“You don't need any of that. It'll be all over in a few minutes.” How few? How long would it take? What were they going to do to her baby?

She lay flat on the table, and the nurse forced her feet into the stirrups, they were wider than usual, and the nurse secured them with straps so that Hilary couldn't move, and she felt a sudden wave of panic.

“Why are you doing that?”

“So you don't hurt yourself.” She was about to tie down Hilary's hands too but she begged her not to.

“I promise I won't touch anything … I swear … please …” It was like some medieval torture, and the nurse turned to the doctor and he nodded as he put on a fresh mask.

“Just relax. It won't take long, and then you'll be rid of this.” … rid of this … she tried to be comforted by the words, but she wasn't. She told herself she was doing the right thing, but everything inside her shrieked that she was killing a baby. They had only taken Megan and Axie away, no one had killed them. It was wrong, it was a sin, it was terrible … she wanted … she felt the local anesthetic jab into her sharply, and she wanted to cry and wanted to ask the nurse to hold her hand, but the nurse looked uninterested as she assisted the doctor. And suddenly Hilary heard a terrible machine, it sounded like it was going to eat the walls. It was the vacuum.

“What's that?” She leapt to half-sitting position, unable to move her legs, and she still felt a sharp pain where they had put the needle in her cervix.

“Just what it sounds like. It's a vacuum. Now lie back. We'll be ready in a minute. Count to ten.” She felt an incredible pain as something sharp and metallic shoved its way inside her. No torture ever concocted by Maida and Georgine had equaled this … not even the boys with their hard bodies pressed into hers … this was awful, it was beyond bearing, it was … she let out a scream, and the metal piece inside her felt as though it was tearing her apart. It was forcing her uterus to open, dilating it so that they could take out the baby. “You're further along than we thought, Miss Walker. We're going to have to open a little wider.” The local seemed to have done nothing for her and the pain was excruciating as her legs trembled violently and the doctor gave a grunt of satisfaction. “That's it.” He said something to the nurse as Hilary threw up all over herself, but the nurse was too busy assisting the doctor to notice or help her. And then suddenly Hilary knew this was the wrong thing … she couldn't do it … she had to keep the baby, and she raised her head again, trying not to vomit so she could tell him.

“No, please … don't … please … Stop!” But he only spoke soothingly to her. It was much too late to stop now. They had to finish what they had started.

“It's almost over, Hilary. Just a little bit longer.”

“No … please I can't stand it … I don't want to … the baby …” She was feeling faint again, and her whole body was wracked by convulsive shaking.

“There will be lots of babies in your life … you're a young girl, and one day it'll be the right one.” He gave another ominous grunt, which she knew now meant he was going to inflict more pain on her, and suddenly he inserted the vacuum. She felt as though every ounce of her body was being sucked out by that machine and she threw up again as it went on endlessly, and then finally there was silence.

“Now just a little scraping,” he explained, and she saw the room reel as she felt him scrape what was left out of her, but the baby was long gone … she had lost the others, and now she had killed this one. It was all she could think of as she lay there, wanting to die like her baby. She was a murderer now, just like her father. Her father had killed his wife, and now she had killed her own baby.

“That's all now.” She heard the voice she had come to hate, and they took out all their tools, and left her lying there, still trembling and strapped to the table. She could feel something wet and warm pouring out of her, and she knew she was bleeding profusely, but she didn't care anymore what they did to her. She didn't care if she died. In fact, she hoped so. “Just rest for a little while, Hilary.” He stared into her face, patted her shoulder, and left the room with a resounding bang, as she lay strapped to the table and sobbed in a pool of her own vomit.

They came back for her in an hour, handed her a damp cloth and a sheet of instructions. She was to call them if the bleeding seemed too heavy, and otherwise she was to stay in bed for twenty-four hours and she'd be fine. That was it. It was all over. She staggered outside once she was dressed, still trembling violently, and hailed a cab, and gave him her address. And she was shocked to realize it was six o'clock. She had been in the doctor's office for almost six hours.

“What'sa matta, lady, you sick?” She looked terrible, even to him, even in the darkness. Her eyes were suddenly dark-ringed, her face was green, and she was shaking so hard she could hardly talk. And she only nodded in answer.

