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to wake up and become active. The baby was born, and as soon as the doctor cut the umbilical cord and got the baby to breathe, the woman washed it and wrapped it and took it away. Christine did get to see that it was a boy, and that it was big and seemed healthy. She cried for joy and relief. After a few minutes Sybil and Claudia and Ruby appeared and moved Christine to her old room, which had been restored and rearranged. There was a white crib pushed up close to the bed, and a changing table by one wall. The Mexican woman gave Christine an injection, and she lay in the bed, still crying, until she fell asleep.

When Christine awoke, Ruby Beale was in the room with her. 'Good morning,' she said. 'How are you feeling?'

'Where's my baby?' Christine said. She was overcome with a feeling of panic. Was he dead? Had they already taken him away?

'Ready to see him?'

'What have you done with him?'

Ruby went out the door, and a moment later, the Mexican woman came in carrying the baby wrapped in a soft cotton blanket and wearing a small cap, so only his little reddish face peeked out, his puffy eyes like slits. The Mexican woman seemed to have softened since the baby was born, and as long as all of her attention was on the baby, she was cooing and making little sounds with her lips. When she looked at any adult, she seemed to bristle and glare. But she brought the baby and set him at Christine's breast, and kept rearranging him until he began to nurse. This was the strangest feeling of all for Christine.

'He's a little bit early,' said Ruby, 'but I wouldn't even call him a preemie. He's over five pounds—just about normal weight.'

After a few minutes the two women left, and after that, the world was populated only by Christine and her baby.

When they had been together for an hour, the door opened again and Ruby and the Mexican woman returned. The woman lifted the baby off Christine and took him out of the room. 'Let me hold him,' said Christine, but the woman didn't seem to hear or understand.

'Don't worry,' said Ruby. 'He'll be back soon enough. He just needs to be changed, and you need breakfast. If you're going to nurse, you've also got to eat.'

Christine said, 'I want him. You have no right to take him away.' She felt terrible fear and love for the baby. 'Can't you hear me? I want him with me.'

'Have you figured out what to name him yet?'

'I'm sure you have.'

'No. The mother gets to do that. I have some suggestions, though. Andy might be a good name.'

'His name is Robert.'

'Robert,' repeated Ruby. 'Robert Andrew Beale.'

'Robert Monahan. His name can't be Beale because it's not a legal marriage. And I'm not naming him after your husband.'

Ruby patted her, but her expression was cool and distracted, and not nearly as gentle as she had been before the birth. 'Please yourself.'

Routines developed over the next few days. At first the Mexican woman brought Robert in only to be nursed. But then Christine began to spend more and more time with Robert, and to change and dress him and hold him.

It was when she was alone, without Robert, that Christine was forced to think. A big healthy boy was just what the Beales had wanted. Maybe if he had been a girl, the Beales would have been disappointed in Christine and decided she wasn't suitable, and would have let Christine take her baby and go. But Christine reminded herself that during the past two weeks she had spent many hours listening to Ruby and Andy Beale talk about the baby, and neither of them had ever expressed any interest in whether it was a boy or a girl. They wanted a baby, period. The thought made Christine panicky, and sent her mind off again on its circular course. She kept remembering what Claudia and Sybil had said about Richard keeping her alive. Maybe they would be allowed to kill her now that Robert had been born. The thought made Christine's heart pound and her head ache, but she couldn't think of anything she could do to stop them. Whenever she heard a sound in the hallway, she jumped, then tensed her muscles and waited, listening intently.

After a week she said to Ruby, 'Richard hasn't been to see me.'

'Do you want him to?'

'No.'

'Are you sure?'

'Has he asked if I was okay?'

'Sure. I told him you were fine.'

Christine came to the part that worried her. 'Has he been to see Robert?'

'That he did,' said Ruby. 'The first day. Or at least the second. He came in and looked him over.'

'He hasn't been alone with him, has he?'

'No. He knows nothing at all about babies. He's not going to be the sort of father who changes a diaper. Get that out of your mind.'

At around that time they began to grant Christine more freedom. She was allowed to sit with Ruby, Robert, and the Mexican woman in the gardens, and sometimes to walk with them on the grass or dip her feet in the pool. The one thing that nobody would ever allow Christine to do was be outside with the baby alone.

'Why don't you let me be alone outside with Robert?'

'Too much sun isn't good for him.'

'Or for anybody else. We're never outside for long, and he's always shaded.'

Ruby eyed Christine wearily. 'Let's just say it helps the rest of us to feel at ease. If he's inside, you can wander around out here pretty much as you please. We know you won't go anywhere. The gate is locked anyway.'

'Then what are you worried about?'

'Honey, this is for your own good. For everybody's good. You must know that I have some control over certain things around here, but not others.'

'Then who does have control of them?'

'Mostly my husband, Andy. But there are complicated issues here. Everybody has his own set of concerns. Getting into trouble, for instance. Richard and his hired people have a say in those areas, whether I want them to or not. None of them wants to be vulnerable, and I don't think any of them will tolerate much risk.'

'They didn't mind the risk of kidnapping me.'

'If you were to take off and run to the police, then by the time you got back, Robert wouldn't be here anymore.'

'You mean they'd kill him?'

'I mean exactly what I said. I didn't say dead. I said gone. His crib and his toys and his clothes would be gone. You would never, ever know what became of him.' She stared at her with what looked a lot like compassion. 'I think you and I have got to team up and be sure that never happens. Don't you?'

It was only a few days after that conversation that the rules changed again. Christine was still nursing Robert every couple of hours, and soon it felt like too much work for someone to hear the baby cry, pick him up, and carry him down the hall, unlock the room, and bring him to Christine. They let Robert stay with her. She liked it much better that way. At first she did what she was told and had Robert sleep in his crib until he woke up crying for milk, but then she brought him to bed with her and kept him there until daylight.

She got up one day and began to take stock of the world outside Robert. She needed to escape—now more than ever before. Now that he had been born, the Beales really didn't need her. She was a threat to them, a dangerous person who just might sneak out of her room sometime and get them arrested. The two women, Claudia and Sybil, were longing to be allowed to murder her. Richard certainly had no affection for her anymore, and he didn't even seem to have a sexual interest in her.

It occurred to her that there was a way, and a time, to escape. She realized now that she had been foolish to try so hard when she was nine months pregnant. There never had been a way out then. Everyone had been watching her, expecting her to try. Even if she had made it out of this room into the sunlight, there was no way a woman near the end of a pregnancy was going to outrun anybody who thought his life might depend on catching