Timepiece (9 page)

“Push again, darlin'.”

MaryAnne closed her eyes tightly and pushed.

“I have its head!” she exclaimed. “The baby is alive!”

MaryAnne cried out in pain and joy.

“One more push, Mary. Just one more.”

MaryAnne obeyed and the child emerged, coated in blood and fluid. When she had taken the baby in her arms, the midwife looked up at David and MaryAnne, still breathing heavily. “You have a daughter.” She severed and tied the umbilical cord, oiled off the baby, then laid her on MaryAnne's chest. MaryAnne took the infant in her arms and wept with joy. Eliza's stern, hazel eyes rested on David. “Now leave the room.”

David beamed. “A daughter,” he repeated. As he left the room, he paused at the threshold to smile at MaryAnne, who, with tears streaming down her cheeks, smiled back at him, proud of the tiny daughter she held.

In the dark hallway outside the parlor, David sat alone on a padded fruitwood bench, a wall separated from the muffled cry of the newborn infant. His heart and mind still raced—much as one who, narrowly avoiding an accident, finds his heart pounding and his breath stolen.

On a walnut whatnot at the far end of the hall, an antique French clock chimed delicately, denoting the half hour. He glanced down the hallway. His eyes were unable to discern the piece in the darkness. At one time, the clock had been the most valuable of his collection—an elaborate,
gilded Louis XV mantel clock, signed by its long-dead creator. The clock's waist opened to expose a pendulum bob in the form of sun rays, and on its crown were two golden cherubs. In its base was set a musical box.

David had acquired the clock in the crowded Alfred H. King auction hall in Erie, Pennsylvania, a year after he had moved to Salt Lake City. He had paid nearly one thousand dollars more than he had intended to for the clock, the price escalating to match not its worth, but his desire. The day of the auction, he had visited the piece no fewer than a dozen times and obsessed over it, regarding all who came near it with wanton jealousy. He had never desired a piece so intensely and wanted the clock no matter the price.

That desire was a candle to the furnace he had just felt at MaryAnne's side. What he had prayed in desperation, he meant
just as fervently in the peace of resolution—that he would truly have given everything he owned to know that MaryAnne would be all right.

“We have chosen for our daughter the name of MaryAnne's mother—Andrea. What a thing it is to be introduced to one's child. I find a new side to my being that even the gentility of MaryAnne could not produce from my brutal soul.”

David Parkin's Diary. January 18, 1909

The birth of the child was greeted with great celebration by the thirty-four employees at the Parkin Machinery Company. Knitted booties and gowns came in from all quarters, each secretary, or clerk's wife, attempting to outdo the other.

Lawrence brought Andrea a homemade rattle that he had crafted by bending
brass strips into a ball and covering it with sewed leather, concealing inside two miniature harness bells.

Once again, the Parkin home was adorned with flowers, many from neighbors and business associates, but most from David, who felt as if he had completed a great bargain in marrying one lady and only five months later found himself with two.

If the child's sireship was David and MaryAnne's secret, it seemed of little importance, as the child could not have been more his. It gave David great pleasure to be told that the child looked like her father, and, curiously, Andrea seemed to resemble him more than his wife. This fact was so frequently called to attention that David finally asked MaryAnne if he bore a resemblance to Andrea's real father.

“You are her real father,” she answered. When he pressed her harder, she only replied, “He was not so handsome.”

Andrea was a pretty child with large, piercing brown eyes that rested above sculptured rose cheeks. At first, her hair came in platinum wisps that curled on top until it grew long and fell to her shoulders in gilded chestnut coils. She had the delicate features of a porcelain doll, and whenever MaryAnne took her out in public, they were accosted by other women who strained to catch a glimpse of the infant, then squealed in delight that such a petite creation should cross their path.

In a strange ritual not fully understood even by its practitioners, every acquaintance of the Parkins who possessed a male child staked their claim on Andrea for their son, which only served, if it were possible, to add to MaryAnne and David's pride.

“In the year
A.D.
69 the Roman emperor Vitellius paid the chief priest of Gaul,
whose responsibility it was to determine the beginning and end of spring, a quarter of a billion dollars to extend spring by one minute. The emperor then boasted that he had purchased that which all man cannot. Time.

“Vitellius was a fool.”

David Parkin's Diary. April 18, 1909

With the birth of Andrea, David was born anew. If MaryAnne had given David's life meaning, Andrea gave meaning to his future. Since his own childhood had been spent in the blackness of mines and the company of adults, David had never been with children, and now he heralded each new stage of his daughter's development with the ecstasy of scientific discovery. The day Andrea first rolled over in her crib, he inwardly cursed the world that it had not stopped to acknowledge the marvel.
It was as if he was finding the childhood he was denied, and, through Andrea, seized the wonder of it all—a child's world of stuffed dolls and menagerie animals sculpted in the clouds. The employees of the Parkin Machinery Company were informed on a daily basis of the baby's progress and were happily amused with this new side of their boss's personality. It was said at the office that David seemed happily distracted, though, in fact, he had just become more focused on the child, and, lest he miss her childhood, spent more time at home.

