The Silken Web Read online

  “Yeah, it’s okay,” Seth conceded dryly. “I wanted a Ferrari, but the damn chair wouldn’t fit in one.”

  Kathleen laughed easily.

  * * *

  Much to Seth’s surprise, Kathleen asked that a small storage room on the ground floor of the seven-story building be given over as her office rather than the one he had designated as hers on one of the upper floors.

  “It’s much more convenient. Really,” she argued convincingly. “I can catalogue goods as they come in, check them against the manufacturers’ invoices and inspect them before they’re ever sent to their departments.”

  “But, Kathleen,” he protested, “we have subordinate employees who do all that.”

  “I know. They can help. But I like to do most of it myself, or at least supervise.” In the end, she got her way.

  The first week of October was upon them and she was anticipating the trip to New York scheduled for the end of the month. She was unloading a box of evening gowns, hanging them on hangers to be steamed before consignment to the after-five department, when a wave of dizziness assailed her.

  For a moment, she gripped the edge of a nearby table and shut her eyes, hanging her head in an effort to supply it with the needed blood. Finally, she straightened up slowly and took a deep breath.

  The girl operating the hissing steam machine had noticed. “Kathleen? Are you okay? You look like you’re about to faint.”

  “N—No. I’m fine. Just a little dizzy. I think I may need to start eating a bigger breakfast.” Sometimes she became so involved with her work that she delayed lunch or forgot it altogether, so that toward the end of the day she was shaky with weakness. The problem was that she had never been a big breakfast eater, and lately, the last thing she wanted in the morning was food.

  Only this morning when she was brushing her teeth, the flavor of the toothpaste nauseated her to the point of gagging. Besides the morning queasiness, an annoying indigestion had plagued her evenings. Each afternoon, it seemed that her stomach enlarged, crowding her lungs and making her feel stuffed when she was really hungry.

  Kathleen hadn’t put all these symptoms together until they persisted and had now developed a pattern that couldn’t be ignored. Almost blacking out at work for the third time in one week brought them to the forefront. For the rest of the day, she took things easy and went to bed as soon as she got home, determined to feel better by the time she woke up the next morning. But the moment she opened her eyes, she knew she wasn’t well.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she had murmured to herself as she stared down perplexedly at the meter on her scale, which indicated she had lost another two pounds. Then her eyes glazed as she looked at her ten polished toenails and they multiplied to twenty before her blurred eyes. Slowly, her eyes traveled over the bathroom fixtures until she was looking at her own pale face in the mirror over the small sink. “No,” she mouthed. “No, it can’t be.”

  Instinctively, she placed her hands on her abdomen and felt only the flat, taut muscles that were usually there. But she knew that something was vastly different. It was no longer supple, but turgid. She had thought her swollen, tender breasts were harbingers of her long-overdue period.

  Her period! When had she last had one? June? July? Yes, the first of July. She remembered that she was having one during the Fourth of July celebration at Mountain View.

  And Erik had arrived a week later. The middle of July. And she hadn’t had a period since then. She had attributed its absence to the emotional turmoil she’d been through.

  She looked at herself in the mirror and raised a frantic hand to smother the small scream she felt on her lips. Then she forced out a laugh that sounded hollow even to her own ears. “You’re being silly, Kathleen Haley. Hysterically jumping to the wrong conclusion. Things like this don’t happen to grown-up women like you. They just don’t. It’s something else. Besides, everyone knows that you gain weight when you’re—It’s something else.”

  But it wasn’t.

  She telephoned a gynecologist she found in the Yellow Pages, not wanting to ask for a recommendation from one of the ladies she worked with for fear of stirring up curiosity. Luckily, the doctor had an appointment open the next day at noon. She took it, glad that she could go on her lunch hour and be back in the office for the rest of the day.

  The next thirty hours were the longest Kathleen had ever spent, with the possible exception of the long hours she had sat waiting in the hospital emergency room in Arkansas.

