Джеймс Паттерсон - The Midwife Murders

Yeah, Val’s very frightened. So I do most of the talking. Most of the questions are easy and expected. But there are a few important decisions to be made. I act as Val’s official advocate . Lateesha is cool with that.

For example, I know that one of the best, and also toughest, rehab spots is located in a repurposed Catholic Church in Bushwick, Brooklyn—Our Lady of the Rosary. It’s a live-in program. And I know a few of my mothers have come out of Our Lady of the Rosary pretty clean and ready to go. Of course I also know a few who have not made it work at all. “The gals with the pin-cushion arms,” Troy calls these women.

Val is shaking badly. She’s crying. She’s pulling nervously at her hair. I decide not to tell her that her program will be in a church. We can fight about that when she gets there.

“Now,” says Lateesha. “Let’s figure out childcare for the kiddies you’re leaving behind, and the new little one.” God, how I wish everyone in this line could be treated as patiently and respectfully as Teesh is treating Val.

“I don’t have any other kiddies that I’m leaving behind. Plus I can take care of my one and only baby. I don’t need no one,” Val yells. Her voice is loud enough to be heard over the noise and shouting of the packed MSS office. The nearby men and women look at us.

What the hell is she up to? Is she just about to go crazy on me?

“You’re gonna be in rehab, honey,” Lateesha says. “Don’t you understand that?” Lateesha isn’t fazed by anything.

“You’re going to be living at the place, Val,” I say.

“I can’t do no rehab without my baby.”

Lateesha speaks directly to me. “I can tell you right now that we don’t have much to choose from anyplace in Brooklyn. If we change the rehab location to someplace like the Bronx, we could get the baby closer to the mother. Of course that depends on who’s going to be tending to the newborn. That’s something we have to settle first and foremost.”

And then … well, an angel must have started whispering in my ear. I suddenly got a minor brainstorm.

I look at Lateesha and say, “I think we may have a good solution for this. Right near me in my neighborhood is a woman who specializes in foster care for infants. Let me see if she’s available.”

“Is she licensed and on record with us?” Lateesha asks.

“Oh, I’m sure she is,” I say.

This is a complete lie. But I also know it’s a good idea.

I’m standing a few feet away from a sign that says NO CELL PHONE USE. I ignore it and I text Sabryna, my best friend and downstairs neighbor.

Will u take care of a newborn for 2 months while baby’s mother in rehab? Favor for me. Adorable baby. Good karma.

Within thirty seconds Sabryna texts back.

R U crazy? No way. 2 much else 2 do.

Within fifteen seconds I text back.

NYC pays $10.50 per hour.

Within ten seconds my phone pings.

I’M IN!!!

CHAPTER 30

“SO DID YOU FORGET to bring the baby, Lady Lucy?” Sabryna asks me loudly when I arrive later at her crazy little Jamaican store.

For some reason a live parakeet is perched on the plantain barrel. Never saw a parakeet before in the store. I won’t even ask.

“I was dealing with the big New York City foster care mess today. I think it’s all under control. Tomorrow Social Services will most likely drop off the baby. They’ve got the paperwork, and they’ll have a boatload of questions for you. Be ready. And don’t give them funny answers. Social Services is not into comedy.”

Sabryna nods. I know she’ll come through. “I’m a little scared, Lucy. But I love babies … and the money, that sure doesn’t hurt.”

“This is going to be great for you, and great for this baby.”

I truly believe what I’m saying. Sabryna is simply a superior human being—honest and hardworking and smarter than almost anybody I know, including myself. And she’ll know just how to handle the one or two social workers who will show up with Val’s baby. I know because I guided her and Devan through a mountain of paperwork for their citizenship application. I also supplied the help of a friend’s daughter, a paralegal, who treated the case as if she were standing in front of the Supreme Court.

Sabryna will be truthful, but she’ll be wise enough to phrase her answers with just the necessary amount of truth.

Here’s a possibility I could imagine:

SOCIAL WORKER: And what is the status of young Devan’s father? Where is he in his son’s life?

SABRYNA: Oh, Lawrence left us long ago. Now he is in a better and even more beautiful world.

No doubt Sabryna will cast her eyes heavenward and certainly not expand upon her sentence with the information that Lawrence deserted Sabryna and their son shortly after Devan’s birth. He hopped a grain freighter for the “better and even more beautiful world” of Barbados. Hasn’t been heard from since.

I check my cell phone and see that the time is six thirty. Immediately Sabryna sees me looking at the time, and she announces: “I will start closing up the store early. The usual seven o’clock will be far too late with a baby coming. And …”

She says the word And with great force. Then pauses.

I ask, “And what?”

“ And if Willie and Devan are not coming through that door in one minute, they’ll both be getting a whipping from me.”

Then miraculously the door of the store opens quickly, and our two little guys appear.

Devan and Willie greet us and kiss us. Hugs all around.

“What’s for supper, Mama?” Devan asks.

“That is not a respectful question,” says Sabryna. “Your supper is what Lucy and I put on your supper table.”

“Uh-oh,” says Willie with a quiet sadness in his voice. “I bet they’re making Lucky Pot supper.”

Every week or so Sabryna and I pool all—that’s right, all —our leftovers. She makes a big pot of rice, and we toss in the leftovers from both our kitchens. It can turn into something delicious and magical, or it can turn into something mysterious and only barely edible. When it’s not so tasty, Devan supplements it later with a plate of rice and beans, and Willie microwaves a Hot Pocket or two.

Sabryna closes the store as she promised, and soon she and I are standing at her stove and creating a gourmet masterpiece: curried oxtail, cubes of meatloaf, frozen peas, four Kraft Singles, half a large can of V8 vegetable juice, and— ta-da! —this morning’s remains of Willy’s Kellogg’s cornflakes.

“That’s just the crunchiness this dish needs,” Sabryna explains.

The results could go either way. Turns out the Lucky Pot supper tonight is neither a wild success nor a nauseating disaster. The curry flavor in the oxtail seems to dominate, and that’s good. The cornflakes never had a chance.

But of course much better than a plate of passable, edible-enough food is the fact that four very hungry people are sitting together having a beautiful time. Jokes and scowls and stories from our different days.

Finally, Sabryna and I exchange secret knowing glances. It’s time to tell both boys about the arrival of Val’s baby tomorrow. As is often the way with kids, it’s almost impossible to know how they’ll react.

Sabryna is calm and smiling as she tells them. “ We are going to have a houseguest.” One of the many great things about Sabryna is that she can only smile if it’s a real smile. And this is a real smile, and it is a big smile.

Willie and Devan look at each other. Then Sabryna tells them the tale of the new baby. We have no sense of what the boys are thinking.