A Plain & Fancy Christmas Read online

  “Maybe—” Ellie stopped herself. “No, it’ll have to be another night. Sorry.”

  “Have it your way. Send my best to your folks.” He ended the call.

  She put down the phone. Their relationship wasn’t supposed to be serious, as they had both agreed. Still, she thought, after all this time, he should want to meet her parents.

  She forced herself to return her attention to her computer. By the end of the day, she had accomplished everything on her list and a lot more. She had made inroads into the discussions with a major cosmetics company about using one of the firm’s clients as their “face” for the following year, and gotten a commitment for a young singer to be featured on a major magazine cover. Successes like these were so satisfying; being good at what she did gave her a thrill. With each task completed, she felt as if she were one step further away from failing at her job, one step closer to believing that she deserved her position at the firm. Those feelings drove her relentlessly. She often hated to go home at the end of the day when there was so much more she could be doing, double-checking, confirming. She would force herself to leave, reminding herself over and over that things could indeed wait until the next day, that the world wouldn’t fall apart if she didn’t make that one call or send that last email until the morning.

  Now, though, it was already seven-thirty, and she still had the cab ride to her parents’ apartment on the Upper West Side. She would be late, but not more than usual. She struggled back into the now-hated shoes, and left.

  Luckily, she found a taxi almost at once, and traffic was light, so she was riding up the elevator to the eleventh floor by eight o’clock. Pausing outside the door to the apartment, she could hear the muffled voices of guests inside, punctuated by laughter and ice clinking in glasses. Friday night family dinners were a tradition over the years, although Ellie’s attendance had dropped to once a month, sometimes less. A.J., her younger sister, lived with her husband in Rhode Island, so she made it only infrequently. The youngest of the three siblings, Nick, lived and worked downtown, only a subway ride away, but his attendance had also grown sporadic. The number of diners on any given Friday ranged from her parents by themselves to twenty or so relatives crowded into the dining room.

  Ellie rang the doorbell. Her father’s familiar footsteps approached as he loudly inquired of no one in particular, “Who could that be?” Whenever someone rang the bell, he always asked the same question in exactly the same tone.

  “It’s me,” she called out.

  Gil Lawrence threw open the door, a big smile on his face, his eyes crinkling with pleasure at the sight of her. She stepped across the threshold into his warm hug.

  “Hi, sweetheart.” He noted her beige silk suit and the leather briefcase she carried. “You came straight from work?”

  She nodded as she put her briefcase on a small table in the foyer. “Long day, Dad.”

  “What mayhem did your clients cause today?”

  She shook her head. “You don’t even want to know.”

  “You’re right, I probably don’t.” Gilbert Lawrence was a thoracic surgeon whose interest in his daughter’s professional life extended only as far as it affected her well-being. They walked down the apartment hall, its walls lined with framed photos of Ellie, A.J., and Nick at various points throughout their childhoods. “It’s time to forget all that and relax. Everybody’s here. We were just waiting for you.”

  “I’m sorry I’m late, it’s just—”

  He waved her excuse away. “I didn’t mean it like that. Uncle Jack has his Scotch, Aunt Leslie is getting lots of compliments on her hors d’oeuvres; believe me, everybody’s happy. But now we’ll move on to the main business of eating until we can’t move.”

  They came to the three wide steps leading down into the living room, large by New York City standards, but crowded now with the Lawrence relatives. Built-in bookcases across two full walls sagged under the weight of books and mementos from her parents’ travels, while another side of the room was lined with windows overlooking Central Park West. Ellie had always loved that view of Central Park, and, growing up, spent hours staring out those windows. She knew the four-bedroom apartment in a prewar building was now worth a small fortune, although her parents had bought it long ago at a fortuitous moment when the real estate market was in a slump. At this point, Ellie couldn’t imagine them living anywhere else in the world, so entrenched was her image of the two of them in the long, narrow kitchen, sitting beneath the large chandelier in the dining room, or moving about their bedroom, always so quiet with its thick carpeting and heavy drapes.

