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“Y ou want to do what?”

Dan watched Sarah’s face tighten as Dr. McKinnon explained a myriad of reasons why she should give up the Heartsong tour, that traveling to Australia and then going on tour was a risk she shouldn’t undertake.

“You’re a high-risk patient, Sarah. And your baby will likely already have sizeable health issues and doesn’t need any other factors contributing to that.”

“See?” Dan murmured.

Sarah’s glare at him could shoot satellites from space.

“I know this isn’t what you want to hear, Sarah,” Dr. McKinnon continued. “But you need to be careful. You can’t afford to let your blood pressure get high. Oh, and I want to schedule more tests.”

“What for this time?”

“We just want to rule out other complications.”

Other complications? Dan ignored the trickle of fear and glanced at Sarah, wanting—needing to hold her hand. But she’d folded her arms and pressed her lips together, her frustration plain.

Which left Dan to ask the question. “What other complications?”

Dr. McKinnon explained, throwing terms at them, most of which he didn’t recognize, but some that he did. Like spina bifida. Down’s syndrome.

Sarah’s sharp intake of breath echoed the fear loitering in his chest, and try as Dr. McKinnon might, his remaining words didn’t help.

“So I’d like you to schedule an appointment for another ultrasound in three weeks.”

Three weeks? When he was due to go on a road trip, so Sarah would be forced to do this alone. Unless he found a support person for her. His heart softened. No wonder she wanted her mum. Maybe he could ask his mom.

He glanced at her, caught her wipe a tear from her eye, then realized: three weeks was when she was scheduled to go on the Heartsong tour. Sympathy panged. Poor thing.

He nudged her hand, but she moved it away. His heart panged. Ever since that phone call with her family he’d known she was finding the idea of withdrawing from the tour difficult, but surely she should be excited that they were having a baby?

“Any other questions?”

Sarah jerked her head no, forcing Dan to thank him for his time as he escorted her outside the office.

Dan sighed. “Well, that’s that, then.” He glanced at her. “Want to get lunch?”

She inched her arm away from where he tried to hold her. “I need the bathroom.”

“Okay.”

He nodded to some other partners waiting outside the clinic’s toilets, then realized, as recognition stole across their faces, that probably wasn’t wise. So he ducked his head, pretending to check his phone, and prayed Sarah wouldn’t take too long.

That hadn’t gone well. And he could tell from Sarah’s icy demeanor, lunch with him would likely be the last thing she wanted.

She returned sooner than he thought, and he escorted her to the front where he paid, and she scheduled the next appointment. Then he walked with her to the car.

“Sar, come on. You can’t blame me for the doctor saying no.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” she muttered.

No, he wouldn’t. Sarah had her good qualities, but her ability to hold onto a grudge wasn’t one of them. Still, he had to try to be the peacemaker here. “Want to go have lunch now?”

“No.” She clicked in her seatbelt. “I want to go home and figure out how I’m going to explain to everyone that I’m not going on the tour I said I’d be going on just a month ago.”

“Why would you have to explain too much? People cancel tours all the time.”

“But Heartsong won’t be cancelling the tour. It’ll still happen, just without me.”

He exited the parking garage and joined the traffic. “I’m sorry you’re disappointed.”

“Don’t patronize me.” She folded her arms. “Honestly, sometimes you treat me like I’m five years old.”

Maybe if she acted a little less emotionally then he wouldn’t. Which meant he had to be the calm one now. “Just tell them you have health issues.”

She huffed.

“It’s true.”

“I have people who have bought tickets because I said I was going on this tour.”

“Are you seriously more concerned about the tour than you are about your own child?”

“We don’t even know if there will be a child, do we?”

This again. He drove into the street their apartment was on. He so didn’t want to continue their argument upstairs. “Look, can we talk about this rationally?”

“Excuse me? I’m being rational. This,” she pointed to her face, “is me being disappointed. I’m allowed to be disappointed, aren’t I? Or is that not what a perfect Christian does?”

A dozen things wanted to erupt from his lips. He bit them back, settling for, “Sarah, I’m concerned about you. I don’t understand why you’re so frustrated.”

“Because I’m more than just a baby incubator, Dan.

And now this thing I really wanted to do is suddenly forbidden and I’m upset, okay?

Or am I not allowed to be upset as well?

