A Cry In The Night

31

Oh, no, no.” Rooney’s voice was singsong. “Caroline would never hurt the baby, love.” She rushed over to Tina. “You see Caroline always used to cup her hands on Erich’s face when he was little. Like this.” Gently she placed her palms on the doll’s cheeks. “And she would laugh and say, ‘Caro, caro.’ That means dear one.”

Rooney straightened up and looked around. Now her pupils were enormous. “Jenny, it’s just like I told you. She came back. Maybe she knew the baby was sick and wanted to help.”

Erich’s voice was low. “Get her out of here, Clyde.” Clyde grasped Rooney’s arm. “Come on. And be quiet.”

Rooney pulled away. “Jenny, tell them how I’ve been seeing Caroline. Tell them I told you that. Tell them I’m not crazy.”

Jenny tried to get up from the chair. Clyde was hurting Rooney. His fingers were digging into the thin arm. But her legs wouldn’t hold her up. She tried to speak but no words came. Tina’s small hands over the doll’s mouth and nostrils…

It was Luke who pried Clyde’s fingers loose. “Leave her alone, man. For God sake, can’t you see this has been too much for her?” His tone was soothing. “Rooney, why don’t you go home and lie down? It’s been a terrible day for you too.”

Rooney did not seem to hear. “I’ve been seeing her and seeing her. Sometimes at night I sneak out after Clyde’s asleep because I want to talk to her. I bet she knows where Arden went. And I see her coming into the house. Once I saw her at the window of the baby’s room. The moonlight was shining on her, just as clear as day. I wish she’d talk to me sometimes. Maybe she thinks I’m afraid of her. But why would I be? If Caroline is here that means that even if Arden is dead she might be able to come back. Isn’t that right?”

She pulled away from Clyde and ran over to Jenny. Sinking on her knees she put her arms around her. “That means maybe the baby will come back too. Won’t that be nice? Jenny, will you let me hold him when he comes back?”

It was nearly two o’clock. Her breasts were heavy with milk. Dr. Elmendorf had bound them to stop the lactation but at the hours she’d fed the baby they still filled. They hurt, but she was glad to have the physical pain. It balanced the agony of grief. Rooney’s frail body was shaking. Jenny reached out, put her arms around the thin shoulders. “He isn’t coming back, Rooney,” she said. “Neither is Caroline or Arden. Tina was dreaming.”

“Of course she was,” Mark said brusquely.

Luke and Clyde lifted Rooney up. “She needs a sedative,” Luke said, “I’ll drive with you to the hospital.” Luke looked ill himself.

Emily and Mark stayed a little longer. Emily made halfhearted attempts to talk to Erich about his painting.

“I have an exhibit in Houston in February,” Erich told her. “I’ll take Jenny and the girls with me. The change will do us all good.”

Mark sat next to her. There was something so quietly comforting about him. She could feel his compassion and it helped.

After he and Emily left, Jenny managed to prepare dinner for the girls and Erich. Somehow she found the strength to get the children ready for bed. Tina splashed in the tub. Jenny thought about holding the baby in the crook of her arm while she bathed him. She brushed Beth’s long, thick curls. The baby was losing that dark hair. His would have been golden. She heard their prayers. “God bless Nana and our baby in heaven.” She closed her eyes as waves of pain washed over her.

Downstairs Erich had brandy waiting. “Drink this, Jenny. It will help you relax.” He pulled her down beside him. She did not resist. His hands ran through her hair. Once that gesture had thrilled her. “Jen, you heard the doctor. The baby wouldn’t have made it through the surgery. He really was much sicker than you knew.”

She listened, waiting for the numbness to wear off. Don’t try to make it easier, Erich, she thought. Nothing you can say matters.

