The God Project Read online

  Sally leaned down and kissed him again. “Be glad someone does. Not every kid is so lucky.” She straightened up and started out of the room. “And don’t kick the covers off. You’ll catch pneumonia.” She left Jason’s room, knowing he’d kick the covers off again in five minutes, and that he wouldn’t catch pneumonia. If Julie grew up as healthily as Jason had, she would be twice blessed. As she approached Julie’s room, she began trying to calculate the odds of raising two children without having to cope with any sicknesses. The odds, she decided, were too narrow to be worth thinking about.

  She let herself into the room, and suddenly her sense of apprehension flooded back to her.

  She crossed to the crib and looked down at Julie. The baby was as different from her brother as she was from Steve. Julie had Sally’s own almost-black hair, dark eyes, and even in her infancy the same delicate bone structure. She’s like a doll, Sally thought. A tiny little doll. In the dim light the baby’s skin was pale, nearly white, and Sally thought she looked cold, though the pink blanket was still tucked around her shoulders as Sally had left it earlier.

  Sally frowned.

  Julie was an active baby, never lying still for very long.

  Apparently she hadn’t moved for more than an hour.

  Sally reached down, and touched Julie’s face.

  It was as cold as it looked.

  As she picked up her tiny daughter, Sally Montgomery felt her life falling apart around her.

  It wasn’t true.

  It couldn’t be true.

  There was nothing wrong with Julie.

  She was cold. That’s all, just cold. All she had to do was cuddle the baby, and warm her, and everything would be all right again.

  Sally Montgomery began screaming—a high, thin, piercing wail that shattered the night.

  Steve Montgomery stood in the doorway staring at his wife. “Sally? Sally, what’s wrong?” He moved forward tentatively, watching her as she stood near the window, rocking back and forth, muttering in a strangled voice to the tiny form in her arms. Then he was beside her, trying to take the baby out of her arms. Sally’s hold on the child tightened, and her eyes, wide and beseeching, found his.

  “Call the hospital,” she whispered, her voice desperate. “Call now. She’s sick. Oh, Steve, she’s sick!”

  Steve touched Julie’s icy flesh and his mind reeled. No! No, she can’t be. She just can’t be. He turned away and started out of the room, only to be stopped by Jason, who was standing just inside the door, his eyes wide and curious.

  “What’s wrong?” the little boy asked, looking up at his father. Then he looked past Steve, toward his mother. “Did something happen to Julie?”

  “She’s—she’s sick,” Steve said, desperately wanting to believe it. “She’s sick, and we have to call the doctor. Come on.”

  Pulling Jason with him, Steve went into the next room and picked up the phone on the bedside table, dialing frantically. While he waited for someone to answer, he reached out and pulled his son to him, but Jason wriggled out of his father’s arms.

  “Is she dead?” he asked. “Is Julie dead?”

  Steve nodded mutely, and then the operator at Eastbury Community Hospital came on the line. While he was ordering an ambulance for his daughter, he kept his eyes on his son, but after a moment Jason, his face impassive, turned and left the room.

  Chapter 2

  EASTBURY COMMUNITY HOSPITAL, despite its name, was truly neither a hospital, nor a community service. It was, in actuality, a privately owned clinic. It had started, thirty years earlier, as the office of Dr. Arthur Wiseman. As his practice grew, Wiseman had begun to take on partners. Ten years before, with five other doctors, he had formed Eastbury Community Hospital, Inc., and built the clinic. Now there were seven doctors, all of them specialists, but none of them so specialized they could not function as general practitioners. In addition to the clinic, there was a tiny emergency room, an operating room, a ward, and a few private rooms. For Eastbury, the system worked well: each of the patients at Eastbury Community felt that he had several doctors, and each of the doctors always had six consultants on call. It was the hope of everyone that someday in the not-too-distant future, Eastbury Community would grow into a true hospital, though for the moment it was still a miniature.

  In the operating room, Dr. Mark Malone—who, at the age of forty-two, was still not reconciled to the fact that he would forever be known as Young Dr. Malone—smiled down at the unconscious ten-year-old child on the table. A routine, if emergency, appendectomy. He winked at the nurse who had assisted him, then expertly snipped a sample of tissue from the excised organ, and gave it to an aide.

