19

“I’ve been looking all over this damned place for you,” says Donovan, his eyes locked on Elizabeth still clutching the small bundle to herself, a bundle that has started to cry, shrieking into the void.

The stitched-up wound on Don’s forehead looks crusty and black, stark against the pallor of his haggard face. His eyes dart from me to my mother to Elizabeth, haunted eyes.

“She doesn’t want you here,” says my mother. “Please leave.”

He takes a step toward her, staring her down with disgust. “Not without my son.”

“I don’t think Julian is safe with you,” Elizabeth admits, holding the child close. He is beginning to quiet down, calming in his mother’s arms. “We can talk about this later, but for now, please—”

“Not safe with me?” Donovan laughs cruelly. “You hit me over the head with a wine bottle and tied me to a fucking chair!”

Elizabeth looks as if she wants to respond, but instead she frowns and reaches down between her legs. Blood has begun to soak through the sheet over her lap, and when my mother gently lifts it up, we see a larger spreading stain on the bed.

“It’s okay,” says Agnes. “We just need to stop the bleeding.”

“Give him to me.” Don reaches for the baby, but Elizabeth yanks the bundle away from his grasping arms, telling him no. He manages to get his hands on the towel and tries to wrest the child from her, and they struggle momentarily for possession of Julian; Don bumps into the table near the bed, overturning several candles, which sputter and roll and eventually come to rest on the floor, where they burn out.

My mother hurries up behind Don and tries to pull him off of Elizabeth, but he slaps her away like a fly; she goes sprawling on the floor with a hand on her shocked face. I slide over to her on my knees to help her up, but I realize, too late, that opting to help my mother regain her feet means I have given Donovan time to pry the baby from Elizabeth’s fingers while she yells at him to give Julian back, not to touch him.

“Stop, stop it!” Agnes shouts at them both as she wads up a spare towel to staunch the flow of blood, looking worried. Though Elizabeth is heated and still shouting at Don, I can feel in my bones that she is bleeding too much; her skin is pale, hollow, and I can feel too her energy waning, the way, I suspect, my mother can feel the energy of a place. Perhaps I have inherited her peculiar sensitivity, passed down the line of Wakefields living in such an acutely sensitive place.

Don steps away from them both, leaving Elizabeth sobbing quietly as she falls back onto her limp pillow, utterly spent. He backs away from the bed and his bleeding wife, and when he turns around, he sees what I have seen, what Jonah told me not to look at.