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No more than a minute later, Laurel grunted and started panting again. Suddenly, the infant slipped free. He seemed to glide directly into Alix’s hands. With him came a gush of water and blood.
Tears filled Alix’s eyes. “It’s a boy,” she told Laurel. He didn’t cry right away and Alix’s heart leapt in panic. Acting on instinct, she placed her finger inside his mouth, swabbing it clean. Then she turned him over on his belly and patted his back. Instantly he let out a fierce, belligerent cry. Joy surged through Alix and she stared up at her friend. “He’s beautiful,” she said, awed by the wonder of this moment. A new life had just entered the world.
Laurel refused to look at him and turned her face away. “Cut the cord,” she instructed without emotion.
“I … I don’t think I should …”
“Do it,” Laurel demanded. “Or I’ll do it myself.”
“All right, all right.” Alix found a knife in the kitchen and, afraid she might infect either her friend or the baby, put it in a pan full of water, which she set on the stove to boil. She dashed back into the living room just in time to deliver the afterbirth.
As soon as she’d cut the cord, Alix took the baby into the bathroom and cleaned him off. Then she wrapped him in the blanket she’d knit in class. Certain Laurel would have a change of heart now that the birth was over, Alix carried the newborn into the living room, hoping to coax her roommate into at least glancing at her son.
“Just look at him once,” Alix pleaded. “He’s perfect, Laurel.”
Laurel refused again with a shake of her head. “Get rid of it.”
Alix couldn’t believe anyone could be so coldhearted. “I can’t do that.”
“Then give it to me and I will.”
“Will … what will you do?” Alix protectively cradled the infant.
“I’ll take it to some Dumpster and leave it there.”
Laurel didn’t even seem to consider this infant a child. She referred to him as “it.”
“You really mean that, don’t you?” she said in a horrified voice. “You don’t want this baby.”
“How many times do I have to say it?” Laurel shouted. “Get rid of that thing.”
With one arm around the newborn, Alix controlled her racing thoughts. If Laurel didn’t want this baby, she knew someone who did. “Sign something.”
“What?” Laurel stared up at her blankly.
“I need a statement from you that says you’re giving up this baby of your own free will.”
Laurel frowned. “Who am I giving this baby to?”
“To a couple for adoption.” Alix took a deep breath. “I know someone who desperately wants and needs a child. I want her and her husband to raise this baby boy. You might not love him, but I know Carol will. I brought him into this world. I feel personally responsible for him now. Like you said, you want me to get rid of him.”
“Do whatever you want. I don’t care.”
“You aren’t going to change your mind?”
“No.” Then as if to prove her point, she grabbed the knife and raised her arm as if she meant to kill the infant on the spot. “I want it dead or out of my life, understand? What more do I have to say to prove it? Just get rid of it! I don’t care what you do as long as you get it out of here.”
As she held the screaming infant in her arms, Alix grabbed a sheet of paper and a pen, then handed them to her friend. “Write it down.”
Sitting up, Laurel quickly scribbled a few lines and signed her name. Alix read them over, then returned to the bedroom. She set the baby on her bed and jerked on clothes as fast as her shaking hands would allow. The infant gazed up at her and Alix bent down and kissed his forehead.
“I wish you’d had a warmer welcome to the world, little boy,” she whispered. “But I know someone who’ll love you.”
Without another word to Laurel, Alix threw her purse over her shoulder and walked out of the apartment. It was early Friday morning and the streets were dark and eerie. Moving as fast as she could with the baby held against her chest, Alix stepped into the foyer of Annie’s Café where there was a pay phone. She searched for fifty cents and then pulled out the piece of paper Jordan had given her with his phone number.
She inserted the coins and pressed the receiver to her ear as she punched in the numbers. “Oh please, be there,” she whispered. “Please.”
Jordan didn’t answer until the fifth ring, just when Alix was about to hang up in frustration and despair.
“This better be good,” he muttered into the phone.
“Jordan, it’s me.” She was so glad to hear his voice she nearly wept for joy. “Remember you said I could phone if I ever needed you?”
“Are you in trouble?”
She wasn’t sure how to answer him. “I’m at Annie’s Café…. Can you come and get me?”
“Now?”
“Yes, and please hurry.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.” He didn’t hesitate, didn’t so much as pause. If ever Alix had doubted her feelings for him, she didn’t anymore. She knew with certainty that there was one person in her life she could turn to anytime, night or day, and that was Jordan.
Alix bounced the baby gently in her arms. She cooed and comforted him as she waited inside the lighted foyer of Annie’s Café for Jordan’s car. When she saw him turn the corner, she pushed through the glass door and walked to the curb.
Jordan eased to a stop and leaned over to throw open the passenger door.
He stared at her. “Is that … a baby?” His voice was hoarse with sleep and shock.
“It’s Laurel’s and that creep John’s…. I just delivered him.”
“So that’s …” He broke off for a moment. “She talked to me not long ago, said she was in some kind of trouble, but wouldn’t tell me what.”
Alix nodded. She understood it all now.
“Do you need me to take the baby to the hospital?” he asked.
“No.” Because her heart was full and because she knew what had to be done, she bent to kiss him.
“Alix … you can’t keep this baby.”
“I delivered him. I’ll be the one to find him a home.”
Jordan’s eyes widened. “What are you thinking?”
“I know someone who needs this baby.”
“Who?”
“It doesn’t matter who. Now, either you drive or I’ll catch a cab.”
