“Oh, no. I don’t think so.” Though I already felt pity for the poor child, I wasn’t ready to hold her. I wasn’t ready to watch her grow up, either, even though I was trying my best to be happy for them all. “What’s her name?”
“Seraphina,” Jack said, heading for the nursery. “Rachel didn’t have any girl names picked out, and her mother suggested it. It was Rachel’s great-grandmother’s name. I’ll bring her to the window.”
She was precious, tightly swaddled in a pale pink flannel blanket with her very tiny, very red little face peeking out. Her eyelids twitched against the bright lights of the room and she began to work her rough, pink lips as though wanting food or succor. I’ve never understood why newborns are supposed to be able to sleep in rooms lit like operating theaters. Her coloring was newborn, and her lush hair was jet black. Her features were perfectly formed, almost like an adult’s. She was a miniature of Rachel, but I saw nothing of Jack in her at all.
Forcing myself to smile and blow the baby a little kiss, I stepped back from the window while Jack put Seraphina back in her bassinet. Several of the other babies, disturbed by his presence, set up a righteous howl, and Jack left the nursery with the nurse on duty shaking her head behind him.
I met him in the hallway. “She’s lovely, Jack.”
“Seraphina? Yes, she is. She’s quiet. Not like those other loudmouth babies.”
I looked closely at him to see if he was joking, calling the other babies “loudmouth.” But his face held only irritation.
Holly Webb, Rachel’s mother, looked up from the piece of fabric in her lap. Both she and Rachel were quite good at smocking—the artful embroidery that makes fabric stretch prettily. Rachel had done it in quiet times in our dorm room, surprising me with her skill. Her mother had decorated a large wicker fishing creel for her supplies, which Rachel still used.
“Don’t make fun of me,” she’d said. “It’s the only thing I know how to do.”
That wasn’t true, of course. But it was the closest thing she did to any kind of art. Rachel, herself, preferred to be the decoration.
“Dear Charlotte,” Holly whispered. She held her hand out to me.
I motioned for her not to rise, as her lap was covered with a pink swath of cloth that she’d obviously been working on for days. Rachel hadn’t been joking when she’d said her mother had decided the baby would be a girl.
“You’re so kind to come. She just went back to sleep. She’s exhausted, poor thing.”
“How long was her labor?” I kept my voice low to match Holly’s, and sat down in the chair on the other side of Rachel’s bed in the sparse, blank room. She’d managed to get a private one, which didn’t surprise me, given Jack’s association with the hospital.
“Nearly six hours. But as soon as she woke up the first time, she said she wanted to go home. And that was even before she’d seen the baby!”
I wondered if Holly knew how strange that sounded. From the smile on her face, I didn’t think so.
“Isn’t she adorable? Absolutely the perfect baby. I think she even looks a little like my own baby pictures. That will make Rachel’s grandmother so happy.”
Nodding, I looked at Rachel. Beneath the blankets her stomach was still distended, and her face was strained in sleep, her brow furrowed. I suspected they had given her morphine, although she didn’t look as though it was giving her any peace. I didn’t know when she would wake up again. I was happy that I’d seen the baby; but, sitting with Holly, I didn’t have much to say. She was watching me watch Rachel. Of course, she had to be thinking about Eva. She’d been terribly fond of her, sending her sweets and buying her small presents whenever she and her husband traveled.
How much did she know? Had Rachel told her I’d been drinking that afternoon? She’d been at the funeral, of course, and had seen my hysterics. Everyone had seen.
“It was so lovely of Press to come by first thing, though I thought for sure he would’ve just come with you. He’s so good to Rachel and Jack. Just like a brother.”
Trying not to act surprised—but was I so surprised?—I said that he probably had business in Charlottesville and decided to drop by.
“Oh, do you think so?” She sounded as though she might disagree. If women were said to come to resemble their mothers as they aged, Rachel would continue to be stunning until the day she died. If anything, Holly Webb, with her striking brown eyes, full, well-shaped brows, and neat figure, was even more beautiful than her daughter. She arranged a demure blue cashmere cardigan over her thin shoulders.