  “The usual tests,” he said. He glanced at the anesthetist, who nodded to him to indicate that everything was all right, then left the operating room and began washing up. He was staring disconsolately at the clock and wondering why so many appendixes chose to go bad in the wee hours of the morning, when he heard his name on the page.

  “Dr. Malone, please. Dr. Malone.”

  Wiping his hands, he picked up the phone. “Malone.”

  “You’re wanted in the emergency room, Dr. Malone,” the voice of the operator informed him.

  “Oh, Christ.” Malone wracked his brain, trying to remember who was supposed to be on call that night.

  The operator answered his unasked question. “It’s—it’s one of your patients, Doctor.”

  Malone’s frown deepened, but he only grunted into the phone and hung up. He slipped off his surgical gown, put on a white jacket, then started for the emergency room, already sure of what had happened.

  The duty man would have handled the emergency. The call to him meant that one of his patients had died, and, since he was in the clinic, someone had decided he should break the news to the parents. He braced himself, preparing for the worst part of his job.

  He found the nurse, shaken and pale, just outside the emergency room. “What’s happened?” he asked.

  “It’s a baby,” the nurse replied, her voice quaking. She nodded toward the door. “She’s in there with her mother. It’s Julie Montgomery, and Sally won’t let go of her. She just keeps insisting that she has to make the baby warm.” Her voice faltered, then she went on. “I—I called Dr. Wiseman.”

  Malone nodded. Though Julie Montgomery was his patient, the child’s mother was Art Wiseman’s. “Is he coming?”

  “He should be here any minute,” the nurse promised. Even as she spoke, the distinguished gray-haired figure of Arthur Wiseman strode purposefully through the door from the parking lot.

  The older doctor sized the situation up at once.

  Sally Montgomery was sitting on a chair, with Julie cradled in her arms. She looked up at Wiseman, and her eyes were wide and empty.

  Shock, Wiseman thought She’s in shock. He moved toward her and tried to take Julie from her arms. Sally drew back and turned away slightly.

  “She’s cold,” Sally said, her voice no more than a whisper. “She’s cold, and I have to make her warm.”

  “I know, Sally,” Wiseman said softly. “But why don’t you let us do it? Isn’t that why you brought her here?”

  Sally stared at him for a moment, then nodded her head. “Yes … I—I guess so. She’s not sick, Dr. Wiseman. I know she’s not sick. She’s—she’s just cold. So cold …” Her voice trailed off, and she surrendered the tiny body to the doctor. Then she covered her face with her hands and began to cry. Wiseman gave Julie to Mark Malone.

  “See what you can do,” he said softly.

  Leaving Sally Montgomery under Wiseman’s care, Malone took Julie Montgomery’s body into a treatment cubicle. For the child, he knew already, there was no hope of resuscitation. But even knowing it was already far too late, he began trying to revive her. A few minutes later, holding Julie as if his will alone could bring her back to life, he felt a presence in the room and glanced up. It was Wiseman.

  “Is she gone?” he asked.

  Malone nodded. “There’s
nothing I can do,” he said. “She’s been dead at least an hour.”

  Wiseman sighed. “Any idea what happened?”

  “I can’t be sure yet, but it looks like SIDS.”

  Wiseman’s eyes closed, and he ran his hand through his hair, brushing it back from his forehead. Damn, he swore to himself. Why does it happen? Why? Then he heard Malone’s voice again.

  “Is Steve here?”

  “He was calling someone. His mother-in-law, I think. I ordered Valium for Sally.”

  “Good. Do you want me to talk to Steve?”

  Wiseman, his eyes fixed on Julie Montgomery’s tiny body, didn’t answer for a moment. When he did, his voice was hollow. “I’ll do it,” he said. “I know Steve almost as well as I know Sally.” He paused, then spoke again. “Will you do an autopsy?”

  “Of course,” Malone replied, “but I don’t think well find anything. Julie Montgomery was one of the healthiest babies I’ve ever seen. And I saw her two days ago. Nothing wrong. Nothing at all. Shit!”

