He laughed, the sound almost alien to his ears. It had been a long time since he’d laughed about anything with Joelle, but he quickly sobered. “No,” he said. “I’m having trouble with Sheila. She spanked Sam today.”

“What happened?”

“He was screaming in the grocery store,” he said. “It doesn’t really matter what happened. He’s a baby. He can’t do anything bad enough to merit a spanking.”

“You sound so upset.” The tenderness in her voice made the muscles in his chest contract. “I am upset,” he said. “But then I realized I had no idea how Mara would feel about it. About spanking.”

Another beat of silence. “Hon,” Joelle said. “It doesn’t really matter how Mara would feel about it. What matters is how you feel.”

“I can’t stand the thought of anyone hurting him,” he said.

“Then don’t let them,” she said. “He’s your son. You make the rules.”

“I…” If he said another word, he’d lose his resolve. “Thanks,” he said quickly. “I’ve got to go. I’ll see you at work.” He hung up abruptly. He pictured her staring at her phone with a puzzled look on her face, wondering if she’d said something to make him hang up like that. He’d wanted to ask her more questions. How did he stop Sheila from hitting Sam, for example, when he was completely dependent on her in so many ways? But he’d been afraid that any more conversation on the subject, any more words of loving comfort from Joelle would put an end to his carefully maintained defenses. It had happened before, and he feared it could happen again, because what he really wanted was to have her here in bed with him, holding her close, his hands tangled in her hair, one of her legs nestled between his, all night long.







14






IT WAS OBVIOUS TO JOELLE THAT LIAM WAS AVOIDING HER THE following day. He’d not been in his office when she arrived at work, and he skipped out early from the peer supervision meeting he, Joelle and Paul held each week in the conference room. But Joelle had even bigger things on her mind than Liam’s phone call of the night before.

As of today, she was twelve weeks pregnant, and she was finally going to say those words out loud to someone other than herself. She found it difficult to concentrate on the patients she saw in the maternity unit that morning, because she was on the lookout for Rebecca Reed, who never seemed to be in the corridor or at the nurses’ station the same time she was. In the afternoon, Rebecca would be seeing patients in her office, and although that office was in the maternity unit, she would be too busy to take time out for Joelle.

Her pregnancy was still quite easy to hide. She definitely had a rounded belly, and she’d bought a few loose-fitting dresses and tops to wear, so that when she truly had to wear baggier clothing, the change in style wouldn’t be so obvious to her co-workers. She no longer needed to use the bathroom every few minutes, but she was beginning to get a strange achy feeling in her groin that made her glad she was finally going to see a doctor. She had to know her baby was all right.

She didn’t spot Rebecca until nearly noon. The doctor was talking with Serena Marquez at the nurses’ station, a stack of patient charts in her arms. Joelle greeted the two women briefly, not wanting to interrupt their conversation. Taking a seat at the counter, she hoped Serena would leave the station before Rebecca did, and she was in luck. One of the nurses asked Serena to check on a patient, leaving Rebecca and Joelle alone at the counter.

Rebecca sat down, opened one of the charts she’d been carrying and began to write. Almost immediately, Joelle moved to the seat next to her, and Rebecca looked over at her with a quick smile before returning to her notes.

“Sorry to interrupt, Rebecca,” Joelle said, “but would you have some time today to talk with me? Maybe after you’re done seeing your patients this afternoon?”

“Do you have a problem patient?” Rebecca asked without taking her eyes or her hand from the chart.

“Yes,” Joelle said. “Me.”

Rebecca stopped writing. She looked at Joelle, her eyebrows raised and frank curiosity in her face. “Sure,” she said. “I’ll be done around five. Can you come to my office then?”

“Thanks,” Joelle said. “I’ll be there.” She stood up and started walking toward the cafeteria, thinking she would go to Rebecca’s office a bit after five in the hope that the doctor’s staff would have left by then. The fewer people who saw her there, the better.

She spotted Liam sitting alone at their usual table near the cafeteria window and took a seat across from him, glad he had not skipped lunch in an effort to avoid her.

“Where’s Paul?” she asked as she opened her napkin and rested it on her lap.

“He’s swamped,” Liam said. “He’ll be late.”

He’d sounded so miserable on the phone the night before, so distressed at the thought of Sam being hurt. He had to have been in a deep, dark crater to have called her. Awkward though it had been, she’d been thrilled he’d turned to her the way he used to.

“How are you?” she asked him as she raised her glass of milk to her lips.

“I’m all right.” He looked directly at her. “Sorry I bothered you last night,” he said.

“It was no bother,” she said. “Did you decide how you’re going to handle the situation with Sheila?”

“I’ve got it covered, thanks.” He tore open a packet of sugar and poured it into his coffee, a barely perceptible tremor in his hand. Like hell he had it covered, she thought.

“Oh.” She leaned toward him, wishing she could touch that trembling hand. “Let me help you. You don’t need to—”

“Hi, Paul,” Liam interrupted her, looking above her head, and she turned to see Paul about to set his tray on the table.

“Will this day never end?” Paul said as he lowered himself into the chair.

“What’s going on?” Liam asked with sudden enthusiasm, as though he wanted nothing more than to talk with Paul about his cases.

“Three new AIDS admissions, one of them a fourteen-year-old girl,” Paul said. “Two child abuse cases. One little boy about to die. You know, the usual.”

“I might be able to help you out later,” Joelle said to Paul. Her load today was comparatively light.

