“I need to get a CBC on a patient, stat,” she said into the phone. Then she was back at Joelle’s side, pressing her fingers on her belly, and Joelle tightened her abdominal muscles to keep her from pushing too hard.

“Extend this leg out,” Rebecca said. “That’s it, all the way.”

“It hurts,” Joelle said. “Oh my God, Rebecca!” She tried to sit up. “I just realized I haven’t felt the baby move yet this morning!”

“I think the baby’s okay,” Rebecca said. “She or he is probably just giving you a break, since you have so much else to deal with right now.” Rebecca took her temperature, but Joelle didn’t need a thermometer to know she had a fever.

“I’m going to do a sonogram,” Rebecca said as Gale Firestone, a nurse Joelle knew well, walked into the room. Joelle saw the sharp look of astonishment on Gale’s face at the sight of her rounded belly, but the nurse got her surprise quickly under control.

“Sorry you’re not feeling well, Joelle,” she said as she set up the phlebotomy tray on the counter.

“I think you’ve got a case of appendicitis,” Rebecca said. She turned on the ultrasound monitor. “But I’d like to rule out a cyst and a few other things just to be sure.”

Joelle closed her eyes as Gale drew blood from her arm, but opened them again to watch the screen while Rebecca moved the transducer over her belly.

“I don’t see a cyst,” Rebecca said. “But I do see a healthy baby. Not too sure of the sex yet, though.”

“It’s okay?” Joelle asked. “It’s moving and—”

“There’s the heart,” Rebecca said, leaning back so Joelle could see the screen, and she spotted once again that reassuring flutter of life inside her.

“Thank God,” she said, lying back again.

“I’ll call you with this,” Gale said to Rebecca as she carried the tube of Joelle’s blood out of the room.

“Make it fast,” Rebecca said, and Joelle could feel her urgency.

Rebecca gently wiped the gel from Joelle’s stomach, then lowered her dress back over her thighs.

“Do you want to sit up or stay like that?” she asked.

“I don’t want to move any more than I have to,” Joelle said. She looked at Rebecca. “Now what?” she asked.

Rebecca’s gaze settled on the small, shaded window of the room, and Joelle recognized that look on the obstetrician’s face: she was thinking through her options.

“I’d really like to get an MRI,” Rebecca said, “but I’m concerned about wasting time. I’m ninety-five percent sure it’s your appendix, and we don’t want it to rupture. That’s not something we need, with you pregnant.”

“Is that serious?”

“It could be quite serious,” Rebecca said. “Let’s see what your white blood count tells us and go from there.” She moved toward the door. “Do you need a blanket?” she asked, her hand on the doorknob. “It’s cold in this part of the building.”

“No,” Joelle said. “Just hurry back, please.”

She must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew, Rebecca was telling her to sit up.

“What’s happening?” Joelle tried to sit up with Rebecca’s help and let out a yelp as the pain cut into her side again. “Did the blood work come back?”

“Yes, and it confirms my suspicions. I’m sending you upstairs for an emergency laparotomy. Dr. Glazer will perform it. You know him, don’t you?”

Joelle nodded as she carefully lowered herself from the table onto the step. “What about the baby?” she asked. “What about the anesthesia? How will that—”

“It will be fine,” Rebecca said. “And I’ll be there, keeping an eye on the baby the whole time.”

Joelle suddenly realized that Gale was in the room, moving a wheelchair close to the step she was on. With Rebecca’s help, Joelle lowered herself into the chair, nearly doubled over with pain.

“I’ll take her up,” Rebecca said to Gale, and the nurse held the door open while Joelle was pushed out into the hallway of the office. When they neared the door to the corridor of the Women’s Wing, which they would have to pass through to reach the elevators, Rebecca leaned over and whispered in her ear.

“This means the end of your secret, you know that, don’t you?”

Joelle nodded. “Not important,” she said, and it wasn’t. Not anymore. She just wanted to get through this crisis with both herself and her baby intact.

Rebecca wheeled her through the Women’s Wing, which passed by her in a blur. She could hear the word pregnant following her down the hall, being spoken in surprise and disbelief, and she knew she would be the subject of that day’s gossip in the hospital.

It wasn’t until she was on the operating table, the IV in her vein, a sedative fog washing over her, that she suddenly remembered walking out of the room of her patient. She tried to sit up. “I need to—”

“Lie down, Joelle,” someone said.

“But the patient I was seeing. Someone needs to see her. I ran—”

“We’ll take care of it,” someone else said.

They wouldn’t know what the problem was. She had to tell them. But she felt herself sinking, floating away.

“Girl baby,” she said slowly. “She had a little girl.”







22






LIAM ENTERED THE SOCIAL WORK OFFICE TO FIND MAGGIE SITTING on the edge of her desk, her legs dangling over the side. She was engaged in excited conversation with Paul, who was standing at the watercooler.

“Did you hear?” Paul asked him as soon as he’d set foot in the room.

“Hear what?” He reached toward his overflowing mailbox on the wall.

“Joelle’s in surgery,” Maggie said.

Liam’s hand froze in the air, and his heart made an unexpected leap into his throat. “Why?” he asked, lowering his arm to his side.

“Appendix, they think,” Paul said. “But she’s also—get this— pregnant. Do you believe it?”

“Pregnant?” he asked, feeling stupid. “She’s not even involved with anyone.”

“I know,” said Maggie, “and it’s pretty amazing after all her hassles with fertility. But maybe she had one of her eggs fertilized in a test tube by a sperm donor or something, and then had it implanted. You know how much she wanted a baby, and she knows all the right doctors to do something like that.”