“Jenny, I’m worried. I’ll take care of you. But Emily is a gossip. By now what Tina said is going to be all over town.” He put his arms around her. “Thank God, Rooney is an unreliable witness and Tina is so small. Otherwise…”

She tried to pull away from him. His hands held her fast. His voice so soft, so hypnotically gentle. “Jenny, I’m terribly afraid for you. Everyone has remarked how much you resemble Caroline. They’re going to hear what Tina said. Oh, my darling, don’t you see what they’re going to say?”

Soon she would wake up and be back in the apartment. Nana would be there. “Now, Jen, you’re talking in your sleep again. You must have had a nightmare. You’ve got too much on your mind, dear.”

But she was not in the apartment. She was in this cold, overfurnished parlor listening to the incredible suggestion that people might think she had killed her own baby.

“The trouble is, Jen, you have been sleepwalking. How many times have the girls asked why you don’t speak to them when you go into their room at night? It’s entirely possible you were in the baby’s room, maybe patting the baby’s face. Tina didn’t understand what she saw. You yourself told Dr. Elmendorf you’ve been hallucinating. He called me about that.”

“He called you?”

“Yes. He’s quite concerned. He says you’ve refused to see a psychiatrist.”

Jenny stared past him at the curtains. The lace seemed web-like. Once she had taken those curtains down, blindly trying to change the stifling atmosphere of this house. Erich had put them back up.

Now the curtains seemed to be closing in on her, enmeshing her, smothering her.

Smothering. She closed her eyes against the memory of Tina’s small hands covering her doll’s face, pressing down.

Hallucinating. Had she imagined the face, the feeling of hair hanging over the bed? All those nights, had she been imagining that?

“Erich, I’m so confused. I don’t know what reality is anymore. Even before this. But now. I’ve got to get away. I’ll take the girls.”

“Impossible, Jenny. You’re much too upset. For your sake, for their sake, you can’t be alone. And don’t forget. The girls are legally Kruegers. They’re just as much my children as yours.”

“I’m their mother, their natural mother and guardian.”

“Jenny, please remember this. In the eyes of the law I have every bit as much right to them as you. And believe me if you ever tried to leave me, I’d get custody. Do you think any court would award them to you with your reputation in this community?”

“But they’re mine! The baby was yours and you wouldn’t give him your name. The girls are mine and you want them. Why?”

“Because I want you. No matter what you’ve done, no matter how sick you are, I want you. Caroline was willing to leave me but I know you, Jenny. You’d never leave your children. That’s why we’ll be together always. We’re going to start over as of right now. I’m moving back in with you tonight.”

“No.”

“You have no choice. We’ll put the past behind. I’ll never mention the baby again. I’ll be there to help if you start to sleepwalk. I’ll take care of you. If they investigate the baby’s death, I’ll hire a lawyer.”

He was pulling her to her feet. Helplessly she allowed him to propel her up the stairs. “Tomorrow we’ll put the room back the old way,” he told her. “Just pretend the baby never was born.”

She had to humor him until she could plan. They were in the bedroom; he opened the bottom drawer of the large dresser. She knew what he was reaching for. The aqua gown. “Wear it for me, Jen. It’s been so long.”

“I can’t.” She was so afraid. His eyes were so strange. She didn’t know this man who could tell her that people believed she was a murderer, tell her to forget the baby she’d buried a few hours ago.

“Yes, you can. You’re very thin now. You’re lovely.”

She took it from him and went into the bathroom. She changed and the nightgown did fit her again. She stared into the mirror over the sink. And understood why people thought she looked like Caroline.

Her eyes had the same sad, haunted look as those of the woman in the painting.

In the morning Erich slid out of bed quietly and began to tiptoe around the room. “I’m awake,” she told him. It was six o’clock. It should have been time to feed the baby.

“Try to go back to sleep, darling.” He pulled on a heavy ski sweater. “I’m going to the cabin. I’ve got to finish the paintings for the Houston exhibition. We’ll go together, darling, the two of us and the girls. We’ll have a wonderful time.” He sat down on the edge of the bed. “Oh, Jen, I love you so.”

