Daybreak Read Free Page A

A careless nurse breaks the ID bracelets, that’s all. It’s happened, and it’s happened to us.”
    “I feel,” she said, “I feel this is a double death, as if—” And she put her hand on the place where her womb lay, where she had nurtured a child. “Isn’t there—can’t we find out what happened to the—the other one?”
    “You know the Barnes Clinic closed down years ago,” he reminded her gently.
    She persisted. “The records had to be transferred somewhere.”
    He was silent.
    “Don’t you
want
to know, Arthur?”
    He replied, so low that she hardly heard him, “I guess maybe I don’t.”
    “But why? I don’t understand!”
    “Because—because what good will it do?”
    “I need,” she whispered, and gulped to control the lump of tears that was determined to rise in her throat, “I need to know whether he—the other one—has a good home. Suppose they are terrible people, alcoholic or cruel, or he’s sick or hungry somewhere—”
    Arthur had released her and stood now, with his back to her, at the wall. Peter’s high school diploma hung there, but he was not looking at it. After a minute or two he turned about and answered her plea.
    “Let’s assume we can be successful in our search, and that’s quite an assumption in the circumstances, rather like the needle in the haystack; what good will it do? If the home isn’t a good one, there’s nothing we can do about it. The boy’s an adult. It’s too late.”
    “Still, I want to know.”
    Arthur continued, reasoning deliberately, “And if the home is a good one, we will be disrupting it. Think of the lives we will overturn! The boy’s life most of all, but his family’s too, and probably Holly’s as well. Here she is now. Let’s leave this room.”
    They were in their own bedroom when Holly came up the stairs. Her cheeks were pink from running. Her legs, below the red miniskirt, were slim and strong. Clear sky and fresh air, thought her father, looking at her.
    “Hi, Dad.” She kissed his cheek. “I’ve got a load of work to catch up on. How was your day?” Embarrassed, she corrected herself. “I mean, how could it be? I mean, I hope it wasn’t too awful, your first day back at the office. Oh Lord, I guess I don’t know what I mean.”
    “It’s all right,” Arthur said tenderly. “We all knowwhat we mean. Can I help you with anything? Latin? I used to be pretty good at it.”
    “No thanks, Dad. I’ll let you know, though, if I need you.”
    “She’s all we have now,” he said, after she left the room.
    The tiny hammers had started up again in Margaret’s head.
    “All?” she repeated. “Can you really forget about the other?”
    “Forget? Of course I can’t. Do you think I haven’t thought, about him, even before Peter died? From the day we were told about it, I’ve thought. And I believe, I do believe, better let it lie, Margaret. Let’s accept the accomplished fact, as we must accept the fact of Peter’s death, and go on living as well as we can. Take care of Holly. Pick up the broken pieces and try to put them together.”
    “I don’t know whether I can,” she murmured. And suddenly she cried out, “How I wish Peter would come back and tell us this is all a nightmare!”
    “I know, Margy, but he can’t.” Arthur’s voice cracked; he felt all her pain, the mirror image of his own.
    Yes, thought Margaret, a double death, that’s what it is. We brought you home, Peter, we loved you so, we cared for you and we followed you to your grave.
    “And they tell us,” she said aloud, “that he was never meant to be ours! That somewhere—where?—the other one—will you really not want to find out, Arthur? Never?”
    “Margy, Margy, ‘never’ is a long time. Let me think, I’m so tired and confused. I’ll have to think. I
should
think, and I can’t.”

PART
II

Laura

CHAPTER
2
    T he place in which Laura Rice—Mrs. Homer Thomas Rice—was born and grew up is a large town, or it might be