PROLOGUE

THE SKY PROMISED RAIN. The silence of early morning pressed down on the roofs of the two-story brick and wood houses that made up most of Staunton, Virginia. John Livesey always walked early, meeting the street cleaners’ flashing yellow lights, catching the dawn stillness before it was broken by the sounds of children awaiting school buses and of car engines being started in driveways. His reduced schedule at the hospital afforded him time for these walks without feeling rushed and now, with his wife gone and no longer waiting breakfast, he felt he had all the time in the world. He marched up Height Street, over the slabs of sidewalk that had been pushed uneven by the roots of trees, then up Oak and into his yard, along the walk lined with crape-myrtle trees pink with the blossoms of early fall. He recalled how his wife had loved the yard in autumn.

Stopping at the steps of the porch, he looked across the street at the pastor of the Baptist church. The young minister was there every Tuesday at the same time to place the title of his next sermon in the bulletin case. John approved of this sort of regularity; that the man would be up and about so early said something good about him. Still, John had only waved and never had he chatted with the man. He stepped into the house and prepared his breakfast: a poached egg, toast with jam, and coffee. He ate while he watched the farm reports on television.

The phone rang just as an agricultural field agent was explaining the defense of crops against horny worms. John kept his eyes on the set as he moved across the room and picked up the phone.

“John?”

“Yes, Charles,” Livesey said. “Why do you wake up this old man?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“What is it?”

“Can you come in?” the man asked.

“I’ll be in at noon.”

“No, I mean right now.”

John went to the counter and turned down the volume on the television. “Why?”

“I can say better when you get here.”

“Ten minutes,” John said and hung up.

He took a sweater from the hall closet and walked out the back door to his car in the drive. The town was just waking as he made his way through it to the hospital. He couldn’t guess what the matter was. It was unlike Charles Burrows to be shaken, though the young obstetrician was fresh out of residency. John liked him. Charles had become the closest thing to a family John had since his wife’s death; his son, Elgin, had moved west many years earlier.

He pulled into the hospital lot and entered through a side door. The young doctor was waiting for him.

“I’m glad to see you,” said Charles.

“What’s this all about?” John was moving with the younger man down the corridor then out into the lobby behind the main desk.

“We’ve got a woman upstairs. Name is Gertrude Thompson.”

“Yes?” They were now at the elevators, waiting.

As they stepped into the car, Charles said, “Well, she had her baby this morning.”

John watched Charles’s finger press the fourth floor button. “Four? Surgery? What’s happened?”

“She’s fine.”

“The baby?”

“Fine.”

“I’m growing impatient,” John said. “Why am I here? Who’s being cut?”

“Gertrude Thompson.”

John just stared at the man as if he’d uncovered a not-so-funny joke. “I thought you said she was fine.”

“I think she is. The husband delivered the baby.”

John raised his brows and gave a sidelong glance. As the elevator doors opened, he said, “So?”

Charles stopped at the door of a pre-op room and silenced John with a look. “He did a section.”

“Excuse me?”

Charles did not repeat himself. He just looked away down the hall.

John pushed past him into the room. The woman was unconscious, lying face up on a table, a sheet to her neck. John pulled back the covering and studied the woman’s belly. Across her midsection was a jagged wound. The flesh on either side of the long gash was folded, pulled together, and sewn sloppily with coarse thread. Coagulated blood sat in clumps along the stitching.

“Jesus,” John muttered.

Charles chuckled nervously. “It looks like he did it right. We’re going in to check her out and clean up, but damn if the son of a bitch didn’t do it right.”

“He did it laterally. What about bleeders?”

“I don’t know. He must have tied them off. She’s not full of blood.”

“Look at her color.” John grabbed her chin and tilted her head this way and that. She was pale, yellow.

“Well, he didn’t put her under,” said Charles.

“Are you telling me that she was awake during the cutting?”

Charles rubbed the back of his neck.

“I don’t believe this.” John put the sheet back over the woman. “What’d he use?”

“I don’t believe it either. That’s why I called you.”

John stepped away from the table and Charles. “Well, calm down. Relax.”

“I don’t know what he used to slice her, but it could have been sharper. You saw the stripe.”

“What do the police say?”