  Setting down a tray of cheese and grapes on the coffee table, Ellie’s mother caught sight of her. Her face lit up. As usual, Nina Lawrence was wearing black, which set off her chin-length salt-and-pepper hair and silver jewelry.

  “There’s my girl!” Nina hurried over to give her a big hug as Ellie came down the steps.

  She kissed her mother’s cheek in return. “Hey, Mom.”

  Nina looked past her daughter. “Did you bring Jason?”

  “No, he couldn’t make it tonight. Prior work commitments.”

  Nina searched her daughter’s eyes, but said nothing.

  She changed the subject. “Do you need any help?” Ellie glanced through the doorway to the dining room, where all six leaves had been inserted in the table to extend it as far as it could go. The table nearly filled the large room, with barely enough space for the guests to file in and take their seats. Atop the white embroidered tablecloth, her mother had put out the full spread of good china and sterling.

  “No, we’re all set. You go ahead and say hello to everyone.”

  Ellie made her way around the living room, leaning in for kisses, answering the usual questions about what was new and how her job was going. Most of her aunts and uncles from both sides of the family were in attendance with their spouses and a few of their grown children, Ellie’s cousins.

  She spotted her grandparents off to one corner and hurried over. Louis Lawrence was in his eighties and still a handsome man with silver hair, his posture straight beneath his suit jacket.

  “Hi, Gramp.”

  “Rachel.” He looked at her with pleasure as she put her arms around him. Her grandparents were the only people who still called her by her given name. Her nickname had come about when her younger sister A.J. was a baby and couldn’t pronounce Rachel. She had started out with something that sounded like Ull, which became Ell and finally the one that stuck, Ellie. Most people had no idea she even had another name.

  “How’s my favorite grandchild?”

  “I’m good, thanks.” She smiled. Everyone knew he called all his grandchildren his favorite. She bent down to kiss the frail woman seated in an armchair by the window. “Gram, you’re looking great.”

  Blaine Lawrence reached up to smooth back Ellie’s fine blond hair, which always swung down in a sleek curtain when she leaned forward. Before the elderly woman could reply, her daughter, Ellie’s Aunt Lillian, appeared beside them. Lillian was a tall, fashionably thin woman in her sixties, her hair dyed black and swept up into a bun, her wrists jangling with bracelets. As usual, she was wearing what Ellie’s sister A.J. laughingly called her signature look, a tight, too-short, brightly printed dress.

  “Where’s the boyfriend?” she asked Ellie by way of greeting. “I heard we were going to get a look at him.”

  Ellie forced a thin smile. “Not tonight, Aunt Lillian.”

  Lillian ran an appraising eye over Ellie’s outfit. “That’s a very nice suit, honey. You look very professional in it, which I guess is what you want. Not like a young girl would typically dress, but professional.”

  Ellie forced herself to maintain a smile, as if she hadn’t understood the underlying barb. The backhanded compliment was Aunt Lillian’s specialty.

  “It’s a hard balance for you girls, once you’re out of your early twenties,” Lillian reflected. “You need to look businesslike, but you don’t want to look too frumpy.
Especially if you’re single.”

  The smiled faded from Ellie’s face.

  “But you’re divinely skinny. You must have sworn off food altogether.” Her aunt turned to Blaine Lawrence. “Mother, can I get you something? Are you thirsty?”

  The elderly woman nodded. “Some water would be nice.”

  As Lillian went to fetch the water, Blaine met her granddaughter’s gaze. “I think you look both young and professional, and as beautiful as always.”

  Ellie laughed. “Thanks, Gram.”

  Her grandfather took Ellie’s hand in both of his. “Try not to take Lillian’s remarks personally, dear.”

  Ellie didn’t say anything. She could understood how these two lovely people had produced her father, but how did they wind up with such a sharp-tongued second child? The fact that Lillian was so different from her brother Gil never failed to mystify Ellie. Still, as she well knew, siblings could be as different as night and day.

