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The morning weatherman had rambled about temperatures reaching the upper nineties, but I wasn’t feeling the heat.

The clinic was scheduled to open at eight, and I’d arrived ten minutes early, hoping to be first in line and avoid any kind of wait.

I’d hoped the receptionist would look through the glass doors, take pity on me, and let me in early.

But the lady at reception did a fine job of avoiding eye contact with me.

A car pulled up behind me, and a coughing woman got out. I nudged a little closer to the door, not wanting to lose my first-place slot or to catch her cold.

She came to stand behind me and sneezed. “Jeez, you’d think they could open. It’s one minute to eight.”

I folded my arms over my chest. The minute didn’t mean much to the folks inside the building, but it was a lifetime to me. “Yeah.”

The woman sneezed again. “I got a cold.”

“Rough.”

“What’s going on with you?”

“Flu.”

“You look like you’re holding up well.”

I stared through the glass doors at the receptionist, willing her to rise and unlock the door. “It’s a front. I’m a mess.”

At exactly eight o’clock the receptionist did stand, cross to the door, and unlock it. She wasn’t smiling, and her slumped shoulders suggested this was the last place she wanted to be. Back at you, sister.

Managing a smile, I moved toward the front desk sign-in sheet.

Carefully I signed Daisy McCrae and took a seat, not bothering with a magazine.

Tapping my foot, I folded my arms over my chest. Don’t borrow trouble.

Mom had said it to me a million times. I was the kid always ready with a detailed worst-case scenario in no time flat.

Once Mom was driving Rachel and me to a six-year-old classmate’s birthday party.

Mom had been running late because of work at the bakery, and so she’d been driving fast. Long story short, she’d gotten a speeding ticket.

Rachel had been devilishly curious and calm when the officer had walked off with Mom’s driver’s license, because in Rachel’s young world life always worked out. I, however, didn’t know that. I’d been abandoned at age three, and I understood on a cellular level the world could indeed crumble.

“Momma, if you go to jail,” I asked, “who will take care of me?”

Mom glanced in the rearview mirror, her eyes sparking with annoyance. “I’m not going to jail, Daisy.”

My fingers drew into tight fists. “Yeah, but what if you do. Who is going to take care of me?”

She’d squeezed her fingers on the steering wheel and studied the officer in her side mirror. “Dad would take care of you.”

I’d clung to the strap of my seat belt. “What if Dad can’t come?”

Mom huffed out a breath as she watched the officer. “Dad will come.”

“But what if he can’t?” One backup had not been enough.

“Then I’ll call Mrs. G. from next door, or I’ll call your grandmother. There will be someone.”

My churning stomach had eased, and I’d settled back, accepting that the bench of potential rescuers was indeed deep enough to keep me safe.

“Daisy McCrae.”

I glanced up to find a gray-haired woman dressed in scrubs looking to the woman with the cough. I rose. “I’m Daisy.”

“Come on back.”

I followed her to a curtained room, where I sat on the gurney as the nurse read my chart.

“Is it a yes or no?” I asked.

The nurse punched keys on the exam room computer and pulled up my name. “The doctor will be right in to see you.”

I lowered my voice. “Blink once for yes and twice for no.”

She smiled. “He’ll be right in.”

Doomed to more waiting and wondering, I shifted on the gurney, crossed and uncrossed my feet, stretched, and then shoved out a sigh.

Finally, the curtain snapped back to reveal a tall slim man of Indian descent.

His rich dark hair was neatly combed back, and his white starched jacket covered khakis, a white button-down, and a tie.

“Mrs. McCrae?” he asked.

I didn’t quibble with the mistake. Sitting straighter, I fisted handfuls of the gurney paper sheet in my hands. “Hey.”

“Mrs. McCrae.” He glanced at my chart as if to double-check. “You are indeed pregnant.”

For a moment, time stopped. The sounds of the nurses and patients outside my room faded. The air around me grew thick and heavy, and my heart slowed. I could feel myself shrinking into the gurney and resisted the urge to pull the paper sheet over my head.

I cleared my throat. “Are you sure?”

He didn’t make eye contact as he nodded. “We ran a blood test. And they are very accurate.”

“ Very. Is your kind of very like a one hundred percent kind of very or a ninety percent very ?”

He lifted his gaze to mine so there’d be no confusion. “One hundred percent.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

I shoved out a breath and then more to myself said, “Now what?”

The doctor frowned. “You were not expecting this?”

