A little sound of apprehension and dismay escaped from her throat as she came past the crib next to Alice’s. It caught his attention at last. He looked up. Their eyes met, and Suzanne saw a flash of interest and anticipation in those blue eyes. Neither of them smiled. For a stretched out moment, neither of them even spoke.
Suzanne felt his assessment of her like the hot glare of a surgical lamp. She flushed. What was he thinking? There was a calculation in his regard, as if they were two athletes about to go head to head in a race.
“You must be Suzanne,” he said at last. “Is that right? Josephine’s half sister?”
“I’m Jodie’s half sister, yes.”
She used her dead sister’s nickname deliberately, as if to underline their connection and the fact that it was stronger than any connection he could possibly claim. No one had called Jodie Rimsky “Josephine.” Even her listing under Physicians in the Manhattan telephone directory had read, “Jodie Rimsky, M.D.”
“But I have no idea about you,” she added. His English was fluent and attractive to the ear, but there was an accent, most noticeable when he had said Jodie’s name. Terri had said he’d only been in the country for a couple of days. Was he French?
“I’m her first cousin. Jodie’s first cousin.” He emphasized the nickname as if to admit that Suzanne had won that particular point. The cynical little tuck at the corner of his mouth suggested it would be her last victory. “Our fathers were brothers.”
Shocked, Suzanne seized on one tiny fact that didn’t make sense. It was like pulling on a tail of yarn in the hope that the whole sweater would unravel. For some reason, she instinctively wanted this man’s story, whatever it was, to unravel now. Dr. Feldman had mentioned to her in passing that Jodie had some relatives in Europe, but he hadn’t made it sound all that important. Why was this man here, seated beside Alice’s crib? He’d come such a long way.
“If your fathers were brothers, then your name should be Rimsky,” she said. “But Terri said it was Serkin.”
“More properly…or historically…it’s Serkin-Rimsky,” he explained, his face still unsmiling. “Our fathers chose to simplify it in different ways. My passport still says Serkin, but I’ll be using the Serkin-Rimsky name in full from now on.”
It sounded like a threat.
“What do you want?” Suzanne asked, her voice harsh with apprehension.
Her gut was churning like a washing machine. It shouldn’t be like this! Most probably, he didn’t want anything. But she was so used to people wanting or not wanting Alice, she could only think of it in such terms now.
Mom and her new husband, Perry, wanted Alice. They wanted the wealth held in trust for her, through the terms of Jodie’s will. They didn’t want the health problems that were sometimes associated with premature birth. Their interest in the tiny child had only developed after the reading of Jodie’s will, and after Alice’s health had begun to improve.
Dr. Feldman, Alice’s temporary guardian, wanted the baby to go to a close blood relative who could make a stable, two-parent family for her. He didn’t want her to go to Suzanne. “Although I have a lot of sympathy for your position,” he’d said.
Unfortunately, however, Suzanne wasn’t married, she was only the baby’s half aunt, and she was just camped out in an echoing, unrenovated loft apartment, a short-term, four-month rental here in New York City. She hadn’t had time to settle in. She spent all her time at the hospital or at her financially necessary part-time library job.
Finally, all those men she’d met through the personal ad didn’t want to get saddled with a premature adopted newborn, at the very beginning of a new relationship. They didn’t want a lukewarm marriage of convenience in order to provide Suzanne with an instant husband. Oh, and she couldn’t blame them for that. It had been a crazy idea to advertise, but she was so desperate, so single-minded about it now.
Suzanne felt as if she were the only person in the world who thought about Alice in terms of love instead of wanting. She’d loved Alice, welcomed her into her heart and her life, from the moment she’d laid eyes on her in early July. Back then, Alice had weighed less than two pounds. No one could be sure she’d even survive. Back then, Suzanne had had no idea that the baby had inherited wealth, or that Dr. Feldman would prove so firm on the subject of stability and marriage.
“What do I want?” Stephen Serkin repeated.
“Yes.” She glared at him. “I mean, are you going to tell me you’ve come all the way from…?” She paused, and left him to fill in the blank.
“From Europe. From Aragovia,” he answered.
“From Europe,” she repeated. Hadn’t heard of Aragovia. “…to bring her a teddy bear, or something?”
“Not a teddy bear.”
For the first time, he smiled. His teeth were very white, but a little crooked at the top, on one side of his mouth, near the silver line of his scar. It made his smile just a bit uneven. And somehow softer, less intimidating, Suzanne decided with reluctance. Along with the glint of humor in those astonishing blue eyes, it invited others to share in his pleasure. She watched as he leaned down to the floor and pulled something from a shopping bag.
“I’ve brought her a doll,” he said.
“Oh.”
“Is that all right?” He held it out for her to inspect, as if her opinion mattered. She took it, not knowing what else to do. For a moment, their fingers touched.
“That’s fine,” she said. “Of course.”
Nothing made sense. This man hadn’t come to America just to give Alice a doll! Suzanne was bristling with mistrust, but she was touched by his gesture all the same.
It wasn’t some mass-produced synthetic collectible, wired into position inside a clear plastic box, that he could have picked up at an airport store. It was made of cloth and yarn, with a dainty, hand-painted face, and was dressed in what looked like the national folk costume from some place in Europe.
Aragovia?
It was tragic that she knew so little about her half sister. There was a ten-year age gap between them, and Suzanne hadn’t even known of Jodie’s existence until last spring. They’d only met twice. The second time, Jodie had just found out that her baby would be a girl, and had confided, “I want to name her Alice. That’s partly a blend of my parents’ names, Alex and Lisette, but it’s also after my favorite doll, as a child. She slept with me for years, until we lost her at a motel on vacation. I remember crying for so long! Memories like that come back strong when you’re pregnant, I’ve found.”
This was one of the few personal stories Suzanne had heard about her half sister’s past, and they would never have a chance to know each other better now.
“She’s allowed to have toys, I hope?” Stephen Serkin asked.
“Now, yes, if it’s clean and new,” Suzanne answered. “Her immune system is more developed than it was.”
Distracted, she turned to the crib, the soft, pretty doll still in her hand. The hand-embroidered cotton skirts of the doll’s dress tickled her wrist.