  She hadn’t heard the doorbell ring again, so she was startled to see her father return to the living room engaged in conversation with Jason. So he had changed his mind. When he caught her eye, he grinned and looked back at Gil, gesturing toward Ellie. Gil nodded and smiled as the two shook hands. Apparently, Ellie thought, Jason’s first introduction to her father had gone well. Watching him cross the room to join her, she couldn’t help but think that he looked as handsome and well-dressed as one could ever hope a date would be.

  “Hi, honey,” Jason said, slipping an arm around her waist and kissing her on the cheek. “There was a change in plans, so I was able to make it.” He turned to her grandparents. “Forgive me if I’m interrupting you.”

  “Not in the least,” Blaine said.

  Ellie made the introductions, still pleased and surprised that he had gone to the trouble of coming.

  Her mother emerged from the kitchen, calling out in a loud voice. “Dinner, everyone! Let’s all move into the dining room!”

  Louis Lawrence helped his wife stand. Ellie started toward her grandmother’s other side to assist as well. Her grandparents were really the best, she thought, with a rush of affection.

  “Please let me, Ellie,” Jason said, stepping in to offer his arm to her grandmother.

  “We shall escort the two most beautiful women into the dining room,” her grandfather said to Jason with bravado. He tucked his wife’s arm into his and offered his other arm to Ellie.

  “You flatter me, Gramp,” she said, matching his grand tone as she linked her arm through his. “Let’s make our grand entrance and chow down. I’m starving.”

  Chapter 3

  The teakettle began to whistle. Violet Thornton got up from the Formica-covered kitchen table, where she had been waiting for the water to heat up, trying not to think about what she was about to do. Heavy with dread, she poured hot water over a tea bag in an old porcelain cup.

  She set down the kettle and tightened the sash around her robe. Carrying the cup and saucer, she took slow, careful steps into the house’s living room. Her powder blue terry-cloth slippers flopped noisily as she went to sit at the desk, an antique her husband had prized. From the top drawer she removed several sheets of pink stationery. Then she opened the bottom side drawer and reached under a pile of papers to remove a large white envelope, ragged with age. She extracted its contents, spreading everything out before her. To whom would she write first?

  It didn’t matter one bit, she realized. Two women in two different states would receive the same letter. Then she could breathe freely at last, knowing she had done what she should have done so long ago.

  Still, until today, her love for her husband had stayed her hand every time she contemplated writing these letters. When she had met Paul Thornton, she had fallen instantly, totally in love with him. He was new to the staff at Griffith Hospital, a handsome, fifty-year-old pediatrician who had the sick children smiling and laughing even as he soothed the fears of their parents. He had moved to Pennsylvania from a town in the Midwest, recovering from a divorce, as he told her, and glad to be there. She loved his graying hair and strong hands. Violet was a nurse in the newborn nursery, and she swore she could actually understand the concept of swooning every time he came in to examine the new babies. She had had several boyfriends over the years, but no one she cared about enough to marry. Certainly, no man ever came close to making her feel the way Paul Thornton did, and, at forty-four, she had resigned herself to remaining single.

  The miracle was that he took an interest in her. From sharing coffee breaks, they progressed to dinners, a weekend getaway, and, finally, marriage. From the day they said their vows at City Hall, Violet woke up every morning astonished to find it hadn’t all been a dream. She really was married to the incredible Dr. Thornton.

  Her new husband had neglected to tell her one important fact, however. He was an alcoholic who had managed to stay sober only since he moved to Pennsylvania. It was barely six months into their marriage when he went into a bar on his way home from the hospital one evening, and didn’t come home until the morning, incoherent and reeking of alcohol. From that point on, Violet could only watch as he balanced his duties as a doctor with his need to drink. He consumed drink after drink every night, sometimes working himself into a smoldering rage, other times becoming maudlin and weepy, more often falling into a stupor in his chair, then passing out until morning. Yet there he would be at work the next day, examining children, prescribing medicines, laughing and charming everyone around him—the model of professional dedication.

  As horrified as she was, Violet never loved him any less. He might get angry when he was drunk, but he never turned his anger on her, and, later, when he sobered up, he was as regretful as a child, sometimes crying with his head in her lap, her hand stroking his head. He begged her to forgive him for his weakness. She did her best to convince him to go for help, but he refused. Word would get out, he said, and his career would be ruined.