  Almost in defiance of her upset stomach, she ate a huge dinner that night at a Chinese restaurant that had been praised as one of the best on Grant Avenue. It was a stupid thing to do. Because of the volume of food, one should never go to a Chinese restaurant alone. But she cleaned the silver serving dishes they brought her after eating all of the wonton soup and two egg rolls as an appetizer.

  Feeling that she had proven her worst suspicion was just that, she drove home. But her confidence was short-lived when she raced to the bathroom the moment she opened the front door and emptied her full stomach with violent spasms. Depleted and sick with worry, she went straight to bed, already dreading to hear the doctor’s verdict.

  Lunch hour finally came, and she took her car out of the garage and drove straight to the doctor’s office only a few blocks away. She hadn’t eaten since her bout with nausea, and her hands were trembling as she gripped the wheel.

  She walked into the comfortable office in the high-rise medical building, introduced herself to the nurse behind the glass window and then sat down to fill out the forms required of all new patients. When that was done, she returned them to the nurse, who said, “Thank you, Ms. Haley. We’ll send for your records in Atlanta soon. Now, if you’ll have a seat, the doctor will be with you shortly.”

  It was another nurse who opened the door and called her name. Kathleen jumped in startled reaction. She had been watching a young woman with a very active toddler sitting in her lap. The mother was trying to read a Raggedy Andy book to the restless little boy, but he was more interested in terrorizing the gold fish in the aquarium.

  Kathleen followed the nurse down the hallway and went into the room with a large red “2” stenciled on the door. “Are you having any problems, Ms. Haley? Or is this a routine checkup?”

  “I think…” She bit her lip. “No, a routine checkup.” As ludicrous as it was, she thought it better not to bring up the subject of pregnancy. It was a childish game—to deny what one didn’t want to believe.

  The nurse made a notation on the chart in the folder. “Why don’t you undress, and then we’ll do all the preliminaries before the doctor comes in. There is a drape in the cubicle.”

  Kathleen went into the small enclosure, undressed and pulled the square of printed cotton over her head. It barely covered her hips. “Charming,” she muttered as she stepped from behind the curtain.

  “Let’s weigh you first,” the nurse instructed her. When that was done and her weight duly noted on the chart, the nurse took Kathleen’s blood pressure and a sample of blood out of her pricked middle finger. Her hands were so slippery with perspiration that the nurse teased her about being nervous and commissioned her to relax. Kathleen smiled weakly.

  “Are your periods regular?” the nurse asked as she leaned over the chart.

  “Yes.”

  “Your last menses?”

  Kathleen blanched. “Uh… let’s see… I can’t remember exactly. Maybe two weeks ago.”

  She was then directed to collect a urine specimen in the tiny adjoining bathroom. She handed the nurse the plastic cup, hoping that the contents wouldn’t be incriminating.

  Left alone for several minutes, Kathleen tried to calm her rapid breathing and slow her heartbeat, but to no avail. By the time the doctor bustled in, she was quaking with nerves.

  “Ms. Haley, I’m Dr. Peters. No wisecracks about my name, please. Most of my associates often suggest that I should have been a urologist.” He laughed at his own ribald j
oke, and Kathleen smiled. Who could be afraid of a kindly, middle-aged man with white hair, half-glasses that continually slipped down his nose and the countenance of Santa Claus? She was grateful for his blustery attempt to put her at ease.

  The examination was routine. He listened to her chest, felt the glands in her neck, looked into her ears and throat, then had her lie back on the table while he did a rudimentary examination of her breasts.

  “Are they sore?” he asked her.

  Her throat closed around the lump that had suddenly formed there. Erik had asked her that. The following morning. She could still hear the gravelly inflection of his voice, the concern as he touched her…

  “A little,” she replied.

  The doctor stuck his head out the door and called to the nurse, who came in to assist Kathleen in placing her legs in the stainless-steel stirrups. They were cold against the soles of her feet.