She stared up at him.

“Tell me you love me, Jen.”

Dutifully she said, “I love you, Erich.”

It was a bleak morning. Even by the time the girls had had breakfast, the sun was still hidden by patches of wintry clouds. The air had a chilly, dark feeling as before a storm.

She dressed Tina and Beth for a walk. Elsa was going to take down the Christmas tree and Jenny broke small branches from it.

“What are you going to do with those, Mommy?”

Beth asked.

“I thought we’d put them on the baby’s grave.”

The fresh dirt had frozen during the night. The luminous pine needles softened the starkness of the little mound.

“Mommy, don’t look so sad,” Beth begged.

“I’ll try not to, Mouse.” They turned away. If I could only feel something, she thought. I am so empty, so terribly empty.

On the way back to the house, she saw Clyde drive into the farm road. She waited for him to find out about Rooney.

“They won’t let her come home for a while,” he said. “They’re doing all kinds of tests and they say maybe I should put her in a special hospital for a while. I said no way. She’s been a lot better since you came here, Miz Krueger. I guess I never knew how lonesome Rooney was. She’s always afraid to leave the farm for long. Just in case Arden suddenly called or came back. But then lately she’s been worse again. You saw.”

He swallowed, fiercely blinking back tears.

“And, Miz Krueger, what Tina said, got out. The sheriff… he’s been talking to Rooney. He had a doll out with him. Told her to show him the way Caroline used to pat the baby’s face, and how Tina said the lady in the painting touched the baby. I don’t know what he’s up to.”

I do, Jenny thought. Erich’s right. Emily couldn’t wait to spill that story to the people in town.

Sheriff Gunderson came out three days later. “Mrs. Krueger, I have to warn you there’s been talk. I have an order to exhume your baby’s body. The medical examiner wants to do an autopsy.”

She stood and watched as sharp spades opened the newly frozen earth, as the small casket was loaded onto the funeral car.

She felt someone standing beside her. It was Mark. “Why torture yourself, Jenny? You shouldn’t be here.”

“What are they looking for?”

“They want to make sure there are no bruises or signs of pressure on the baby’s face.”

She thought of long lashes throwing shadows on the pale cheeks, the tiny mouth, the blue vein on the side of his nose. The blue vein. She’d never noticed it before that morning when she’d found him.

“Did you notice any bruises on him?” she asked. Mark would have known the difference between a bruise and a vein.

“When I tried the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation I held his face pretty hard. There could be some.”

“You told them that.”

“Yes.”

She turned to him. The wind wasn’t strong but every stir of air sent fresh shivers through her. “You told them that to protect me. It wasn’t necessary.”

“I told them the truth,” he said.

The hearse drove onto the dirt road. “Come back to the house,” Mark urged.

She tried to analyze her feelings as she trudged by his side through the fresh fallen snow. He was so tall. She’d never realized how used she’d become to Erich’s relatively small stature. Kevin had been tall, over six feet. Mark. What would he be? Six four or five?

She had a headache. Her breasts were burning. Why didn’t the milk stop flowing? It wasn’t needed. She could feel her blouse getting damp. If Erich was in the house he’d be mortified. He hated untidiness. He was so neat. And so private. If he hadn’t married her, the Krueger name wouldn’t have been dragged through the mud.

Erich believed she had scandalized his name and still he claimed he loved her. He liked her to look like his mother. That’s why he always asked her to wear the aqua gown. Maybe when she was sleepwalking she tried to look like his mother to please him.

“I guess I’m trying,” she said. Her voice startled her. She didn’t know she’d spoken aloud.

“What did you say, Jenny? Jenny!”

She was falling; she could not stop herself from falling. But something stopped her just as her hair brushed the snow.

“Jenny!” Mark was holding her, was carrying her. She hoped she wasn’t too heavy.

“Jenny, you’re burning up.”

Maybe that was why she couldn’t keep her thoughts straight. It wasn’t just the house. Oh, God, how she hated the house.

