Texas rich (37 page)

The door opened a crack and a pair of snapping dark eyes peered out suspiciously. When Ameha extended a crisp hundred-dollar bill, the door opened to admit them. A man in a dirty white shirt that strained across his vast belly called out in Spanish. A woman stepped into the room. Billie heard the locks being snapped behind her and knew a sense of panic.

"This is my friend," Amelia was explaining. "She's here to see I get home."

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The woman shook her head and grumbled something to the man. "You were to come alone," he growled.

"No one said anything about coming alone. I need my friend with me."

The woman began sputtering and the man shouted at her. "You have all the money?" he said to AmeUa. "Two hundred dollars?"

"Yes. My friend will give you the other hundred when everything is over."

"Your friend will wait here."

"No. She comes with me. Or I go somewhere else."

Again the woman began chattering. "Silencio!" the man raged. Billie was feeling weak-kneed and her hands were icy, despite the warm day.

"Okay. Go in there with Maria. She take care of everything. First I see the money."

"Show him the money," Amelia instructed. "Dammit, Billie, do what I say! Show him the money!"

Billie fumbled with her purse, extracting the bill and showing it to the man, who appeared satisfied. She replaced it in the zippered compartment quickly, as though it were burning her fingers.

Maria stepped aside to allow them into the adjoining room. It was empty except for a kitchen table and a single chair. Just beyond, Billie could see a filthy toilet. Newspapers covered the long windows that faced the back of the building. Voices shouted at one another from the other side of the wall. Maria was wearing an apron made of oilcloth. It was the same pattern that had once covered the Ameses' kitchen table in Philadelphia. A jumble of impressions penetrated her awareness like short punches to the brain.

She could feel Amelia's cold trembling hand in her own as she stood beside the table on which Amelia was lying, legs spread, teeth biting into her lips to keep from crying out. Maria was working between her legs. The pattern of her oilcloth apron swam before Billie's eyes, making her stomach heave. Suddenly there was the smell of blood and the sound of something dropping and spattering into the chipped enamel dishpan on the floor near Maria's feet. Billie's eyes reluctantly lowered to the floor. Dark red clots of blood and tissue swam in the pan. It was done. The small nebulous life Amelia had carried had been scraped and torn from her womb.

The cracked and filthy floor threatened to rise up and engulf

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Billie. It had been so quick, so callously done. She felt as though her own insides had been ripped. There was a burning at her center, demanding she turn her focus inward. The small life that clung there could not survive without her. It could be torn from its haven and discarded just as easily as the contents of Maria's dishpan. That it would occur in a sterile operating room and she would be anesthetized made no difference. She was a mother and it was her child, and without her it would never breathe or cry or be hungry.

Billie had come to her decision. Her unborn child's life would depend on God, not the surgeon's knife.

Amelia's hands gripped hers, her teeth were chattering, and tears rivered down her cheeks. "Billie! Billie! God, what have I done!"

Later that night, after Billie had visited to the nursery to kiss Maggie good night, she stopped by Amelia's room.

"Amelia?" Billie whispered into the darkened room. "Are you sleeping?" She moved quietly across the carpet to the bed, careful not to disturb Rand, who was asleep in the httle trundle bed on the far side of the room. "Amelia!"

"Billie. Billie, I'm so sick."

She touched Amelia's forehead. "You're burning up!"

"And I'm bleeding. Badly."

Billie clicked on the bedside lamp. Amelia was pale and white-lipped. "I'm calling Dr. Ward—"

"Billie, no! You can't "

"What will we do? You're sick!"

"It'll pass, I promise, it'll pass."

"No. No, it won't. Something went wrong this afternoon." She lifted the bedcovers and pulled at Amelia's nightgown. A spreading red stain darkened the pink cotton. "You are bleeding, worse than you probably know. I'm calling the doctor. ..."

Amelia's hand gripped her wrist. "You can't You can't! I can't let anyone know. I can't take that chance! I've got Rand to think of... .Geoff's family would use this against me if they knew. And Pap is just mean enough to tell them if he thought it would hurt me."

"Seth's a mean old codger, but he'd never..."

"Look at me, Billie. Look at me and never say never. No, you can't, and I can't let you call Dr. Ward."

