55.
~ Robert was waiting for her in his opulent apartment. He looked like he hadn't slept very well.
"I thought you were bringing the baby." He said. His eyes an unnatural blue that hinted he might have been crying.
"Robert, what happened?" She asked. She could sense right away something was deeply wrong.
The apartment was too still. Something hung in the air that couldn't find it's way out.
Robert didn't answer.
Ariadne walked past him and into the library that was the old man's room.
Maurice lay dead in his bed. His mouth hung slack open and he stared lifelessly out at nothing.
"It just happened." Robert said coming up beside her. "He was gasping and I couldn't make out what he was saying."
Ariadne felt the room was still cold. She had been told, as a nurse, about the angel of death and had felt that cold draft that pricked her skin so hard it hurt. The angel was still in the room. Still hovering over them. Looking for anyone who might want to come with it.
Quickly, she ushered Robert out of the library as he spilled out his father's dieing words.
"He kept gasping and trying to tell me something." Robert said. "He finally got out how proud he was of me. How proud he was I married you and that we were giving him a grandchild. He looked at me in such a nice way, Ariadne. It was like he loved me. He never looked at me that way before." Robert said as Ariadne wondered who to call.
~ Robert calmed down as Ariadne called the coroner. A grim little man came out and pronounce Maurice dead and took the body away.
"Looks like heart failure." The man said as Robert signed the forms.
The well groomed man sat in silence as Ariadne tried to encourage him to drink something.
"I can't believe he's gone." Robert breathed.
"I'm sorry." Ariadne whispered.
"Where's the baby? You said you would bring the baby today. Dad wanted to see him." Robert said coming back to reality.
Ariadne had a prepared speech. But didn't know how to say it now. Didn't know how to tell Robert that she could never see him again.
"Adam is at home." She whispered instead.
"With Beth? Why didn't you bring him?" Robert asked.
"Adam is with his father. He wanted to watch him." Ariadne said sadly.
Robert said nothing. The well groomed man looked back at the library. His face turning as if he had eaten something sour.
"Arthur is home." The young man said logically.
"Yes." She said feeling guilty. "He came home yesterday. He was captured and then they sent on a mission. They wouldn't let him contact me because they had to debrief him first. He had seen a lot of the Nazis crimes and they needed his statement. They even want him to go to the Nuremberg. For the trials." She said sadly.
"So your husband made it home. That's wonderful." Robert said not sounding happy at all.
"It is wonderful." She told him.
"Is he alright? Has the war changed him like it did with Colonel Cobb?" He asked. The young man stood and thrust his hands in his pockets. He looked suddenly cold and indifferent. Every bit the selfish spoiled man she first thought he was.
"I think so. He's a little shaken, but not as bad as some of the others you described." She told him.
"If he ever hits you, or you're afraid he will, I want you to bring yourself and the baby here. Don't wait for him to hurt you again." Robert said not looking at her.
"Robert." She breathed. She found she was hurting in a deep forgotten place. She realized she cared for Robert and hated to hurt him.
"Don't say it won't happen. You can't know it won't happen. Just promise if it does, you'll leave. Please?" He asked. His blue eyes bright with tears again.
Ariadne bit her lip and tried not to cry.
"I promise." She said softly.
Robert nodded.
"I wanted to be respectful of what you and Arthur were going through. I never made a move that you didn't want." Robert said.
"I know." She whispered. Her vision blurring from the tears.
"I do love you. If you decide to leave him, please come to me. Bring yourself and the baby. I'll make sure you get custody. You won't lose your son." He promised.
"I won't leave him, Robert. I love him. I've always loved him. The moment I met him and he thought I was just a dream, I've loved him. In a way, he thinks he dreamed me into life." She said feeling the urge to laugh. "I know you care for me, but I belong with him. I was always meant to be with him." She whispered.
Robert looked angry and bitter.
"Robert, you will find someone. I know you will." Ariadne said trying to comfort him.
"No." Robert said stiffly. "No, I won't. I imagined a life with you and I..." He seemd to lose his thoughts as Ariadne tried not to cry.
She left her friend to his own greif.
~ Arthur was looking over a pair of small baby shoes.
He had found them under Adam's bassinet. They were beautiful, shinny leather and his mind instantly raced to that broken camp where there was piles of shoes from people turned into ash. All he could think of was those shoes and these shoes. His sons little shoes that were so small, both pair could fit in the palm of his hands.
He was thinking of the bodies of helpless men, woman and children left to rot in the snow. The snow coating them and they looked like old socks. Too rotten to ever wash clean.
Adam cried and woke him from his trance.
Arthur wasn't used to babies. Ariadne said she would be right back and he worried about what to do for the little thing screaming in his bassinet.
"Hey... Soldier." Arthur said still in military mode. He carefully, and clumsily, picked the baby up and Adam stopped crying.
The pretty nurse had left a bottle for the baby and showed Arthur how to prepare it. Arthur felt that he could face a battalion of enemy soldiers before he could heat a baby bottle successfully.
With one hand, he held Adam and tried to heat water in a pot. The baby leaning trustingly on his father and cooing.
"It's alright, Soldier." Arthur said he recalled all his wife taught him. His son so calm. Sensing his father was trying his best.
