LoveMakers Page 3

  Dorothy-Anne nodded her head hesitantly. While Freddie helped her lie back down, Mrs. Ramirez said, 'Now that you are awake, I examine you internally. I was about to wake you anyway.' Mrs. Ramirez turned to Freddie. 'I will need a pan of hot water.'

  Freddie nodded and moved toward the kitchen, grateful to be of help. Mrs. Ramirez sat down on the edge of the bed. She reached out for Dorothy-Anne's hands and held them. The young woman's fingers felt cold and moist. 'Do you feel any pain?'

  Dorothy-Anne looked up into the woman's dark, liquid eyes. 'Yes.'

  'Where?'

  Dorothy-Anne leaned forward and slowly twisted around so that the sheet fell to her waist and exposed her breasts, heavy and milk-filled.

  Mrs. Ramirez nodded to herself. There would at least be no problem feeding the child. She glanced questioningly at Dorothy-Anne, who reached gingerly behind her and touched the small of her back. 'The pain is here.'

  'Your back?'

  Dorothy-Anne nodded.

  Mrs. Ramirez flashed her an odd look. Then she rose and pulled the rest of the sheet away from Dorothy-Anne's body. The naked young woman shivered from the sudden chill.

  'It will not take long,' Mrs. Ramirez said apologetically. She heard Freddie's footsteps and turned around. He was holding a pan of steaming hot water. She took it from him, set it down on the nightstand and then, tightening her lips, she dunked her hands into it. The water was scalding but she did not utter a sound. She washed her hands carefully and shook them dry.

  Wordlessly, Dorothy-Anne lay back, scooted down on the bed and obediently parted her thighs. Mrs. Ramirez knelt before her.

  Dorothy-Anne could feel the woman's fingers probing the warmth within her. She tensed, the fingers feeling rough and foreign.

  'I am being gentle,' Mrs. Ramirez whispered. 'Please. Relax. I will not hurt you.'

  Dorothy-Anne smiled wanly and bit down on her lip.

  As she maneuvered her fingers, Felicia Ramirez forced herself to keep from frowning. The cervix was still not wide open, though it had dilated somewhat. They still had hours to wait.

  She leaned over Dorothy-Anne and placed her ear next to the magnificently swollen belly. She listened for a while and then nodded to herself with satisfaction. She could hear the fetal heartbeat, strong and separate from the mother's own. That was good.

  She started to pull the sheet up around Dorothy-Anne again when she remembered there was one more thing to check. Years ago, when she had given birth to Caesar, her second oldest, the old midwife had tested the position of the child.

  Mrs. Ramirez lowered the sheet. With one hand inside the mother, and the other on the swollen belly, she gently felt for the child's position. Suddenly the breath caught in her throat. Could she be doing it wrong? She quickly checked again. No, it was true. The child was not positioned right. For a third time, she repeated the maneuver, just to make sure. There was no mistake.

  She withdrew her hand and said, 'I go wash,' nodding for Freddie to follow. Once in the kitchen, she turned to him, her elbows crooked, her hands held up like a surgeon's about to be gloved.

  'Well?' Freddie demanded.

  'The child lays sideways,' Mrs. Ramirez hissed gravely, her eyes wide with alarm. 'It should come head first, like this - ' She motioned with her hand as her eyes flashed like embers in the candlelight. 'Your wife's baby, it lie like this - ' She slashed her hand sideways across her belly.

  Before Freddie could answer, they heard Dorothy-Anne moan weakly from the other room and quickly returned to her side.

  'What is it?' Freddie asked.

  'I heard you whispering,' Dorothy-Anne said faintly. Her brow was still wet with sweat and her eyes glassy. 'My baby . . . my baby is going to die, isn't it?'

  Mrs. Ramirez looked at her sharply and crossed herself. 'Do not speak of such things,' she hissed.

  'No. I know it's true. I know it is. I'm being punished and my baby's going to die.'

  Surprised by her words, but aware his young wife was almost delirious; Freddie smoothed the damp hair back from Dorothy-Anne's forehead and spoke softly. 'Punished? What for? You've never done anything that deserves punishment, darling.'

  'Yes, I have,' Dorothy-Anne moaned. She felt a wave of exhaustion, a need to escape her fear swept over her and her eyes closed. But she fought sleep, determined now to speak, to get the truth out into the open. 'You don't know, Freddie . . . Only Great-Granny understood. She protected me, but now she's gone, and I'll have to pay.'

