Things Remembered (33 page)
K
arla was in loveâcompletely, unabashedly, head-over-heels, wildly in love. The object of her attention and affection was less than eighteen inches long and fit comfortably between her cupped hands, had soft, brown fuzz on a beautifully shaped head, eyes full of questions, and her great-grandmother's delicate ears. With hands the size of a quarter she had reached out and captured Karla's heart.
It had taken thirty hours without sleep and an insistent brother-in-law to get Karla to finally leave the hospital the night before. Collapsing on Jamie's bed before she'd even taken a shower, she slept far longer than she'd intended and was in a hurry to get back to the hospital.
The storm that had been sitting offshore for days had finally made it inland, the deluge coming faster than the drains could clear the roads. She had to slow to a crawl to make it through several intersections, the water inches deep, the traffic lights blinking a red warning.
Karla mentally recorded every detail from the thump of the windshield wipers to the howling wind. She pictured telling Anna Marie the story of her birth one day and wanted to get it right.
A trip that should have taken fifteen minutes took thirty. Karla made it without the radio, singing to herself instead. Most of the songs were old standards, but there was one she couldn't remember ever singing before. It was a lullaby, its words tantalizingly out of reach, the melody strong and strangely familiar.
When she arrived at the hospital, she first went to check on Heather. She was asleep. So was Bill. He'd pulled a chair close to the bed and laid his head next to hers. Their hands were clasped, they breathed each other's air. This, too, she would tell Anna Marie one day. She left as quietly as she'd entered and headed for the neonatal intensive care unit.
Before going inside, Karla stopped to peek in the window. Anna Marie's isolette was empty. Karla's gaze swept the room. Anna Marie wasn't anywhere she could see. Forcefully containing a swell of panic that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, she motioned to one of the nurses, indicating the empty unit.
The nurse smiled and pointed to a woman in a rocking chair, her back to the window. Karla had missed seeing the monitor wires and warming light that indicated the woman had a baby in her arms. She frowned in concentration. And then it came to her.
Grace.
Bill had told Karla the night before that he'd left a message on Grace's answering machine but that he hadn't heard from her. And yet here she was. The caring, loving woman Karla had been looking for still existed under Grace's self-centered veneer. Whatever wrong Grace had done or would do would be forever mitigated in Karla's mind by her unquestioning appearance at the hospital. Bill made the call; Grace responded. It was all Karla needed to know.
Karla scrubbed her hands and put on the requisite hospital gown before going inside. Before saying anything, or even acknowledging it was Grace holding Anna Marie, she hunkered down and carefully moved the blanket aside to get a better look at her sleeping niece. Bundled snugly in blankets with a tiny knit hat covering her head, there wasn't much to see. Still, when her mouth made a suckling motion and her eyes moved behind spider-veined lids, Karla was convinced she was the most beautiful child ever born.
Karla moved her arm to keep from blocking the heat coming from the warming lamp. The night nurse, a man her age who looked like Gulliver in the land of Lilliputians, had explained that premature babies were confined in isolettes to control their body temperature and prevent water loss that occurred through their skin and simply through their breathing. He said to expect Anna Marie to stay in the isolette until she could perform those functions for herself. Until then, she would be limited to twenty-five minutes out at a time.
Which meant that with Grace there, the line to hold Anna Marie when she did get to come out had grown another person longer. “How long have you been here?”
Grace answered without looking up. “A couple of hours.” She moved her arm to give Karla a better view. “Isn't she something?”
“I've been trying to figure out a way to sneak her into my suitcase when I go home.” For now, their argument was put aside. They were sisters imprinting and bonding with the newest member of the family.
“You're too late. I've already made a bed for her in my car. She leaves with me.”
“Have you talked to Heather this morning?”
“For a few minutes.”
“How is she?”
“Still pretty upset about the hysterectomy thing. But she'll be okay once she finally gets her hands on this girl. As soon as she does, she'll realize that what she lost she got back tenfold in little Anna Marie.”
This cut-to-the-basics logic was a side to Grace that Karla had never seen. “That's good.”
“So is this.” Finally Grace looked up. She put her free arm around Karla's shoulders and leaned closer to give her a hug. “I'm sorry I've been such a bitch lately.”
“Apology accepted.”
“We need to talk.”
Selfishly, Karla didn't want to hear what Grace had to say. She was worn down mentally and physically and wanted to save whatever energy she had for Heather and Anna Marie. “Yes, we do, but not until this is over.”
“It's not what you think,” Grace said quickly. “I'm not going to ask for anything. Believe it or not, I actually have good news to share with youâwith everyone. At least that's the way it looks right now.”
“You got a job?” Karla remembered the last time she'd said those words to Grace and the consequences and added, “Is it the role you had an audition for when you got home?”
Grace smiled. “Not bad, Karla. If I didn't know you as well as I do, you might have convinced me you weren't asking if I'd gotten a âreal' job.”
“I'll work on my delivery. Now tell me what you're talking about before I say something else I shouldn't.”
“I haven't heard back on that particular audition, which was for a movie, by the way. The job I got is for television. Remember the pilot I did a couple of months ago?”
“About the three women who start their own advertising agency?”
