The Twelfth Child (Serendipity #1)(70)
As soon as Abigail closed her eyes she slipped under the warmth of her comforter, downy soft, cozy as a baby bunting. She could feel herself floating on a cloud of feathers, the chill in her bones melting, her blood turning from blue to orange and then red, a blazing red, hotter than the center of the sun. When the wind tore loose a chunk of ice from the branch directly above her, Abigail never heard the crash, she never felt the shower of crystals that landed in her lap, because by then she was dreaming. She could see the baby growing into a toddler with chubby arms and legs, a smear of oatmeal on her chin. Then she saw the child as a girl, her cheeks pink as rose petals, her laugh melodious as the song of a white-throated sparrow. She saw herself sitting alongside of John, both of them with hair of silver; a flock of grandchildren gathered around, all clamoring to sit on grandma’s lap. Abigail could hear God calling and she was ready to go, for she’d lived the life she’d wanted.
“Miss, miss,” the voice shouted. “Are you alright?” Angelo Lucci shook the lifeless body for a second and third time, before he heard the woman moan. That’s when he knew she was still alive. He pulled the overcoat from his back and covered her with it, then he ran from the park and called for an ambulance.
That night, there were very few people in Richmond who dared venture out – a few policemen bundled in wool scarves and layered overcoats, a nurse making her way to Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital for the midnight shift, a dark-haired man walking through a maze of unfamiliar streets calling out Abigail’s name, and Angelo Lucci. Angelo hated the cold weather and would never have stepped foot out the door if it weren’t for Lucifer, a Labrador Retriever black as the night itself, a dog that howled and clawed at the back door when he didn’t get his nightly outing. “Alright, alright,” Angelo had moaned as he hooked a leash to the dog’s collar. He was wishing he’d listened to his wife and bought a smaller breed, a poodle maybe, or a miniature dachshund, anything that wouldn’t drag him out on a night like this. Angelo pulled on two pair of wool socks and four sweaters, then he squeezed his arms through the sleeves of his overcoat. “Damn dog,” he mumbled as they left the house. He tried to coerce the dog into relieving himself on the front lawn, but Lucifer was accustomed to the park and so he tugged at the leash until Angelo crossed over the street and headed down the bridal path. That’s where he found Abigail; sound asleep under Lucifer’s favorite tree.
John, who figured Abigail would never leave the building on a night when the temperature was well below freezing, had waited for twenty minutes, and then gone in search of her. He’d walked for an hour, up one street and down the other, calling her name, hollering out that he was sorry for the things he’d said. When frostbite wrapped itself around his feet, he turned back to the apartment building. He was standing in the kitchen and scratching his head as to where she might have gone, when the distant sound of a siren screamed through the night.
By morning, John guessed that Abigail’s intention was to stay away until after he was gone, so he sat down at the kitchen table and wrote her a letter, then pulled on his coat and left.
Abigail did not wake for three days. From time to time she’d sense the coming or going of a nurse or doctor, but they floated at the edge of her world and appeared as people other than themselves. Caught up in a dream Abigail told Nurse Osterly, a woman with snow white hair and six grandchildren, to sit down and get her hair twisted into pigtails. “You can’t go to school with fly away hair,” she said. Nurse Osterly shook her head sadly and noted the rambling on a chart. Abigail told the orderly collecting bedpans that she could smell the roses on Ridge Road and three times she mistook the doctor for Preacher Broody. “I know,” she said, “you’ve come to punish me for sinning.”
On the fourth day, when Abigail finally opened her eyes, she had no recollection of Angelo Lucci or the ambulance ride to Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital. “Where am I?” she asked the bearded face looking down at her.
“Saint Elizabeth’s,” Doctor West answered. He frowned at the rattling of breath coming through his stethoscope. “You’ve got pneumonia.” He stuck a thermometer into Abigail’s mouth and told her to hold it under her tongue. “I guess that was your intention!” he grumbled like a man with little patience left, “Sleeping outside in zero degree weather, it’s a wonder you’re not dead!”
“I didn’t mean to sleep,” Abigail tried to explain. “I got lost and –”
“Why didn’t you have boots on? A proper coat?”
“Something happened. Something awful. I ran out not thinking –”
“Not thinking of your baby,” the doctor grumbled, “that’s for certain.”
“My baby!” Abigail gasped. She slid her arm beneath the blanket and placed her hand on her stomach; it felt different – knotted and hard like an elbow or a knee – and, the image of a dark-haired baby curled into a comma was gone. “My baby!” she screamed, “Someone’s taken her!”
“Your baby’s still there,” Doctor West said, his voice softening to a sympathetic tone, “but, I’m afraid we will have to take it, because there’s no heartbeat.”
“No,” Abigail moaned, “You’re mistaken; you’ve got to be mistaken!”
“I wish I were,” the doctor answered, but by then Abigail had started tearing at the bedclothes as if she’d gone mad.