The Other Side - J. D. Robb [156]
“The ultimate woman, in my father’s eyes. And I must say I felt like the ultimate woman when I brought my son here for Papa to see. I’d given birth to the healthiest, most beautiful baby. . . . I felt like the only woman to ever give life.” She laughed a little. “Looking back, my attitude was appalling. And don’t for a second think I didn’t rub Odelia’s and your mother’s noses in it. I was insufferable. In fact I—”
She stopped abruptly, looking down at her hands.
“What?”
She shrugged and looked up. “Later . . . after . . . when I was trying to figure out why, I thought maybe it was my pride. Maybe I’d been too proud. Too happy. Too . . . something, and God or Karma or however it works took Ruffie away to teach me a lesson. Humility, or perhaps I wasn’t grateful enough. I kept looking for some way to make sense of it, some way to come to terms with the death of my precious baby.”
“What happened to him? I don’t want to make you sad again, but losing Ruffie is too obvious to be what you’re looking for. You’d have figured that one out years ago, but maybe it’s something related to it.” She paused. “Or maybe it’s not. But if you can talk about it, I’ll listen.”
Imogene shook her head slowly. “I’ve seen it in my mind’s eye a million times, gone over it and over it, and it’s never more than a simple accident. A stupid, simple accident that could have happened anywhere, at any time, to anyone. What I don’t know is why it happened to me . . . to us.
“It was a beautiful morning in August. Midmorning and they were forecasting a hot afternoon, so we planned to sail all day. I packed a big lunch basket for us. Ruffie was three, and he loved to sail. He was so excited that morning. And . . . and it wasn’t his first time on the dock. He knew he couldn’t set foot on the boat without his life preserver; he knew there were rules. Andrew was aft working on the rigging. I let go of Ruffie’s hand and told him not to move, that I was going to get his life jacket. I set the basket on the deck and opened the bench where we stored the vests. I looked away long enough to pick his out and when I looked up again, he was gone. I immediately panicked and screamed . . . and Andrew, from his angle looked up in time to see him walk off the end of the dock.”
I looked away. . . . It wasn’t hard to imagine her aunt’s horrendous guilt at that moment. I looked away. . . . Not a mother, and with basically no understanding of children, she was sure her aunt’s burden was massive. I looked away. . . .
“Andrew was a hero that day. He was off the boat and into the water before I realized what had happened. He passed my baby’s cold, blue little body up to me when I got to the end of the dock. I was useless. I was . . . numb. I . . . ” She closed her eyes and put a hand to her throat in an attempt to control herself. She drew in a deep breath. “Andrew screamed at me to go for help. He picked the baby up by his feet and whacked him on the back a couple times before he started blowing in his mouth and doing CPR. I ran for the pay phone at the gate. They . . . they told me to wait for the ambulance so they wouldn’t waste time looking for us, so I did. By the time I got back, Andrew was holding our baby in his arms, and they were both crying.”
“So he didn’t drown?” She was amazed at how relieved she was.
“No, dear, but he did swallow and inhale a great deal of water that day. He had trouble breathing, so of course we took him to the hospital immediately. They treated him with oxygen and gave him antibiotics to ward off pneumonia, and after several days we brought him home good as new. Almost. I mean, we thought he was good as new, but the water had damaged his lungs. He developed severe asthmalike symptoms, and every time he caught a cold, it went straight to his lungs. The year he started school he was hospitalized three times with pneumonia. They wanted him to repeat kindergarten. I wanted to keep him home and get him a tutor, or homeschool him myself, but Andrew