Adam's Daughter Page 10

  He reached over and grabbed her hand. “I love you, Elizabeth,” he said.

  At dawn, he was still awake, staring at the ceiling. He lay still, watching the shadows leave the room.

  “Adam, what’s wrong?” Elizabeth touched his shoulder. “You’ve been tossing and turning all night.”

  “Nothing, really. Go back to sleep.”

  She propped herself up on an elbow and looked at him. “I know something’s bothering you. I’ve known it for weeks, but I thought you’d eventually tell me.” She paused, waiting for him to speak. “Adam, don’t shut me out. I can help you.”

  He looked at her for a moment then kissed her. “I don’t think so,” he said.

  “Is it the newspaper? Is something wrong?”

  “No, the Times is doing fine.”

  She paused. “Remember that first night we spent together, down in the park?”

  “Of course.”

  “You told me about your dream, Adam. About how you wanted to build an empire of newspapers.” She touched his face. “That night, I wanted to be a part of it. But how can I when you keep me shut out?”

  He shook his head.

  “Tell me,” she prompted.

  “There are these two newspapers,” he said slowly. “In Seattle and San Diego. I’m thinking about buying them.”

  She smiled. "That’s wonderful.”

  Adam hesitated. “I don’t think I can...assume the financial burden right now. I don’t have the capital.”

  There was a long silence. A dog barked somewhere outside. When he looked up, Elizabeth was staring at him intently, her expression somber.

  He touched her cheek. “There will be other chances, other newspapers to buy in the future. When the Times is stronger financially, I’ll be able to swing it.” He kissed her. “Go back to sleep.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  That spring, Elizabeth became pregnant. Adam was relieved because he had grown concerned about her obsession with it. As she put on weight, she would stand before the mirror admiring her changing body. Adam was caught up in her euphoria.

  “It’s a boy,” she said, placing his hand on her belly. “I can feel him. It’s your son, Adam.” Tears formed in her eyes, and she pressed her face into his shoulder, and he held her tightly. “I’m so happy, Adam,” she said.

  He liked to watch her after she fell asleep. He would lie next to her, watching the rise and fall of her rounded stomach. He was filled with awe and a terrifying happiness.

  One night in June, he was awakened by a moaning sound. He turned over. Elizabeth was gone. He was immediately wide awake. Then he saw her, standing at the door of the dressing room. In the moonlight, he could see her stricken face. She was holding her stomach.

  “Something’s wrong,” she said.

  He went to her. “What —-?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know...”

  He grabbed her robe from the bed and saw the dark stain of blood on the sheet in the moonlight. He threw the robe over her shoulders and quickly dressed. He led her carefully down the stairs and to the car. He was calm, his mind working by rote as he drove through the deserted streets. Even the sight of Elizabeth curled into a ball on the seat next to him, her face contorted with pain, did not unnerve him.

  At the hospital, Elizabeth was taken into the emergency ward. Adam watched her disappear behind the doors, flanked by strangers in white. He found a chair and sat, staring at the doors, waiting. He tried to remember a prayer, but only fragments from his boyhood catechism and remembrances of lulling Latin words came to him. He closed his eyes and held his lowered head in his hands.

  “Please, please, please,” he murmured, over and over.

  After an hour, a young doctor emerged. Adam jumped to his feet.

  “Your wife had a miscarriage, Mr. Bryant,” he said. “She’s lost a lot of blood, but she will be all right.”

  Adam fell back in the chair. He closed his eyes.

  “We couldn’t save the child,” the doctor said. “I’m very sorry.”

  Adam slowly got to his feet. “Can I see her?”