“That was a year ago,” she said patiently. “This is the one about the family that moves to an island because the father wants to prove they can survive without modern conveniences. I'm the teenage daughter who's pissed about missing her last year of high school. The producer called my agent to say it's a go for eight shows. They're going to give us a summer tryout, and if we pull decent numbers, they'll give us a slot midseason when they dump the shows that haven't made it.”
There were more ifs, ands, and buts in Grace's scenario than in a politician's reasoning for not fulfilling a campaign promise. “That's so exciting. Congratulations.”
“Thanks. I know the odds are against us making it past the summer, but it's nice to be actually working instead of just sitting around talking about it.”
Karla had come to believe the talking was as important as the doing for Grace. She'd sold her sister short but wasn't up to an apology. At least not yet. Their last few run-ins were still too fresh in her mind. “When do you start?”
“Monday.”
That gave her five days to get ready. “Are you shooting in L.A.?”
“We're using Florida for the exterior stuff. The rest we'll do in Vancouver.”
Anna Marie's nurse, who was always nearby, interrupted them to check the monitor leads that snaked out of the blanket and to write down the readings from the monitors.
“Have you told Anna?” Karla asked when she was gone. “She could use some good news.”
“From me, or in general?”
Had Grace always been able to read her this well, or was it a recently acquired skill? Before now Grace had never responded to the nuances in their conversations, and Karla had assumed they'd gone unnoticed. She realized now that she'd been baiting her sister, hoping for a confrontation, and Grace had been too clever to let it happen.
“From you,” Karla said bluntly. “I think she's waited long enough, don't you?”
“I tried calling her before I left and then when I got here, but there wasn't any answer.”
“Did you leave a message?”
“The machine wasn't on.”
“Are you sure you had the right number?”
Anna Marie stirred in Grace's arms, disturbed by the sudden rise in Karla's voice. “Of course I'm sure I had the right number.”
“Did you try Susan?” An immediate, sickening image of Anna lying on the floor with her hand inches from the phone came to Karla's mind. “What about that woman who lives next door?”
“I figured I would give her another hour or so first and then call someone to check on her. There are a hundred explanations for where she could have been, and I didn't want to embarrass her by having someone beating on her door.”
“An hour from now could be too late.”
“It's not like she's on her deathbed, Karla. You told me that yourself. She's probably shopping or at the doctor's. And didn't you say she spends a lot of time at the day-care center with Susan?”
“But she's never gone more thanâ” Something at the window caught Karla's eye. She looked up and saw Anna standing in the hallway watching them. “Oh, my God, what is she doing here?”
“Who?” Grace asked.
“Grandma.”
Grace's eyes lit up. She tried to turn to see, but couldn't without disturbing Anna Marie. “Help me,” she said, as she started to get up.
“Sit down,” Karla snapped. “You're going to unhook the monitors.”
Grace did as she was told and waited for Karla to turn the chair. She put her free hand under Anna Marie's bottom and brought her up into a sitting position to show her off to Anna, who now had her nose pressed to the window.
Her expression was more eloquent than the collected works of Wordsworth. A woman who had borne a daughter of her own, who might have been blasé, was awestruck. When Anna Marie squirmed and opened her mouth to yawn, Anna's eyes grew misty.
Karla was furious.
“Are you sure you didn't forget and leave a message on her answering machine?” she said under her breath, her pasted-on smile still in place.
Grace answered in the same falsely cheerful voice. “Give me a little credit, would you? I'm not the complete idiot you think I am.”
Then who? Bill had promised he'd wait until Heather was out of intensive care before he called Anna. He understood why Karla had been concerned and wouldn't have changed his mind without talking to her first. “I'm going out there.”
“You know, Grandma has gotten along just fine for eighty-five years without you running her life for her. I think she's good for a couple more.”
“She's not supposed to get upset.”
“Says who?”
“Her doctor.”
“He told you that?”
“He didn't tell me, he told her.”
“Then don't you think she's the one who should decide what will upset her and what won't?” Anna Marie blinked her eyes open and looked at Grace. “Well, hi there, little one. Ready to wake up and check out your habitually arguing aunts?”
“Oh, that's a nice way to introduce us.” Karla leaned in close and smiled at her niece.
“She might as well know the truth. We don't want her getting the idea she has relatives who actually like each other.”
“I like you.”
Grace laughed. “Since when?”
The question offended Karla. “I've always liked you.”
“When I'm the sister you want me to be and pay my bills and don't call you for help. I haven't been that person for a long time.”
Karla shook her head and put up her hand. “We have got to find a way to stop sniping at each other. We can't go through life like this.”
“We canâbut I don't like the idea any more than you do.”
“Truce?”
“My goodness. How symbolic. A vow of truce with our brand-new niece as witness. Do you suppose it will last longer this way?”
Karla brushed a kiss on Anna Marie's forehead, and on impulse, one on Grace's, too. “I'm going to see Anna.”
“How long were you going to make me wait before you called?” Anna asked as Karla came through the door.
“Until Heather was out of intensive care,” Karla answered truthfully. “There was nothing you could do but sit around and worry, and it didn't make sense to put you through that when it wouldn't do any good for either one of you.”
“I'm not an invalid, Karla. At least not yet.” She took several rapid breaths that seemed to contradict the statement. “From now on I would appreciate it if you would refrain from treating me like one.”
“All right.” It was easier to agree than argue. “I'll keep my opinions to myself from now on.”