There was a sharp knock at the door and Clyde stepped into the kitchen foyer. “Come on, Rooney,” he said, “let’s get started. I want my dinner.”

Rooney brought her lips up to Jenny’s ear. “Oh, Jenny, you have to believe me, she’s here. Caroline’s come back. I can understand, can’t you? She just wants to see her grandchild.”

For the next four nights Jenny kept the bassinette by the side of her bed. A vaporizer circulated warm, moist air, a dim nightlight made it possible for her, between snatches of sleep, to see that the baby was covered, that he was breathing easily.

The doctor came every morning. “Just have to watch for any signs of pneumonia,” he said. “In an infant a cold can go into the lungs in a few hours.”

Erich did not come back from the cabin. During the day, Jenny brought the baby down and put him in the cradle near the stove. That way she could watch him all the time and still be with Beth and Tina.

The possibility that she was sleepwalking haunted Jenny. Dear God, could she be wandering outside at night? From a distance she would look like Caroline, especially if she had the shawl wrapped around her.

If she were sleepwalking, it would explain Rooney’s claims of seeing Caroline, Tina’s, “Why didn’t you talk to me when you came into my room,” Joe’s absolute certainty that he had watched her get in Kevin’s car.

On New Year’s Eve, the doctor’s smile was genuine. “I think he’s just about over it. You’re a good nurse, Jenny. Now you’ve got to get some rest yourself. Put him back in his own room. If he doesn’t look for a feeding during the night, don’t wake him up.”

After she nursed the baby at ten o’clock, Jenny rolled the bassinette back. “I’m going to miss you as my bunky, Pumpkin,” she said. “But it’s awfully nice to have you over that cold.”

The baby’s eyes, deep midnight blue, looked solemnly up at her from under long sooty lashes. The incoming blond fuzz sent silky gold lights through his dark strands of birth hair. “Do you know you’re eight weeks old?” she asked. “What a great big boy.”

She tied the drawstring on the long nightgown. “Now kick all you want,” she smiled. “You’re going to be covered in spite of yourself.”

For a long minute she held him against her, sniffing the faint scent of talcum. “You smell so good,” she whispered. “Good night, Pumpkin.”

She left the sliding panel open only a crack and got into bed. The new year would begin in a few hours. A year ago tonight, Fran and some of the other people in the brownstone had stopped in. They’d known that she was bound to be feeling low; the first New Year that Nana hadn’t been with her.

Fran had joked about Nana. “She’s probably up in heaven, leaning out the window rattling a noisemaker.”

They’d laughed together. “It’s going to be a good year for you, Jen,” Fran had said. “I feel it in my bones.”

Good year! When she finally got back to New York she’d tell Fran to get her bones checked. They were sending out the wrong vibes.

But the baby! He made everything else that had happened this year unimportant. I take it back, she thought quickly. It was a good year.

When she awakened, the sun was streaming in, a clear, cold light that warned of a frigid day outside. The small porcelain clock on the night table said five minutes of eight.

The baby had slept through the night, slept through his six o’clock feeding. She bolted out of bed, shoved the panel aside and rushed to the bassinette.

The long lashes cast tranquil shadows on the pale cheeks. A blue vein on the side of the tiny nose was dark against the translucent skin. The baby’s arms were flung over his head; his tiny hands were open, the fingers spread so they resembled stars.

The baby was not breathing.

Afterward she remembered screaming, remembered running with the baby in her arms; running out in her nightgown, barefoot, across the snow to the office. Erich, Clyde, Luke and Mark were there. Mark grabbed the baby from her, putting his mouth down to the tiny lips.

“Crib death, Mrs. Krueger,” Dr. Bovitch said. “He was a very sick infant. I don’t know how he could have survived the operation. This is so much easier for him.”

Rooney intoned over and over again, “Oh, no, oh, no!”

“Our little boy,” Erich wailed. My little boy, she thought fiercely. You denied him your name.

“Why did God take our baby to heaven?” Tina and Beth asked.

Why indeed.

“I’d like to bury him with your mother, Erich,” Jenny said. “Somehow it would be less lonesome leaving him there.” Her arms ached and felt empty.

“I’m sorry, Jenny,” Erich said firmly. “I can’t disturb Caroline’s grave.”

After a Mass of the Angels, Kevin MacPartland Krueger was placed next to the three babies who had been lost in other generations. Dry-eyed, Jenny watched as the small casket was lowered. That first morning on this farm she’d looked at those tombstones and wondered how anyone could bear the grief of losing a child.

Now that grief was hers.

She began to weep. Erich put his arm around her. She shook it off.

They filed back to the house, Mark, Luke, Clyde, Emily, Rooney, Erich, herself. It was so cold. Elsa was inside. She had made sandwiches. Her eyes were red and swollen. So Elsa has feelings, Jenny thought bitterly, and then was ashamed.

Erich led them into the front parlor. Mark was beside her. “Jenny, drink this. It will warm you up.” The brandy burned her throat. She hadn’t touched liquor from the moment she knew she was pregnant. Now it didn’t matter.

Numbly she sat down, sipped the brandy. It was so hard to swallow.

“You’re trembling,” Mark said.

Rooney heard him. “I’ll get your shawl.”

Not the green one, Jenny thought, not the one I wrapped the baby in. But Rooney was laying it over her shoulders, tucking it around her.

Luke’s eyes were riveted on her. She knew why. She tried to shrug off the shawl.

Erich had allowed Tina and Beth to bring their bassinettes into the parlor so they could be with everyone. They looked frightened.

Beth said, “Look, Mommy, this is the way God will cover our baby in heaven.” Lovingly she tucked the blanket under her doll’s chin.

There was absolute silence in the room.

Then Tina’s voice, sweet and clear: “And this is the way that lady”-she pointed to the painting- “covered the baby the night God took him to heaven.”

Slowly, deliberately, she opened her palms and pressed them over her doll’s face.

Jenny heard a harsh, drawn-out gasp. Had it come from her own lips? Everyone was staring at the painting now, and then in a single gesture, every head turned and eyes that burned and questioned stared at her.

31

Oh, no, no.” Rooney’s voice was singsong. “Caroline would never hurt the baby, love.” She rushed over to Tina. “You see Caroline always used to cup her hands on Erich’s face when he was little. Like this.” Gently she placed her palms on the doll’s cheeks. “And she would laugh and say, ‘Caro, caro.’ That means dear one.”

Rooney straightened up and looked around. Now her pupils were enormous. “Jenny, it’s just like I told you. She came back. Maybe she knew the baby was sick and wanted to help.”

Erich’s voice was low. “Get her out of here, Clyde.” Clyde grasped Rooney’s arm. “Come on. And be quiet.”

Rooney pulled away. “Jenny, tell them how I’ve been seeing Caroline. Tell them I told you that. Tell them I’m not crazy.”

Jenny tried to get up from the chair. Clyde was hurting Rooney. His fingers were digging into the thin arm. But her legs wouldn’t hold her up. She tried to speak but no words came. Tina’s small hands over the doll’s mouth and nostrils…

It was Luke who pried Clyde’s fingers loose. “Leave her alone, man. For God sake, can’t you see this has been too much for her?” His tone was soothing. “Rooney, why don’t you go home and lie down? It’s been a terrible day for you too.”