“You’re the only one who can.”
“You know as well as I do that once your father makes a decision…”
“I hate him.”
“Eva!”
She pulled away. “I do.”
“Honey, he loves you and he’s looking out for you in a way that someday you’ll be grate—”
“Why don’t you look out for me?”
Maryellen felt like crying herself. If only Eva knew how much she did to shield her daughter from the full force of Frank’s righteous convictions. It nearly broke her heart to take Eva’s pet stray to the pound to spare both of them from Frank’s plan to mitigate certain rabies by putting a can of spiked tuna under the deck. “He’s promised me he’ll take you shopping for a car as soon as you get back.”
“Like I really believe that.”
Frank was wrong for signing his daughter up for a camp she had no interest in attending, but so right, even if he had no idea why. Their daughter needed the support, influence, and redirection of a Christian youth community away from home.
“So, you’re going to just let him send me off?”
If only she hadn’t seen Eva wearing that cape and holding that strange knife. “You never know. Camp could end up being a million times better than you ever expected.”
“Or a million times worse.”
The buzz of outside noise filled the otherwise silent room while Maryellen figured out how to clarify what was clearly not what Eva wanted to hear. “Sometimes, when I find myself in a situation where I’m uncertain or don’t think I’m going to like it, I force myself to smile.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I know it sounds kind of hokey, but things don’t seem so bad when you’re smiling.”
“Like in The Sound of Music?”
“In a way. It’s how I deal with tough situations.”
“And starving yourself.”
“Eva!”
Any remaining glimmer of openness or possibility in Eva’s face fell away and was replaced by a steely emptiness. “You know, your smile didn’t seem forced after the potluck when you were gobbling up those Red Vines.”
Maryellen swallowed a shot of licorice-flavored bile and with it the fear of what she might say in the face of exactly this conversation. “Yours did.”
And now it is done…
“Wasn’t forced at all,” Eva finally said.
“What was going on in that basement, with your friends?”
“We were hanging out.”
“Hanging out doing what?”
Eva’s face contorted into a smile, but one Maryellen hoped never to see again. “Seemed like you were really, really high, Mom,” she said.
“I…” Maryellen managed to say. Little Witch, she couldn’t.
“Whatever.” Eva grabbed her donut basket and started for the door. “I’m not going to camp.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Henderson Homes has contracted with Star Warranty to perform warranty work on your newly constructed home. Please contact Star Warranty directly to assess and perform all covered maintenance work—From Henderson Homes Five-Year Gold Warranty.
“This is Will Pierce-Cohn,” he said, enunciating his last name. “I live at 46923 Songbird Canyon Court and my home warranty number is 532122 A as in apple, Z as in zipper. I came home from vacation last night and discovered a large crack running across the interior side of my family room exterior wall. I need to get someone out here right away to take a look.”
***
Tim Trautman pulled the closing documents from the file, located the warranty fulfillment information, and dialed the number.
You have reached Star Warranty Fulfillment Inc. Please leave your name, number, builder, and purpose of your call. Due to the large number of recent claims, you may experience a delay in response time, but a representative will return your call as soon as possible. Please do not call the emergency line unless this is an emergency. Be patient. We will get back to you.
“Hi, this is Tim Trautman at 35424 Wonderland Valley Court. I’m calling about some cracks around my living room bay window that should be covered under the home warranty transferred into our name by the Smithers family upon sale of the house. If someone could please call me back I’d appreciate it.”
***
Hope typed in the e-mail address for Star Home Warranty Fulfillment, Request for service in the Re: line, detailed the particulars in the body of the e-mail, and pressed send.
She put a check mark beside call about cracks on her to-do list and moved on to plant materials she needed to review.
***
“Frank Griffin, president of the Melody Mountain Ranch Homeowner’s here. I’m calling in both official and personal capacities. Seems we have floor tile cracking in some of the north-facing men’s and women’s poolside shower stalls. When you send your guys out, I’d also like to have you look at a damp area of carpeting in my basement I left you a message about last week. I figure it might help your backlog if you can double up and check both out together.”
***
U back? Eva keyed into her phone.
Yep. Popped up from Tyler almost instantly. Got in late last nite.
Cool.
I guess if you can call a Disney cruise with parents who never stopped fighting cool.
Glad you are. She took a deep breath and typed the sentence that she’d been rolling around in her head for days. Need to talk. Meet me at the playground in ten?
Can’t. Parents are at it again about some crack in the family room wall or something and I have to babysit for my little sisters until they quit fighting.
Have to talk to u.
Really can’t.
Eva took a deep breath. It really can’t wait.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
9.1. Retaining Walls. Retaining walls may be used to accommodate or create abrupt changes in grade. Such walls should be properly anchored to withstand overturning forces and all retaining walls must incorporate weep holes to permit water trapped behind them to be released.
“Maybe I am crazy in the head.” Laney lay face down on the examination/adjustment/massage table of Dr. Sebastian, chiropractor, acupuncturist, massage therapist, and naturopath. “But before I give in to insanity, I thought I’d see what you have to say. Roseanne Goldberg swears you’re a miracle worker.”
