Two of A Kind Part 22
By Rosemarie Hauer
"Mrs. Foster? Olivia Foster?" Catherine asked the dark-haired woman who peeked out cautiously from behind her door.
"Yes?"
"Please could I talk to you privately for a minute?"
"I don't know you, Miss. Go away. Just leave me alone."
A door was slammed in Catherine's face, and she knew she would have to find the right thing to say, quickly, or that door would never open for her again.
"Mrs. Foster, this is about your baby," she said calmly, waiting patiently for the words to settle.
Stifling a sigh of relief, she saw the handle move, and the woman peered out again. "What baby?" she inquired cautiously.
"You see," Catherine pressed on, "I have a friend who means a great deal to me...a friend who looks unusual, too."
The woman's eyes darted along the corridor as if making sure that they were not being overheard, and then she motioned Catherine into the apartment. "Who are you?" she wanted to know."Someone who needs your help," Catherine answered evasively.
"I don't see what I could possibly do for you," Mrs. Foster said in a forced casual tone.
"This friend of mine," Catherine began her explanation, "was abandoned as a child and raised by good and caring people. Yet my friend wonders if there may still be relatives. We heard about your baby, and I thought..."
"That bitch," the woman hissed under her breath, but the next moment she appeared in control again. "I'm sorry but I can't help you," she insisted.Catherine could only assume that the curse was directed at Ted's grandmother. With a sigh she realized that there wasn't much more she could do or say, lest she endanger Amy and Vincent. "I'm sorry for disturbing you," she said politely, turning on her heels.
"This friend of yours," the woman picked up the thread of their conversation, "is she grown up or still a child?"
"My friend is an adult," Catherine replied hopefully, "but for reasons you will certainly understand I cannot tell you more."
Mrs. Foster slumped into a chair, burying her face in her hands. "You know, I loved her. I would never have given her away, but my husband couldn't bear to look at her. He made me choose between him and the baby. You know I had to think of my three other children as well. If Tony had left us..." Her voice trailed off, and Catherine knelt down beside her.
"I understand why you had to choose your husband over the child," she said carefully, dreading how the next question she was going to ask would be received. "Is he the baby's father?"
Mrs. Foster's head came up in surprise. "Why, of course," she said, her eyes wide with confusion. There was not the slightest sign that would have given Catherine reason to believe otherwise.
"Was there ever anyone else in your family, or your husband's, who looked like your baby?" she asked.
The woman shook her head. "We don't know how something like that could be possible," she said dejectedly. "Tony had come up with somebody who would take care of her. He wouldn't tell me more. He said it was better for me if I didn't know. I guess he was right. I would have tried to see her a thousand times, had I just known where to look."
Catherine's heart constricted with compassion. What kind of a man was Tony Foster to lie to his wife and get rid of his own child that way? Of course there was always the remote possibility that the person the baby had been entrusted to, if such a person had ever existed, was the one who had abandoned Amy near the park, but she didn't think that was very likely.
Olivia Foster rose from her chair. "I'm sorry, Miss, but you have to go now. My husband will be home any moment. I'm sorry I couldn't be of any help. I can't see that your friend could be related to us in any way."
Catherine reached out to offer her hand and was glad when Mrs. Foster took it. "Thank you," she said warmly.
"You did help me, believe me."
The woman nodded. "I wish your friend all the best," she murmured finally. "I can only hope that my baby will have a friend like you one day."
Catherine gave her hand a last squeeze before she relinquished it. "I'm certain that she will," she said huskily before she left.
*
Lying on his back, Vincent stared up into the darkness of his chamber. He had just been startled into wakefulness by some obscure dream, and now he was finding it difficult to relax again. His thoughts wandered aimlessly, and he pondered the fact that it had been a long time since he had last had a dream about Catherine. Maybe she is so much a part of my reality now, he mused languidly, that my subconscious doesn't feel the need so strongly to dream of her as well. Images of her floated through his mind; her iridescent eyes when she had looked up at him as he had joined his body to hers; her parted lips that had beckoned to him; her soft cries as fulfillment had claimed them both.
With a helpless groan, Vincent turned onto his stomach, burying his face in the crook of one arm. Thoughts like that would hardly help him to find sleep, yet they were so enticing that he could barely resist indulging in them. Oh, God, how he missed her. Everything in him cried out for her, his soul empty and his body aching when she was not with him to make him whole.
Last afternoon he had perceived Catherine's emotions through the bond very clearly. There had been apprehension and excitement, sorrow and sadness, but nothing more disquieting, and he wondered if she'd had the chance, yet, to talk to the woman who had probably born little Amy.
A barely perceptible footfall drew his attention to the entryway, and he rose on one elbow, straining to make out the slight noise in the darkness more clearly. With his superior night vision he detected a small shadow, hovering in the opening, obviously hesitant to move into the room.
