AFTER TUCKING THEIR mother into bed, Gus followed his sister down the stairs to Sonny’s room. The room was incredibly beautiful with all the candles reflecting in the hundreds of diamond-shaped windowpanes.
Gus stood beside his sister at her son’s bedside and watched while she stroked Sonny’s forehead and spoke to him in a soothing voice, like a mother would talk to an infant in a crib. Suddenly Gus couldn’t stand it anymore and grabbed Amanda’s arm. “Let him go,” he begged. “Please let him go. You promised that you would.”
“It’s already begun,” she said. “Freda removed the feeding tube last week. She says that starvation is actually a very gentle way to die.”
“How much longer will it take?” Gus asked, staring at his nephew.
“Not long,” Amanda said, kissing Gus’s cheek and stroking his back. “Aren’t we lucky that the Lord allowed us to have this wonderful boy to know and love for twenty wonderful years? Just think of all those lovely memories. We have been blessed.”
One of those memories came to Gus’s mind. Sonny was racing ahead of him across the great hall and up the stairs on sturdy little legs, anxious to show off his new hamster that went round and round in its own little Ferris wheel. Beautiful Sonny, the sunlight streaming through the stained-glass windows highlighting his golden curls, looked over his shoulder and called out, “You’re going to love him, Uncle Gus. His name is Brownie.” Sonny waited at the top of the stairs for him and slipped his hand into his.
Gus had to pause and close his eyes for a moment to deal with the ache that filled his chest. And for an instant, he could feel that small, sweet, warm hand in his own. He had loved the boy Sonny without reservation-and the young man he had become, a young man who had shared his uncle’s love for the ranch and wanted to live here always. Sonny had asked Gus to help him make his mother understand that he was not cut out to be an evangelist or to run an oil company or a political movement. He did not want to follow in anyone’s footsteps. He wanted to be himself. And Gus had said yes, that he would side with him against Amanda, and remembered feeling amazement at how correct that decision seemed. Sonny wanted to be his own man. And that made Gus proud.
But Amanda refused even to discuss the matter, and less than a week after that conversation, Sonny had been reduced to a vegetable.
If Gus thought there was even the tiniest chance that there was a heaven and he would see Sonny again, he would become the devoutest of believers and give away all his worldly goods and wear rags like Saint Francis of Assisi. As it was, every single day he cursed the God that he didn’t believe in for taking away that precious boy. And he had insisted on finding someone mortal to blame when maybe the accident had been just that. Accidental. No one’s fault-except perhaps Amanda’s goddamned God if he did happen to exist.
Amanda smoothed Sonny’s hair from his forehead and planted a kiss there. “I love you, my darling,” she told him. His face was gaunt, but she could still see the beautiful boy he had been-physically and spiritually. Everyone who saw him responded to his beauty. They wanted to be near him and bask in his smile, shake his hand. Her son had the power to save the world. After the accident, she hadn’t been able to understand why God had let such a thing happen to him. Finally, she had given up trying and simply bowed before God, submitting herself completely to his will. It was the only way she could find peace. That was when God had pointed the way. He was calling Sonny home, but he had shown her the way to have Sonny’s child. She would have another child to raise and adore. Yet, if an angel were to appear before her and tell her that she could have her son back if she would tear the baby from Jamie Long’s belly and kill it with her bare hands, she would do it.
Amanda sighed. What must God think of her for having such thoughts? And she banished them from her mind.
Gus was standing beside her, his face buried in his hands. The poor darling. He had vowed never to return to the ranch as long as she kept Sonny like this but had relented when she told him it was time to say good-bye-time for their boy to float up to heaven. But oh, how hard it was going to be not to have Sonny’s warm, living skin to caress. His lips to kiss. His body to wash. His physical self would be lost to her.
She embraced her brother. Gus buried his face against her shoulder, his entire body shaking with sobs. She stroked his back and kissed the top of his head as she would a child’s and told him that she loved him dearly and that they would always have each other. Then the two of them went around the room putting out the candles before making their way down the wooden staircase. They would have a nightcap before Amanda returned to watch over Sonny through the night.
The lights on the Christmas tree had been turned off, but its towering ghostly presence still dominated the great hall. Their footsteps echoed on the stone floor as they crossed to the library, where embers still glowed in the massive fireplace.
Gus turned on a lamp, threw a couple of logs on the fire, and stoked it a bit. Amanda seated herself on a leather sofa facing the fireplace and poured two glasses of sherry from a crystal decanter.
