Chapter
19
James was as stunned as I was. We had absolutely not been trying. I’d been gone!
His expression went from startled to amused to positively giddy. Sweeping me off the floor with an arm under my knees, he held me with such ferocity that I would have cried out in protest if he hadn’t quickly gentled. He let my legs slide to the floor, leaving possessive arms around me.
“When?” he asked excitedly.
“That night in the woods, maybe?” That had been something. “Or afterward, in my room?”
“You didn’t suspect?”
“I’ve refused to think about it. That was part of my escape.”
“I knew you looked different,” he crowed, and who was I to say that a woman didn’t look different after only two weeks. I wouldn’t have thought I would feel nausea this early either, but other explanations? I had never been the queasy type.
“Omigod.” I put a hand on my belly. “I didn’t expect this.”
His eyes were electric. “It changes everything.”
“Does it ever.”
“I don’t want you going back to Lane Lavash. There’s too much pressure.”
“I wouldn’t go back even if I weren’t pregnant,” I declared, victorious.
“Pregnant.” He tested the word. “Are you sure?”
I was suddenly very sure. Everything about this felt right, starting with the idea that my baby hadn’t been conceived on the clock. “I did two tests. Both read the same. And the symptoms are spot on.”
“If you conceived two weeks ago, when would you be due?”
I tried to do the math, but with so many other thoughts in my head, he beat me to it.
“March. Perfect timing. I’m named partner in October—my pay goes up in January—you won’t have to work at all.”
“I do want to work, just not at Lane Lavash,” I cautioned, because, in that split second of imagining my legal career over, I had felt a tiny loss. I did love law.
“Will you see the doctor this week?”
“Not necessary. She can’t tell us anything right now, and I already have the vitamins.”
He shot a triumphant look skyward and, looking back at me, grinned out a huff of air. “We’ll celebrate—dinner tonight at Cipriani?”
“As soon as I get back.”
“Get back?” He seemed suddenly mystified. “You can’t go now.”
“Why not?”
“You’re pregnant.”
I might not have been able to calculate when I was due, but regarding the why of it—why I was pregnant now and not before—it was suddenly clear. “Exactly,” I said as it all came together. “Don’t you see? My getting pregnant in Bell Valley is the ultimate sign that I was meant to go there. There was no way I was going to get pregnant here, because our lives wouldn’t allow it.”
His arms still circled me, though more laxly now, and his voice was quiet. “I want you here.”
“I’ll be back right after I help Vicki.”
“I’m the father of this baby. Don’t I get a say about where the baby goes?”
I tugged on his shirt, teasing. “James. It’s not like I’m taking it white-water rafting, and it’s not like I’ll be five hours from civilization. Bell Valley is soothing and safe.”
He was silent for another beat. Then his voice came low and vehement. “There is no way in hell that I’ll live in that town.”
Another time, I might have been patient, but I was wanting to be happy, not rehash an old point. “Me neither, so maybe we need to discuss where we will live. If I’m pregnant, we have to make a decision. New York doesn’t work for me,” I declared. “I can’t live here. I can’t work here. Okay, you are not living in Bell Valley, but I am not living here. So where will we live?”
He looked startled by my outburst. So was I, actually. I had always thought he would be the one to issue the ultimatum. But I wasn’t sorry I’d done it. We had been dancing around the decision for days now.
“Do we have to decide this today?” James asked.
“You raised it,” I pointed out, then relented. “Oh, James. Bell Valley isn’t us. It just happens that I have a good friend there who needs help.”
“Can’t she wait a little?”
“She’s in crisis now.”
“I want you here.”
“You want me to choose,” I said. We stared at each other in the silence that ensued. Finally, I said, “I’m just going to visit for a few days.”
“Last time it was three weeks.”
I threw up a hand. “And if it is this time, too, what else would I be doing? You’ve told me not to go back to Lane Lavash, and since I don’t know where we’ll be, but I do know I’m pregnant, I can’t in good faith look for something else, and you’ll be working all the time, and it’s not like I can walk a microscopic baby in the park.”
“You could miscarry.”
“I won’t.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I do. I feel it. This pregnancy is solid.”
James wasn’t convinced. I suppose that his worrying about me—worrying about the baby—was a good sign. But he was upset enough to retreat into work even before I left the room to finish packing. Hating the distance at this time when we should be feeling especially close, I went to him when I was done and put an arm around his shoulders.