  The doctor took Adam to a room. Elizabeth was lying in bed, her eyes closed. Her hair, tangled on the pillow, was the only relief of color in the overwhelming whiteness. She opened her eyes and saw him standing over her. She turned toward a far wall. Tears fell slowly down her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry, Adam,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  He took her limp hand and pressed it to his face. “It’s not your fault,” he said. “You’re all right. That’s all that matters. Elizabeth, look at me, please. We can try again. We can have other children —-”

  She pulled her hand away and covered her face, crying. The doctor standing behind Adam told him he had to leave, that he could return later. Adam bent over to kiss Elizabeth, but she still wouldn’t turn to him. Reluctantly, he followed the doctor out to the hallway.

  “We’ve given her a sedative,” the doctor said. “She’ll be asleep soon. There’s nothing more you can do so I think you should go home and get some sleep, too.” He paused. “Many women react like your wife, Mr. Bryant, but they eventually get over it. The best thing to do is to go ahead as soon as possible with another pregnancy.”

  “Doctor, I want to know -—”

  “Oh, yes, she’s young, and quite capable of -—”

  “No, not that,” Adam interrupted. “I want to know, what was it?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What was it?” Adam asked. “A boy or a girl?”

  “Mr. Bryant, The doctor hesitated. “There’s no need -—”

  “I want to know!”

  The doctor stared at him for a moment. “It was a boy.”

  Adam slowly drew in his breath and then let it out in a long sigh. He stared at the floor, nodding absently. He looked up into the blank face of the doctor. He thanked the man and started for the door.

  It was almost dawn, and the cold foggy air was still and close. Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. Adam paused outside the hospital entrance. He wasn’t sure where he was going. Home. The doctor had said to go home. He glanced around, disoriented. Adam started off slowly across the lawn. He stopped suddenly.

  He stood there, thinking about Elizabeth lying up there in the hospital bed, thinking about how close he had come to losing her. He realized suddenly, with a piercing ache, that he loved her more than he had ever thought possible.

  She was not the Elizabeth he had conjured up as a magical vision, not the Elizabeth he had married for her beauty and wealth. She was just Elizabeth. His wife, his very light. And he had almost lost her.

  He stood there, heedless of the wet grass dampening his shoes and of the mist settling on his shoulders. His throat constricted with the threat of tears. He tried to fight them back but then finally, slowly, he let them come.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Elizabeth was waiting for him at the breakfast table.

  “This is a nice surprise,” he said. “I’d gotten used to eating alone.”

  “I’m turning over a new leaf,” she said, smiling. “No more lazing about in bed until noon.”

  He watched her carefully as she poured his coffee. Since the miscarriage six months ago, Elizabeth had dwelled in an emotional limbo somewhere between a quiet normalcy and melancholy. At first, she had been so depressed that Adam sought medical help. The doctor had prescribed antidepressants and another pregnancy. The drugs helped but only to a point. A spark had gone out of her that no matter of acting on her part could hide.

  But this morning, she seemed truly happy. It seemed to come spontaneously, not from her usual attempt to assuage Adam’s worries.

  “You look beautiful this morning,” Adam said.

  “Well, thank you. An old lady appreciates hearing such things. Even from her husband.”

  “You’re not old,” he said, smiling.

  “I’m thirty. That’s old.”

  “Then what does that make me?”

  “Next wee
k you’ll turn forty...absolutely ancient.”

  He laughed and reached for the newspaper, but in addition to the usual morning Journal, there were two others -— copies of the Seattle Dispatch and San Diego News.

  “What’s this?” Adam asked, unfolding the Seattle paper. A letter dropped onto his plate. He looked at Elizabeth, who was smiling. He opened the letter and read it.

  “This is a letter of purchase,” he said.

  “Happy birthday,” Elizabeth said.

  Adam stared at her, dumbfounded. He unfolded the second newspaper and another letter fell out. It was a repeat of the first. Both letters stated that the newspapers had been purchased the week before by Elizabeth Bryant and that Adam Bryant was empowered to act autonomously on her behalf as publisher.

  “Elizabeth...”

  “I know, it’s a bit of a shock. But I wanted it to be a surprise, Adam. Josh helped me get it all straight legally. I swore him to secrecy. I wish they could have been bought in your name, but I couldn’t get around Willis’s damn trust.” She looked at him anxiously. “You are surprised, aren’t you?”