  'Dorothy-Anne, you're talking nonsense - '

  'No, Freddie. I have to pay now,' she said, her breathing shallow and labored.

  'But, for God's sake, what for?'

  'Because . . . because I killed my mother. I killed her, and now Great-Granny's gone . . . And she was the only one . . . ' Her voice trailed off.

  'The only one who what?'

  'Who understood,' Dorothy-Anne answered, her voice the merest, weary whisper.

  GENERATIONS

  ONE

  Elizabeth-Anne

  New York City

  August 4, 1928

  1

  The day Elizabeth-Anne Hale arrived in midtown Manhattan with her four children, the mercury hit ninety- six degrees and New York was a blistering furnace. The asphalt streets were baked to a soft goo and the concrete buildings seemed to writhe as they trapped the stifling air and simmered it between their canyon walls.

  'Where to?' the taxi-cab driver they hailed at Penn Station asked as Elizabeth-Anne climbed in to the front seat beside him. He was worriedly watching the children clamber into the back, but when he turned to glance at Elizabeth-Anne he was taken aback.

  At thirty-three, she was not a beautiful woman, but in her excitement she was radiant. Her face was handsome and strong with its thin, straight nose and sparkling eyes the shade of the clearest, most perfect aquamarine. Despite their jewel-like radiance, her most striking feature was her waist-long, wheat-gold hair, enviously fine and abundant. She wore it tightly plaited and pinned up so that it wouldn't get in the way of things. Her waist was shown off to advantage by her white blouse and full-length, gray calico skirt. Around her neck hung a simple pendant, a pansy encased in glass, that her husband had given her upon their engagement.

  She looked at the driver, her eyes wide and sparkling, set in a well-tanned face. 'Could you recommend a hotel? One that's decent but not too expensive?' she asked.

  'Sure. There're hundreds of hotels in this town.' He glanced into the rear view mirror at the three girls and little boy in the backseat. The trunk of the cab was half open and tied down, loaded with luggage. 'The Madison Squire's a good hotel. Not cheap, but not expensive either.'

  'The Madison Squire it is, then,' she said, thinking they would stay there even if it were too expensive, at least for one night. The journey had been tiring and they could always change to another hotel in the morning. After that her first order of business was to find an apartment for herself and the children.

  The cabbie swung the taxi out into the traffic. 'Where you from?'

  'Texas.' Her voice was crisp and clear.

  'I'll never for the life of me understand you country people. Why come to this noisy, dirty city for a vacation when you've got all the fresh air you could possibly want at home?'

  'We're not on vacation. We're moving here.'

  The cabbie shook his head. 'Me, I can't wait till I retire and get a nice house somewhere in the country. Especially when there's a heat wave.'

  'We're used to heat.'

  'Yeah, guess it gets hot down there in Texas.'

  'That it does.'

  'What did you do there? Ranch?'

  'Ranch?' She was laughing lightly, chidingly. 'No, Texas isn't all ranching, I'm afraid. There are other things there. Lots of other things.' She smiled almost coyly, then turned to watch the city as it flashed by her window, letting her mind wander.

  Elizabeth-Anne had owned and run three businesses in Quebeck, Texas: the Hale Rooming House, the Good Eats Cafe, and the
Tourist Court she had built along the new highway. She had sold the rooming house and the cafe, and not for a song, either. She certainly wasn't going to advertise the fact, but in her purse was a cashier's check for nearly thirty thousand dollars. That check would nurture her dreams; it was the gateway to a new life, a new future for both herself and the children. A future that would be helped along by the income she still earned from the Tourist Court. It was in capable, trustworthy hands, and she knew it would continue to show a comfortable profit.

  With that financial security, it was easier for Elizabeth-Anne to face the task of raising four children alone.

  Elizabeth-Anne twisted around in her seat and smiled back at the children, but they didn't seem to notice. Their eyes were glued to the open windows, staring up at the incredibly tall buildings and the well-dressed crowds teeming on the sidewalks.

