Mine

'Doug's been having an affair since October,' she began, and she saw her mother's mouth open in a small gasp. Laura began to tell her the whole story, and the older woman listened intently as Laura's son was being carried through a corridor where steam pipes hissed like awakened snakes.

Mary Terror, her index finger clasped in the baby's mouth, strode through the corridor toward the loading dock's door. Before she reached the laundry area, she stopped where the hampers were parked. One of them had towels at the bottom, and she put the baby down amid them and covered him up. The infant gurgled and mewled, but Mary grasped the hamper and started pushing it ahead of her. As she passed through the laundry where the black women were working, Mary saw the laundress who'd allowed her in.

'You still lost?' the woman called over the noise of washers and steam presses.

'No, I know where I'm going now,' Mary answered. She flashed a quick smile and went on. The baby began to cry just before Mary reached the exit, but it was a soft crying and the noise of the laundry masked it. She opened the door. The wind had picked up, and silver needles of rain were falling. She pushed the hamper out onto the loading dock and scooped the infant out, still wrapped in a towel. Then she hurried down the concrete steps to her van, which she'd traded for her truck and three hundred and eighty dollars at Friendly Ernie's Used Cars in Smyrna about two hours before. She put the crying baby onto the floorboard on the passenger side, next to her sawed-off shotgun. She started the engine, which ran rough as a cob, and made the entire van shudder. The windshield wipers shrieked as they swept back and forth across the glass.

Then Mary Terror backed away from the loading dock, turned the van around, and drove away from the hospital named after God. 'Hush, now!' she told the baby. 'Mary's got you!' The infant kept crying.

He'd just have to learn who was in control.

Mary left the hospital behind, and swung up onto a freeway, where she merged into a sea of metal in the falling silver rain.

7: A Hollow Vessel

'Hi.' The nurse had red hair and freckled cheeks, and she beamed a smile. Her name tag identified her as Erin Kingman. She glanced quickly at the empty perambulator beside the bed. 'Where's David?'

'Someone took him to be weighed,' Laura said. 'I guess that was about fifteen minutes ago. I asked her for orange juice, but maybe she got busy.'

'Who took him?'

'A big woman. Janette was her first name. I hadn't seen her before.'

'Uh-huh.' Erin nodded, her smile still there but the first butterfly flutters beginning in her stomach. 'All right, I'll go find her. Excuse me.' She hurried out of the room, leaving Laura and Miriam to their conversation.

'Divorce.' It had a funeral-bell sound, coming from the older woman's mouth. 'Is that what you're saying?'

'Yes.'

'Laura, it doesn't have to be divorce. You could go to a counselor and talk things out. Divorce is a messy, sticky thing. And David's going to need a father. Don't think just of yourself and not of David.'

Laura heard what was coming. She waited for it without speaking, her hands clenched under the sheet.

'Doug's given you a good life,' her mother went on in that earnest tone of voice used by women who knew they'd traded love for comfort long ago. 'He's been a good provider, hasn't he?'

'We bought a lot of things together, if that's what you mean.'

'You have a history. A life together, and now a son. You have a fine house, you drive a fine car, and you're not wanting for anything. So divorce is a drastic option, Laura. Maybe you could get a good settlement, but a thirty-six-year-old woman with a baby on her own might have a hard time -' She stopped. 'You know what I'm saying, don't you?'

'Not exactly.'

Her mother sighed, as if Laura had the brains of a wooden block. 'A woman your age, with a baby, might have a hard time finding another man. That's important to think about before you make any rash decisions.'

Laura closed her eyes. She felt dizzy and sick, and she clamped her teeth down on her tongue because she couldn't trust what she might say to her mother.

'Now I know you think I'm wrong. You've thought I was wrong before. I'm looking out for your interests because I love you, Laura. What you've got to figure out is why Doug decided to play around, and what you can do to make up for it.'

Her eyes opened. 'Make up for it?'

'That's right. I told you a long time ago, a headstrong man like Doug needs a lot of attention. And he needs a loose rope, too. Take your father. I've always held him on a loose rope, and our marriage is the better for it. These are things a woman learns by experience, and no one can teach her. The looser the rope, the stronger the marriage.'

'I can't…' Words failed her. She tried again, knocked breathless. 'I can't believe you're saying these things! Do you mean… you want me to stay with Doug? To look the other way if he ever decides to' – she used her mother's term – 'play around again?'

'He'll outgrow it,' the older woman said. 'You have to be there for him, and he'll know that what he has at home is priceless. Doug is a good provider and he's going to be a good father. Those are very important things in this day and time. You need to be thinking about healing the wound between you and Doug instead of talking about divorce.'

Laura didn't know what she was about to say. Her mouth was opening, the blood was pounding in her face, and she could feel the shout beginning to draw power from her lungs. She longed to see her mother cringe before her voice, longed to see her get up from that chair and march out of the room in a practiced sulk. Doug was a stranger to her, and so was her mother; she didn't know either of those pretenders to her love. She was about to shout in her mother's face, though she didn't yet know what she was going to say.

She would never know.

Two nurses – one of them Erin Kingman and the other an older, stockier woman – entered the room. Following behind them was a man in a dark blue blazer and gray slacks, his face round and fleshy and his brown hair receding from a high globe of a forehead. He wore black horn-rimmed glasses, and his shoes squeaked as he approached Laura's bed.

'Excuse me,' the older nurse said to Laura's mother. Her name tag read: Kathryn Langner. 'Would you go with Miss Kingman for just a few minutes, please?'

'What is it?' Laura's mother stood up, her radar on full alert. 'What's wrong?'

'Would you come with me, please?' Erin Kingman stood at the woman's side. 'We'll just step out into the hall, all right?'

'What's going on? Laura, what's this all about?'

Laura couldn't answer. The older nurse and the man moved in to take positions on either side of the bed. A foreboding of horror swept like a cold tide through Laura's body. Oh Jesus! she thought. It's David! Something's happened to David!

'My baby,' she heard herself say frantically. 'Where's my baby?'

'Would you wait in the hall, please?' The man spoke to Miriam in a flat tone that said she would, whether she liked it or not. 'Miss Kingman, close the door on your way out.'

'Where's my baby?' Laura felt her heart pounding, and there was a fresh twinge of pain between her legs. 'I want to see David!'

'Out,' the man told Laura's mother. Miss Kingman closed the door. Kathryn Langner grasped one of Laura's hands, and the man said in a quieter, steady voice, 'Mrs. Clayborne, my name is Bill Ramsey. I'm on the security staff here. Do you remember the name of the nurse who took your child from this room?'

'Janette something. It started with an L.' She couldn't recall the last name, and her brain was sluggish with shock. 'What's wrong? She said she was going to bring my baby right back. I'd like him back now.'

'Mrs. Clayborne,' Ramsey said, 'no nurse with that first name works on the maternity ward.' Behind his glasses, his eyes were as black as the frames. A pulse beat at his balding left temple. 'We think the woman may have taken your child from the premises.'