slammed the door in her face? She was wearing the right uniform, the right colors, the right shoes. Come on, come on!
The door opened.
A black woman – one of the laundry workers – peered through.
'I locked myself out!' Mary said, her smile fixed and frozen. 'Can you believe that? The door closed and here I am!' She started to push the hamper before her through the doorway. There was a second or two when she thought the woman wasn't going to give way, and she said merrily, 'Excuse me! Coming through!'
'Yes ma'am, come on, then.' The laundress smiled and backed away, holding the door open. 'Blowin' up a rain out there!'
'It sure is, isn't it?' Mary Terror took three more long strides, the hamper in front of her. The door clicked shut at her back.
She was inside.
'You sure 'nuf must be lost!' the laundress said. 'How come you to be down here?'
'I'm new. Just started a few days ago.' Mary was moving away from the woman, guiding the hamper down a long hallway. She could hear the whisper of steam and the thunk-thunk-thunk of washing machines at work. 'Guess I don't know my way around like I thought I did.'
'I hear you! 'Bout have to carry a map to get around this big ol' place.'
'You have a good day, now,' Mary said, and she abandoned the hamper next to a group of other hampers parked near the laundry room. She picked up her pace, heading deeper into the hospital. The laundress said, 'Bye- bye,' but Mary didn't respond. She was focused on the path that would take her to the stairwell door, and she walked briskly through the corridor, steam pipes hissing above her head.
She came around a curve and found herself about twenty paces behind a female pig with a walkie-talkie, going in the same direction as she. Mary's heart stuttered, and she stepped back out of sight for a minute or two, giving the she-pig time to clear out. Then, when the corridor was clear, Mary started toward the stairwell again. Her eyes ticked back and forth, checking doorways on either side of the corridor, her senses were on high alert, and her blood was cold. She heard voices here and there, but saw no one else. At last she came to the stairwell, and she pushed through the door and started up.
As she ascended past the first floor, she faced another challenge: two nurses coming down. She popped her smile back on, the two nurses smiled and nodded, and Mary passed them with damp palms. Then there was the door with a big two on it. Mary went through it, her gaze checking the black tape that held down the latch and cheated the alarm. She was on the maternity ward, and there was no one else in the corridor between her and the curve that led to the nurses' station.
Mary heard a soft chimes that, she presumed, signaled one of the nurses. The crying of babies drifted through the hallway like a siren song. It was now or never. She chose Room 24, and she walked in as if she owned the hospital.
A young woman was in bed, breastfeeding her newborn. A man sat in a chair beside the bed, watching the process with true wonder. They both turned their attention to the six-foot-tall nurse who walked in, and the young mother smiled dreamily and said, 'We're doing just fine.'
The man, woman, and their son were black.
Mary stopped. She said, 'I see you are. Just checking.' Then she turned and walked out. It would not do to take Lord Jack a black child. She went across the hall into Room 23, and there found a white woman in bed talking animatedly with another young couple and a middle-aged man, joyful bouquets of flowers and balloons arranged around the room. The woman's baby wasn't with her. 'Hi,' she said to Mary. 'Could I have my baby, do you think?'
'I don't see why not. I'll go get him.'
'You're a big one, aren't you?' the middle-aged man asked, and his grin flashed a silver tooth.
Mary gave him a smile, her eyes cold. She turned away, walked out of the room and to the door that had a blue bow and the number 21 on it.
She was nervous. If this one didn't work out, she might have to scrub the mission.
She thought of Lord Jack, awaiting her at the weeping lady, and she went in.
The mother was asleep, her baby cradled against her. In a chair by the window sat an older woman with curly gray hair, doing needlepoint. 'Hello,' the woman in the chair said. 'How are you today?'
'I'm fine, thanks.' Mary saw the mother's eyes start to open. The baby began to stir, too; his eyelids fluttered open for a second, and Mary saw that the child's eyes were light blue, like Lord Jack's. Her heart leapt; it was karma at work.
'Oh, I drifted off.' Laura blinked, trying to focus on the nurse who stood over the bed. A big woman with a nondescript face and brown hair. A yellow Smiley Face button on her uniform. Her name tag said Janette something. 'What time is it?'
'Time to weigh the baby,' Mary answered. She heard tension in her voice, and she got a grip on it. 'It'll just take a minute or two.'
'Where's Dad?' Laura asked her mother.
'He went down to get another magazine. You know him and his reading.'
'Can I weigh the baby, please?' Mary held her arms out to take him.
David was waking up. His initial response was to open his mouth and let out a high, thin cry. 'I think he's hungry again,' Laura said. 'Can I feed him first?'
Couldn't chance a real nurse coming in, Mary thought. She kept her smile on. 'I won't be very long. Just get this over with and out of the way, all right?'
Laura said, 'All right,' though she yearned to feed him. 'I haven't seen you before.'
'I only work weekends,' Mary replied, her arms offered.
'Shhhhh, shhhhh, don't cry,' Laura told her son. She kissed his forehead, smelling the peaches-and-cream aroma of his flesh. 'Oh, you're so precious,' she told him, and she reluctantly placed him in the nurse's arms. Immediately she felt the need to grasp him back to her again. The nurse had big hands, and Laura saw that one of the woman's fingernails had a dark red crust beneath it. She glanced again at the name tag: Leister.
'There we go,' Mary said, rocking the infant in her arms. 'There we go, sweet thing.' She began moving toward the door. 'I'll bring him right back.'
'Take good care of him,' Laura said. Needs to wash her hands, she thought.
'I sure will.' Mary was almost out the door.
'Nurse?' Laura asked.
Mary stopped on the threshold, the baby still crying in her arms.
'Would you bring me some orange juice, please?'
'Yes, ma'am.' Mary turned away, walked through the door, and saw the black father from number 24 just leaving the room to go toward the nurses' station. She put her index finger into the baby's mouth to quiet his crying, and she went through the stairwell's door and started down the stairs.
'She had dirty hands,' Laura said to her mother. 'Did you notice that?'
'No, but that was the biggest woman I ever laid eyes on.' She watched Laura position herself against her pillows, and Laura winced at a sudden pain. 'How're you doin'?'
'Okay, I guess. Hurting a little bit.' She felt as if she'd delivered a sack of hardened concrete. Her body was full of aches and pains, the muscles of her back and thighs still prone to cramps. Her stomach had lost its bloat, but she was still sluggish and heavy with fluids. The thirty-two stitches between her thighs, where Dr. Bonnart had clipped the flesh of her vagina open to allow extra room for David's head to slide through, was a constant irritation. 'I thought the nurses had to keep their hands clean,' she said when she'd gotten herself comfortable again.
'I sent your father downstairs,' Laura's mother said. 'I think we need to talk, don't you?'
'Talk about what?'
'You know.' She leaned forward in her chair, her gaze sharp. 'About what the problem is between you and Doug.'
Of course she'd sensed it, Laura thought. Her mother's radar was rarely wrong. 'The problem.' Laura nodded. 'Yes, there's sure a problem, all right.'
'I'd like to hear it.'
Laura knew there was no way to deflect this conversation. Sooner or later, it would have to be spoken.
