“That’s easy,” he said through his teeth. “We will decline to comment about an ongoing police investigation. In fact, we can’t do anything else. The questions will soon stop.”
“Not bad,” she said, approving.
Jim wasn’t finished. “My wife’s health may not let her travel with me, but if she does, are you implying that some of the journalists will want to interview Millie and me together?”
“Bound to,” said Pamela. “You’re different, you’re glamorous you’re both scientifically brilliant. It’s not a marriage between some famous black man and a beautiful blonde idiot. It’s one doctor of biochemistry with another, intellectual and educational equals with a long history of social ostracism. Fascinating stuff.”
“I see,” said Jim. “Well, I’m sorry to upset the publicity applecart, but Millie has just learned she’s pregnant, and I can assure you that neither of us will consent to anything that might harm our child. Millie mightn’t be coming.”
FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1969
By mid-afternoon Millie was thoroughly tired of the hospital, and feeling absolutely well. The worst of it had been the dissemination of the news that she had lost her baby; all of East Holloman seemed to know, from her grieving parents to Maria, Emilia, Desdemona, Carmine, the entire Cerutti connection as well as the O’Donnell. For Patrick and Nessie, a double shock, to be deprived of their grandchild before they had been told they would have one. Oh, the guilt! Why hadn’t she been able to confide in her own mother and father about anything? Tetrodotoxin, from fear …
This was her first time ever in a hospital, but Millie was too clever not to understand that her recovery was shadowed by more than half a lifetime shutting everyone from her childhood out; now these childhood people were duty-bound to visit with flowers or fruit or chocolates, then stand without a thing to say. And she couldn’t help them find words because she knew nothing about them.
Her disappointment was cruel, as her night-time pillows could have testified. To cap it, now she had no excuse for refusing to travel with Jim on this insane tour stapled together by that execrable woman, Pamela Devane. Nor had Dr. Benjamin Solomon yet told her when she could safely resume her efforts to conceive. The books and magazines palled, she dreaded the appearance of another face around the door of her private room — why was Dr. Solomon dodging her, what wasn’t he telling her? The fears rose up, chewing, gnawing, eating away at her. Something was wrong!
Her gynecologist came in, firmly closing the door in a way that told her the “No Visitors” sign was on its outside.
“Thank God you’ve come,” she said as she flopped back against her mound of pillows. “I was beginning to think that you were going to leave me here all weekend without news.”
Solomon was a tall, slender man with a bony, humorous face and warm dark eyes; today he wasn’t smiling. “Sorry, Millie,” he said, drawing up a chair. “I had to wait for some results to come back from Histology, and those guys won’t be hurried.”
“It’s bad news,” she said flatly.
“I’m afraid so, yes.” He looked uncomfortable, shifted awkwardly on the chair, didn’t seem to know how to start. Cancer leaped into Millie’s mind, but that didn’t seem to fit either — what didn’t he want to say? But now he did: now he said it. “How many abortions did you have when you were younger, Millie?”
Her jaw dropped, she gaped. “Abortions?” she faltered.
“Yes, abortions. The wrong kind. Couldn’t Jim have used a condom?” The words burst out of him, but her face remained blank, uncomprehending. “You know, a French letter? A rubber?”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, her face clearing. “Yes, but they tore — we were all thumbs, and Jim was in a hurry. He hated rubbers! I tried foams and jellies, but they let us down too. We would think ourselves safe, then I’d get pregnant again. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, Doctor, honest.” The protest erupted as if she were a ten-year-old kid found at last.
He took her hands, held them strongly. “Millie, listen to me! That you ever conceived this child you’ve just lost was a miracle. You’re Gettysburg after the battle up there, the amount of scar tissue is horrendous. How many abortions did you have?”
She had stilled absolutely, sitting forward in the bed, and now turned her head away. “I never kept count,” she said dully. “Seven, nine — I don’t know. A lot, over a lot of years. We couldn’t have them!”