  Malone looked down into the tiny face cradled in his arms. Julie Montgomery, to look at her, seemed to be asleep. Except for the deadly pallor and the coldness of her flesh. No injuries, no signs of sickness.

  Only death.

  “I’ll take her downstairs,” Malone said. He turned away, and Wiseman watched him until he disappeared around a corner. Only then did he return to the waiting room, where Steve Montgomery was now sitting by his wife, holding her hand. He looked up at the doctor, his eyes questioning. Wiseman shook his head.

  “There was nothing that could be done,” he said, touching Steve on the shoulder. “Nothing at all.”

  “But what happened?” Steve asked. “She was fine. There wasn’t anything wrong with her. Nothing!”

  “We don’t know yet,” Wiseman replied. “Well do an autopsy, but I don’t think we’ll find anything.”

  “Not find anything?” Sally asked. The emptiness was gone from her eyes now, but her face was filled with a pain that Wiseman found almost more worrisome than the shock had been. She’ll get over it, he told himself. It’ll be hard, but she’ll get over it.

  “Why don’t you two go home?” he suggested. “There’s no reason to stay here. And we’ll talk in the morning. All right?”

  Sally got to her feet and leaned against Steve. “What happened?” she asked. “Babies don’t just die, do they?”

  Wiseman watched her, trying to judge her condition. Had it been anyone but Sally Montgomery, he would have waited until morning, but he’d known Sally for years, and he knew she was strong. The Valium had calmed her down and would keep her calm.

  “Sometimes they do,” he said softly. “It’s called sudden infant death syndrome. That’s what Mark Malone thinks happened to Julie.”

  “Oh, God,” Steve Montgomery said. He saw Julie’s face, her dancing eyes and smiling mouth, her tiny hands reaching for him, grasping his finger with all her own, laughing and gurgling.

  And then nothing.

  Tears began running down his face. He did nothing to wipe them away.

  As the spring dawn crept over Eastbury, Steve Montgomery stood up and went to the window. He and Sally were in the living room, where they’d been all the long night, neither of them wanting to go to bed, neither of them willing to face whatever thoughts might come in the darkness. But now the darkness was gone, and Steve wandered around the room, turning off the lamps.

  “Don’t,” Sally whispered. “Please don’t.”

  Understanding her, Steve turned the lights back on, then went back to sit beside her once more, holding her close against him, neither of them speaking, but drawing strength from each other’s presence. After a while there was a sound from upstairs, and then footsteps coming down the stairs. A moment later Sally’s mother was in the room. She paused, then came to the sofa and drew Sally into her arms.

  “My poor baby,” she said softly, her voice soothing. “Oh, my poor baby. What happened? Sally, what happened?”

  Her mother’s voice seemed to trigger something in Sally, and her tears, the tears that should have been drained from her hours earlier, began to flow once more. She leaned against her mother, her body heaving with her sobs. Over her daughter’s head, Phyllis Paine’s eyes met her son-in-law’s.

  “What happened, Steve?” she asked. “What happened to my granddaughter?”

  I have to control myself, Steve thought. For Sally, I have to be strong. I have to tell people what happened, and I have to make arrangements, and I have to take care of my wife and my son. Then another thought came to him: I’ll never be able to do it. I’ll come apart, and my insides will fall out. Oh, God, why did you have to take Julie? Why not me? She was only a baby! Just a little baby.

  He wanted to cry too, wanted to bury his head in his wife’s bosom, and let go of his pain, and yet he knew he couldn’t. Not now, perhaps not ever. He met his mother-in-law’s steady gaze.

  “Nothing happened to her,” he said, forcing himself to keep his voice steady. “She just died. It’s called sudden infant death syndrome.”

  Phyllis’s eyes hardened. “A lot of nonsense,” she said. “All it means is that the doctors don’t know what happened. But something happened to that child. I want to know what.”

  Her words penetrated Sally’s grief. She pulled herself from her mother’s embrace and faced her. “What do you mean?” she asked, her voice strident. “What are you saying?”

