Undead and Unappreciated (Undead #3)
Page 8I came back down to the living room after a refreshing five minutes of putting the Ant's perfumes in the dryer and pushing Spin. Antonia was sitting on the far end of the couch, leaning forward, and staring raptly into Sinclair's face. Her hands were palm down in her lap, and she was compulsively scratching at the leather, but she never looked away from his eyes.
I felt kind of weird about this whole thing. Why, exactly, were we doing this? I wasn't even sure how I felt about it, but here we were anyway, digging around the Ant's substandard brain. And why was Sinclair so interested? Didn't he have king stuff to worry about? A suit fitting somewhere? Jerk training to attend, or teach? But here he was, sitting on the denim footstool, holding the Ant's man hands in his and getting everything out of her. Everything.
"... and then I tried to get him to propose, but he wouldn't do it, he was afraid Betsy would get mad at him if he left her mother, so we broke up."
"Yes, but the baby?" Sinclair asked.
"The baby... the baby..."
"Man, she is getting freaked," Marc muttered to me. "Look at her."
I looked. Scratch, scratch went her nails against her leather miniskirt, and the corner of her mouth was sagging like she'd had a stroke.
And I could smell her anxiety. It was like burning glue.
"I don't remember..."
"Antonia, you remember," Sinclair assured her. "You just haven't thought of it in many years. On purpose. Did the baby live?"
Her mouth hung open, and she moved her lips like she was trying to answer him, but nothing came out. Finally she groped and found Sinclair's hands, and the rest of her sordid tale just... just poured out. Like vomit.
"It wasn't me, it wasn't me! I got pregnant to get married, but it didn't work, and then the baby was here, and it wasn't me!" She wasn't just yelling, she was shrieking it, screaming it, and now her nails were digging into Sinclair's hands as she hung on for dear life. "It was supposed to work, and it didn't work, and I didn't know what happened, so I dropped her off... went to the hospital and left her in the lobby... nobody was around, but I knew someone would probably find her... so I put her down and never... never..."
"Jesus," I said, startled.
"The last time the Ant was this upset," Jessica whispered to me, "you came home a day early from summer camp."
"It's all right, Antonia," Sinclair soothed. "Of course it wasn't you. Who was it?"
"I don't know, I don't know." She bowed her head, and a dry sob escaped. "I was pregnant and then I wasn't and the baby... the baby..."
"Antonia, what day did you find out you were pregnant?"
"And what day was the next day? The day you woke up and the baby was already there?"
"August sixth, nineteen sixty-six. She was-she wasn't a newborn. I don't know how old she was, but she wasn't a newborn."
Dead silence while we all processed this. Marc hurried to Sinclair's side and whispered a question to him.
"Antonia, we're almost finished-"
"Good," she snapped, still looking at the floor. "I'm not telling you another thing."
"Yes, fine, Antonia, look up at me-that's better. Antonia, is there a history of mental illness in your family?"
"We don't talk about that."
"Of course not, only nasty people talk about that."
She was nodding so hard her hair actually moved. "Yes, that's right, that's exactly right, only nasty people-whiners, and-and-"
"But who was sick? In your family?"
"My grandmother. And both of my aunts. Not my mother, though, not mine."
"No, of course not. And you're different from them."
"It's just my nerves," she explained. "I just have very delicate nerves. She doesn't understand."
"No, she's not really the understanding type, is she?"
"Hey," I protested mildly.
"Anybody else would have stayed dead," the Ant went on, sounding aggrieved. "She didn't even have the class to do that. Has to be different-and-different-and has to rise and be a vampire. A vampire! She broke her father's heart."
"She lives with that rich Negro," the Ant confided. "And they're not married. Get what I'm saying?"
I slapped my forehead. Negro! Who even uses that word?
"I didn't know I was gay," Jessica commented.
Oh, Lord, let me die now again.
"Antonia, where did you leave the baby?"
"There was no baby."
"No, of course not. Certainly not your problem anymore. But where did you leave her?"
"She didn't cry when I left her," the Ant said steadily. "She was warm. I had-I had lots of towels and I could spare some. I put them in the dryer first."
"Of course you did, you're not a monster."
"She's the monster."
"Yes, she's terrible, and where is the baby?"
"Children's."
"Saint Paul," Marc whispered.
"All right, Antonia. You've been most helpful."
"Well, I try to donate to The Jimmy Fund when I go to the movies," she said.
"Oh, that's excellent. And you won't remember anything."
"You'll go upstairs and get ready for bed. And you'll sleep like a baby."
"Yes, like a baby."
"Like the baby you callously abandoned," he said and abruptly let go of her hands.
"A sad woman," Sinclair commented when we were all outside again.
"Very sad," Tina agreed. She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye, which was as creepy as it sounded. "Very difficult."
"I've got privileges at Children's," Marc said. He was well into junior Sherlock Holmes mode, I was annoyed to see. "I bet we can track this baby down. And I bet I can get a crack at the Ant's med recs, too. Or at least try. I can try."
"Why do you want to see her records?" I asked. We weren't ready to get in the car yet, so we were sort of loitering outside on the front lawn.
"Because nobody blacks out for ten months unless something is really wrong. You heard her. One minute she was pregnant, the next she 'woke up' with a crying baby. So... what happened during that ten months?"
"I think I know," Tina said quietly.
"Tina," Sinclair said.
"Eric," she replied. She almost never used his first name.
"Tina?" I was surprised. Tina hadn't looked this nervous when Nostro threw us into the pit with the Fiends. But she was younger then. In a manner of speaking. "Hey, are you all right? Did you forget to have a snack?"
I noticed she had knotted her fingers together like kids playing "this is the church, this is the steeple" and now spoke to her knuckles, fast, without pausing. "My Queen, I always liked you personally, but now I am filled with admiration because you're not psychotic after being raised by that woman."
"Awww," I replied. I almost smirked. "That gets me right here, Tina."
"It's true," Sinclair said. "It's a miracle you're not more vain, shallow, and ignorant."
"Thanks," I said. Then, "What?"