Page 20

The tourism season was in full swing, and the bike and walking paths along the river were growing congested.

As a kid I didn’t like the summer season, hating to share my city with strangers.

But now when I saw the buzzing streets, I thought of income for the bakery.

The more the merrier. My regret was that the bakery wasn’t open.

A young couple walked along the path, hands clasped and bodies close. As the woman spoke, the man listened with the eagerness of a new lover. Occasionally he smiled as she raised her other hand to punctuate her story.

My thoughts went immediately to Gordon. Once we connected, we were barely able to keep our hands off each other, and when one talked, the other listened with rapt interest.

And then life happened. He’d become closed off and wrapped in work, and I’d taken his uninterest as rejection.

We got caught in a riptide of emotions and unspoken words, and we’d been pulled apart. As much as we wanted to return to the other, neither of us had the strength to fight the current.

After the breakup both of us had gone on with our lives, never realizing the same tides that pulled us apart had brought us back together here in Alexandria. We both had new lives, new challenges, and it seemed a new chance with each other.

And then the wave I’d never seen coming crashed on me and separated us again.

Alone now, I worried how I would pull off motherhood. I could manage any business, but a baby? There were so many ways I could screw this kid up, and it scared me.

My mom had taught me how to be a mother. Mom never ran, and no matter how hard I pushed or tested, she’d stood steadfast. I prayed her training was enough to overcome the runaway genetics I’d inherited from Terry.

I walked for another half hour, and then suddenly my energy plummeted. This was my new pattern: nausea all day, feel human for an hour, and then the exhaustion.

All but dragging myself back to the bakery, I pushed through the front door, anxious to collapse on my bed. The place was eerily quiet. No hammers. No customers. No nieces or sisters. The emptiness should have unsettled, but I was too tired to care.

I climbed the stairs and made it to my apartment. A glance toward the clock told me it was minutes after seven. When had I turned into a woman craving bedtime at seven? And then, not caring about the answer, I collapsed onto my bed, my body aching with fatigue.

Sunlight still burned bright outside, and I could hear children giggling on the street below.

People from my old life would have laughed at me if they’d spotted me pulling the blanket over my head.

I’d regularly burned the candle late into the night and laughed at those who said they needed eight hours’ sleep.

I’d had the nerve to call them old. Jeez.

My old life was less than six months gone, but it might as well have been a lifetime.

I worked harder than I ever had and made a tenth of what I had before.

And to add a cherry on top of this bitter dessert, I was knocked up.

If I’d had more energy, I’d have been freaking out right now.

Hell, I didn’t have the energy to strip off my clothes and put on pajamas.

The kid wasn’t even here, and it was already sucking the life right out of me.

Tomorrow I really needed to call Rachel’s obstetrician.

Maybe those supercharged vitamins they gave pregnant women would help.

A gentle breeze blew into my room. We’d had to turn the air-conditioning off during the renovation, and I thought now how lucky we’d been with the weather.

Not blistering hot as it could be during a Virginia summer.

But moderate days. Cool nights. And then my eyes drifted shut.

As the day floated further and further away, the darkness surrounded me and slowly closed in like a storm cloud.

Fear and panic rose, and as much as I wanted to run, my feet felt stuck to the ground.

Trapped. And then out of the darkness I saw a woman.

She was petite, small boned, with a flat belly and her shiny blond hair coiled into a bun.

Jenna. Even if I’d not seen two pictures of her, I’d have known it was Jenna.

Of course, not a logical thought, but many truths didn’t always make sense.

She looked directly at me, and she smiled. “I think you’re going to have a girl.”

My hands slid to my gently rounded stomach. “How can you tell?”

“I just can.”

Mom had raised me never ever to ask a woman if she was pregnant. Unless the baby’s head is crowning, do not ask. But that doesn’t stop me from glancing at her belly.

She smiled. “His name is Walt.”

“Who?”

“My son. His name is Walt. He looks like his father.”

“Where’s your son?”

The light in her eyes faded. “I don’t know.”

“Did you give him away for adoption?”

She shook her head. “They took him.”

A terrible sadness welled as I thought of her child being taken. “Who took him?”

“I don’t know. But I hear him crying all the time, and I know I need to find him.”

“Why would they take him?”

She shook her head. “Don’t let them take your baby.”

As I startled awake, my hand slid to my stomach. My breathing was hard and fast. My heart rammed against my chest. For an instant I feared the baby was gone. The baby I didn’t plan or want was gone, and my heart broke.

And then the very most delicate sensation fluttered below my fingers, below my skin. Tiny, tiny flickers before it stopped. Holding my breath, I waited for the petite bit of movement.

“Come on, kid. Throw me a bone.”

But the kid was mutinously silent. She wanted me to know she was there, but she wasn’t taking requests.

The room was dark, the sun long since set.

The streets were quiet and the moon full and bright.

I lay back on my bed, my hands on my belly.

In another life, Gordon would have loved this moment.

He’d always wanted children, and I’d been the one to shy away from them.

He’d have coaxed the kid to move. He’d have nestled his head against my belly and spoken to her as if they’d been old friends.

Tears filled my eyes, and I was struck with a bone-deep loneliness. I wanted Gordon to wrap his arms around me and whisper words of love in my ear. I wanted him to tell me we were going to be fine.

But yesterday’s memories of Gordon’s stony features sent the fantasy skittering away. I had cut him so deep and inflicted so much pain he’d never forgive me.