  Phyllis stood up, searching for the right words. She knew where the blame lay, knew very well, but she wouldn’t say it. Not yet. Later, when Sally had recovered from the shock, they would have a talk. For now, she would take care of her daughter … as her daughter should have taken care of Julie.

  “I’m not saying anything,” she maintained. “All I’m saying is that doctors like to cover for themselves. Babies don’t just die, Sally. There’s always a reason. But if the doctors are too lazy to find the reason, or don’t know enough, they call it crib death. But there is always a reason,” she repeated. Her eyes moved from Sally to Steve, then back to Sally. When she spoke again, her voice was gentler. “I’m going to stay here for a few days—I’ll take care of Jason and the house. Don’t either of you worry about anything.”

  “Thanks, Phyl,” Steve said quietly. “Thanks.”

  “Isn’t that what mothers are for?” Phyllis asked. “To take care of their children?” Her eyes settled once more on Sally, then she turned and went back up the stairs. A moment later they heard her talking to Jason, and Jason’s own voice, piping loud as he pummeled his grandmother with questions. Sally was silent for a long time, then she spoke to Steve without looking at him.

  “She thinks I did something to Julie,” she said dully. “Or didn’t do something. She thinks it was my fault.”

  Inwardly, Steve groaned at the hopelessness in his wife’s voice, and reached out to hold her. “No, honey, she doesn’t think that at all. It’s just-it’s just Phyllis. You know how she is.”

  Sally nodded. I know how she is, she thought. But does she know how I am? Does she know me? Her train of thought was broken as Jason came pounding down the stairs. He stood in the middle of the floor, his pajamas falling down, his hands on his hips.

  “What happened to Julie?” he asked.

  Steve bit his lip. How could he explain it? How could he explain death to an eight-year-old, when he didn’t even understand it himself? “Julie died,” he said. “We don’t know why. She …she just died.”

  Jason was silent, his eyes thoughtful. And then he nodded, and frowned slightly. “Do I have to go to school today?” he asked.

  Too tired, too shocked, too drained to recognize the innocence of her son’s words, Sally only heard their naive callousness. “Of course you have to go to school today,” she screamed. “Do you think I can take care of you? Do you think I can do everything? Do you think …” Her voice failed her, and she collapsed, sobbing, back onto the sofa as her mother hurried down the stairs. Jason, his face pale with bafflement and hu
rt, stared at his mother, then at his father.

  “It’s all right,” Phyllis told him, scooping him into her arms. “Of course you don’t have to go to school today. You go upstairs and get dressed, then I’ll fix your breakfast. Okay?” She kissed the boy on the cheek and put him back on the floor.

  “Okay, Grandma,” Jason said softly. Then, with another curious glance at his parents, he ran up the stairs.

  When he was gone, Steve put his arms around his wife. “Go to bed, sweetheart,” he begged. “You’re worn out, and Phyllis can handle everything. We’ll take care of you, and everything will be all right. Please?”

  Too exhausted to protest, Sally let herself be led upstairs, let Steve undress her and put her to bed, let him tuck her in. But when he had kissed her and left her alone, she didn’t sleep.

  Instead, she remembered her mother’s words. “Isn’t that what mothers are for? To take care of their children?” It was an accusation, and Sally knew it. And she knew, deep in her heart, that she had no answer for the accusation. Perhaps she had done something—or not done something—that had caused Julie to die.

  Hadn’t she considered aborting Julie? Hadn’t she and Steve talked about it for a long time, trying to decide whether they really wanted another child? Hadn’t they, finally, talked until it was too late?

  But they had loved Julie once she was born. Loved her as much as Jason, maybe even more.

  Or had they?

  Maybe they had only pretended to love her because they knew it was their duty: You have to love your children.

  Maybe she hadn’t loved Julie enough.

  Maybe, deep inside, she still hadn’t wanted Julie.

  As she drifted slowly into a restless sleep, Sally could still hear her mother’s voice, see her mother’s eyes, accusing her.

  And her daughter was dead, and she had no way of proving that it hadn’t been her fault.

  She couldn’t prove it to her mother; she couldn’t prove it to herself.

  As she slept, a germ of guilt entered Sally Montgomery’s soul, a guilt as deadly for her soul as a cancer might be for her body.