And the only one to get sick was Valerie, on the last day. She bought an ice cream on the beach, and when Mel heard what she'd done she groaned as she stood by Val, while she threw up for hours and then had diarrhea all night. Peter wanted to give her something but she absolutely refused to take it, and when Mel finally came to bed at four in the morning, he awoke, his medical instincts alert.

“How is she?”

“Asleep at last. Poor child. I've never seen anyone so sick. I don't know why she wouldn't take the Lomotil you offered her, she isn't usually that stubborn.”

“Mel, is she all right?” He was frowning and thinking of something.

“What do you mean?”

“I don't know. I don't know her that well. But she looks different than she did in Aspen, and at Thanksgiving.”

“Different how?”

“I'm not sure what I mean, to tell you the truth. Just a feeling. Has she had a checkup lately?”

“You're making me nervous. What are you suspecting?” She expected nothing less than the threat of leukemia, but he shook his head.

“Anemia maybe. She seems to sleep a lot, and Pam says she threw up after Christmas dinner.”

Mel sighed. “I think it's nerves. Jess looks lousy to me too. I think the move was a big change for them, and they're at a tough age for that. But maybe you're right. I'll take them both to the doctor when we get back.”

“I'll give you the name of the internist we use. But don't worry about it.” He kissed her for the first time in days. “I don't think it's serious, and I think you may be right. Girls at that age tend to nervous upsets. It's just that ever since Pam had anorexia last year, my antennae go up every time something seems off to me. It's probably nothing.”

But in Pam's room, Mark was sitting beside her bed. He had waited for hours for Mel to leave, and Val was awake now, and terribly weak from her bout with tourista. She was crying softly and Mark was stroking her hair, as they both whispered so as not to wake Jessie or Pam.

“Do you think it'll hurt the baby?” Val whispered to Mark, and he looked at her miserably. She had found out two days after she arrived from New York. He had taken her for a pregnancy test. And they both knew when it had happened. When they finally made love for the first time, on Thanksgiving. Val looked terrified now. They hadn't decided what to do about it yet, but if they decided to have it, she didn't want to have a deformed baby.

“I don't know. Did you take any medicine?”

“No,” she whispered. “Your dad tried to give me some, but I wouldn't take it.” Mark nodded, but that was the least of their problems. She was only five weeks pregnant, but that meant that they had less than two months to do something about it, if she would.

“Do you think you can sleep now?” She nodded, her eyes already half closed and he bent to kiss her, and then tiptoed out of the room. He had wanted to tell his dad, but he couldn't with Christmas and the wedding and everything, and Val had begged him not to. He had to take her to a good doctor, if she was going to get an abortion, not to some crummy clinic, but he was waiting to talk to her about it until they got back to L.A. There was no point discussing it here. There was nothing they could do, and it would just make her more nervous.

“Mark?” Jessica turned in her bed as he was about to leave the room. His departing noises had awoken her. “What's wrong?” She sat up and glanced from him to her sister.

“I just came to see how Val was.” Val was already sleeping and he didn't approach from the doorway.

“Is something wrong?” She must have been totally out of it, Mark decided if she didn't remember how sick Val had been all day with the tourista.

“She got sick from something she ate.”

“I mean, more than that.”

“No, she's okay.” But he was shaking when he got back to his own room. Jessie sensed something, and he knew what they said about twins, that they were practically psychic about each other. All he needed was for her to say something to his dad or their mother and all hell would break loose. He wanted to take care of it himself. He had to. There was no other way.





CHAPTER 27

Peter and Mel decided to stay home on New Year's Eve, and drink champagne by the fire, and Mark took Val and Jessie out to a couple of parties he'd been invited to. Mel was pleased that he had included Jessie as well, although she didn't look too thrilled to go and Val wasn't in top form yet. Mel suggested that they not stay out too late, and warned them to be careful driving, and then she went upstairs to check on Pam, who had a friend sleeping over. Matt was asleep in his bed with a noisemaker beside him. He wanted someone to wake him up a midnight so he could blow his horn, but Mel correctly assumed that there would be no one awake in the house by midnight to wake him up. She was half tempted to wait up for Mark and the twins but she and Peter were exhausted. And as he sat in bed reading some of his medical journals, Mel wandered around the house, trying to make herself feel as though it were her home now too, but it just didn't feel like it yet. And then she remembered, as she saw the photographs of Anne in the silver frames. She began gathering them up one by one, there was a grand total of twenty-three, and she put them all in a drawer in Peter's study, and as she crossed the living room with the last batch in her arms, she saw Pam standing in the doorway.