What? She’s leaving! I stand unsteadily. ‘Victoria?’
She turns around and directs a withering look at me.
‘He is just a baby,’ I say, and the tears start flowing. ‘Please, Victoria. I will go away. I’ll walk away and stay away this time. I’ll do anything you want.’
‘What would be the point of that?’ she sneers. ‘You have already proven yourself to be a brilliant liar. You simply cannot be trusted. As soon as you have that brat back in your hands you will break all your pathetic little promises. So no, don’t bother.’ She turns back to the door to wait for the nurse with her back to me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I sob. ‘I know I didn’t keep my word, but I was… I was blinded by my love for Blake.’
It is the wrong thing to say. Her passive aggressive façade smashes to dust, and her head jerks around like a striking cobra. ‘And what about my love for Blake?’ she demands furiously. ‘That counted for nothing, did it?’
‘You said it was an arrangement.’
She turns around fully and faces me, eyes glittering with hatred. ‘It was not an arrangement. And you knew that,’ she spits venomously.
I stare at her, standing still, but vibrating with rage and hate. It is obviously pointless to try to reason with her. And yet, I can’t stop. Not now. Not after I’ve come this far. ‘You told Blake you understood. That he should cleanse me out of his system.’
‘You’re a pathetic hypocrite. Trying to justify stealing another woman’s man. What he sees in you is beyond me.’
My spine straightens. ‘I didn’t steal him. He was not yours. He never loved you. I saved you from a loveless marriage.’
She laughs. A horrible sound: a vulture’s cry as its talons grip into dead meat. ‘Are you suggesting I thank you?’
‘Of course not.’
She wants to claw my eyes out. I see it in her clenched fists, her scorching eyes, her heaving chest, but she controls herself with a Herculean effort, and grimaces. ‘If I were you, I’d stop talking. You’re not in any way helping your son’s cause.’
A cold hand inside my chest. I shouldn’t have come. I’ve made it worse. Blake was right. ‘I’m sorry. I’m really sorry for what I did. I’m begging you, Victoria. Please, give me back my son.’
‘Look at you whining and crying because someone took your toy away from you.’ Her voice is brutally contemptuous.
‘He’s my son.’
‘Whatever.’
She turns away from me.
‘Please give me back my son.’
She does not turn back. Simply ignores my pleas until the nurse comes to take her away. The nurse’s eyes flick over my tear-stained face curiously, as she holds the door open for me. I go out with them and watch the nurse walk up the corridor together with Victoria and go through a locked door. Victoria never turns to look at me.
Filled with a sense of disbelief at how spectacularly wrong it has all gone, I turn around and walk out of the hospital. I use the back of my hand to wipe away the tears from my cheeks.
I should have practiced what I was going to say. I said all the wrong things. Why did I ever think there was even the slightest chance that I could appeal to her sense of pity? I stand at the top of the stone stairs and I see Brian standing next to the car staring at me. For a moment my head swims and my knees buckle. I look around for the railing to steady myself against, but it seems very far away so I sink down on the steps. Just in time. My head is feather-light. Brian comes running up to me.
‘Are you all right?’
‘This can’t be real,’ I whisper.
I see a flash of pity in his eyes. If only hers had flashed so. I watch him struggle to find the right words to say.
‘Let me help you to the car, Mrs. Barrington?’
I shake my head. ‘Can you get my husband on the phone for me?’
He takes his mobile out of his pocket and dials Blake. ‘Your wife wants a word,’ he says quietly and passes it to me.
‘Blake,’ I say and then all the words I wanted to say are suddenly ash in my mouth and I begin to weep uncontrollably. Gently, Brian pries the phone from my hand and speaks into it.
‘She’s just…upset.’
Even though I am sobbing loudly, some part of me understands that Blake must have asked where we were because Brian says, ‘Outside the hospital. She met Victoria and returned her money.’ He pauses to listen then he says, ‘Of course, I’ll take her home right now.’
He helps me to the car. On the way we pass Kensington, and that church where I went and sensed my mother’s presence. And again at an odd hour its door is open. It is almost like it is open for me.
‘Stop the car,’ I cry urgently.
Brian looks me, but he doesn’t immediately stop the car.
‘I need to go to that church,’ I explain desperately.
‘OK,’ he agrees, and turns the car around at the next opportunity. He stops the car, and as I go to get out, he says, ‘I’m coming in with you.’
We go into the church together and he loiters by the inside of the entrance.
There is a woman, dressed all in black. She is deep in prayer and does not look up at the sound of my entrance. I walk to the front and sit on a pew. Bowing my head I get on my knees and I pray. He must hear my prayer.
‘Oh Lord,’ I whisper fervently. ‘Help me, please. Help me. Bring my baby back to me. We made a deal. You were supposed to take care of him and I was supposed to do everything I could to help the children of the world. I have kept my word and already started my charity.’ But a small voice inside my head says, Yeah, you made little baby steps, but you haven’t really poured yourself into it, have you?
Brian comes to me. ‘We must go.’
I stand and follow him. And then an odd thing happens. The sun must have burst through a cloud outside, for sunlight suddenly pours through the stained window and throws colored light on the floor in front of us. It is in the image of the Madonna and child. I stop and look at the beautiful image.
I look up at Brian, my face awed, as if I have just witnessed a miracle. Indeed it seems that way to me. ‘Do you think it means something?’
Brian is careful. ‘Maybe.’
‘It’s the image of the Madonna and child.’
He nods. ‘Yeah, maybe.’
Eighteen
Blake Law Barrington
Twenty minutes after Brian lets me know that he has dropped Lana off at the house I walk through our door. I feel like I am a stringed instrument that has been tuned too tight. Any moment something could snap my control of the situation. I stand at the entrance to the living room and look at her. She is hunched and staring at a spot on the floor. She seems so small and defeated. My heart bleeds to see her so. As if sensing my presence she looks up suddenly. Her eyes are cloudy and wet. I stride across the room and envelop her in a tight hug.