Gus sat beside her. Seated, he and his sister were almost the same height. He leaned back, making himself as comfortable as he could with his short legs jutting out in front of him. How he loved this room. For him, it was the heart of the house-the place where they had come after dinner when his father was still alive. In the winter, there was always a fire in the fireplace. He and his father would play chess, or he would play cards or checkers with Amanda while their parents read and enjoyed an after-dinner drink. Gus had always adored his sister, but after her marriage ended and she and Sonny came to live with him in Virginia, they had become even closer. Sometimes he found himself wishing that she wasn’t his sister so that he could love her in other ways. As it was, however, their love was purer and deeper and would last a lifetime.
“To us,” he said, lifting his glass.
“Yes, to us,” Amanda said, taking a sip. “My darling Gus. How I love and count on you. We have survived so much together, and now, with Sonny soon to be lost to me, you are the only constant in my life. Of course, we’ll still have Mother,” she added somewhat dismissively, “but the mother I once loved and respected no longer resides in that woman’s body. And there is Toby, my adorable playmate, and our diligent and faithful Montgomery, and all the other employees here on the ranch and in Virginia, and our staff at the Alliance for whom I feel lovingly responsible. But you are my rock. Only you.”
His eyes misting over, Gus reached over and stroked her hair. “Thank you, my darling,” he said. “You are far and away the most important person in my life.”
Amanda leaned close and kissed him. Just a soft brush of her lips, but it left him light-headed. He took a sip of sherry then cleared his throat and said, “Mother seemed glad to see us.”
“Perhaps. Poor Montgomery. Can you imagine putting up with Mother day in and day out? But with her unpredictable behavior and not knowing what trash is going to come out of her mouth, it’s best this way. She has her television to watch, and I think she takes a perverse pleasure in giving poor Montgomery a hard time.”
Gus put his glass on the side table and turned to face his sister. “There’s something we need to talk about, Amanda,” he said.
“Oh, dear,” she said, affecting a pout. “You’re using your stern voice.”
“I have seen stories in several publications from supermarket tabloids to Newsweek that claim you and Toby are expecting a baby in April,” Gus said.
“So?” Amanda said with a girlish smile. Then she actually giggled. “I’ve bought this little padded thing that looks quite authentic. I plan to start wearing it after Christmas. And I’m having some perfectly lovely maternity clothes made for me. In the meantime, I have opted for a loose, more ambiguous look.”
“So you plan to pass this girl’s baby off as your own?”
“It is my own baby,” Amanda said. “I have a contract that says it is.”
“Do you plan to pass this baby off as one to which you yourself gave birth?” he amended.
Amanda nodded. “You sound displeased. Would that bother you?” she asked.
“Is Toby the biological father of Jamie Long’s baby?” Gus asked.
Amanda squared her shoulders. “Damn it, Gus. It is not Jamie Long’s baby. It is my baby.”
“Answer my question, Amanda,” Gus said, his voice quite firm. “Is Toby the biological father of this baby?”
“What difference does it make?” she demanded.
“It could make a great deal of difference. When I first started hearing these rumors about your being pregnant, it occurred to me what your motivation might have been for keeping poor Sonny alive all this time when there is no hope of him ever recovering. After his accident, you were absolutely incapacitated by grief, refusing to leave his bedside, hardly eating anything, and putting your own health in jeopardy. And then all of a sudden you announce that God is great and you are going to get married. Don’t play games with me, Amanda. If I am going to protect you, I need to know if Sonny is the father of the baby that now resides in the womb of Jamie Long.”
“Of course, he is,” she said, anger in her voice. She took a deep breath, downed the last of her sherry, and carefully put her glass on the table. Gus could see her mentally shifting gears. Anger was not her style.
She took his hand and leaned very close, her lovely scent filling his nostrils. For an instant, he thought she was going to kiss him again. She looked so beautiful in the firelight. Her skin glowing, her eyes glistening, her lips moist. “Just think, Gus, this baby is of our blood. A baby that will continue our mother’s ministry and the Hartmann legacy. A baby for you and me to love and raise. He will be blessed by God, just like our Sonny was. And he will have the call. God has promised me. It will be like having Sonny back with us,” she said. “Freda did a sonogram on Jamie. She is carrying a healthy baby boy. That’s why I can let Sonny go. I will have his son to raise.”
The son of his beloved Sonny. Gus closed his eyes, imagining the love he would feel for such a child, who would be beautiful and perfect and incredibly dear, just like Sonny. A child who would love him in that same sweet, uncomplicated way that Sonny had loved him.
