the bed, gathering her into his arms to hold her close and comfort her.
“It’s all right, darling,” he whispered. “It’s not your fault. It’s just something that happened. We knew it might happen. It was hard enough when you had Megan, and maybe we just shouldn’t have tried again. But it’s not your fault. Don’t ever think it’s your fault.”
Elizabeth barely heard the words. “The case,” she whispered. “I put the doll in the case, and it fell on her. My fault. My fault.”
“It was an accident,” Bill said. “It wasn’t anybody’s fault.”
But Elizabeth still heard nothing of her husband’s words. “I lifted it off her. I lifted it up so she could get out. And it killed our son. It killed our son.…” Her words dissolved into broken sobbing. For a long time Bill held her, stroking her hair, soothing and comforting her. Finally, after nearly half an hour, her sobbing began to ease, and the terrible convulsive shaking that had seized her slowly lost its grip. A little while later Bill heard her breathing drift into the long rhythmic pattern of sleep, and felt her body at last relax in his arms. Kissing her gently, he eased himself up from the bed, then tucked the sheet and blanket close around her. He kissed her once more, then quietly slipped out of the room.
The strange numbness had already begun to set in as he walked back down the corridor toward the waiting room.
His son—for indeed the baby had been a boy, just as he and Elizabeth had hoped—was dead.
Dead, without having ever taken a breath.
Should he ask to see the baby?
The thought alone made him wince, and instantly he knew he would not. Better to keep an image in his mind of what might have been: a happy, grinning, gurgling son for whom no dreams would be too great.
Better to cling to the memories of a future that might have been than to gaze directly at the tragedy that had just befallen him.
To see the child who might have been would bring far more pain than Bill McGuire could bear, and in the days to come Elizabeth—and Megan too—were going to need everything he had to give.
He pushed through the doors to the waiting room, and it seemed to him that neither Megan nor Mrs. Goodrich had moved at all. The old housekeeper still held his daughter close, and though Megan’s head rested against Mrs. Goodrich’s ample bosom, her eyes were open and watchful.
Cradled in her arms, she held the doll.
For an instant, and only an instant, Bill was tempted to snatch the doll from Megan’s arms, to tear it apart and hurl it out into the night, to destroy utterly the thing that had come into their house only this morning and already done such damage to their lives. But that thought, too, he discarded from his mind. The doll, after all, was not at fault, and Megan, at least, seemed to be taking a certain comfort from it.
Pulling a chair close to the sofa, he sat down and took his daughter’s hands.
“Is he here?” the little girl asked. “Has my brother been born?”
Bill felt a sob rise in his throat, but determinedly put it down. “He’s been born,” he said quietly. “But he had to go away.”
Megan seemed puzzled. “Go away?” she repeated. “Where?”
“To Heaven,” Bill said. A gasp of sorrow escaped from Mrs. Goodrich’s throat. Her arm tightened around Megan, but she said nothing. “You see, Megan,” Bill went on, “God loves little children very much, and sometimes He calls one of them to come and be with Him. Remember how He said, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me’? And that is where your brother’s gone. To be with God.”
“What about my Elizabeth?” Mrs. Goodrich whispered, her eyes wide with fear.
“She’s going to be all right,” Bill assured her. “She’s asleep right now, but she’s going to be just fine.” He stood up. “Why don’t I take you and Megan home?” he said. “Then I’ll come back and stay with Elizabeth.”
Mrs. Goodrich nodded and got stiffly to her feet. Her hand clutching Bill for support, she let him guide her out to the car. Megan followed behind them, the doll held tightly in her arms.
“It’s all right,” Megan whispered to the doll as they passed through the glass doors into the night. “You’re better than any brother could be.”
Chapter 7
Elizabeth McGuire stayed in the hospital for three days, and on the afternoon that Bill