Threading my fingers together and resting them on my lap, I nodded. “An understatement.”

“There are options available to you.” His voice sounded distant and far off.

Options. The word sounded so neat, clean, and nonthreatening, as if we were talking about removing tonsils or an appendectomy.

I’d known women who’d exercised their options, but I’d never been faced with this choice before because I’d always been so careful.

I’d never wanted to make a baby I didn’t want, because I’d been that baby.

“Mrs. McCrae?”

I glanced up. “It’s Miss , and I know the options.” I hopped off the table. “Thanks. That option is not for me.” I had no idea what the hell I was going to do, but I was certain what I wouldn’t do.

“Do you have an obstetrician?”

“What? No, not yet. My sister likes hers. I’ll get with her.” I was saying the right words, but I was so not feeling them. An obstetrician for me. Damn! “Thanks, I’ll take it from here.”

As I reached for the curtain, he said, “Are you going to be okay?”

A ten-ton weight had settled on my shoulders, and he was asking me if I was going to be fine. I had no idea. “Yeah, sure. I always find a way to bounce back.”

As I gave the receptionist my credit card and waited for her to process the payment, I fought a tremendous sense of loneliness.

My support bench, the one Mom had relied on all those years ago when she’d gotten her speeding ticket, had thinned. Mrs. G. and Grandma were dead. Mom and Dad were on vacation. Margaret had left. Rachel was struggling. And Gordon, well, there was the minor detail that the baby was not his.

There wasn’t much I could do to help Jean Paul with the electrical work, so Rachel and I focused on the front of the store, which needed a new coat of paint.

My life was out of control, and I was so grateful for any basic task able to fill my day and occupy my mind.

And so instead of thinking about the kid, Gordon, and the next eighteen years of my life, I fixated on paint samples.

Rachel, hidden behind dark sunglasses, climbed into the passenger seat as I slid behind the wheel of the bakery’s delivery truck. Balancing my can of ginger ale, I clicked my seat belt.

My sister’s hair was pulled back into a ponytail, but the style wasn’t smooth. In fact, it looked like she’d simply combed her fingers through her hair and tied it back. In the rush of getting the girls and our parents out of town yesterday, I’d noticed how rough she looked.

“Are you feeling all right?” My stomach flip-flopped as I turned on the engine and waited for the chug-chug of the engine to warm and settle. I rolled down my window, breathed in fresh air, and sipped my soda.

She also rolled down her window. “Great.”

A sideways glance in her direction didn’t jive with the adjective. “You look a little upset. You can’t be missing the girls already.”

She straightened and brushed a lock of blond hair off her forehead with the back of her hand. “I’m not missing them yet.”

“You look rough.”

She tossed me a glare. “You don’t look so hot yourself.”

Thinking about not feeling well made me sicker. I put the gear in reverse and backed out of the alley. “Did you get drunk last night?”

She reached for my ginger ale, which I reluctantly surrendered, and sipped carefully.

“And then some. I had a couple of bottles of champagne I found in the cabinet in my apartment. They were left over from a New Year’s Eve party Mike and I had a couple of years ago. I polished them both off.”

“Warm champagne?”

“I added ice.”

“You’re kidding?”

She shook her head, wincing as if it hurt, and handed the soda can back to me. “I wish. Note to self: ice and champagne are okay, but consuming two bottles of iced anything is begging for trouble.”

“Duly noted.”

She moistened her lips as if the memory of the champagne was too much to tolerate. “So, what was your poison?”

A broken condom four months ago. “Just under the weather.”

Rachel shook her head. “You never get sick.”

Tipping my head back, I commanded my stomach to calm as I turned onto King Street and headed west. My gut responded by constricting with nausea and then finally relaxing. “Never say never.”

Rachel rubbed the back of her neck with her hand. “I haven’t gotten hammered since high school. After Mike died, there were many reasons to drink then, but I didn’t. But I sure made up for lost time last night.”

“Why?”

“If the girls had been at home, I wouldn’t have. But they were gone, and the house was so quiet. And then I thought about Margaret leaving and her life taking such a great turn.” A half smile tugged at the edge of her lips. “I felt sorry for myself.”

“You’re entitled.” As I slowed for a yellow light, I offered her more ginger ale.

She accepted it. “When I popped the first champagne bottle last night, I said to myself, ‘You deserve this.’ After a glass, I was all warm and tingly. So I had another. Now I feel like an idiot. Life hasn’t changed a bit, and my head throbs as if a Mack truck flattened it.”