Julia’s tests results were nothing short of perfect, or so Bill Merrick said. In two weeks she was to be operated on.
Usually, when Julia visited the obstetrics floor, she dropped in at the infants wards to have a look at them. Of course some of the nurses would not let her come near; others knew her and allowed her to stay a while. This time, however, as Bill accompanied her (he wished to cheer her up a bit), the nurses were all smiles.
“I’d like to see the Capwell baby boy,” Julia asked meekly. “May I?”
“Ah yes, Ms Wainwright.”
She followed the nurse. “Channing Creighton…” Julia stumbled.
The nurse looked at her, not understanding.
“What? Is it wrong? What’s the name then?”
“It’s much simpler. It’s Matthew, Matthew Capwell, Ms Wainwright.”
The nurse showed Julia the nameboard.
“Ah, Mason must have changed his mind,” she thought. Or maybe he had just been pulling her leg. Maybe this was the name Mary had wanted her boy to be called.
She leaned over the little transparent couveuse in which the tinier baby was sleeping peacefully. What struck her was his size, actually. She could not believe a baby could be as small.
“Is he – is he all right?” she asked, staring.
“Yes,” the nurse said. “Much better lately.”
“Does Mr. Capwell come to see him?”
She did not know why she asked it. She just so much wanted the little boy to grow strong and be happy.
“Quite often.”
Julia nodded.
“He seems really proud of his first grandson,” the nurse added.
‘Oh no.’ Julia’s heart sank.
“And the father? Does Mr. M a s o n Capwell come often?”
The nurse faltered, “I’m afraid…”
Julia reached out and placed her hand on the glass. “Darling,” she whispered. “It’ll be all right. It’ll be all right, trust me.”
The baby’s nose and lips moved in a funny manner. It looked as if he tried to sniff. “You’re sooooo much like your father,” Julia said.

*
Mason said he wanted to be left alone. Yes, he was sure. He would stay at home – yes, indeed, he meant his own home, the one they’d created with his wife. Yes, he would be quite all right. Why shouldn’t he. After all, he had been on his own all his life since he was five. And no one had seemed to care.
But when he entered the apartment where they had been so happy together he couldn’t but break down. He was glad there was no one around, so no one saw him fall on the floor and sob; otherwise, he would have been taken to the madhouse, most probably.
When he lay there on the carpeting, spent, he must have blacked out. For he saw Mary. She entered the door, smiled to him, crossed the room and vanished in what they’d thought would be the nursery. Mason shook off the reverie, stood up and walked to the nursery: of course she was not there. But the cradle was, and the toys they had selected together, including the scary-looking monkey he had brought Mary when he learnt she was pregnant. Mason squeezed it so hard that it cracked in his fist. Good. Great. He wanted to break everything in the nursery, he did. To take an axe and break it all in flinders.
“I don’t want to be daddy, Mary,” he said out loud. “I can’t! I hoped not to make the mistakes my father did, and I was afraid I still would follow in his footsteps with my child, but I knew you would be there to help me, to set me on the right track, to love us both, the child and me, and to --”
He could not go on. He could not, for God’s sake! He threw the monkey onto the floor and rushed out. He needed to phone some special service and to have the cradle and all moved out. No, he would not live here, nor would the baby.
He would make the call. Later. He needed a drink now. Desperately. To blunt the pain, or his heart would just crack like the monkey.

*
Dr. Merrick had to hurry back to his quarters, and Julia hung around for a little while, waiting for one more lab test result. In an hour or so she decided she wanted a coffee. Looking for a coffee maker and engrossed in thoughts concerning her surgery, she stumbled across Mason.
“Julia.” He caught her elbow lest she should break her heel and fall. “Every time. You are starting to make a nuisance of yourself. What are you doing here?”
“No business of yours.”
“Oh really? And didn’t you visit the obstetrics today?”
Julia’s heart missed a beat. Then she realized he was talking about the infants wards.
“Yes I did,” she said challengingly. “What of it?”
“What is it you want there?” he muttered with a threat in his voice.
He did look scary enough, with his stubble and dark circles round the unkind eyes. But somehow she was not terrified.
“What do you care?” she asked.
He eyed her all over.
“Did you demand to see the Capwell baby?” he specified. There was no doubt he knew she had.
“YES! What of it? And have you finally come to bear the sight of the poor baby, eh?”
Mason did not answer.
“You called him Matthew,” Julia pointed out in a softer voice.
“Ms Know-All. The ubiquitous winner. The pesky bore. Meet Ms Wainwright,” he spat out.
Julia jerked her shoulder.
“I just wanted to support a little creature abandoned by his mother and hated by his father, is all.”
Mason turned to her abruptly. “Funny you should say that. My mother abandoned me, and my father hates me.”
“No he doesn’t,” Julia argued.
“Oh leave it to me to judge, will you?”
“Anyway. IF it’s true. Do you want your firstborn to go the same way you did? I thought I heard you say, and not once, that no child should suffer the same.”
Mason shook his head.
“You know, Julia,” he said with an undecipherable mixture of emotions. “It is beyond your strength to be my conscience. I never had one, and if I had, I lost every little segment of it when I lost Mary. Okay?”
She dropped her eyes. “Okay.”
He opened his mouth as if to say something else, but then decided against it and walked away.

/Olga Lissenkova/

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