James Cain - The Institute

She started to unbutton her blouse, but Hortense beat her to it. “No!” she exclaimed, in a half-hysterical voice. “I get the idea.”

“Well, I don’t mind, Mrs. Garrett.”

“I do.”

“So,” I said, taking my position in front of Hortense, “you thought it was going to be fun, peeing on Teddy Rodriguez, and then she peed on you—”

“What do you mean, using such language to me?”

“If my language offends you, I apologize. I withdraw pee. She pissed on you, I should say, and that takes care of her. It doesn’t take care of me. I have things to say—”

“You have nothing to say. You may go.”

“I’m going — don’t worry, I’m not enjoying myself any more than you are. But there’s somebody here who concerns me — a beautiful little boy who’s as much mine as yours. That boy I mean to have, and if you don’t surrender him now, I mean to claim him in court. I’m going to have you declared an unfit mother—”

“Dr. Palmer, are you insane?”

“Not that I know of. You don’t want this child. You don’t care about him. You’ve had him a month now, and haven’t even given him a name. That makes you unfit, as I’ll damned convince the court. But to take custody of a child, I have to have a wife who can act as a mother to him. As my wife, I mean to take Teddy—”

“Hey, hey, not so fast!”

That was Teddy who jumped up and said: “I’ve got something to say about that. Nobody’s marrying me as a way of getting a child. I have to be loved for myself alone—”

“You’ll be loved enough; don’t worry.”

“On that basis, I accept.”

“Dr. Palmer,” Hortense said, a vicious look in her eye, “I hope you take me to court. To prove you’re the father of this boy, you’ll have to admit that you blackmailed a woman, that you touched her husband for money, that you seduced his wife, that you lied to him. And just how fit the court will think you, to take custody of a child, even with Teddy’s help, I wouldn’t like to say. Please feel free to sue, if that’s what it’s called. It’ll be your word against mine, and if I deny — as I will — that you are the child’s father, I doubt very much that the court will believe you. A man may think he knows who the child’s father is, but a woman knows she knows.”

“Sometime, if you give your sworn word to the court about something that’s not true, you’ll do a stretch for perjury. That’s one thing a court won’t accept. When I point out that this boy has the same double mole on his throat as I have on mine, any judge on earth will know who’s telling the truth.”

“Get out of here! All of you!”

Everyone shuffled their feet. Nobody moved.

For some time the air was thick. All you could hear was Hortense’s sobs. Then the baby got into the act, with a sudden, furious squall that was tiny and at the same time so piercing it stabbed at your ears. The nurse took a bottle from the table, tried the nipple with her finger, and put it down in the crib against the baby’s mouth. “He’s not hungry,” Teddy said.

“You know if he’s hungry or not?” snarled Hortense.

“Yes, I know. Why don’t you?”

She was very cold. The nurse kept pushing the nipple at the baby’s mouth, but the squawling kept right on. Then she began shaking the crib. Teddy went over, took her by the wrist exactly as she’d taken Hortense the day of the press conference, and began backing her up, just as she’d backed Hortense. Then she flung her into a chair and turned to the baby who was still hooking it, sucking in deep breaths, then stiffening with a jerk and letting go. She picked him up, carried him back to her chair, and sat down — but holding his head with one hand in such way as to support it, and bending her face toward his.

“Little sweetheart,” she crooned at him, “has a mother that’s hipped on dough, the millions she has in the bank, grandmother hipped on booze, and a nurse that thinks he’s a butter churn — when all he wanted was love!” She breathed this in his face, and suddenly the squawling dropped off, to surprised little gasps, one after the other. Then he laughed. If there’s anything so beautiful as the sudden, gurgling laugh of a little child, I wouldn’t know what it is. I sat there with my throat playing me tricks, gulping and gagging and swallowing. I wasn’t looking at Hortense, and didn’t until I heard something, but then I did look and saw she was doing what I was trying not to do — sobbing, her chin on her chest, the tears pouring down her cheeks. Suddenly she waved her hand in a way that meant only one thing: leave me alone, go. Mrs. Mendenhall tiptoed out, followed by Sam, the nurse, and Winifred. But when Teddy got up, Hortense made opposite motions, beckoning her over, holding out her arms for the boy. Teddy, first kneeling beside her, gave him to her, carefully cuddling his head on Hortense’s shoulder. It left Hortense with one free hand, and she grabbed Teddy’s hand, raising it to her lips and kissing it.

“May I called you Teddy?” she whispered.

“Please I want you to.”

“Teddy, you’ve given me back my soul.”

Then we all three gave way to tears, and for some moments let them come, not even trying to hold them back. And once more, the baby got in the act, starting to bawl again, but in such a comical way that we had to laugh. Then we were laughing and crying at the same time, and Hortense was talking to him, sweet, low, and mumbly, the way a mother should. Pretty soon she turned to Teddy who was still kneeling beside her and told her: “It’s true what he said, Dr. Palmer — until now, I hadn’t chosen a name for him. I didn’t care. He didn’t seem real to me. They told me he was mine, that he’d been taken from me, but to me he was nothing. Now, thanks to you, Teddy, he’s not. You uttered the one word, love, that changed everything, and rebuked me, and chastened me, and woke me. Teddy, will you be my child’s godmother? Will you let me name him for you? My I call him Theodore?”

“Oh, Mrs. Garrett, I’d feel so honored!”

“Teddy, to you from now on, I’m Hortense.”

“Mrs. Garrett, I wouldn’t quite have the nerve.”

“Since when are you so shy?” I meant it to be funny, but it snapped out just the least bit short, and she jumped up, facing me, as though to bat me one in the jaw. Then we all laughed. “Getting back to the main point,” Hortense said, “as soon as I’m able, to have him baptized—”

“You’re going to ask me, Mrs. Garrett?”

“You can hold him. And if Lloyd would like to come—?”

It caught my ear as an odd kind of remark and seemed to catch Teddy’s, too.

“What did you say, Mrs. Garrett? Why wouldn’t Dr. Palmer like to come?”

“Well, if you and he are getting married—?”

“Are you being funny, or what?”

“Well, he said he was marrying you, and you said—”

“That’s right, I shot off my mouth quite a lot, but that was before I give you back your soul—”

“Gave her back her soul,” I corrected.

“That’s what I said. Stop hacking at me. Mrs. Garrett, now that you’ve got back your soul, I think Dr. Palmer loves you.”

“Teddy, he also loves you.”

“Maybe, but not as much and not in the right way.”

“There’s only one way to love.”

“Goddamn it, do you want this guy or don’t you?”

Teddy ripped it out, then suddenly burst into tears. Once more, we all were crying, and this time when the baby got in it, he really meant business. We got ourselves under control, and for several minutes Hortense whispered to him. Then once more he calmed down and sat, all three of us staring at nothing, not looking at each other.