“You and your son, Kenneth,” said Joanna.
There was almost nothing she could have said that would have made me want to move faster.
Chapter 29
I got back to the main house, but the doorbell rang before I’d had a chance to find Kenneth and talk about the best way to make an exit. I could hear the children in the basement roughhousing, but no adult appeared to answer the door. I was reminded briefly of the fact that it was Sarah who’d invited Kurt and me inside when we’d arrived on Monday, not Rebecca. Answering the door didn’t seem to be a top priority here. Then again, maybe it wasn’t a habit since few people would ever get as far as the door?
I opened it myself and to my surprise saw Dr. Benallie.
“Ah, you’re still here,” she said when she saw me.
Not for much longer, I hoped.
“Can I get someone for you? Rebecca, maybe?” I asked, though I wasn’t sure where Rebecca was.
“I’m here to check on Carolyn. Rebecca texted me that she’d given birth this morning with Naomi’s assistance. I thought she should have a follow-up with a real OB/GYN.”
I was a little suspicious of this since Naomi had been so certain that Dr. Benallie wouldn’t come to help. “I thought there was something wrong with your license,” I said mildly.
She drew herself up to her full height, which was a couple inches taller than me. “I’m a skilled doctor. Do you want Carolyn to have a follow-up or not?”
I considered for a moment the likelihood that Carolyn would go to anyone else, and then sighed. Not that I really had any right to stop Dr. Benallie from going to see her in the first place, but I felt protective of her. I knew what she was going through right now.
“Oh, good, Linda let you in,” said Rebecca, as she came in from the backyard. She looked sweaty and there were leaves in her hair and dirt under her fingernails. I guessed she’d been working in the vegetable garden, and when I turned, I saw she was carrying a cloth sack on her back that bulged with tomatoes. “Do you mind waiting here while I get a drink?” she asked us both.
“Of course not,” said Dr. Benallie.
We waited uncomfortably for Rebecca to go into the kitchen and get her drink, then clean her hands. I tried to think of something polite and innocuous to say to Dr. Benallie, but failed.
Finally, Rebecca came back out. “Thank you so much for waiting,” she said, though her hair was still filled with leaves. Her face, at least, was not as red or sweaty. She must have rinsed it with her hands and dried it off. “If you two will follow me. I’m sure Carolyn will appreciate your support, too, Linda.”
Which made it impossible for me to explain that I was ready to leave. How long would this take?
Rebecca led us back into the yard where the heat was rising. It was going to be the kind of hot day where they tell the elderly to stay indoors for their own safety.
“How are things at the office?” Rebecca asked.
“Fine. We’re figuring out how to shuffle patients around to new doctors now that Stephen is gone,” Dr. Benallie said bluntly.
Rebecca took in a sharp breath and marched ahead, not looking back.
When we were about halfway there, Dr. Benallie reached for my arm and pulled me to the side by a tree. “I have to tell you something,” she said.
“What is it?” I said, curious. I thought Rebecca would notice we weren’t following her, but she didn’t. She went straight into Carolyn’s house while I was watching.
“I know you’re helping Rebecca tie things up here. So there’s something you should know.” The grip on my arm tightened and Dr. Benallie had an expression on her face like a child keeping a secret. She said, “I’ve been looking through Stephen’s birth records for the last couple of years, the ones that are still in his office. Cleaning up.”
“And?” I asked, a little breathless. I’d known I had to be missing something. Ready to leave or not, I had to find out about this.
Dr. Benallie glanced at Carolyn’s house, but Rebecca still hadn’t come out. “About two years ago, one of his patients had a baby with Trisomy 18, a nearly inevitably fatal condition.” She spoke coldly, clinically. “There were several ultrasounds before the birth which all clearly indicated it.”
“That’s tragic,” I murmured, feeling sick at the thought of what it would be like as a mother to know that the child you were carrying would not live past birth. How to measure the grief of mothers, I did not know. Was my grief at Georgia’s unexpected death worse than this mother’s? Or Carolyn’s, whose son’s death had been prophesied?
“But the baby was born and survived. She is miraculously still alive, in fact.” Dr. Benallie made a dramatic sweep of her arms and looked up at heaven, but only for a moment. Then she pinned me with her eyes. “A two-year-old with blonde hair and blue eyes. There’s a recent photo of her in the file.”