Hide & Seek - James Patterson [39]
Phillip kept guns up there. There were guns everywhere in the good soldier’s house. I took one and cocked it. I pointed it at the attic door, waiting until his wild, angry face appeared.
“Take another step and I’ll shoot, I will, Phillip.” I was surprised at how calm I sounded, though I didn’t feel calm.
He stared at me, tried to stare me down, but he didn’t move. Then he began to laugh, a monstrous cackle.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he said when he could control himself. “Sweetheart, sweetheart. You’ve won this round. But you’ll live to regret it.”
I was still regretting it, after all these years.
CHAPTER 40
ON A PROMISING blue-skied morning, an uncharacteristically nervous and nonplussed Patrick had to rush me to the Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, New York. He was so distraught, so unlike himself, it was charming and funny. Jennie came with us, and she was by far in the best shape, in the most control of the three of us.
As Patrick’s car hurtled down narrow, pine-wooded roads, I couldn’t keep dark thoughts from my mind though. Think of the baby, I told myself, but instead I remembered newspaper and magazine stories that had been tormenting me ever since my pregnancy became public:
“MAGGIE BRADFORD’S GREATEST LOVE SONG: Inside Story of the Not-So-Secret Hold Maggie Has Over Patrick.”
How could our beautiful relationship be made to sound so shameful? Who wrote stories like these? Who wanted to read them? I had told Patrick I didn’t care what anybody said, but the media could be so cruel. I felt wounded, humiliated.
Of course—at the time—I had no idea of how really savage they could be.
“Patrick, I know you’re hurrying … but please, go a little faster if you can. Please?”
Dr. Lewis Gamache was waiting for us at the hospital.
“Hi there, Mom.” He squinted from behind silver-framed bifocals. I had found him months before in the village of Chappaqua. He was a general practitioner who specialized in obstetrics, and I trusted him more than the far more famous doctors who had offered their services in New York.
“Hello, Lewis. I feel kind of shitty.” I tried to smile, but felt I was going to faint.
“That’s fine. It means you’re almost there.” He led me to a wheelchair, and I was taken inside.
Almost there, indeed! At eleven o’clock that night, two nurses in white tunics sped me down bright hospital corridors to the operating room. My body was soaked with perspiration. My hair was matted and looked almost brown. I felt clammy and cold. The pain was unbearable, twice what I remembered while having Jennie.
Dr. Gamache was waiting in the operating room. He was his usual wide-eyed and enthusiastic self.
“Hello, Maggie. What took you so long?”
“Ooohh.” I shut my eyes as a contraction came again. “I was having too much fun in labor.”
“Let’s rock and roll,” he said. I got the joke, but I didn’t laugh.
At 11:19 in the morning, Dr. Gamache said, “Maggie, you’ve got yourself a little boy,” and laid the baby beside me so I could look at him. He seemed to be yawning. Bored already with planet Earth? But he was such a beauty.
He received the classic rear-end slap, rather than the foot flick. I could hear his thin, barely perceptible cry.
“I don’t think he’s got your lungs,” Dr. Gamache said. “Nurse, put the baby on the table warmer, please.”
“His name is Allen,” I said, and promptly passed out.
CHAPTER 41
PATRICK NEARLY FLEW into my hospital room. He was beaming. He hurried to my bed, and we kissed. He was Paul Newman, and Spencer Tracy—all wrapped in one. He really was so wonderful: thoughtful, compassionate, tender, caring. Patrick wanted to marry me—he’d already asked, but something about “marriage,” and my experience with Phillip, had made me ask him to wait. Patrick said that he understood. I hoped he did. I also hoped he would ask again—soon.
Something crunched in his sport jacket pocket as he hugged me. Curious, I reached inside.
“You’ve gone too far this time, buster,” I said and smiled and rolled my eyes. “Cigars? How corny can you get?”
“I’m a corny guy.