In late spring, necessity forced an extended business trip back East, which David returned home from a week early. Catherine met him at the door and took his coat and attaché case.

“Welcome home, sir.”

“Thank you, Catherine. Where are MaryAnne and Andrea?”

“They are in the gazebo. May I take your shoulder bag?”

“Thank you, but no. These are gifts.”

David passed through the house and out into the garden, where MaryAnne sat on the gazebo swing, gently rocking the baby she nursed at her breast. The yard was littered with the white popcorn blossoms of apricot trees, the crisp air filled with the perfume of the garden and the sounds of MaryAnne's hummed lullabies. MaryAnne, absorbed in a different world, looked up only when he was a few feet off.

“David!”

He smiled wide, laid down the heavy shoulder bag, kissed her, then, sitting down, pulled the blanket back, exposing the suckling child.

“What wonderful animals we are,” he said. “It is so good to be home. You two have made my life very difficult. You have exposed me to the malady of homesickness.”

“Then it is contagious,” MaryAnne replied. “We have missed you so. How was the journey?”

“It is done.” He leaned over and kissed Andrea on her head. “In my absence, I have thought a great deal about my business. I have decided that I miss my secretary.”

“Yes?”

“I was hoping I could get her back.”

“If you could accommodate two ladies for the position I may consider it.”

He leaned back and breathed in the rich scent of lilac and apple blossom. “Spring breathes such life into this desert. I concluded the business faster than I, or they, planned.”

“Was it productive?”

“Adequate.” He suddenly smiled. “I have something to show you,” he said excitedly. He released the straps of the shoulder bag, then extracted a gold-papered box from inside. He lifted the top of the box
and parted the tissue. Inside lay a burgundy velvet dress with a black silk sash and white lace collar.

MaryAnne gasped. “It is beautiful!”

“I think we should try it on her,” David suggested.

MaryAnne covered her mouth, then turned, trying to conceal her amusement.

“Why are you laughing?” he asked innocently.

“I am sorry.” She chuckled. “David, it won't fit her for years!” With one hand, she lifted the dress out of the box.

He examined the garment then looked back down at the infant.

“Oh.”

“It is a lovely dress. She will look beautiful in it.” Her mouth lifted in a teasing smile. “When she is four or five.” She laughed again.

“I am not much with sizes,” he confessed. He reached again into his bag. This time, he lifted out a miniature wooden
crate, then carefully extracted from its cotton boll packing a small porcelain music box, a carousel, hand-painted in pastel-and-gold adornment. He wound the instrument then held it out in the palm of his hand. It plucked a simple carnival tune as the carousel revolved and its intricate horses rose and fell in clockwork mechanism. At the sound of the music, Andrea turned from MaryAnne's breast to see the toy. She cood happily, reaching out to touch the tiny, prancing horses.

“It is wonderful! Where did you find such a toy?!”

“At a clock shop in Pennsylvania. The proprietor, a Mr. Warland, creates the most intriguing inventions.”

“You give good gifts, David.”

“I have a gift for you, too.”

“What is it?”

“It's heavy. And it is rather different, but I thought you might like it.” He
reached into the sack, lifting out a wooden box of dark, burled walnut. Leather straps ran across the top over an intricately carved Nativity and fastened into silver buckles. On the opposite side were two brass hinges skillfully forged in the shape of holly leaves.

“It is beautiful. Is it to hold Christmas things?”

“It is not empty.” David set the box next to MaryAnne. She unfastened its silver clasps and drew back the leather straps, then opened the box slowly. The interior of the box was lined with wine-colored velvet and occupied by an ancient leather Bible, its cover delicate with age and adorned with gold-leafed engravings.

“Oh, David . . .”

“I thought you would like it. It is at least two hundred years old. I bought the Bible at an auction. Then I saw the box and thought it a good match.”

“Sir.”

David turned. He had not seen Catherine approach. She stood outside the gazebo, holding a calling card in her outstretched hand.

“Gibbs has left a message.”

“Thank you.”

David took the card. MaryAnne looked up from the box. “What is it?”

“Gibbs wishes to meet with me tomorrow. From the tone of the note, I suspect he is concerned about business matters.”

“Is there something wrong?”

“Nothing.” He lifted the carousel again, then, winding it, held it out for Andrea. “All is well.”