She was riding in a car. Erich was holding her. She remembered this car. It was Mark’s station wagon. He had books in it.

“Shock, milk fever,” Dr. Elmendorf said. “We’ll keep her here.”

It was so nice to float away, so nice to wear one of those rough hospital gowns. She hated the aqua gown.

Erich was in and out of her room. “Beth and Tina are fine. They send their love.”

Finally Mark brought the message she needed to have. “The baby is back in the cemetery. They won’t disturb him again.”

“Thank you.”

His fingers closing over her hands. “Oh, Jenny.”

That night she had two cups of tea, a piece of toast.

“Good to see you feeling better, Mrs. Krueger.” The nurse was genuinely kind. Why was it that kindness made her want to weep? She used to take for granted that people liked her.

The fever was low-grade persistent. “I won’t allow you to go home until we’ve licked it,” Dr. Elmendorf insisted.

She cried a lot. Often when she’d dozed off, she’d wake up to find her cheeks wet with tears.

Dr. Elmendorf said, “While you’re here, I’d like Dr. Philstrom to have a few talks with you.”

Dr. Philstrom was a psychiatrist.

He sat by her bed, a tidy little man who looked like a bank clerk. “I understand you had a series of pretty bad nightmares.”

They all wanted to prove that she was crazy. “I don’t have them anymore.”

And it was true. In the hospital she was starting to sleep through the night. Each day she began to feel stronger, more like herself. She realized she was joking with the nurse in the morning.

The afternoon was the hardest. She didn’t want to see Erich. The sound of his footsteps in the hall made her hands clammy.

He brought the girls to see her. They weren’t allowed inside the hospital but she stood at the window and waved to them. Somehow they seemed so forlorn, waving back up at her.

That night she ate a full dinner. She had to get her strength back. There was nothing to hold her on Krueger Farm any longer. There was no way she and Erich could recapture what they once had. She could plan to get away. And she knew how she could manage it. On the trip to Houston. Somehow on that trip, she and Beth and Tina would leave Erich and get on a plane for New York. Erich might be able to get custody of the children in Minnesota but New York would never give it to him.

She could sell Nana’s locket to get some money. A jeweler had offered Nana eleven hundred dollars for it a few years ago. If she got anything like that, it would be enough to buy airline tickets and tide her over until she got a job.

Away from Caroline’s house, Caroline’s portrait, Caroline’s bed, Caroline’s nightgown, Caroline’s son, she’d be herself again-able to think calmly, to try to capture all the awful thoughts that kept rising almost to the surface of her mind and then slipping away. There were so many of them-so many impressions that seemed to be eluding her.

Jenny fell asleep, the hint of a smile on her lips, her cheeks pillowed in her hands.

The next day she phoned Fran. Oh, blessed, blessed freedom, knowing no one would pick up the extension in the office.

“Jenny, you haven’t answered my letters. I thought you’d jettisoned me into outer space.”

She didn’t bother to explain that she’d never received them. “Fran, I need you.” As quickly as possible she explained: “I have to get out of here.”

Fran’s usual matter-of-fact laughter disappeared. “It’s been bad, Jenny. I can hear it in your voice.”

Later she could tell Fran everything. Now she simply agreed, “It’s been bad.”

“Trust me. I’ll get back to you.”

“Call after eight o’clock. That’s when visiting hours end.”

Fran called at ten after seven the next night. The minute the phone rang, Jenny knew what had happened. Fran had not allowed for the time difference. It was ten after eight in New York. Erich was sitting by her bed. His eyebrows raised as he handed her the receiver. Fran’s voice was vibrant, carrying. “I’ve got great plans!”

“Fran, how good to hear from you.” Turning to him: “Erich, it’s Fran, say hello.”

Fran caught on. “Erich, how are you? So sorry to hear Jenny hasn’t been well.

After they hung up, Erich’s question: “What plans, Jenny?”