  “I’m sorry about that,” the doctor said as he heard her slight gasp. “I’ve asked my wife to knit some booties or something for those, but she’s too busy playing tennis. Now just relax while I open your legs a little more. Scoot down just a tad. There, that’s fine. Now relax.”

  Again. Erik. He had whispered that in her ear, even as he took her virginity. Relax. Relax. While I’m being unfaithful to my wife and deceiving you, relax.

  The speculum was cold, too, and when it opened inside her, Kathleen cringed and gripped the loose cloth over her breasts, clenching her jaw. She didn’t release her fists until the doctor’s gloved fingers were withdrawn.

  Finally, he was done. He didn’t say anything except, “When you’re dressed, I’ll see you in my office,” before he went out, his coattails sailing after him.

  She dressed while the nurse chatted as she cleaned up the examination table and prepared it for the next patient. When Kathleen told her where she worked and what she did, the nurse was impressed. “What a wonderful, exciting job!”

  Yes, Kathleen thought. And not exactly made to order for a pregnant lady. But then, she wasn’t pregnant or the doctor would have said so. She took a tissue and dabbed at the perspiration on the palms of her hands.

  “Come in,” the doctor called as she timidly knocked on his office door. In a courtly gesture, he stood up as she entered and indicated the chair opposite his desk. When he was sure that she was comfortable, he folded his hands on his desk and looked at her disarmingly over the tops of his lenses.

  “Ms. Haley, forgive me for being so blunt, but did you suspect that you were pregnant?”

  The words hit her like a shot from a cannon. The energy seemed to seep out of her body slowly, like air leaking out of a balloon with an insufficient knot at its end. She was deflated by slow degrees until she felt that there was nothing left inside her. But there was. Erik’s baby was inside her.

  She bowed her head as tears spilled over her lower lids. “Yes,” she admitted in a low voice.

  “When was your last period?” he questioned gently, knowing that she had lied to the nurse.

  Putting pretense aside, Kathleen said, “The first week of July.”

  He did some silent mental figuring, then said, “That adds up. I estimated by the size of your uterus that you are about ten weeks pregnant.” He cleared his throat delicately, giving her time to assimilate what he had said. “Everything seems perfectly normal. Your blood sugar is right, although I think you’d better start eating and gain some weight. You should deliver—”

  “I can’t have the baby,” she blurted out before she lost her nerve. She swallowed hard and dashed the tears off her cheeks with balled, impatient fists. “I want an abortion.”

  Dr. Peters was somewhat taken aback by the resolution in her voice and the stubborn set of her chin. She didn’t look the type to make a hasty decision, especially about something as important as this. “Is this your first pregnancy, Ms. Haley?”

  She laughed bitterly. Little did he know that it had been her first time with a man. It had never occurred to her that she should be protecting herself against disease and pregnancy. Good Lord, most teens were more sexually responsible! What had she been thinking? Kathleen laughed again, and the brittle sound caused the doctor’s brow to crease. She certainly hadn’t been thinking about getting pregnant. “Yes, this is my first pregnancy.”

  “Then are you sure of your decision?”

  She looked down at the soggy tissue in her hand. “As sure as one can be about killing something.”

  “Ms. Haley, you have a couple of weeks, no more than that, to reconsider before you make up your mind to terminate the pregnancy. Perhaps you should consult with the father—”

  Her head came up instantly. “That’s impossible. Besides, there’s nothing to reconsider. I must have the abortion. Will you do it? Or must I go somewhere else?”

  He stared at her for a long moment, thinking that much of her determination was contrived. She seemed so helpless, so vulnerable, so innocent in spite of her age. He sighed heavily. “Very well.”

  He picked up the telephone on his desk and asked his receptionist to make an appointment for Ms. Haley. “D and C. Termination of pregnancy.” When he replaced the receiver in its cradle, he said to her, “Check with Maxine on your way out. Until I see you, you can always change your mind, you know.”