“And what does Toby say about this plan?” he asked.
She shook her head. “He doesn’t know. Of course, he realizes that I plan to assume the role of the baby’s natural mother and agrees that it’s better that way. Our people will more readily accept the baby if they think he is my flesh-and-blood son. Just think of the television ratings when we introduce him to the world,” she said, clasping her hands together.
Gus realized that there was some rationale to this logic. Many of Amanda’s flock had been followers of their mother before her. It would indeed mean a great deal to them if the baby was of the Tutt lineage and had entered the world with a birthright and would carry the Tutt ministry into the fourth generation. And the child would inherit the ranch and the family’s vast oil and gas business. Gus could groom him to take over. Like he had once planned to do with Sonny. Perhaps the child would be more interested in the family business than Sonny had been. There was so much he could teach the boy, things that only he could impart.
But the warming of his heart to Amanda’s scheme did not erase his anger at her. She should have told him from the beginning what she had in mind. He could have managed things better.
“How could Toby not know?” Gus asked.
“All it took was a little dry ice,” she said with a shrug. “When the day came for the insemination procedure, Toby and I made a little game of it. I ‘helped’ him, so to speak. When we were finished, I carried the semen out of that little room while he got himself back together. But the contents of the vial I gave to the nurse came from Sonny. We left before Jamie arrived. It was quite simple, really.”
“And how did you get Sonny’s semen?”
Amanda folded her hands in her lap and looked down, avoiding her brother’s gaze and his question.
“Freda helped me,” she said, staring into the fire. “I did what I needed to do. Sonny would have wanted me to.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” Gus observed.
“Of course it is,” Amanda insisted. “He will have a son to carry on for him. And we will have the next best thing to Sonny.”
“Amanda, I don’t think you’ve thought through the implications of what you have done.”
She lifted her chin. “Such as?”
“Such as Jamie Long realizing that the baby you are publicly claiming to be your own natural-born child is no such thing.”
“Jamie believes that I also am carrying a child,” Amanda pointed out.
“A child that just happens to be born the same time as the one she is carrying? You are a very famous woman. The girl is going to see photographs of you and your miracle child everywhere. And read heartwarming stories about how God miraculously healed you with another child after your son’s tragic accident even though you were postmenopausal or whatever. Those stories will say nothing about a second adopted child. There will only be one baby, Amanda, unless you and Toby plan to go out and find yourself a kid to adopt and raise alongside the miracle child.”
“I’ll tell Jamie that my baby was stillborn,” Amanda said.
“And maybe she will believe you and be ever so happy that you have the baby she carried to raise. But she will still know that the baby you are claiming to be your own child is no such thing. She would know that you, Amanda Tutt Hartmann, who is supposed to be above reproach and has millions of followers who think that you have a direct line to God Almighty and can save their souls and heal their bodies and make their pitiful little lives seem worthwhile, you are living a lie. The girl could blackmail you, Amanda. Or sell her story to the media. And if all those millions of followers lose faith in you, they are not going to donate the money we need to elect our candidates to high office. The Alliance of Christian Voters would wither up and die. We wouldn’t have friends anymore in Washington, and without the right people in Washington, the oil industry would suffer. We’d have to live at the ranch and feed out more cattle in those cruel, smelly feedlots you hate so much. Maybe we could turn the ranch house into a hunting lodge for rich, old cigar-chewing men-as long as the deer and quail population holds out, of course.”
“Stop it,” Amanda demanded, her beautiful face made hard and almost ugly with anger. “You are making too big of a thing out of this. Jamie Long signed a contract promising never to tell anyone about anything. She would have to give the money back if she ever told.”
“Amanda, that girl could get twice as much from some tabloid for telling them that she is the biological mother of your baby.”
“Then we would have to sue her and the tabloid for libel.”
“And then there would be a trial with the whole world watching. The judge would order DNA tests on you and the baby and Jamie Long and Toby. Those tests would not only prove that Jamie Long is the biological mother of the child, but they would also show that the child is related to you, which offers only two possibilities as to its father-me or Sonny-which would certainly give rise to all sorts of unseemly speculation. That girl signed a contract with a legally married husband and wife, Amanda. She did not sign a contract with a woman and her dying son. Your actions have made that contract null and void. She could sue you not only for breech of contract but for the money she needs to raise the child.”
“You don’t know that any of that is going to happen,” Amanda insisted. “Jamie is a dear girl, and she loves me. We have prayed together. It would never occur to her to cause trouble.”