Let’s add that to the things I’m now not allowed to do.

No getting upset,” she ticked off her fingers, “no eating soft cheese, no seeing my family, no going on tour.”

Man. Arguing with her was like reasoning with a tree. “You have to let the tour go. We agreed, remember?”

“I don’t think we agreed. I think you told me this was what we’d do, and now you’re just expecting me to be the little submissive wife, just like Marguerite. Well, I’m not like her.”

That was for sure. “Sarah, come on, please—”

“I don’t want to give up the tour.”

“I know that,” he said, through gritted teeth.

“And now I have to explain to Tisha and the others, people who have put in all this work—just like me!—and then tell all my fans that I won’t be there after all.”

Irritation pricked. “Do you even hear yourself?”

“But I’m whom they want to see!” she yelled.

“Stop yelling, Sarah. It’s not good for the baby.”

Her fingers clenched.

“You need to get over yourself,” he continued. “All this talk about your fans missing you, that’s just pride talking.”

She gasped. And yeah, he hadn’t meant it quite that way.

“Sometimes I don’t like you very much,” she muttered in a voice he guessed he was meant to hear.

The feeling was mutual, but saying so would only inflame matters.

The diamonds on her engagement ring caught the light.

He remembered the night he’d given her that ring, on a beautiful evening in Sydney, with the lights of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House glimmering on the water.

Back when they were so much in love and things like living miles apart and a childless future hadn’t seemed so unbearable.

Now, they might share a bed, but she might as well be in Sydney for all the connection they had, and it felt like this miraculous answer to prayer was being battered at every turn. Why did everything have to go wrong? How had they grown so far apart? “Sarah, I love you.”

She huffed again, shook her head.

“What? What do you want me to say? Sure, go on your tour, get exhausted, and let’s have another miscarriage like last year.”

Her mouth dropped. “Are you seriously blaming me for that?”

He winced. No.

“Don’t you remember what the doctor said? We have chromosomal incompatibility, Dan. So we’re not one of those couples who get the dream pregnancy. Or any kind of pregnancy that lasts long enough to have a child, it seems.”

“That’s not true.” It couldn’t be true. “Please don’t say that anymore.”

She muttered things he couldn’t quite catch, but it sounded like she was reeling off a list of yet more things she couldn’t do.

He needed to rein in his temper, get this back into level ground. He hated arguing with her. She was too good at making him feel bad. “I didn’t mean to say that before, Sar.”

Her eyes sparkled with angry tears. “Oh no, it’s good to see you being honest for once, instead of pretending everything will be fine when clearly it’s not.”

Oh, he was glad they were in the car and couldn’t be heard by anyone else. What happened to Team Walton? Lord , his heart ached, please heal us . “I don’t understand why you’re resisting this, Sar. Surely you want this baby to be healthy.”

“Didn’t you hear the man just now? He clearly doesn’t expect this child to be healthy. I don’t think he even expects this baby to live.”

Her words slashed at his heart, voicing his own silent fears. But faith couldn’t let those words stand, even if his heart wavered sometimes. “This baby will live.”

“Will it?”

It had to. “In Jesus’s name.”

Her face crumpled. “I hate going there each time and only hearing what is wrong.”

He did, too. “So what are you saying? You want to find another obstetrician?”

“I don’t know what I want, except to find some hope, instead of feeling like I’m living in a world of ‘no, no, no’ all the time.”

A faint verse rang softly in the back of his mind, something about God being the God of Yes and Amen. But he didn’t know where that was, so said nothing. Nothing, except, “I love you, Sarah.”

She covered her face in her hands. “I love you too. I just wish this wasn’t so hard.”

That was a definite yes and amen.

* * *

“And so,” Sarah sniffled, “I’m really sorry, but it turns out that I won’t be able to join the Heartsong Collective tour after all.”

Sarah wiped away stupid tears, and finished reading her script.

“I’m really sorry for letting people down, but thanks to medical advice, I need to stay put for the moment.

But I hope to see you sometime soon.” Although how she would ever manage that she had no idea.

“Anyway, on that sober note, thanks for listening to Time Out with Sarah . We can trust Him with it all, yeah?”

She played the outro music, wincing. She hadn’t meant to finish that last word with an upward inflection, like a question. Even if it did feel true.