“Yeah … I got … the flu …” Her teeth were chattering and he nodded.

“Everybody's got it.” He grinned at her then, she was probably a pretty girl when she wasn't sick. “Just don't kiss me.” She tried to smile at him, but she couldn't. She felt as though she would never smile again, at anyone. How could she? How could she ever look herself in the eye again? She had killed a baby.

She crawled into her bed when she got home, without even getting undressed, and she slept until four o'clock on Saturday morning. The cramps she felt woke her up, but when she checked, nothing seemed to be out of order. She had survived it. She had done it. And she knew she would never forget it.

On Monday, she went to work looking pale and wan, but she went, and she did her work, and she went home again, with a stack of papers. She was going to bury herself in her work, she was going to do anything to numb herself, and she did. She worked like a machine for the next six months and for another year after that. She became the wunderkind of CBA Network. She became the kind of woman people admired and everyone feared, the kind of person no one wanted to be like.

“Terrifying, isn't she?” one of the new secretaries said the day Hilary turned thirty. “She lives and breathes nothing but this network, and God help you if you cross her. At least that's what people say. Personally, she scares me.” The other girl agreed and they went to the powder room to discuss the two new men in the newsroom. But Hilary was immune there too. She seemed to have no interest in anyone, except her work, her career, and the network.

When she was thirty-two years old, she became a vice-president, and two years after that, she got another promotion. At thirty-six, she was the most senior woman in management, and at thirty-nine she was the number three person at the network, and there was no doubt in anyone's mind that one day she would run it. And probably sooner rather than later. The New York Times ran a big piece about her shortly afterward discussing her policies and her plans, and The Wall Street Journal did another piece on her shortly afterward. Hilary Walker had made it.





Chapter 13




The air on Park Avenue seemed to crush him as he left his doctor's office two hours later. He wasn't surprised. He had expected it, and yet … Arthur Patterson had secretly hoped for something different. But the pain had been so great. The pills had barely helped him for the last month, and yet he had tried to tell himself it was something else. He stopped to catch his breath as he reached the corner. It was four-thirty, and he was totally exhausted as the pain ripped through his chest again, and he coughed pathetically. A passerby stopped to look, wondering if he should help, but Arthur caught his breath and got back into the car, barely speaking to the driver.

He was still thinking of his doctor's words and dire prediction. He had no right to ask for more, reasonably. He was almost seventy-two years old, and he had led a full life … more or less … he had been married once … Marjorie had died three years before, and he'd gone to her funeral, surprised to discover that she had remarried only a few years before, a retired congressman. He had wondered as he stood there, in the dim light of St. James's, if she had been satisfied with her life … if she had ever been truly happy.

And now he was going to die too. It was odd that it didn't frighten him more. He was only sorry. He had so little to leave the world, a law practice that had slowed down years before, although he still went to the office every day, or whenever he was well enough. He wondered if his partners would miss him when he was gone. There was certainly no one else who would notice his absence, except possibly his secretary, who would just be reassigned to one of the other lawyers.

The doorman gave him a hand as he got out of the cab, and he took the elevator upstairs, making idle conversation, as he always did, with the elevator man on duty. They discussed the early heat, and the baseball scores, and he let himself into his apartment with a sigh of exhaustion. It was so odd to think about it now. Soon it would all be gone … and then as he walked into the living room, he began to cry. For no reason he could think of, Solange had come to mind … Solange with her fiery red hair and her emerald eyes … he had loved her so much so long ago. He wondered if he would see her now, when he died, if there was an afterlife … a heaven and a hell, as he'd been taught as a boy. … He closed his eyes as he sank heavily into a chair … Solange … he spoke her name in a whisper as the tears rolled down his cheeks, and as he opened his eyes again, he had a sudden feeling of desperation. He had let her down so desperately, and Sam … the daughters they had loved so much had been cast to the winds and totally disappeared. He had let them disappear. It had all been his fault. He could have taken them in, if only he'd had the courage. But it was too late now. Much too late. Solange had died more than thirty years before … and Sam … and yet, he knew without a doubt, what he had to do now. He had to do one last thing. He had to find them.