"All right, then, let me call someone else. Anyone. What if I drove you into Austin myself? You could go to the emer-

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gency room. No one would have to know."

Amelia's head sank into her pillow, rocking back and forth in denial.

"Amelia, you said you have Rand to think of. You could die from loss of blood, from infection. Think of Rand!"

"All right. You take me into the hospital. Not Memorial. Clinton General, on the other side of town."

Billie struggled with the Coleman family Packard through the dead of night. The ribbon of highway stretched out before the headlights like a long, narrow tongue. Amelia sat beside her, head thrown back against the seat, beads of perspiration glistening on her brow. The clock on the dash read twelve-thirty. As far as she knew, no one realized they'd left the house. But in the morning there would be explanations to be made, Hes to be told, guilt to be hidden. She wouldn't think about that now. She had to keep her mind on the driving. This limousine was too long, too wide, and she was having difficulty judging distances. Her eyes kept going to the odometer. Twenty miles, thirty, thirty-five. Nearly an hour had passed. Amelia was quiet now, too quiet and too pale.

The lights of the city glimmered before her and traffic increased. The main avenue leading to the hospital was blocked by street hghts, all of them red. "Hold on, AmeUa, just a few more minutes," she promised, praying fervently all the while.

Things happened quickly when she pulled up to the emergency entrance of Clinton General. Amelia was placed on a stretcher and wheeled away. Then a nurse in a crisply starched uniform came to interview Billie.

"Patient's name?"

"Am... Amy Nelson."

"How long has the patient been bleeding and do you know the reason?"

"I don't know.... I don't know Where's the doctor? I

want to see the doctor," Billie demanded.

'The doctor is with her now, but the patient is too ill to answer his questions."

Billie's eyes swiveled around the sterile waiting room. She didn't know what to say: how much should she tell?

"And your name?" the nurse was asking.

"Willa. Willa Ames." The misinformation came easily to her lips. "I'm a friend."

"Miss Ames." The nurse's eyes darted to Billie's wedding

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ring. "Mrs. Ames, we already know that there's vaginal bleeding. We need to know if Miss Nelson is pregnant. Is she?"

Billie shook her head.

"Has she miscarried, do you know? Has she had an abortion? You must tell me. It could mean your friend's life."

"No, she hasn't miscarried" was all Billie would say. The other was just too horrible to admit. Visions of that chipped enamel dishpan turned revoltingly in her head.

"Then she's had an abortion. Correct? Do you know her family? Someone we can contact?"

"No! She has no one. Only me."

The nurse stood, her white uniform rustling stiffly. "Wait here, Mrs. Ames. I'll speak to the doctor."

Billie waited and waited and waited, each moment bringing new doubts and anguish. The minutes ticked by and then the hours. Seven o'clock. Daylight was streaming in through the wide glass doors. People milled about, white uniforms rushed from room to room, and there was still no word of Ameha.

At seven-thirty, Billie knew Sunbridge would be stirring. Rand would awaken and look for his mother. Agnes would soon go down to breakfast and wonder where her daughter was. Carlos would go out to the garage and find the car missing. Resolutely, Billie went to the pay phone and dialed the number. Thankfully, it was Agnes who answered. "Billie? Where are you? Aren't you upstairs?"

"No, Mother, I'm not. Don't ask any questions. Have Miss Jenkins look after Rand. Tell Carlos that Amelia and I took the car last night and I'll have it back soon."

"Amelia? Is Amelia with you? What do you mean you'll have the car back soon? Isn't Amelia coming with you? Billie, I demand to know what this is all about!" Something was wrong, terribly wrong; she could hear it in Billie's voice. "Bil-He, are you all right? Where are you?"

Billie sighed. There was no avoiding an explanation. "Mother, I'm at the hospital with Amelia. That migrane headache she had last night became worse during the night and she passed out."

"I don't believe you. Not for an instant. Billie, have you done something foolish? I know you're pregnant, Billie. Tell me, are you all right?"

"I'm fine. And so is my baby. Don't ask questions, Mother." There was an unmistakable threat in her tone. "As long as you know I'm pregnant then you should also know that Dr. Ward

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doesn't think I should go through with this pregnancy."

"Billy! What are you saying?" There was real fear in Agnes's voice now.