  Eventually, inevitably, the two sides of his life began to bleed into one another. He’d show up to work bleary-eyed, a bit short-tempered, forgetting what this or that nurse had just told him. He started making medical mistakes, small ones, but people began to notice. Violet was afraid for him, knowing he would fall completely to pieces if he were stripped of his identity as a physician. He had told her countless times that medicine was what saved him, kept him going. Being a doctor was all he’d ever wanted to do. She couldn’t guess what might happen if he couldn’t do that anymore.

  The mistakes at work grew worse. His prescription for amoxicillin for a child whose chart clearly indicated he was allergic led to a first reprimand. Misdiagnosing a case of Kawasaki disease resulted in a near fatality for a seven-year-old, and brought a slew of questions and a serious warning. After he was caught sleeping in the doctors’ lounge when he was supposed to be in the operating room attending a difficult delivery, he was put on probation and told that one more infraction would result in dismissal. They would be watching him.

  At the time, Violet and Paul had been married nearly three years. Working the four-to-midnight shift one week, she arrived to start work long after Paul had begun his day at the hospital. There were six babies in the nursery that week, a relatively high number. As she glanced over the paperwork before making her rounds to look over her tiny charges, Violet saw that one of them had been discharged that morning.

  As she came to the closest bassinet, she glanced at the name on the card, then peered at the infant inside. She stopped, puzzled. She looked at the card again. King, Rachel.

  Violet spent eight hours a day with the babies for as long as they remained in the hospital. She prided herself on getting to know and recognize each one. She had been finishing her shift yesterday at midnight when Rachel King was delivered.

  This was not that same baby. Violet recognized the baby in this bassinet as one she had spent time with for the past two days. The parents weren’t local, but had been driving through the area when the mother had gone into labor. There had been s
ome difficulties, which led to an emergency C-section.

  Violet felt her throat constrict with fear. She went back to the nurses’ desk to look once more at the discharge papers. The baby discharged by her husband that morning was listed as Rachel Lawrence, who’d left with her parents, Gilbert and Nina Lawrence, official residence New York, New York.

  No, no, thought Violet, this is all wrong. The baby here in the hospital was Rachel Lawrence. This was the three-day-old C-section who should have gone home to New York with her parents.

  Violet’s heart was pounding as she went back to stand over the infant in the King bassinet. The baby girl slept, long dark eyelashes against her cheeks. Careful not to wake her, Violet lifted the tiny hand to look at the hospital I.D. bracelet on her wrist. Lawrence, Rachel.

  It was exactly as she feared. Rachel King, the Amish baby born yesterday, was gone. The Lawrence family had taken that baby home. Their daughter was still here, mistakenly put in the bassinet for the Amish child, Rachel King.

  Afraid she might be sick, Violet made her way back to the desk and sat down. Think, she commanded herself. Switched babies were every maternity hospital’s worst nightmare. Once this became known, no one would ever again come to Griffith to deliver a baby—or maybe for any other reason, either. She had to be careful about how she handled this.

  But there was her husband to consider. Violet took a ragged breath. She knew he had been drunk the previous night, but was off to work on time as usual in the morning. This, of course, would be the end of the line for him. He would be fired, maybe lose his license to practice. Even if he kept his license, no other hospital or practice would hire him when the story got around about all the mistakes he made, culminating with this one. She had no trouble envisioning him taking his own life over the shame and public humiliation. Whatever happened, he would never recover from this. Any hope of curing his drinking problem would be gone.

  Almost without thinking, she retrieved a small scissors from the desk and went back to the King bassinet. She reached in once more for the baby’s wrist and snipped off the identification bracelet, dropping it into her uniform pocket. Next, she made copies of both babies’ birth certificates and wrote down what she knew about the circumstances of their births. She didn’t know what she would do with all of it, but she sensed it was important to keep track of exactly what had taken place that day. She put the materials in a large white envelope, which she folded and stuffed into her purse. Then, as if in a dream, she went back to changing diapers and preparing to give the babies their bottles of formula.