  “That isn’t the word for it.”

  “Adam, what’s wrong?”

  He stared at her. “Whatever made you do this, Elizabeth?

  She came to his side and took his hand. “I did it because I know how much you wanted those papers. I did it because I love you, Adam. And I knew you would have never asked me yourself for the money.”

  He dropped his eyes to her hand grasping his own. Finally, he looked up. “It’s not just my dream anymore,” he said. “It’s ours.”

  “There’s something else,” she said. “I’m pregnant.”

  He slowly rose, taking her in his arms. “That’s the best present you could have given me,” he said.

  The doctor ordered Elizabeth to remain in bed during her pregnancy. She chafed under the inactivity but did as she was told. She wanted nothing to jeopardize the birth. Adam spent the next few months commuting between Seattle and San Diego. The two papers required all his time and energy, and he was able to make only occasional stops at home to check in on Elizabeth and the Times.

  As his research had predicted, the new papers were positioned to be moneymakers. With the force of Elizabeth’s money behind him, Adam made the needed changes. He also was able to fund improvements to the Times to keep pace with the Journal.

  Adam was working long and frenzied hours, but for the first time in years, he felt as if he were moving forward.

  Elizabeth teased him that he loved the newspapers more than her. “They’re the most precious things in the world to you, like jewels,” she said.

  It was June 1941, and he was in Seattle when he got the call from Josh. Elizabeth had been taken to the hospital for delivery two weeks early. He caught the first plane he could get back to San Francisco but Elizabeth was still in labor by the time he arrived at the hospital.

  He sat, terrified, for three more hours, trying desperately not to think about the last time he had been in the same room, waiting.

  Finally, a nurse approached and he jumped to his feet.

  “Your wife had a very difficult birth,” she said, “but she is resting now. Congratulations, Mr. Bryant, you’re the father of a beautiful little girl.”

  Adam had to grab the chair to steady himself. When he went in to see Elizabeth, she looked so still and white that for a moment Adam was afraid some terrible trick had been played on him and that she was dead. He approached the bed and looked down at her. Finally, she opened her eyes.

  “You’re here,” she whispered. “I’m glad.”

  “I’m here.” He sat on the edge of the bed. He brushed the hair from her forehead. “I love you,” he said.

  “I know.” She was struggling to stay awake. “You look terrible,” she said. “You aren’t eating or sleeping right, are you?”

  “No, maybe I should come home.”

  “Good. I need you to come home.” She closed her eyes and it was a moment before she opened them.

  “It’s a girl,” she murmured.

  “I know.”

  Elizabeth was soon asleep. Out in the hall, Adam slumped against the wall, giving in to his fatigue. He saw Josh coming toward him. The lawyer looked concerned when he saw Adam’s slack face.

  “Is there something wrong?” Josh asked quickly, looking at Elizabeth’s door.

  “No, no, everything’s fine, Josh. I’m just tired. Thanks for being here with her.”

  Josh smiled. “Say, have you seen the baby yet? I was just down at the nursery. Come on, I’ll take you there.”

  Adam followed Josh down the hall to a large window. Inside, there were a dozen bassinets tended by two nurses. Even through the glass, Adam could hear the squalling.

  “That’s her, third from the left,” Josh said.

  Adam looked to where Josh was pointing. Inside the bassinet was a churning baby in a tangle of pink blanket. It had a bright red face, and it was flailing around so much it had kicked one plump leg free of the blanket.

  “She’s beautiful, Adam,” Josh said.

  Adam laughed at Josh’s romantic observation. There was no way the little creature was remotely beautiful. It was a scrunched-faced, howling thing, just like all the others in the nursery.

  “She sure looks to be a fighter,” Josh said.

  Adam continued to stare at the baby.

  “Well, how does it feel to have a daughter?” Josh asked.