“They haven’t been called.”

John looked at him. “Call the police.” He paused and almost began to pace. “Where’s the husband?”

“He’s in the waiting area, but—”

John held up a hand. “I promise I won’t upset him.”

Charles shook his head. “Brace yourself.”

“Relax. Go in and check her out.” He went to the door and stopped. “And call the police.”

John walked down the corridor to the waiting area. He was angry that someone could be so stupid, appalled that a person could be so careless with the life of another, and uncomfortably impressed that anyone could pull it off: slice open a belly, pull out an infant, and close with a needle and sewing thread.

There was only one person in the waiting area. He stood by the window, looking out at the parking lot below. By now the sun was out and shone brightly beyond the glass, obscuring John’s view of the man. Thompson was tall and thick, wearing blue work trousers that fell baggily at his ankles. John watched him run his finger along the perimeter of the window as if checking for drafts.

“Mr. Thompson?”

The man turned. “I’m Thompson.”

John studied his face, his sad eyes and tight mouth. “My name is Livesey. I’m a senior staff member. Your wife looks as if she’ll be fine.”

Thompson nodded.

John scratched his head. “Why don’t we sit?” They sat on a couch and John observed the face further. “Why?”

“Pardon?”

“Why didn’t you bring your wife to the hospital?”

“I did.”

“I mean, before the baby was born.”

“I wanted to bring my child into the world.” Thompson’s voice was clear and calm. “It’s as simple as that.”

“But when you saw it was going to be a difficult birth—”

“I did what I had to do.”

John looked at him for a moment, confused and uncertain, then slapped his thighs and stood. “Jesus, man, you could have killed your wife and baby.”

“They’re okay.”

“You don’t understand what I’m saying, do you? That’s not the point.” John was leaning over, speaking at the man’s face. “You were lucky.” He took a step away and came back. “How did you know what to do?”

“I figured it out.”

“You figured it out?!” John’s voice carried down the corridor and turned the heads of two orderlies. “We’re talking about a human being, not a goddamn motor.” He snatched around and stepped to the window, took a deep breath, then, calmly, “Mr. Thompson, please don’t get me wrong. I appreciate your courage and all, but you must not have been thinking clearly.”

“I was thinking very clearly,” said Thompson. “What are they doing to my wife?”

“Dr. Burrows is going in to check her out and clean up the mess—your mess.”

“I figured they’d do that.”

Thompson’s emotionless response to the situation suddenly made some sense and John found a certain empathy with the man, but he couldn’t see through the cool exterior and tell whether he was troubled at all by what he had done.

“No one told me: Do you have a boy or a girl?” John asked.

Thompson looked at the ceiling and frowned. “I didn’t notice.”

This answer relieved John. Thompson was, after all, human; no doubt a disturbed man, but human. Thompson closed his eyes and lowered his head, clasping his hands and resting his elbows on his knees. John stood and left him alone.

John said nothing to anyone at the hospital. He just got into his car and drove home. There, he opened the drapes in the dining room and sat at the table with the sun on his back. He wanted to think about Thompson, but he didn’t know how. There was something attractive about the man, yet he couldn’t isolate what it was. So he sat, attending to the way the light hit the table, observing the dust on the china closet, and coming back to vague thoughts of Thompson.

Soon he was up and in the kitchen preparing his second breakfast. He read the paper while he ate. Since his wife’s death he had made a decision that strict routine would be the easiest way for him to take care of himself. He had the same meals every day. His son had predicted that he would soon tire of this, but so far he had not.

After his meal, he went up to his studio. The room had been used by his wife for sewing. It had a battery of windows facing south, with no curtains or shades. He had taken up painting at the suggestion of his daughter-in-law. He painted fruit. That was all he painted, fruit on tables, fruit in bowls, groups of like fruit, bunches of different fruit. He claimed not to be exercising some highly developed aesthetic peculiarity but only to be painting to get better at it.

He opened a sketch pad and with a charcoal pencil he drew the shape of a pear, then a line across the wide part of the figure. He was not so much bothered by the fact that he had just seen a woman so badly mutilated, nor was he terribly disturbed by the fact that a man could have done such a thing. What bothered him was that he was finding Thompson’s action somehow beautiful.