“But it isn’t legal—”
“I have a signed statement from Laurel. She doesn’t want the baby and there’s no damn way I’m turning him over to the state. Is that clear?”
His eyebrows shot up, and a slow grin followed. “Remind me never to cross you.”
“Don’t worry. I have a feeling you’re going to get plenty of reminders over the years.”
“Years?”
“We’ll discuss that later.”
“Does your friend know you’re coming?”
“Not yet.”
“What about Laurel?”
“I’ll need you to go back and take her to the hospital.” That would mean involving the authorities, but she’d let Carol and her husband deal with it. “Take her to Swedish, okay?”
“I’m at your command, Lady Alix, dragon slayer and deliverer of baby boys.”
That had a nice sound to it, Alix decided.
47
CHAPTER
CAROL GIRARD
The piercing ring of the phone woke Carol out of a deep sleep. Doug rolled over and glanced at the clock, and Carol saw that it was barely past four. She didn’t know anyone who’d be calling this early unless it was an emergency. Her mind went numb with the possibilities.
On the third ring, her husband reached for the receiver. “Hello,” he said groggily.
Carol could hear only one end of the conversation and at first she assumed it was a wrong number. To her surprise, Doug said, “Yes, she’s here. Who did you say this is?”
A moment later he placed his hand over the mouthpiece. “Do you know a girl by the name of Alix Townsend?”
Carol nodded. “Did she say what she wants?”
“No. Only that she has to see you right away.”
Carol hesitated.
“Should I buzz her up?” Doug asked.
If Alix had come to her in the middle of the night, there had to be a good reason. “Yes,” she told her husband. “Let her come up.”
“You’re sure?”
“She probably wants to talk,” Carol said.
“At this time of the morning?”
Carol kissed his temple. “Yes, darling.”
Throwing aside the blankets, Carol reached for her robe at the foot of the bed. “You don’t need to get up.” She supposed that Alix had come to her as one friend to another, presumably to ask for advice about some urgent crisis in her life. In her current frame of mind, Carol wasn’t convinced she’d be much help. Then again, maybe she would….
As she walked out of the bedroom, Carol passed the nursery across the hallway. Bon-Macy’s was coming that very morning to pick up the furniture. With the crib, changer and chest of drawers would go her dreams of a family. After everything she’d endured, after the frustration and disappointment and heartache, Carol thought it should’ve been easier to let go. This futile quest for a child was killing their marriage, and Doug was right—this had to end. Still it hurt and the pain would linger.
There was a knock at the door. Barefoot, Carol crossed the tiled entry to unfasten the security lock. She opened the door and gasped when she saw Alix standing there, cradling a baby in her arms.
“Here,” she said, holding the infant out to Carol. “This baby boy needs a mother.”
Carol stared down at the newborn thrust into her arms. Speechless, she raised her eyes to meet Alix’s, unsure what to think. What to say was even more of a puzzle.
“I delivered him,” Alix explained.
“Whose …?” She did manage to get out the one word.
“My roommate told me to get rid of him. She said she planned to throw him in a Dumpster if I didn’t take him. He needs a mother and a father—he needs someone who’ll love him.”
This didn’t seem real, didn’t seem possible. The only thing Carol could think to do was cry out for her husband, but her voice was hardly a croak. Although she thought he couldn’t have heard her, Doug came roaring out of the bedroom, bare-chested, wearing only his pajama bottoms.
“Hi,” Alix said, sounding so unlike herself that Carol glanced at her. “I’m Alix. You let me up.”
“Alix brought us a baby,” Carol said, tears glistening in her eyes.
Doug looked from one to the other. Like her, he didn’t seem to know how to react. But thankfully, he gathered his wits in record time. “I think we’d better all sit down and talk about this.”
“It’s legal,” Alix assured them. “I got Laurel to write everything out on a piece of paper.” She dug into her pocket and passed the folded sheet to Doug. “Laurel needs to go to the hospital and once she does the police will be notified, but I figured you could deal with that. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, isn’t it? And you’ve got the baby now.”
“Maybe we should put on a pot of coffee,” Carol suggested. Her mind was spinning and it was difficult to grasp what was going on. All she knew was that she was standing here holding a newborn baby.
“I’ll start the coffee,” Doug said. Carol nodded gratefully. She looked down at the sleeping infant and her heart contracted painfully. To think that his mother had been willing to toss him in a Dumpster like a piece of garbage! How anyone could even imagine such a thing was beyond her comprehension.
“He doesn’t have any clothes,” Alix said. “I washed him off and wrapped him in the blanket but I didn’t have a diaper.”
“I’ll dress him,” Carol said. This seemed more like a dream than reality. She carried him into the nursery, placing him on the dresser and carefully removing the blanket. With one hand on the infant, she reached down for a disposable diaper.
That very morning, in just a few hours, she was supposed to empty these drawers so the department store could take everything away. Thank God that hadn’t happened yet! She gently cleaned his bottom and secured the diaper. The tiny T-shirt came next. When she’d finished, she bundled him in the thick, soft folds of a flannel receiving blanket.
He made a small mewling sound and she picked up a baby bottle, clean and sterilized, ready for formula. She dared not allow herself to think this was her child, her son. Alix had come to her for help and Carol was the logical person to contact.
“Exactly how old is he?” she asked when she returned to the living room.
Alix glanced at her wrist, but apparently hadn’t remembered to put on her watch. “About an hour.”