He shook his head. “She wanted a baby when she was married,” he said. “But not now.” Could Maggie be right? Might Joelle have taken extraordinary measures to have a child? It didn’t sound like the Joelle he knew, but then he hadn’t been close to her the past few months. Still, he hoped against hope that was the answer, because the only other possibility was one he didn’t want to think about. “How far along is she?” he asked.

“Not sure,” Paul said.

“I heard someone in the maternity unit say she was four months,” Maggie said. “I thought she was putting on weight.”

Four months? Liam’s mind raced. Sam was sixteen months old. So, his birthday would have been—

“Excuse me?” The three of them turned to see a small, thin woman leaning on her cane in the doorway. She looked vaguely familiar, and Liam guessed she was the wife of one of the patients he’d worked with in the cardiac unit.

“Can I help you?” Maggie scooted off the desk, smoothing her skirt and attempting to look professional.

“I’m looking for Joelle D’Angelo,” the woman said. “We have a lunch date.”

Carlynn Shire. He recognized her now as the woman he’d discovered in Mara’s room with Joelle a couple of weeks earlier.

“Dr. Shire.” He held out his hand to her. “We met at my wife’s nursing home. I’m Liam Sommers.”

“Yes, Mr. Sommers.” She smiled and held his hand for a moment before letting go. “And you were not at all pleased to see me there.”

Liam looked at Paul and Maggie, who were staring at him with frank curiosity. Paul probably recognized the Shire name from the Mind and Body Center, but Maggie wouldn’t have a clue.

“Listen,” he said to the healer, taking her elbow. “Why don’t you and I go into the conference room for a minute? I’ll tell you what’s going on with Joelle.” He led her through the short, narrow hallway leading into the conference room and closed the door behind them.

The woman sat down at the long table and looked up at him with concern. “Is Joelle all right?” she asked.

“She’s in surgery for appendicitis,” he said, taking a seat across the table from her.

“Oh, my goodness.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Has it ruptured? That could be terribly dangerous in her—” She stopped herself from saying more.

“In her condition,” Liam finished the sentence for her. “You know that she’s pregnant?”

“Yes, I know,” she said, and she was eyeing him so intently that he was afraid to ask her his next question.

“Do you know if it…if the baby…”

“It’s yours,” she said bluntly.

He looked away from her, shaking his head. “Man, oh, man,” he said, rubbing his forehead with his fingers. “Why didn’t she tell me?”

“Well, I think she had a few very good reasons,” she said. “At least, they seemed good to her. One, she knew you’ve been overwhelmed dealing with your wife and son. And two, you haven’t…been inviting her to share much with you lately, have you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” He looked across the table at the diminutive, gray-haired woman, trying not to turn away from her penetrating blue eyes.

“You’ve been pushing her away,” Carlynn said.

“I haven’t been pushing her away,” he said, but he knew she was right. He sank lower into the chair. “Maybe I have. I’m angry at both of us for what happened. We can’t let it happen again.”

“It happened. Guilt does no one any good.”

He studied her for a moment. “Is Joelle losing her mind?” he asked. “What on earth can she possibly think you can do for my wife?”

“Mara belongs to Joelle as well as to you, Liam,” Carlynn said. “They were extremely close friends, and Joelle suffered a loss as great as your own. She needs to grieve in her own way. If bringing me in helps her, I don’t understand why you should object.”

“Because I don’t believe there’s anything you can do to help my wife,” he said, biting off the words. “I think…what you’re all about is a…a crock of bull. Sorry. But that’s what I think.”

She looked unoffended by his words. “I’m not a quack, Liam,” she said. “Not a charlatan. The truth is, sometimes I can help, and sometimes I can’t. Often, the help doesn’t come in the form we expect it to.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean, that sometimes getting well, physically well, is not the true goal of healing.”

“Then what the hell is the point of it?”

Carlynn Shire stood up and rested her hands on the table, leaning toward him. “Do you love Joelle, Liam?”

He felt his jaw tighten at the intrusiveness of the question. “That really isn’t any of your business.”

She didn’t respond, but didn’t let him loose of her gaze, either.

“It doesn’t matter if I do,” he said.

“Do me a favor, Liam,” she said, sitting down again. “Describe Joelle to me.”

“You already seem to know her very well,” he said.

“I want to hear your description of her, though,” she pressed him. “I want to see her through your eyes.”

He sighed. Why was he giving this woman so much control over him?

“She’s very capable,” he said. “Compassionate. Caring. Ethical.”

“Moral?”

“Yes, absolutely. And so am I,” he insisted. “We didn’t plan this to happen, Mrs…. Dr…. Shire. We didn’t mean it to happen.” God, that sounded trite.

“I know,” she said. “Go on.”

He sighed again, giving in. “She’s nurturing.” He could see Joelle, back in the days when their friendship had been close and warm, sitting across the cafeteria table from him. She’d looked girlish, with that long thick dark hair and heavy bangs above her brown eyes. “Very cute,” he said. “And open. Extremely open, especially with me.” He shook his head. “It’s hard to understand how she could have kept this from me. She tells me everything.”

“Used to tell you everything,” Carlynn Shire corrected him. “She didn’t ever want you to know about the baby. She planned to leave before you found out.”

“Leave?” He frowned. “You mean, leave Silas Memorial?”

“No, leave Monterey,” she said. “Leave her life here. Have the baby someplace else so you would never have to be burdened by it.”

He frowned. “I can’t believe she would leave without telling me about…”

“I believe,” she said gently, “that you’ve treated her like an evil person. Like someone you need to avoid.”

He started to object, but she was right, wasn’t she? If he avoided Joelle, he could avoid temptation and never have to face his own weakness.