  Elizabeth-Anne looked from one child to the next, starting with Regina. She eyed her oldest daughter fondly, with deep pride. At sixteen, Regina promised to grow into a handsome woman. She reminded Elizabeth-Anne of herself, with her thick, wheat-gold hair which she wore down in a fine mane that reached to her waist. Regina didn't carry a spare ounce of fat on her small, able-bodied frame, thanks to her endless round of chores back in Quebeck. She was a serious girl, well on her way to womanhood, but the freckles around her nose were those of a child. In her lively, inquisitive eyes, Elizabeth-Anne saw stamina and vigor. When the Mexican midwife had slapped her, she hadn't cried out in pain; she'd wailed indignantly.

  Her gaze shifted. Fourteen-year old Charlotte-Anne had been, of her three daughters, the most difficult to deliver, which Elizabeth-Anne thought ironic, as she was also the most perfectly formed physically. Charlotte-Anne's hair, too, was a rich, ripe shade of yellow, but incredibly fine and silky. She was tall for her age and very slender, with pale flawless skin, pale pink lips, and the Hale aquamarine eyes. But Charlotte-Anne's eyes were so incredibly pale, they enchanted and made one feel ill-at-ease at the same time. The pale hair, complexion, and eyes gave her a peculiar beauty Elizabeth-Anne recognized as truly remarkable.

  Rebecca was the youngest of the girls, eleven, and the most sensitive of the four children. She was not startlingly beautiful like Charlotte-Anne, or blessed with the natural intelligence of Regina, but she well made up for it with a quiet determination all her own. Whereas Regina and Charlotte-Anne were both evenly blended distillations of Elizabeth-Anne and her husband, in Rebecca the mix of traits had not been balanced. She was large and gangly, and her face was her father's, strong-boned and heavy. Her eyes were a deeper blue than Elizabeth-Anne's, her brows golden like her Hale hair. Of her three daughters, Elizabeth-Anne respected Rebecca the most. Not because she was the youngest, but because she lacked beauty, grace, and a superior intelligence, yet worked hard enough to make up for her deficiencies. Too, Rebecca's lack of self- confidence was poorly concealed, a vulnerability that kept her close to Elizabeth-Anne's heart.

  And that left little Zaccheus. He had just turned four, and whenever she looked at him, the breath caught in her throat. He was the spitting image of his father, a miniature Zaccheus Hale Senior, with the very same purposeful, intelligent gleam in his Hale-blue eyes, and that wonderfully enigmatic, lopsided smile. Looking at him now her heart again skipped a beat and she reached out and stroked the blond bangs out of his eyes. He ignored her; his blue, blue eyes were wide with wonder as he stared out at the city. Yes, she thought, he was indeed Zaccheus's son - his eyes, his lips, it was all there, an eerie reincarnation, a living reminder for her to keep close and treasure.

  Elizabeth-Anne shook her head sadly. It was a fine family she had, albeit a fatherless one. She had been without Zaccheus for four years now, four years since the happy days of their marriage had ended so suddenly. Little Zaccheus had still been enwombed within her when Zaccheus had left. The love with which they had conceived their son, the love that was to have lasted a lifetime, had been shattered as easily as a thin crystal flute dropped onto a stone floor.

  Zaccheus had been everything to her. After her parents had died, she had grown up with an aunt, a kind and loving woman who had raised Elizabeth-Anne as well as she could while running her rooming house and cafe. Elizabeth-Anne had inherited those businesses in her late teens when her aunt died, and had continued the life of hard work and loneliness she had grown up with. It had often seemed to Elizabeth-Anne in retrospect that she had never really known happiness until she met Zaccheus. The child of farmers, he had come from the Midwest to Texas to seek his fortune. They had fallen in love at first sight. Brilliant and quick, he was a witty, easy talker, but also a marvelous listener. And handsome too, so handsome that he still brought an ache to her heart. They had started a family together young, but he had proven to be a decent man, a marvelous father and provider, patient and dependable, the perfect lover and friend.

  Then it had all ended. Suddenly and horribly, it had ended with one freak and meaningless accident that had shattered their lives forever.

  Zaccheus had been at the construction site of the Tourist Court, the motel he and Elizabeth-Anne were building beside the new highway. It had been Elizabeth-Anne's idea, her dream, and Zaccheus had readily agreed to it - even though the construction would take all the money they had saved - because he recognized the passion and conviction of her vision. But now, several months into the project, the work was going badly, held up again and again by mysteriously lost deliveries of supplies from the Sexton warehouse. Soon they would be out of money, but neither Elizabeth-Anne nor Zaccheus saw a solution in sight. They both knew Sexton was sabotaging the construction intentionally. He was the biggest man in the county, owning most of the land and the businesses on it, and from the start he hadn't looked favorably on competition from the Hales.