“We’ll work this out,” I said.
Fingers typing, he grunted.
“I’ll call from the road. Will you pick up?”
“Of course I’ll pick up.”
“I love you, James.”
“I know.”
When he didn’t say more, I kissed his cheek and left.
Alone in the car, I tried to process the fact of being pregnant. In spite of my being so sure, it still seemed unreal. I had run another test before leaving, and it was positive, but I had two more strips in my bag. I wanted to see that little + again. And again. I also wanted to tell someone—was bursting with it—but my best friend was in the hospital with baby problems of her own, and not a single other friend came to mind. If I called my mother, she would only ask a raft of other questions. Same with my dad. And if I told Kelly, she would call them.
So I stifled the urge. This microscopic something belonged to James and me. It was our little secret, better kept that way until we had a grip on what was happening.
An hour out, I called him. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” But he sounded annoyed.
“I want you excited.”
“I might be if you were here,” he said, and let loose with every dark thought. “But you left like a shot, like you couldn’t get away fast enough. So I’m alone with these problems. Hell, Emily, I don’t know what to do with this. It’s like you changed the rules in the middle of the game. I wasn’t the only one who wanted to live—live here. You did, too. Okay, so if you need an escape, we can buy a weekend place somewhere, but if we want money for that, I can’t change jobs. I won’t get as much money anywhere else.” He grabbed another breath. “And that’s the bottom line. I’m supposed to be the breadwinner, but how can I do that if—if we move? I’ll be starting all over again. I’ve spent seven years making contacts here. If we move, it’s back to square one, and—and that’s assuming I can get waived out of taking a whole other bar exam. Have you thought about that, Emily?”
I hadn’t. I had been dealing with generalities, selfishly perhaps. But I couldn’t back down. I was fighting for two now.
“It’s about priorities,” I argued. “When we were in law school, the priority was getting the best grades so that we could get into top firms. And we did. And maybe it worked for a while, but I’m tired of hearing lawyer jokes in my head. Your job is as bad as mine. You aren’t happy, and I don’t care what you say, it won’t magically change once you make partner.”
“At least I’ll be in a better position to decide what to do. Where do you want to live? Tell me.”
I thought for a minute. Specifics eluded me, but the priority was clear. “Somewhere personal. I want a life filled with humans. I don’t want my dearest friend to be a machine.”
“And you think you’re unique?” he shot back. “Don’t you think at least some of the eight million people in this city want that, too? Don’t you think some of them have it?”
“It isn’t about New York. It’s about lifestyle.”
“We can live differently here.”
But I didn’t believe it for a minute. Lifestyle was addictive. Hadn’t I felt it this weekend—a tension creeping in the minute I let down my guard? Our staying there was like asking an alcoholic to work in a bar.
He sighed, weary. “This is why you need to be here. We have important things to discuss and we shouldn’t be doing it while you drive. Please focus on the road. You’re not in the left lane, are you?”
“I’m in the middle lane going sixty. I am being passed on both sides.”
“Is that safe?”
I had to smile. In the midst of the other, his worry was actually sweet. “Yes, James, it’s safe. I’m going against traffic. Everyone else is heading back to the city.”
“Okay. Fine, well, hang up and don’t call anyone else. Why don’t we have Bluetooth?”
“I don’t know. It’s your car. Why don’t we?”
“Because it’s an old model. We need to get something newer, maybe a van.”
“For one baby? I don’t think so.”
“I’m hanging up now,” he advised. “Keep your eyes on the road.”
He called an hour later to ask how I was feeling. I didn’t tell him that despite thickening clouds and occasional sprinkles, I was increasingly relaxed.
“Eating corn bread,” I said with a full mouth, and swallowed.
“Corn bread isn’t nutritious.”
“Mine is. I used organic eggs and milk. James, about the other, I keep thinking about Lee, and about Denise Bryant. You love working on these cases because they involve personal interaction, your words. Personal interaction says it all. I had to leave New York to realize it, because I was too consumed by our lives to see. But I have perspective now. And I think you’re exactly the same as me. You want to be a good lawyer, but you’ve always talked about what you want to do as a father. How can you be both, living the way we do?” My mind was filled with little insights, more and more the farther I drove. “Take Jude,” I said. “He wants whatever he can’t have. If it’s forbidden, that’s the appeal. But you’re not like that. You can have what you want. You just have to realize you want it.” Helping him do that was my new mission.
