Chapter 14 #2
Like my Jewel. She'll never look like other girls. But she has her own beauty—a beauty that shines from within, from her sunny nature, to the joy she takes in living, and the love she gives so freely. If only the world could see her the way I do. The way Ivy does.
Ivy leaned down to look into Jewel’s face and capture her attention. “Can you count how many swan babies there are?”
Jewel pointed a stubby finger. “One, twoo, shree, four, fivv, six.”
“That’s right. Six.”
They stayed by the water until Jewel had exhausted her supply of bread and apple bits, and the swan family had drifted to quieter waters, the cygnets still paddling furiously in their parents' wake.
A few had begun to investigate the lake's edge on their own, pecking at the shallow water with stubby beaks and occasionally tumbling sideways, righting themselves with indignant peeps.
Jewel watched them with the intensity of a child memorizing everything, her lips moving silently as she counted again. “Six,” she announced. “Six bay-bees.”
“Six babies,” Ivy confirmed. “Well done.”
Back on the blanket, Jewel settled against Ivy’s side with the boneless draping of a child whose energy was entirely spent. She clutched her felt C in one hand, and the other hand rested on Brave, who’d spread herself across the girl’s lap with a proprietary air.
Torin lounged nearby, his legs out, back against a rock
Within minutes, Jewel’s eyes drooped, her breathing slowed, and she was asleep.
Ivy eased the girl’s head onto a folded coat and gently extricated herself, careful not to jostle Brave or disturb the sleeping child.
She moved to sit beside Torin on the far edge of the blanket, leaving a respectable distance between them—though in the warm, lazy afternoon, with tiny waves lapping softly at the shore and the mountain standing silent vigil, the distance felt less like propriety and more like caution.
For a while, they simply watched the lake in comfortable silence. A red-tailed hawk circled overhead, riding a thermal with motionless wings. Somewhere in the forest, a woodpecker hammered out a rhythm that sounded almost like a heartbeat.
“You've never told me about Jewel's mother,” Ivy said quietly. “I take it that your wife never lived in Three Bend Lake. Did she die from childbirth?”
The question jerked him from his contentment. With a sigh, he straightened, bringing his knees in and crossing his arms over the tops.
Torin had figured this conversation would come.
He'd dreaded the possibility—had constructed elaborate internal arguments for why the information was unnecessary, inappropriate, none of her business—and yet, in some strange way, he'd also been preparing for the revelation of his pathetic history.
The story was a poison he'd carried for twelve years, sealed inside him like a wound that healed over without being cleansed.
Hank and Brian knew some parts, but not all. Maybe—just maybe—speaking the sad tale aloud to the right person would draw out some of the infection out.
And if any person on earth is the right one, it's the woman sitting beside me.
He picked up a pebble from the grass and turned it in his fingers, a smooth, flat stone warmed by the sun. He rubbed his thumb over its surface, feeling the fine grit, buying himself a moment to decide, before executing a long toss to the lake, where it plopped beneath the surface.
Has the time come to trust Ivy with the truth?
Ivy blurted out the question about Torin’s wife without really thinking. Well, she’d conjectured plenty but hadn’t intended to ask.
Torin hesitated for a long moment.
Ivy wondered if he was too grief-stricken to talk about his wife, and she wanted to take back her question.
“I’m divorced.”
Scandalized by the answer, Ivy held in a gasp. She didn’t know anyone who was divorced.
He saw her shocked reaction and half-turned away.
Embarrassed by her judgment, she strove for empathy and tactfulness. “That must have been very difficult.”
“I almost don’t have words to describe the pain.
It was like my life turned upside down in the space of a few hours.
We were happy, Mary Beth and I. Excited for the baby.
The whole family was, too. The first grandchild on both sides.
Our fathers wanted a boy, of course. My mother whispered to me that she wanted a granddaughter.
Her mother just wanted a healthy baby, as did we.
We’d even picked out the names. Anne or Andrew. ”
“Good, traditional names.”
“So when Jewel was born, once I was allowed into the room and saw her, love seized me—so deep and strong and raw, more powerful, primitive, even, than anything I’d thought to feel.
We were tired and exultant. Our mothers, who’d been in the bedroom for the birth, left for us to have some private time with the baby.
For those first hours, we just cuddled her.