  Late one night after everyone else had left, Zaccheus had gone out to the site to meet Sexton, to confront him about the lost deliveries, and the two men had argued. But Zaccheus had been nowhere near the other man when he had rushed forward in anger, tripped on the uneven ground and fallen, splitting his head open on exposed piping.

  Zaccheus had fled, knowing that no one would believe he had nothing to do with Sexton's death. He and Elizabeth-Anne had too much to gain now that the old man was gone. So he had left Elizabeth-Anne a note, explaining what had happened and apologizing, both for the stupid fate that had forced him to flee the certain death sentence a Sexton-family controlled court would hand him, and for leaving without her. He couldn't, his note explained, ruin her and the children's lives by trying to take them with him. Instead, he had pleaded for her to remain, to raise the children, finish the motel and nurture the dream she had started with him.

  Thinking of him even now brought tears to Elizabeth- Anne's eyes, but the tragedy was four long years in the past and felt distant to her on this day of new beginnings. She had lived a long time without a word or trace of him, lived through long years of financial struggle, of personal loneliness, of need for her children. She had managed, even succeeded, but she had realized she found too little joy in her accomplishments in Quebeck. Finally, she had known she too had to leave Texas, to get away from the memories of her lost marriage and to find a place where her dream would know no limit, and could be fully achieved.

  Oh Zaccheus, she thought again now, unconsciously fingering the pansy charm at her neck, wherever you are, just remember that I love you. Just remain free and enjoy what you can of your new life. You're still mine, enshrined in my heart, and the children's, forever.

  And now, as the cab pulled up to the Madison Squire Hotel at Madison Avenue and Thirty-Seventh Street, the memories and hurt receded. Elizabeth-Anne took a deep breath and squared her shoulders bravely to face the hectic, strange new world, and the new life she hoped to carve for herself and the children.

  'Thank you,' Elizabeth-Anne told the cabbie after she paid him. 'The children and I can manage the luggage ourselves.'

  The doorman took one look at her plain country clothes and then ignored the
m, stern disapproval showing in his eyes. Even the porter, who usually sprang into action when guests arrived, hung back.

  Elizabeth-Anne and the girls unloaded the trunk and then watched in silence as the cab drove off. As it did so, Elizabeth-Anne felt horribly alone. Her determined conviction that the future loomed brilliant before them dissipated like so much mist in a stern breeze and reality started to sink in. Husbandless and mother of four, she was in a strange city where she knew no one, a city of immense crowds and tall buildings the likes of which she had never seen.

  She smiled bravely, so that the fear she felt would not rub off on the children. Leaning her head back, she gazed up at the forbiddingly enormous, elaborate hotel rising fourteen stories above Madison Avenue. There was an intimidating, solid classicism about the building's ornate pilasters and carved pediments that made her feel small and insignificant, but she also thought it beautiful. Only later would she learn that only the front of the Madison Squire was so lavish; the other three sides were grimy, utilitarian brick.

  She nodded briskly to the children. 'Let's go inside,' she said before her courage could desert her again. She hefted two of the large battered suitcases and the girls took one apiece, grimacing as they lugged them along after her, little Zaccheus bringing up the rear with the shoebox filled with his favorite toys clutched tightly to his chest.

  They drew to a halt in front of the revolving doors, wondering how in the world they were going to squeeze the luggage and themselves into the small triangular glass wedges.

  The problem was solved for them. Heaving an audible sigh, the doorman pushed open a disguised glass panel next to the revolving door and held it open for them.

  'Thank you,' Elizabeth-Anne said, favoring him with a grateful smile. His face remained studiously vacant.

  As she crossed over the threshold into the lobby, Elizabeth-Anne suppressed the awe she felt, reminding herself that, as the owner of the Tourist Court back in Quebeck, she too was a host to travelers and had a professional interest in her surroundings. She recognized immediately that while the Madison Squire was hardly welcoming in the homey sense, its lavish lobby certainly had a majestic, formal elegance.