"Amy?" he called out softly, and the quiet padding of stockinged feet told him that she was on her way across the chamber. She hurled herself into his arms, clinging to his neck and pressing her small face against his chest, as if her very life depended on it. Vincent smiled in the darkness, careful not to have her sense it. "So, what brings me this unexpected visitor?" he inquired with exaggerated seriousness. The child burrowed into him even deeper, and he kept stroking her small back soothingly. "You climbed again?" he voiced his suspicion and felt her tentative nod against his neck. "Does Mary know that you left the room?" he dug deeper. This time her mop of hair tickled his skin as she shook her head. "You know that it was not right of you to leave your bed without permission," he lectured solemnly. Again a small nod. "But you missed your Mama and needed to be held so badly," he offered emphatically.
The child leaned back in his arms a little and tilted her face upward. "Missed you, too," she confessed, placing a quick peck on his cheek.
Touched, he gathered her close again, admitting to himself that he had barely had time for her of late. Since his return there had only been a few occasions on which he had held her or talked with her, or just taken the time to listen to her. He could hardly blame her for taking matters in her own tiny hands, yet he could not simply let it go at that.
Sitting up slowly, he lit a candle on the shelf beside his bed, pulled her in his lap, and leaned his broad forehead against her small one. "We better go and leave a message for Mary," he suggested, "in case your absence worries her."
Bouncing up and down, Amy nodded eagerly. "And then we come back here," she said hopefully, "just you and me?"
"We might," he replied, "if Mary gives her permission. She is the person responsible for you tonight. So we will have to ask."
Instantly Amy hung her head as he rose, scooping her up and swinging her onto his shoulders. She giggled delightedly, and he cautioned, "We better be quiet, unless you'd rather ask Father for his permission as well." Amy made no sound for the rest of the way, and when they finally arrived at the nursery, he lifted her off his back and put her on her feet. Although they had hardly made any noise, Mary sat up on her cot the moment they entered the room.
"Amy?" she called out quietly as Vincent led the little girl over to her, nudging her softly to speak.
"I'm sorry," Amy began. "I'm not s'posed to climb out of my bed." When both adults simply kept looking at her expectantly, she continued, "May I go with Vincent?"
Mary shot him a quick glance and he nodded imperceptibly. "Well, I understand that you won't leave the nursery without permission again. Is that right?" Mary said sternly. When the child nodded shyly, she added, "Then you may go with Vincent for tonight."
Delighted, Amy hugged Vincent's leg enthusiastically, but he gently nudged her again. Obediently, the child released him and turned toward Mary once more. "Thank you," she said courteously, and then held out her arms for him to lift her up.
She was carried back to Vincent's chamber, placed gently in his large bed, and carefully tucked in. Then Vincent extinguished the candle and lowered himself down beside her, pulling a spare quilt over his body. For a long while Amy's irregular breathing told him that she lay awake, nestling with the folds of her covers or coughing softly, and he assumed that she simply wanted to savor his closeness a little longer before she gave in to her drowsiness. A rustle of sheets was followed by the movement of her small hand as she felt for his huge one, seizing and holding it shyly. He gave her a tender squeeze, and soon he could hear that she had fallen asleep.
The light weight of the child's hand in his suffused him with a rush of tenderness and protectiveness that soothed the raw feeling of sorrow and guilt that still stirred in his heart whenever he thought of Olivia Foster. It pained him that there was nothing he could do for the woman who had suffered so much, and he regretted deeply that Catherine's visit might have added to her misery yet. He wished he could face her just once to give her the chance to accuse him, to shout her anger and pain out at him, to do whatever it took for her to bear the nightmarish memory a little more easily.
The child stirred and squirmed restlessly at his side, dispelling his futile reflections. Instantly he relinquished her hand, remembering Catherine's assumption that Amy may have some sort of emotional connection with him which enabled her to pick up on his emotions. There had been nothing to prove that yet, but he resolved to pay closer attention to the possibility. Amy's life would be emotionally demanding enough as it was. She didn't need to be burdened with his own moods and turmoil as well.
Finally she quieted, and for a long while he just lay listening to her regular breathing. Gradually he felt his eyelids grow heavy with fatigue, and the thought of how much he missed Catherine was the last thing on his mind before he drifted off to sleep.
*
He was walking in daylight, in a part of the city that was unfamiliar to him, or in some other city altogether. There was a room, a dark-haired woman standing in its center, a bowl of fruits in her hands. He stepped before her, meeting her weary gaze. She held out the bowl to him, and he could see that it contained olives. A wave of pain washed over him, and he clutched his chest in an effort to quell it.
"I am sorry," he heard himself say over and over again, but she just kept looking at him listlessly, and he felt mildly surprised that her features didn't show any fear of him.
"I don't know you," she finally said in an emotionless voice. "I don't know you." And she opened one hand, offering him a single dark fruit that was nestled in the center of her palm.