Chương 9
“Unless you go.”
Edmund looked toward the cradle. The sheer canopy moved faintly in the warm air rising from the fire.
“I cannot sleep in London,” he said.
Clara waited.
“The last time I stayed there, Eleanor was alive in the morning and delirious by night. Every siren outside the hotel became an ambulance. Every telephone became the hospital. I returned here after the funeral and have not spent a night away.”
“You could travel with Oliver and return the same day.”
“And the next feeding?”
“You stay.”
His face tightened.
“Yes,” Clara said. “That is the part you dislike.”
“I dislike being told that geography will correct grief.”
“It will not.”
“Then why insist?”
“Because your son should not pay for where you are afraid to sleep.”
Edmund stood and walked to the window. His reflection lay pale against the dark glass, the black suit merging with the night outside.
“I signed the papers because Dr. Mercer said the clinic had resources we do not.”
“He said admission might be necessary if Oliver continued losing weight.”
“He had lost weight.”
“He is gaining now.”
“For a week.”
“That matters.”
“So does the possibility that you leave tomorrow and he stops eating again.”
Clara looked at him. “Is that why you wish me to go?”
“It is one reason.”
“And the other?”
He rested one hand against the window frame. “When you are in this room, I can enter it.”
The sentence settled quietly.
Clara felt no triumph. Only sadness, and a wariness she had learned too late in other houses.
“That is not a reason to send me with Oliver,” she said.
“No.”
“It is not a reason to keep me.”
“No.”
“You must be able to enter when I am gone.”
Edmund turned from the glass. “You make departure sound like a duty.”
“For people in service, it eventually is.”
Oliver released the nipple. Clara set the bottle aside and held him upright.
Edmund watched the baby’s head rest beneath her cheek.
“Teach me,” he said.
Clara did not answer immediately.
“I do not mean tonight,” he continued. “I do not mean some theatrical gesture before the car comes. Tell me what to do, and I will do it.”
“You will be frightened.”
“I am frightened now.”
“He may cry.”
“I know.”
“You may think he dislikes you.”
“I already do.”
“You may fail several times.”
Edmund’s gaze held hers. “Then you will have the pleasure of being right.”
“This is not about being right.”
“I know.”
Clara studied his face. Grief had not made him noble. It had made him absent, defensive, and sometimes cruel. But he had come into the room. He had asked without commanding. That was not redemption. It was work offered.
She shifted Oliver carefully. “Wash your hands.”
Edmund looked startled.
“You said teach you.”
He crossed to the washstand.
Clara showed him how to sit in the pale-blue chair, how to support the baby’s head in the crook of his left arm, how to keep Oliver’s body aligned rather than twisted toward the bottle. Edmund removed his suit jacket but kept the black waistcoat buttoned. His movements were slow and too deliberate.
When Clara placed Oliver in his arms, the baby woke.
Edmund stopped breathing.
“Breathe,” Clara said.
“I am.”
“You are not.”
He exhaled.
Oliver’s face tightened.
“Do not change your grip.”
“He is uncomfortable.”
“He is surprised.”
“There is no difference to him.”
“There will be if you panic.”
Edmund looked at her sharply.
“Look at Oliver,” she said.
He did.
The baby began to cry.
Edmund’s forearm stiffened.
“Support him. Do not squeeze.”
“I am not squeezing.”
“You are becoming furniture.”
“That was once your diagnosis.”
“It was yours.”
Oliver cried louder. Edmund’s face drained of color.
Clara warmed the bottle in her hands and placed it in his right hand. “Rest the cloth against your palm. Keep the angle low until he opens.”
“He is not going to open.”
“He may not.”
“Then what?”
“We wait.”
The cry rose.
Edmund looked toward the door.
Clara moved between him and it.
His eyes flashed. “Do not trap me.”
“I am not. The door is open.”
“Move.”
She stepped aside at once.
Edmund remained seated.
Oliver’s cry broke into gasps. Edmund’s hand shook hard enough to disturb the milk.
“Give him to me,” Clara said.
Relief crossed Edmund’s face before shame replaced it.
She took the baby, settled him against her shoulder, and walked slowly toward the window.
Edmund placed the bottle on the side table. “I failed.”
“Yes.”
He stared at her.
Clara patted Oliver’s back. “You wanted honesty.”
“You might allow a man five minutes before delivering it.”
“You held him for three.”
“That is worse.”
“It is also more than yesterday.”
Edmund leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “He was terrified.”
“He was angry.”
“He sounded terrified.”
“He sounds the same when his sleeve catches under him.”
Edmund looked at Oliver, who was already calming.
“I cannot tell the difference,” he said.
“You will.”
“How?”
“By staying long enough to be wrong repeatedly.”
He covered his face with both hands.
Clara almost offered comfort. Instead, she waited.
After a while he lowered his hands. “Again.”
“Not tonight.”
“The car comes at nine.”
“Then we begin before breakfast.”
“You said this should not be theatrical.”
“It should also not exhaust him.”
Edmund rose. His jacket remained folded over the chair. He picked it up, then noticed the milk bottle on the table.
“I thought he would take it,” he said.
“You hoped he would.”
“What is the difference?”
“One survives disappointment better.”
He put on the jacket.
At the doorway, he looked back at Oliver. “Six?”
“Six.”
He came at twenty minutes before six.
Clara found him sitting outside the nursery on a narrow corridor bench, his tie loosened, a cup of coffee cooling beside him. Snow pressed a blue light through the tall windows at the far end of the passage.
May you like
“You are early,” she said.
“I did not sleep.”