But he was silent for too long.
“James?” I tested cautiously.
“I’m here. Did you know that eating junk food in the early months of pregnancy can increase the risk of miscarriage? I just read that. You won’t eat junk food, will you?”
Changing the subject? Okay. I couldn’t ask for immediate surrender. But I wasn’t giving up. “Do I ever?”
“You drink wine.”
“Socially.”
“And caffeine.”
“I’ll limit it.”
“Thank you.”
Ending the call, I wondered if James was simply being evasive about things he didn’t want to discuss, or if he was turning neurotic on me. Another little insight, though, as I drove on? He was doing the only thing I had allowed him to, and while I liked being in control, I understood. Men felt helpless at times like this.
Knowing that visiting hours would be ending soon and that I had to see Vicki before they did, I went straight to the hospital. Hooked up to an IV, she was as pale as the sheets, and while my arrival didn’t change that, her relief was instant.
“Ahhhhh,” she breathed, and reached for my hand. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
“Oh-ho,” I teased. “I learned my lesson about that.”
“So now I feel guilty, because you were finally with your husband, but I don’t know what happened here, Emmie. It’s not like I was lifting mattresses or changing tires on the truck, I was doing what I always do, and I didn’t have any trouble last time. I’m starting to dilate—at sixteen weeks! That is so bad! They’re using drugs to slow things down, but they’ll probably put me on bed rest, and I can’t do bed rest—not with a three-year-old child and a bed-and-breakfast to run.”
Sitting beside her on the bed, I cradled her hand. “You have Rob. He knows what to do.”
“Oh, pooh. Men can only do one thing at a time. Rob can handle Charlotte or the Red Fox, but not both, and if this is happening now, chances are it’ll happen in another pregnancy, so can I risk another one?”
“I thought you only wanted two children.”
“But what if I decide I want three? Or four? Hah! Three or four? It looks like I can’t even do two. What did I do wrong?”
“You didn’t—”
“My mother didn’t have trouble, her mother didn’t have trouble, so it’s not like there’s a family history of this, and they did more physical work than me. Every test shows the baby is fine, it’s just me that’s mucking it up.”
“Shhhhhh—”
“I saw it, Emmie. They did a sonogram before, and the baby was moving all over the place, arms and legs, everything. This is a real person I’m putting at risk.” Blond hair spilled every which way on the pillow, but the hands framing her belly were precise. “I need to hold it in here for at least another twelve weeks, or it’ll start life in the NICU and have lung problems and liver and sleep and digestive problems.”
I might have interrupted to say that doctors knew how to deal with these things, but hearing about all this, I felt sick myself—wondering if James was right, if I was minimizing the fragility of pregnancy, if I should be back home with my feet up, googling the first weeks of pregnancy.
“And bed rest creates its own problems, like weakness, dizziness, and blood clots,” Vicki was saying. “And even if I don’t get a blood clot, I’ll be in lousy shape when the baby finally comes. So if I’m weak and dealing with a baby with problems, plus Charlotte, plus the Red Fox—how am I gonna do this?”
I ignored my unsettled stomach. Vicki needed me to be calm. “Are you done?”
Her eyes held mine. She was silent for a minute, before murmuring a helpless “Yes.”
“Take a breath.”
She took a breath.
“First,” I said gently, “you’re assuming the worst, when there are all sorts of better scenarios, and you do have a right to be scared. This came out of nowhere, but that’s how life is, and you, Vicki Bell, are levelheaded enough to get through anything. You’ll love this baby, you’ll recover from bed rest if bed rest is what it takes, you’ll learn to delegate at the Red Fox, and as for Charlotte, she feeds herself, is toilet trained, and talks. If the best you can do for the next four months is read her Green Eggs and Ham, you’ll be way ahead of a lot of other moms.”
“But she’s only three,” Vicki pleaded. “Amelia helps, Rob helps, but I’m the one who makes the arrangements and supervises playdates and stays with her at birthday parties. Three is a crucial age. She needs to be with other children, and, okay, someone else can take her, but what happens when she wants me and I can’t do it?” She was close to tears. “She will hate this baby even before it’s born!”
