The Age of Hope by David Bergen Page B

so it continued for two weeks.
    At first there was little change in her spirits. And then, imperceptibly, her mood changed, and she found herself looking forward to seeing her children. When she had first entered the hospital, she did not know who was taking care of them, and she did not care. When she finally asked Roy, he said that there was nothing to worry about, that Heidi was living at the house and the children were thriving. “They love Heidi. They see her as a sister.”
    “What about Melanie. Is she eating?”
    “She’s taking the bottle just fine.”
    “Who found us?”
    “A man named Hugo Bertrand, from St. Anne. He found Melanie, and then followed your tracks out into the field.”
    “That was very good of him.” She heard the words come out of her mouth, but she did not recognize them as her own. Her tongue felt thick, and she realized that the conversation with Roy was very formal, but she could not stop herself.
    Roy smiled.
    “Was Melanie still sleeping?”
    Roy shook his head.
    “She was crying?”
    “A little. She’s no worse for wear.”
    “Poor thing. I’m worried, Roy.”
    “What are you worried about?”
    “That I don’t love her.”
    “You do, Hope. It’s just the sadness talking.”
    “Do you think so? Tell me about Melanie.”
    “She’s getting fat.”
    “Is she? I want to see her.”
    “Are you sure? And the other children?”
    “Do you think I could? Do they want to see me?”
    “They’re always talking about you, asking. The other day Conner pretended to be you. It was rich.”
    “What did he say? What did he do?”
    “He was flipping pancakes and wearing your apron. He told Penny to put her notebook away, that she wouldn’t get any food until it went under her chair.”
    “He’s such a card. So wild and original. What will happen to him?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “And Penny? She’s still obsessing over her diary?”
    “She’s making a comic book now. About a crazy woman.”
    “Bring the children here, okay? I want to see them.”
    And so the weekly Saturday visits began. The girls sat on either side of her and watched vigilantly as she held Melanie, who, as Roy had promised, seemed no worse for wear, and in fact seemed to be doing better without a mother. Hope did not speak much, other than to ask the girls questions about school and friends. The responses were monosyllabic on Penny’s part and produced, from Judith’s mouth, long soliloquies on life in Eden, in grade six, where her teacher Mrs. Highbottom had declared that dinosaurs had lived millions of years ago and that the world had not been created in six days and suddenly Mrs. Highbottom had disappeared for a week—the substitute said she was ill—and then she returned and changed her story slightly, to say that it was quite possible that the six-day creation might have occurred, though she still stuck to the dinosaurs, just go and see the bones in Drumheller, and also Angela had visited her father last weekend and she ‘d got her period.
    Penny was listening intently and writing all this down in some sort of pictograph shorthand. Judith shrugged.
    “Good for her,” Hope said. “She is young, isn’t she?”
    “She might skip a grade.”
    “Does she still have that boyfriend?”
    “Oh, no. There’s a new boy, Pascal.”
    “That’s interesting. It won’t last.” She didn’t know why she said that, or how she thought that might help the conversation, but it just slipped out, perhaps because tales of Angela were always so large and she required so much attention, dating now a boy with a French name and getting her period to boot. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to be small.” And all that time, she kept glancing down at Melanie, trying to ascertain what her own feelings were, or if she had any feelings at all, and though she was pleased to find that she did not resent the child, she felt no love for her. Melanie chewed on a fist and stared back into her mother’s eyes