. Impossible.