“She will not. She’ll just love you more for the attention you do give her.”
“Oh, Emmie”—tears began to fall—“you make it sound easy, but you don’t know the reality of having a child.”
“I will soon,” I blurted out. I probably should have waited, but she needed a distraction, and despite the business about this being James and my secret, I was dying to share the news.
Staring at me, she began to cry in earnest. “Are you telling me something?”
I nodded. “I’m like, two weeks, and I wouldn’t have said anything except—”
“It happened up here?” she asked, sniffling, but I could see she was pleased.
She held out her arms and, hugging me, laughed through her tears. “That’s the best thing you could have told me.”
“No one else knows, just you and James.”
She drew back, eyes wide. “And he let you come here?”
“Not happily.”
“I’ll call him. I’ll tell him that I won’t let anything happen to you or your baby. You are such a good friend.”
“She is,” Jude said from the door. I had no idea how long he’d been standing there, but from the mischief in those gold eyes, feared it was longer than I wanted. Vicki looked irate, not a good thing.
“Rest,” I ordered, forcing her eyes back to mine. “Think about this baby. Think about Charlotte. Think about us.” It was as close as I could come, with Jude right there, to saying that our children would be close, the idea of which I loved. Without waiting for her to answer, I went out into the hall, facing Jude only after the door closed.
“You are a good friend, racing back here so soon,” he said. “A baby, huh?”
“You weren’t supposed to hear that. I’d appreciate it if you keep it to yourself.”
“Why?”
In no mood to be witty, I said, “Because I’m asking you to.”
He snorted. “That’s a lousy answer. Did you tell it to Vicki just to make her feel better? Is it even true?”
I smiled sadly. “Only you would ask that.”
“Cynical me.”
“Why, Jude? You used to be upbeat. Why cynical now?”
He leaned against the wall and watched a nurse walk by. “Things haven’t gone my way.”
“Excuse me? You’ve had every advantage in the world!” I cried, because his self-pity was unacceptable when, all over this hospital, people were dealing with life and death. “Have you seen Noah yet?”
“From a distance. We haven’t met. I don’t see the point. Noah doesn’t need me. And I need action. I’m not good with this, Emily. I’m hanging out at Lee’s, but if something doesn’t happen soon, I may die of boredom before the bad guy arrives. Do you honestly think someone would be dumb enough to try to hurt Lee now that she’s gone to court? Anything happens to her, and they’ll know who did it.”
“Not without evidence,” I argued. “She’s the plaintiff, Jude. If she’s gone, the case disappears. And yes, I think someone would be dumb enough, if whoever it is is greedy enough.”
I might have been more worried if the full narcotic of Bell Valley hadn’t kicked in as soon as I passed through the covered bridge and the town green appeared. The sprinkles I had encountered during the drive were now full-fledged rain. It was nearly ten, and given the day that it had been, I should have gone to bed.
Instead, though, I sat on the bench on the forest side of the gardener’s shed. The night was warm, the air positively saturated, drugging me more. Folding up my legs, I held the large umbrella that had been stored in the closet for guests. But the beat of rain on nylon was easily eclipsed by the more gentle, oddly resonant patter of rain in the woods.
And then, barely five minutes into it, came the coyote. One howl followed another, the second closer, the third closer still. I watched, listened, wondered how close they would come, but the wet forest floor muted the sound of movement, and visibility was nil. In the absence of stars and moon, the woods were opaque, with only a glitter coming now and then from the reflection off raindrops in the light on the shed.
Was I frightened? Absolutely not. James might have called this severe risk-taking, but I knew these coyotes. They wouldn’t attack. And I wanted to share my news.
So I thought the words—pregnant, pregnant, pregnant—over and over again. I smiled when the yips and barks came, and studied the darkness, but the coyotes didn’t move closer. They didn’t have to. We had a meeting of minds.
For the longest time, there was silence. I knew they were there, but they didn’t move. Though the rain went on, the air was warm, I was dry under my umbrella, and everything about the forest world soothed. In time, coyote voices rose again, melodious, if receding now. But I still felt a warmth inside at the thought that my baby had heard its first lullaby.
Communing with the coyotes was one of the things I wanted. There was another, but it wouldn’t happen until noon the next day, and in the meanwhile, I had a bed-and-breakfast to run.