Liam began questioning Paul about the details of his cases, exhibiting insatiable curiosity that Joelle knew was born of his desire to avoid talking about his own problems, and she grew quiet. As soon as she had finished eating, she excused herself and went up to the general surgery floor to see if she was needed there. It was too hard to be around Liam when he was shutting her out, cutting himself off from the friendship she still longed to give him.

That afternoon, she whisked through her referrals, then helped Paul with his cases, not allowing herself any free time. She didn’t want that much time to think. At five o’clock, someone else would finally know what was happening to her body. The contents of her mind and heart, though, would have to remain hidden.

At quarter after five, she sat down in the chair across the desk from Rebecca Reed and offered the doctor a weak smile.

“Thanks for seeing me,” she said.

Rebecca shoved aside a stack of charts to give Joelle her full attention. “So,” she said, “what’s up with you?” Even at the end of a long day, the doctor’s blond hair was still neatly, sleekly, pulled back into a clasp at the nape of her neck, and her face looked freshly scrubbed, her skin smooth and glowing.

Joelle had spoken about her personal problems once before with Rebecca, many years earlier, when she and Rusty had been unable to conceive. Rebecca had been her usual cool and clinical self, giving Joelle the names of several fertility specialists, spelling out their credentials and offering her own opinion of each of them, but she’d offered Joelle no words of sympathy, no hand-holding, and Joelle had not expected any. That was not Rebecca’s style. She didn’t expect any sympathy now, either. What she needed was excellent clinical skills embodied in a woman who was certain not to either meddle or gossip.

“I have to ask for complete confidentiality,” Joelle began, and Rebecca smiled.

“Is there any other kind?” she asked.

Joelle could not smile back. “Right. I guess not,” she said. She looked squarely at Rebecca and took in a breath. “I’m pregnant,” she said.

Rebecca raised her eyebrows and for a moment seemed speechless. “Wow,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “Wow.”

“Lousy timing, isn’t it?” Joelle asked.

Rebecca folded her arms across her chest and shook her head in what Joelle thought was wonder. “Well, there was a time when I would have congratulated you on this news and broken out the Perrier,” Rebecca said, “but I’m not quite sure what to say right now. Is this good news for you or not? Or would you prefer not to discuss it?”

“It’s a…mixed blessing, I guess.” Joelle ran her fingertips over the smooth edge of Rebecca’s desk. “It wasn’t planned. I’m not married, of course, and I have no plans to be. But still—” she looked at Rebecca “—you know how much I wanted a baby.”

“When was the first day of your last period?” Rebecca asked.

“My periods are so irregular,” Joelle said. “I couldn’t begin to tell you. But I do know that I’m exactly twelve weeks pregnant as of today.”

“You know the moment of conception, then, huh?” Rebecca smiled, almost warmly.

“Yes.”

Leaning forward, Rebecca rested her elbows on her desk. “If conception actually occurred twelve weeks ago, that would probably make you around fourteen weeks pregnant.”

“Fourteen weeks? What do you mean?” Joelle asked.

“We count from the first day of your last period. Usually, that’s a couple of weeks prior to the actual date of conception.”

“I never knew that,” Joelle said, bewildered to suddenly find herself two weeks further along than she’d thought she was. “I’ve worked in the maternity unit all these years and never knew that.”

“Well, it’s the ultrasound that will give us the most accurate reading on how far along you are.” Rebecca cocked her head to one side. “I just need to make sure you know you can still have an abortion at fourteen weeks.”

Joelle shook her head. “How could I do that after trying for so long to get pregnant?”

“Yes, of course,” Rebecca said. “I just want to be sure you know your options.”

“I do,” Joelle said. She glanced at the wall of framed diplomas near the window of the office. “I wanted to ask if you would be my obstetrician,” she said.

Rebecca nodded. “Of course.” She looked at her watch and stood up. “How about we start right now. Do you have time for your first prenatal exam?”

Joelle was relieved. That was the invitation she’d been hoping for. She needed to know the baby she’d been neglecting, at least from the perspective of prenatal care, was healthy. “I haven’t felt any movement,” she said, getting to her feet. “If I’m fourteen weeks, shouldn’t I be feeling something?”

“Not yet, but you will soon enough.” Rebecca guided Joelle toward one of the small examination rooms. “Let’s see what the sonogram tells us.”

Rebecca left her alone in the room, where Joelle undressed, put on a blue gown and climbed onto the table.

In a moment, Rebecca returned to the room. After a gentle examination, she began to squeeze warm gel on her stomach.

“I’ve been having some pain down here.” Joelle moved her hands along either side of her groin. “A pulling sort of feeling.”

Rebecca nodded. “Ligament pain,” she said. “That’s normal.” She began sliding the transducer back and forth over Joelle’s belly as an image formed on the monitor.

Joelle had never been able to make out those blurry fetal pictures, but Rebecca was an excellent interpreter.

“This is the head,” she said, pointing to the image in the center of the screen. “These little buds will become his or her arms and legs. Look, you can see one of the hands already. And most importantly, here’s the heart.”

“Oh!” Joelle lifted her head to get a better look at the pulsing speck of life on the monitor. “How beautiful! How big is it?” she asked. “The baby? The fetus?”

“About three and a half inches long,” Rebecca said. “And you are most definitely fourteen weeks, Joelle.”

“Oh, God.” She closed her eyes and let her head fall back on the small, flat pillow. “I feel so guilty for waiting this long to see you. To get prenatal care. Fourteen weeks!”

“Would you like a due date?” Rebecca did not seem to be listening to her ruminations. Instead, she was fiddling with a chart on the counter.