“You may be exactly right,” Gus said in his most reasonable tone. “But how will she feel if she learns that you have lied to her? That the high and holy Amanda Hartmann has knowingly entered into a fraudulent contract?”
“Well, then, let’s make a new contract and give her some more money to sign it.”
“And what will you do if she says no?”
“The girl loves me,” Amanda said emphatically, her chin set, her eyes wide. “She is not going to say no.”
“You don’t know that, Amanda. When she signed on for this gig, the idea of a baby was just an abstraction to her. It was just a way to make a lot of money. Now there’s a living child moving around inside of her and all these maternal hormones racing around her body. If it had just been Toby’s kid, it wouldn’t have been such a big deal if the girl decided to renege on the deal. But now the equation is different. It is not Toby’s child. It’s Sonny’s.”
“So, what are you saying, Gus?” Amanda asked, her eyes narrowing.
Gus paused a few seconds before answering. “That you don’t need to worry about anything,” he said, patting her hand. “I’ll see that nothing goes wrong. You will have your baby.”
“Thank you,” she said and kissed him once again, then held out her empty glass for a refill.
When Jamie crept back up to the tower, the candles had been extinguished in Sonny’s room, the light over his bed dimmed.
Mary Millicent’s room was dark. Jamie waited for her eyes to adjust then tiptoed over to the bed. “Are you asleep?” she asked.
“Not unless I’m dreaming.”
“I thought you might like to sing some Christmas carols,” Jamie said, switching on the bedside lamp. “I came earlier but your children were here. Did you have a nice evening with them?”
“Of course not. My children have ruined my life.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say about your own son and daughter,” Jamie said.
“I say terrible things about them because they are terrible people, and don’t you forget it, girl.”
Mary Millicent grabbed hold of Jamie’s arm. “Help me sit up,” she demanded, and Jamie obliged, propping up pillows behind the old woman’s frail body.
“Terrible people,” Mary Millicent repeated. “And if you don’t do exactly what they say, they’ll lock you up in a tower, too. Or they will have you killed, like they did with Sonny’s father. Amanda went crying to Gus that Sonny’s father wouldn’t let her have Sonny all the time and wouldn’t let her change his name to Hartmann, and then someone shot the man in the head,” Mary Millicent said, making an imaginary pistol with her hand and pointing it to her temple. “I wonder how long it will be until Amanda gets tired of her new husband and asks her brother to get rid of him. And don’t you look at me like that, young lady,” she said, shaking a finger at Jamie. “I may be as old as dirt and have a few screws loose, but I know what I know. Maybe it’s my fault Amanda and Gus turned out the way they did. I raised them like they were God’s anointed, like they could do no wrong. And now God is punishing me. But you know what? I wish that God would just strike us all dead. Me, Amanda, Gus, and Sonny, too, and put an end to all things Hartmann. God should just open up the earth and let this whole damned ranch and everyone who lives here drop right down into hell. Except for Sonny, of course. Sonny should go to heaven. Just Sonny. Yes, I’m going to pray for God to do that-to drop all of us except Sonny into hell, so if I were you I would be hightailing it out of here. And when that baby of yours is born, don’t you ever tell him how he came to be. Don’t tell him that his father was a dead boy being kept alive past his time. You just tell him his daddy was killed in a car wreck or in some war.”
Jamie took a step backward.
“Hey, where are you going, girl?” Mary Millicent demanded. “I’m not through talking yet. And I want to sing Christmas carols.”
She grabbed a plastic water pitcher and threw it at Jamie. “You come back here, girl. You come back here right this minute or I’ll tell the witch and Amanda that you’ve been coming up here to see me. I’ll tell them to kill your dog.”
Jamie latched the door to her apartment behind her and pulled the sofa in front of the door. And put the coffee table on top of the sofa.
Angrily she wiped her cheeks. No tears, she told herself. She had gotten herself into this mess. She had to see it through to the end or…
Or what?
She knelt and petted her dog, who was confused by her late-night activity. He became more confused as she began to pace. He sat there watching her go back and forth, like a spectator at a tennis match, occasionally offering a whimper to express his disapproval.
She needed to think.
Or maybe not so much to think as to organize all the disparate thoughts that were tumbling around in her brain. To sort things out. To work through her confusion.
Not that she believed everything that Mary Millicent said. After all, the woman was afflicted with senile dementia. Or Alzheimer’s. Paranoia. Or maybe she was just plain nuts.
