The Language of Secrets by Dianne Dixon

Author:Dianne Dixon [Dixon, Dianne]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-385-53061-3
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2010-08-28T04:00:00+00:00

T J

ESSEX, CONNECTICUT, AUGUST 1977

*

“Is this my baby?” Margaret had barely been able to speak. He was the most beautiful child she’d ever seen. She had carefully taken him as he was being lowered into her arms, and the feeling had been delicious. She’d waited for him for a very long time. He hadn’t come to her until the day before her forty-fifth birthday.

When she brought her child home, it was through a snowfall as crisp and white as freshly ironed lace. It was February and she was thinking that she should have gotten the Christmas decorations from the attic and put them back up in honor of his arrival. Her son was a miracle; he should be coming into a house dressed for the season of miracles.

As she carried him, bundled in a blanket, toward her front door, she wondered what she looked like to people passing on the street. What would they think of this middle-aged woman with her unruly red hair, sloping shoulders, and limping gait, running toward a modest New England clapboard house as if she were running toward heaven? Would they know that she was not what she appeared to be; that she had been transformed; that this house was now a home, a place where a mother was being born and a son would grow?

Before Margaret could reach the door, it was thrown open by Kati. Huge bouquets of helium balloons were tied to the legs of the dark wood table just inside the doorway, and Kati was singing: loudly and off-key, “Happy baby to you! Happy baby to you! Happy baby, dear Maggie. Happy baby to you!”

Kati was nineteen—adorably pretty, free-spirited and spontaneous. She was the daughter of an old friend. Margaret had hired her a year ago as a temporary assistant to run errands and type lecture notes until someone (someone whom Margaret assumed would be more serious-minded and scholarly) could be found. But Kati had proved to be a conscientious, enthusiastic, and completely competent employee. Within weeks, her status had become permanent.

“I tried to sing quiet,” Kati said. “I didn’t wake him up, did I?”

“No,” Margaret told her. “You sang very quietly. He’s still fast asleep.”

Kati lifted the edge of the blanket away from the child’s face. His skin was creamy white and his hair was the color of chocolate. She gave a quick, soft gasp—as if she had encountered an exquisite work of art. He stirred. For a moment, his eyes opened. They were green, with eyelashes that were dark and extravagantly long. He sleepily closed his eyes again. A tear that had been caught in his lashes slid free and Margaret gently wiped it away. “He was crying a little in the car,” she explained. “It’s hard to be so new in a whole new world.”

Margaret went to a chair near the fire and carefully lowered herself into it, never taking her eyes off her sleeping child. Kati followed and sat on the floor beside her. “What are you going to name him?” Kati asked.

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