"Well, baby and mother are doing fine. I'll be back in a few days to check on you both." he said, this time looking at me.
I closed my eyes. I was expecting Mommy to put baby Linden beside me, but she left the room with him in her arms.
"We'll have to keep the bassinet in my room." she said. "Just in case. You never know. Someone could go walking by and look in our windows."
"But he'll keep you awake," I said. I wanted my baby beside me. I had an overwhelming need to have him there, to hold him.
"Grace, don't argue about the details. We're pulling this off. I've saved your reputation." she told me. "Be grateful, and don't cause any difficulties."
She had to bring the baby back to me for feeding, but she had already planned on this as well and had bought a padded bra so her own breasts would look swollen with milk. Later I discovered her lying in her bed with Linden beside her naked breast, his lips around her nipple like a baby with a pacifier in his mouth,
"He must be hungry," was all I could say.
She opened her eyes and looked at me as if I were absolutely crazy.
"Go back to bed, Grace. I know when he's really hungry and when he's not." she said, and brought the blanket up so it covered him and her as well.
A few weeks later. after I had fed him, she came to fetch him. and I refused to give him up.
"No, Mother." I said firmly. "Just leave him be."
She looked at me, her eyes blinking quickly. "What? Why?"
"He's my baby," I said sharply,
"You can't do that. Grace. You can't say that."
"I can to you. We know the truth, don't we?"
"But if someone sees you with him..."
"So what if they do? I can be seen holding him. He's my half-brother, isn't he? As far as anyone else knows, that is. Besides. I'm keeping my shades down all the time. Mommy. No one can see in here."
"It's still too dangerous," she insisted, "Give him to me. I'll put him back where he belongs so he can sleep."
"No," I said.
"Grace. I have no patience for this. Look at what I've gone through to give birth instead of you! You think I want to risk ruining all we have done?"
"All we have done? All you have to do now is go on a diet. Mommy, and you'll be fine."
"Go on a diet?" She threw her head back and laughed. "That's all? What about my reputation? My life? What about the aftereffects socially? I have borne the burden of it all and will forever." she said. "You can go off to college or something and find a handsome new beau and have a wonderful life. Now give me the child," she demanded, and reached for him.
I had no doubt in my mind she would tug off an arm or a leg if I held him back. so I relinquished him, and she left me sobbing in my pillow.
As the months went by and Linden grew nothing really changed. She would be the one who primarily fed him when he was off breast-feeding. She dressed him every morning, bathed him, and went shopping for his clothes. She even took him to Dr. Cook's office for a checkup. All the while I was left at home, left in the wings of her new stage show, watching like some bystander. I couldn't remember a time I felt more alone, more lost. I really did feel like some stranger, some surrogate mother who had been paid to house the fetus and had nothing more to do with him. Mommy didn't seem to notice. She was doting too much on Linden now and becoming more and more annoyed by anything I asked or did.
Meanwhile the new family in the main house, almost like a relay racer taking a baton in handoff, had continued the elaborate parties Mommy and Kirby had staged. We were always invited. but Mommy was hesitant about attending them, ashamed of where we were living and what had happened to us. The music, the laughter, even the wonderful aromas of the variety of foods reached us no matter how we closed and battened down our apartment.
"I feel like I attend anyway," Mommy muttered, and eventually got up the courage to wander over occasionally.
The Eatons had two children, a girl named Whitney and a boy named Thatcher. The little boy was handsome, adorable, but his sister was tall for her age and always looked sad and upset whenever I saw her. They rarely if ever came near the beach house. Mommy said they were probably told we were like the untouchables in India or something.
I had become so accustomed to staying at home and so afraid of wandering too far off that I didn't meet or converse with anyone besides one of the servants for the main house. They all lived behind and above us in the beach house. I supposed I was something of a curiosity to them and especially to the Eaton children. It didn't bother me. Nothing seemed to bother me. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. I ate. I slept. I took care of Linden when Mommy would allow or be doing something, going somewhere. That was the whole of my life.
I truly felt as if the world had closed in on me, that there were no boundaries, and that even on the brightest days the rim of darkness was always there, a circle drawn around me and out of which I should never wander. Linden was walking now, and Mommy would permit me to take him on the beach and let him play in the sand.
"I'm really your mommy," I would tell him when she was out of earshot. "You're my baby."