But not all the time. Sometimes Mary Millicent seemed perfectly lucid. Which didn’t necessarily mean that she was telling the truth.
Was Sonny Hartmann really the father of the baby inside of her, she agonized. And was Gus Hartmann some sort of underworld figure who could arrange for people to be murdered?
Long after Amanda had excused herself and gone upstairs to bed, Gus sat staring at the glowing embers, sipping sherry and making plans. Just to be on the safe side, he’d have Montgomery destroy the girl’s copy of the contract. He didn’t want her showing it to anyone or it falling into the wrong hands.
After the baby was born, the girl would be followed when she drove away from the ranch in her grandmother’s car.
No one would ever know what happened to her. She would simply vanish from the earth. Probably no one would even file a missing person’s report.
When Freda said it was time, Gus followed his sister up the wooden stairs, this time for the deathwatch. It was dark outside, and the candles had been lit once again. Montgomery was already there with Freda. Kelly joined them for a while then walked over to Sonny’s bed and offered a military salute. When she turned to leave, her face was covered with tears.
One of the gardeners-a burly man named Enrique-brought Mary Millicent’s wheelchair down the stairs to Sonny’s room and then carried Mary Millicent herself, which made Gus feel acutely inadequate. With his stubby legs, it was all he could do to get himself up and down the steep stairs.
They seated themselves in front of the bed and waited while Sonny’s respirations grew farther and farther apart and progressively shallower. Gus found himself holding his own breath while waiting for Sonny’s next one.
On and on it went. For hours, it seemed. Each time Gus was sure that he was gone, Sonny would take another breath.
He tried to convince himself that what was about to happen was, in a sense, after the fact. The living force that had been a wonderfully kind and gentle boy was already gone from Sonny’s body and had been since the day of the accident. Nevertheless, as long as his nephew’s flesh was warm and his heart was beating, the still form lying there on the bed represented Sonny to him.
Gus had surprised himself by agreeing to be here. But if his sister wanted him with her, how could he say no? He needed Amanda’s love more than he needed life itself. More so now than ever before.
Amanda asked Freda to lead them in singing “Amazing Grace.” Mary Millicent’s quavery, old voice rose above the rest. At the end of that hymn, Mary Millicent said they must sing Sonny’s favorite hymn and began singing,
A mighty fortress is our God,
A bulwark never failing;
Our helper, He amid the flood
Of mortal ills prevailing…
Gus remembered the words to every verse. He was, after all, the son, grandson, and brother of evangelists, and actually it felt good to sing the familiar words from his childhood. He moved his chair close to his mother’s wheelchair so they could harmonize, as they had done so often all those years ago.
Suddenly they realized that Sonny’s breathing had stopped. Freda put her fingers to his neck. Then she kissed his forehead, put her hands to her face, and began to sob.
Gus and Amanda helped their mother to her feet. She kissed her grandson’s lips and stroked his hair and face. “Good-bye, my poor little Sonny boy,” she whispered in his ear. “You can go be an angel now.”
Then Gus kissed Sonny’s lips and chin and forehead. And his eyes. His hands. His silent heart. He felt as though his own heart were bursting inside his chest.
Amanda lingered, caressing her son’s face. “Take good care of my baby, Lord,” she implored. “Take him to your breast and love him for eternity.”
“Amen,” Gus said.
He envied his sister her faith. How nice it would be to think of Sonny in a bright warm place with love all around.
Jamie awoke to the sound of the wind-a howling wind that sounded like a horde of enormous creatures enraged because they could not force the stone fortress from its foundation. She glanced at her clock and realized it was morning-a very dark morning.
She dressed in layers and pulled on her coat. “Let’s get this over with,” she told Ralph.
She was surprised to see Miss Montgomery, Nurse Freda, and Kelly coming out of the housekeeper’s apartment and heading in the direction of the great hall. Jamie waited on the bottom step as they walked past her, the expressions on their faces solemn. Miss Montgomery and Kelly acknowledged Jamie’s presence with perfunctory nods. The nurse seemed not to notice her.
Outside the cold took Jamie’s breath away. As soon as Ralph had found just the right spot to relieve himself, he came racing back up the steps, obviously eager to go back inside.
Her breakfast tray was waiting outside her door. She carried it inside and, telling Ralph she would be right back, headed down the corridor toward the chapel. She pushed open the hidden door and climbed the wooden stairs. The room where Sonny had been was empty, the bed stripped.
She thought of the little windswept cemetery with its iron fence. Soon Sonny Hartmann would be laid to rest in that sad, lonely place.