It was wonderful to feed a baby. He understood why Ariadne loved it so much. Why she never complained of the late night feedings. Adam's dark eyes looked directly at him. Arthur realized how much the baby looked like him. How his son seemed to have his own face, just smaller.
He didn't hear the keys turn in the lock and Ariadne come in.
"I'm sorry I was late. My boss's father died." Ariadne whispered as she watched Arthur feeding the baby.
"It's alright. I survived the war in Europe, I think I can manage to look after my own son." He said with a proud smile.
Ariadne watched as Adam finished eating and instructed Arthur to burp him before the baby fell back asleep again.
"He's so content. He's the most content baby I've ever seen." Ariadne mused.
Arthur smiled at the feel of Adam's warm, little body next to his.
"I'm sorry the man you were taking care of died." He whispered.
"It's alright. I can get a job at the hospital now my leg is healed." She told him.
"No." Arthur said sternly. She looked up at him in surprise.
"We have a baby to take care of. You need to be at home with him." Arthur said. "I'm home now, I don't want you working."
"Arthur, we have bills to pay, and I like working." Ariadne said logically.
" I'm partner at my father's firm." Arthur explained crisply. "I'll go and see them today and take the position they were holding for me."
"Arthur." She tried to interject.
"We also have the family trust. Something my mother can't take away. We can live very well off that." Arthur told her. "I don't want you working right now. When Adam is a little older, we can talk about you going back to school. Just like we planed" He said.
"I want you to see your mother. I want her to see the baby." Ariadne told him.
"No. She called my wife horrible things and allowed her to almost live on the streets with my child." Arthur growled. "I can never forgive her."
~ Ariadne was sitting in the same spot that evening. Watching someone else hold her son.
Lydia looked enchanted by the baby. Adam's wild, feathery hair winning over even the coldest heart.
"He looks so much mike my boys did." Lydia said with a soft smile. Tears blooming in her eyes.
"Really?" Ariadne asked.
Lydia nodded.
"Arthur was born a little early to. Feet first I might add." Lydia said with mild resentment.
Ariadne smiled.
"I guess our little man was just in a hurry to be born." The baby's grandmother said. The older woman looked at her daughter-in-law. "I'm so glad you're letting me see him. I didn't think you would. Linda told me you said to stay away."
"I never said that." Ariadne told her. "I told her you were the only one welcomed. I just didn't want her around. I don't plan to give her my baby."
Lydia shook her head.
"No, of course not. I want you to understand how crazed I was feeling. Grief, it's so terrible." The older woman said. "I lost my sons and husband in this war. I can still remember holding David when he was this little. The loss of my sons and my husband, of feeling so alone, I couldn't bare it."
"I know. I've lost my family to." Ariadne whispered.
"That's right, you did." Lydia realized. Her eyes red from crying. "Ariadne, I'm so sorry for how I treated you. I know I can never hope to make it up to you."
"You don't have to make it up to me." Ariadne said. "I know it's been hard on you."
"I have something for you." Lydia sniffed and placed Adam gently in his cradle. A new gift his grandmother brought him.
The older lady removed a cloth handkerchief from her purse and pulled free a fine, brown stone diamond ring.
"This belonged to Arthur's grandmother. The one who kept getting arrested for protesting. The one who wanted to vote. Arthur was her favorite grandchild and she wanted him to have it. To give to his wife.
Ariadne took the delicate piece of jewelry. She had never seen such elegant work. Not even on the fingers of her Aunt.
"Thank you." Ariadne said as she slid it on her finger.
"It was wrong of me to it give to Linda. I can understand why Arthur couldn't marry her. She was so awful." Lydia cried as she watched Adam sleep.
The two women looked at the baby for a long time.
"Thank you." Lydia said at last.
"You're welcome." Ariadne whispered.
Lydia sniffed and wanted to change the subject.
"I hope the labor and delivery were not too difficult for you. Hard enough without your husband with you." She said.
Ariadne laughed.
"The whole time, the doctor refused me pain medication and said it was the price women had to pay for eating the forbidden fruit." She told her mother-in-law.
"What?" Lydia gasped. "Why, that is unacceptable! I shall call Doctor Write and tell him such a thing is most inappropriate! Forcing a young woman to suffer needlessly."
"You don't need to." Ariadne said a little surprised.
"Nonsense. I contribute to that hospital and they listen to me." She said standing up. A new power seeming to fill her. She looked formidable and not to be trifled with.
"You know, I was thinking that medical school would be a good idea. Beth is right, women of the world need to take a more active role in these modern times." She said.
"Thank you." Ariadne smiled. "Arthur wants me to go to NYU. Just a few classes to start." She shrugged.
"Splendid. I can talk to Doctor Write about your internship." Lydia added.
"I was hoping you could look after Adam, when I start school." Ariadne asked meekly. "Arthur will be working and so will Beth and my cousin Phillip."
Lydia paused in the door.
"I would love that." She whispered.
"I want you to come over for dinner tonight. Arthur and Beth will be here and you can meet my cousin Phillip." Ariadne added.
Lydia looked ready to cry again.
"Well, that would be lovely. Shall I come at 6?" She asked in the prim voice that wouldn't ease out of her.
"That would be nice." Ariadne smiled.
She reached out and hugged the older woman.
Lydia was laughing.
"Now dear, I shall see you in a few hours. There is not need for emotion." She said and told her daughter-in-law goodbye.