Mary Beth, first until she slept. And then…
.” He let out a breath, a small smile of remembrance playing on his lips, and placed his arms together in a cradling motion. “My darling daughter.”
Ivy could imagine how sweet Jewel must have been as a newborn.
“At that point, the baby was only swaddled. The nurse took her from me to bathe her. I leaned back. My eyes were so heavy, and I closed them, lightly dozing. Still, I tried to keep my ears pricked for what the nurse was doing with the baby, and I heard her talking to the doctor in a low voice. Naively, I thought they were consulting about another case.”
“Jewel’s condition wasn’t obvious?”
“Not to me. How many newborns had I held?” He made a zero hand sign.
“The doctor started an examination of the baby. I sat up and watched, interested in what I thought was a normal exam. He stared intently into her face. Looked at her ears. Traced a finger down her neck. Then he looked at her hands, especially the pinky finger, opened her palms, and ran a finger across the middle.”
Ivy remembered noticing the crease running diagonally across Jewel’s palm and not thinking anything of it.
“All of a sudden, the frown on the doctor’s face sent this…
this terror through me. That expression, more than the words, gave me the inkling…
. Yet, I refused to believe something could be wrong with our beautiful baby.
Then Mary Beth woke up. The doctor ushered in our parents. The nurse still held the baby.”
The stone of their seat was beginning to feel hard. But Ivy didn’t want to wiggle to a more comfortable spot and risk him stopping his tragic tale.
“The doctor told us she was Mongoloid. I’d never heard the term before.
He said it came from Mongolian for the slanted eyes of these children.
I’ll never forget what he said next. That she wasn’t quite right.
That she wouldn’t be able to do anything.
She couldn’t talk more than grunts. She’d live a short life—three to five or six years, on the average. Ten, if we were lucky.”
She’s twelve now. The thought sent a spike of fear through her. Glancing at Jewel, sleeping, looking the picture of health, made her take a deep breath and focus on the story being revealed.
“That we needed to put her into a home for children like her who aren’t right in body or mind. I couldn’t absorb what they were saying.”
“I can’t believe they wanted to institutionalize her.
” Cora had told Ivy too many horror stories about the foundling home where she sometimes volunteered.
Just the thought of sweet Jewel being confined in one…
.” She repressed a shiver. The doctor’s prediction of death by three years old would probably have come true.
“Our parents watched the doctor, growing horror on their faces. Mary Beth had this distant look, as if she wasn’t there. My mother started to cry. Gradually, our parents all stepped back from the bed as if the baby had a contagious disease.”
His words painted such a vivid picture.
“The nurse tried to hand the baby back to Mary Beth. To say good-bye, the woman said. But Mary Beth wouldn’t take her. Pushed her back at the nurse and screamed to take the creature away.”
Creature! Ivy sucked in a breath, her anger flaring. How dare she!
“I swooped in and scooped her up. ‘No, no,’ I told them. ‘We’ll be all right.’ I tried to smile at Mary Beth. ‘We can figure this out.’ But she turned her head away.”
“I can’t imagine a mother doing that. Not being maternal to her baby,” Ivy said her tone sharp.
“My father gestured toward the nurse. ‘Let the woman take the baby, Torin.’ He spoke in a tone he hadn’t used with me since I’d grown up and started working in the business, as if talking to a wayward child.”
The burn of tears in her throat made Ivy unable to speak. She placed a hand on his arm.
“I felt as if I stood on shifting sands, and I couldn’t find my balance. But one thing was as firm as bedrock. No one was taking my daughter!”
“Good for you!” she murmured, squeezing his arm.
“Mary Beth burst into hysterics, and her mother fluttered uselessly around her. My parents ushered Jewel and me out of the room and into the parlor, where the rest of the families had been waiting for their turn to see the baby. My three brothers were there. Mary Beth’s grandparents and her brothers and sisters. ”
So many family members.
“My father explained to them all that the baby wasn’t right, and she’d have to be institutionalized.
Everyone looked shocked. Their eyes slid away from us.
My brothers obviously didn’t know what to say.
I kept saying, ‘No. No. We’re keeping her.
We will raise her.’” He huffed and shook his head.
“I still, futilely, thought if I stated my adamant wishes enough, they’d get over their shock and agree. ”
“And they didn’t?”