"What I'm saying, Mother, is that you are to cover for Amelia and me. You're not to let Seth know where we are or why. Take care of the children. I'll be back with the car as soon as I can. Don't let me down, Mother, and I won't let you down. Do we understand each other?"

Agnes's mouth gaped open. Could this really be her daughter talking to her this way?Jssuing thinly veiled threats? Billie would never do anything to harm her child, would she? Yet something told Agnes this was a new and different Billie.

"Come home as soon as you can, Billie," she said softly. "I'll take care of everything here."

"Good for you, Mother. Good for you."

At a quarter to nine BiUie was pacing the small waiting room on the second floor. Her eyes kept flying to the clock every thirty seconds. What were they doing to Amelia? Why wasn't anyone telling her anything?

"Mrs. Ames?" a woman's voice called. "Mrs. Ames?"

"Yes, here." Billie stood anxiously.

"The doctor would like to speak to you about Miss Nelson. Come this way, please."

Billie fell into step behind the nurse, her heels clicking on the tiled floor. She was shown into a cubicle. A young man in a white coat spoke. "Are you Mrs. Ames? I'm Dr. Garvey. I'm afraid we've had to perform an emergency surgery on your friend." At Bilhe's look of alarm he added quickly, "She's fine now. Her uterus was perforated, rather badly, and we had to perform a hysterectomy. Do you know what that is, Mrs. Ames? We've had to remove her uterus. Whoever performed the abortion was a butcher. You got her here just in time. She was hemorrhaging. Now we've got to be on the lookout for infection."

Billie's face had whitened during his recital and her hps were pale blue. "Mrs. Ames—here, sit down. I know this has been a shock."

"Will she be all right?" Billie managed to murmur.

"We expect so. Shame, though, in so young a woman. It would have been her first child, correct?"

"When can I see her?"

"She's in recovery now. Fortunately, she was conscious and able to sign the permission form; otherwise we'd have lost time

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attempting to get in touch with a blood relation."

"She has no one, anyway, only me. When can I see her?"

Dr. Garvey checked his watch. "About forty-five minutes. Why don't you go up to the third floor and I'll have someone get you when she wakes up.... Mrs. Ames, is there anything I can do for you?"

Billie raised her hand defensively, staving off the doctor's attentions. "No, I'm fine. Really. Third floor, you say?"

When Billie was finally admitted to see Amelia she had difficulty swallowing past the lump in her throat. Amelia was whiter than the pillow on which she lay, her lips dry and parched, her eyes lusterless and hollow.

"Billie." She could speak only in a kind of croaking whisper. "I know what you're thinking. It's no less than I deserve. Rand...please, take care of Rand for me." Her outstretched hand was cold and pale in Billie's.

"My God, what have they done to you?" The sympathy and compassion in her overflowed in salty rivulets down her cheeks.

"Don't ciy for me, Billie, please don't "

Amelia turned her head away, her bloodless lips moving. "Go home, now," she said in a choked voice. "Take care of

Rand. What's done is done There's no crying over spilt

milk. Didn't I tell you I never do anything right? Go home."

There was nothing more Billie could do or say. She would go home and make excuses for Amelia's absence and look after the children. The children. Her hand went protectively to her stomach and she imagined she could feel the nebulous life of her unborn child beating there. It was safe, secure, and, most important now, wanted. Amelia's child would have been its crib mate....

Billie's feet tapped a rapid tattoo on the tiled floor as she headed straight for the pay phone near the elevator. She fished in her pocket for a nickel to call Dr. Ward and tell him her decision.

Back at Sunbridge, Billie was numb to everything, including Seth's rage. "What does this gal of yours mean, Aggie?" he bellowed. "Where is that daughter of mine? And why did she leave that youngster here with us?" Agnes had no answer for him. "Danm fool troublemaker," he grumbled. "Never could trust her and never will. Goes off with friends and leaves that boy here. Friends! Miscreants is more the truth!" He glared at Billie. "When the hell is she coming back? I want to know

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when to wear my boots so I can kick her the hell out of my life!"

Agnes looked worriedly at Billie, who stayed silent. "Seth, Amelia needs a little time to herself right now. The boy is no problem—Billie is looking after him. Amelia won't be gone more than a week." She glanced at Billie for confirmation.