  Adam glanced at Josh then turned back to the window. He pressed his forehead to the glass and stared at his daughter for a long time.

  He smiled slightly. “She has red hair,” he said.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Elizabeth decided to name the baby Kellen, in honor of her favorite grandmother’s maiden name. “I know it’s a bit unusual," she said. “But I have a feeling she’s going to need something a little different.” She told Adam to pick a middle name. He chose Elizabeth.

  After a few weeks, Adam renewed his commute between San Diego and Seattle. Now that his path seemed clear, he was driven to make progress as quickly as possible. He had spent years watching other men amass fortunes and power by linking newspapers into chains, men like Frank Gannett, E. W. Scripps and James Cox. John Knight had strung together papers in Miami, Detroit and Akron before he was thirty-nine. With just a grammar school education, Samuel Newhouse was making his first newspaper investments by age twenty-five. Like all the men, Adam understood that newspapering had entered a new era, and that it would be governed by the same law of economics as any business: small competitors had to give way to big ones. And he had every intention of being one of the biggest.

  He was also looking into buying a radio station in Oakland. There was money to be made in radio, and Adam also wanted to be in a position to take advantage of what a few visionaries were predicting would be the next boom medium, something called television.

  When he told Elizabeth about his plan, she bought the station. “If nothing else,” she told him, “it will keep you closer to home.”

  Not long after Kellen’s birth, Charles Ingram died suddenly. His death threw Elizabeth into a minor depression, and she told Adam she felt guilty that she hadn’t been able to end the estrangement that her marriage had created. “I wish he could have known you as I do,” she told Adam. “I wish he had at least consented to see his granddaughter.”

  Elizabeth went to Atlanta for the funeral and stayed with her mother and sister for a week. She returned home in a better frame of mind, and talked about going back when Kellen was old enough to travel.

  “My mother and I have old wounds that still need healing,” she said. “I’d like you to come back with me when I go.”

  “We’ll see,” Adam said. But he knew that he would never be accepted into that forbidding brick mansion.

  Soon after Elizabeth’s return from Atlanta, her father’s will was read. He had divided his estate, totaling nearly $30 million, equally between his wife and two daughters. Only Elizabeth
’s share was tied up in a trust, to be administered by the family lawyer. Again, Elizabeth could use the trust payments for whatever she wanted, but Adam could not touch the money.

  “He’s still trying to run my life, even from his grave,” Elizabeth said. “I’m sorry, Adam. I’d hoped it would have been able to be our money.”

  “I don’t care, Elizabeth,” Adam said. But deep down, he did. He had more money at his disposal than he had ever thought possible. But it was not his money and it never would be. His newspapers were owned by his wife. He would just have to live with that somehow.

  After Kellen’s birth, the house on Jackson Street seemed suddenly too small. The baby and the nanny had already taxed things, but whenever Ian came to visit the tension was almost palpable.

  “It’s time we had our own home, Adam,” Elizabeth told him one night.

  “We’re doing all right,” Adam said, though he knew she was right. He had been reluctant to think about moving because he knew it could be done only if Elizabeth paid for it. He had taken pride in the fact that he had managed to pay for the house so far.

  “But I have my father’s money now. Let’s use it,” Elizabeth said. “Let’s use it to create the grandest house this city has ever seen.”

  Finally, wanting to see Elizabeth happy, he relented. It took Elizabeth only two weeks to find their new home. It was an old mansion on the corner of Divisadero and Broadway, high on a hill, with a panoramic view of the Golden Gate Bridge. The nineteenth-century house had thirty rooms spread over four stories. The house had been vacant for years and needed complete refurbishing, but Elizabeth had fallen in love with it and could not be deterred.

  The first time Elizabeth brought Adam to see the house he was so stunned he could say nothing. It was an old monstrosity of dark mahogany, marble, and creaking oak parquet floors. It still had its original Otis hydraulic cage elevator and an electric converter that was once used to draw house power from the streetcar system. Even some gaslight fixtures were still in place.