  She walked to the door, but didn’t leave immediately. Instead, she turned around and faced the doctor again. This time, the tears ran unchecked down her face. “Please don’t think I take what I must do lightly, Dr. Peters. I have no choice. You see,” she sniffed back her tears bravely, “the child’s father is married to someone else.”

  * * *

  Saturday morning. Two days. Could she wait that long? The nurse named Maxine had informed her that she wasn’t to eat anything Friday evening past midnight and that she was to go to the hospital that night and have all the lab work done. Dr. Peters, it was explained to her, always had his patients put to sleep to spare them even the most minor discomfort. So she was to have a chest X-ray at the hospital at the same time they did the blood test.

  Seth called her on Friday afternoon and asked her if she would go to dinner with him. Her nerves were jangling. Hazel had come to the store that day and had countermanded an order that Kathleen had issued. The poor clerk who was carrying out Kathleen’s innovative method of checking inventory came under Hazel’s waspish tongue and was reduced to tears.

  “Does Seth know what you’re doing down here?” Hazel had demanded when Kathleen interrupted the scene. “We’ve always handled the inventory my way.”

  Kathleen resisted giving her opinion of Hazel’s archaic system and answered levelly, “Yes, and he approves.”

  Hazel sized her up with those deadly eyes before she turned away. Her straight back and imperious footsteps were grim indications of her hatred for Kathleen.

  Now, Seth’s kind voice was coming to her over the telephone, and his tone was so friendly and confidence-inspiring that she was momentarily tempted to pour out her whole sordid story.

  But though they had become close during the past several weeks, Kathleen knew that she couldn’t burden him with her problems. If she couldn’t call Edna and B. J., she couldn’t tell a virtual stranger. Guilt at the way she had deserted the Harrisons gnawed at her. Not only had she forsaken their friendship and support, she had abandoned them in the middle of the summer when they still had two sessions of the camp to contend with. And she wasn’t being falsely modest when she realized that finding someone with her experience to fill her shoes wouldn’t have been easy for them. Additionally, her fund-raising attempts had been temporarily suspended. She would resume them, of course, but later. When she had healed emotionally. Now she had quite enough to deal with.

  She ached with the longing to talk to the Harrisons, but was afraid some mention of Erik might be made. At this point in time, she wasn’t ready to handle what they might have to tell her. It was better to wonder if he had sought her out after his recuperation than it was to know for certain that he had never
come looking for her at all.

  “After dinner, we can go dancing.” Seth’s pleasant voice brought her back to the present. “Of course, it’s hard for me to dip.”

  Kathleen smiled into the telephone. How could she feel sorry for herself and wallow in this miasma of self-pity when someone in Seth’s condition could joke about his plight? “That’s okay,” she said as cheerfully as she could. “I can’t dip either.”

  “But I’m a devil at cha-cha. Push forward twice. Brake. Back one-half spin. Brake.”

  Now he had her laughing. “You’re crazy, Seth Kirchoff.”

  “Yes, I am. About you.” His voice became quieter now, more serious. “Fortune smiled on this old crippled boy the day you walked into my office, Kathleen. You’re perfect for the job. You’re smart as a whip. You’re beautiful and wonderful to have around just to delight the eye. And on top of everything, I like you. Now why won’t you have dinner with me?”

  “Seth—”

  “My conduct will be above approach, I promise. If I get too far out of line with a lady, George won’t empty my tee-tee bag.”

  “Oh, Seth, how awful!” she cried, but she was laughing.

  “Please, Kathleen.”

  “No, I really can’t tonight, Seth. I have other plans.”

  “A date?”

  “No, no, nothing like that,” she rushed to assure him. “I… It’s some personal business.” She’d better cover her bases now. “As a matter of fact, I’ll be tied up all weekend.”

  There was a long pause before Seth asked, “Is everything all right? Work? Money? Everything?” The concern in his voice touched her heart. Being as he was, he would naturally be attuned to someone else’s pain.