“I do my best.” Bastian, as he asked to be called, placed a meaty hand on her left shoulder and another on the side of her face. “Hold still.”
If she didn’t feel so crappy, she’d definitely be appreciating his strong touch as he pulled, twisted, and cracked parts of her she didn’t know could make quite those sounds.
“Any better?”
“I still can’t breathe out of one nostril.” She moved her head from side to side. “But whatever it was you just did to my back definitely helped.”
“Hmm.” He reached for her hand and helped her into a sitting position.
She took a deep breath of calming patchouli and God knew what else while Bastian turned to face the computer on the desk behind him. After a few minutes of typing, he turned back, reached for her left foot, and placed it on a pillow at the end of the exam table. He reached for a small metal prod that attached to his PC via USB port.
“What’s that?”
“Tests your acupuncture points.”
“By computer?”
“In part.”
“What does it do?”
“Measures your energy imbalances.” Bastian poked her heel with the end of the prod.
By allowing some pony-tailed practitioner of seemingly everything but actual medicine to prod her with a metal cursor, wasn’t she simply confirming her diagnosis of crazy?
Music, like a rising violin scale, emerged from speakers mounted beside the computer.
“Liver is a little low.”
He poked her big toe.
Another rising scale followed by a low beep.
“So are your adrenals.”
/>
She watched and listened to the machine hum, beep, work its way through scales in major and minor as he pressed points on both of her feet and moved toward her hands.
“Thymus isn’t bad.”
“So that’s good?”
He tucked a gray strand of hair behind his ear and pressed the prod between her right thumb and forefinger.
A mini fire alarm went off.
“You are way out of balance.”
“That’s what I’ve been told.”
He spun around on his chair and fiddled with the computer for what felt like forever. “I think I know what’s going on here.”
“What’s that?”
He pressed on her thumb.
The machine not only did a scale, it began to whine and ring.
“What was that?”
“The a ha moment.”
“As in you know what’s wrong with me?”
“Mold.”
“Mold?”
He nodded. “You’re full of mold.”
“Okay,” she said, her heart suddenly heavy with yet another nondiagnosis. “What exactly does one do for that?”
“Supplements,” he said.
“Supplements?”
“And…” He began to tap away on his computer again.
“And what?”
“If that doesn’t work, we send you on to a specialist.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Section 2.5. Additions and Alterations. An addition should look like the original structure with matching architectural style and rooflines. Any alterations to the home will require submission of three sets of detailed plans.
Hope wrote JORDAN in black sharpie on the side of her urine specimen, sent it through the pass through, and joined the nurse for the obligatory weigh-in.
“Step on,” the nurse said pointing to the scale.
She slipped off her shoes and hopped on the scale. Things were great with Jim. He’d been sweet and accommodating the entire time he’d been home and checking in constantly since he’d left first thing Monday morning. She never said anything related to fertility, babies, or that she was counting down days for this appointment so she could get her relaxed but proactive plans for getting pregnant under way.
“Down almost four pounds from last visit,” the nurse said.
“Excellent.” She’d have some wiggle room she’d hopefully need soon. “My husband’s been out of town on business a lot, so I haven’t been making much of anything for dinner.”
She’d been so busy, breakfast and lunch had also become something of question marks.
Hope eyed the collage of baby photos lining the walls as she followed the nurse down to an examination room. “Actually, my husband’s in and out of the country for the next six months. He’s managed to rearrange his schedule so he can be here or I’m there during ovulation, so it’s really important that whatever the doctor may want to prescribe is timed so my fertility peaks when we’re together.” Hope paused for a breath. Why was she bothering the nurse with all this?
The nurse merely nodded. “First day of last menstrual period?”
“Friday, May thirteenth.”
She looked down at her chart and up at a wall calendar advertising Yaz. “And your cycles have been consistent at twenty-eight days?”
“Give or take.”
“By my calculations you were due for your period on Monday, then?”
“Don’t have it yet, but my husband was out of town until Saturday night, so there’s really no chance—”
“I’m sure it’s nerves.” The nurse’s tone was both bedside sympathetic and rote.
Hope nodded. “Or the stress of having him gone when I need him around.”
“It all has a way of working out how it’s meant to in the end,” the nurse said, wrapping the blood pressure cuff around Hope’s arm and sealing the Velcro fasteners.
“I’m not worried,” Hope said over-brightly as the nurse pumped air into the cuff.
As the cuff squeezed her arm, her lungs began to feel almost as tight.
“No need to get into a gown.” The nurse wrapped the stethoscope around her neck. “The doctor will be in to see you in a minute.”
***
“I’m sure the nurse noted my husband is working out of the country until the end of the year. I’m trying to stay relaxed because it will help the process, and really, otherwise, I’ll lose my mind, but I came in today so maybe we can figure out what’s the highest safe dosage of Clomid, or whatever you think will work best to make sure I’m ovulating on schedule for the visits back and forth.” Hope paused to take a breath. “I’ve been researching on the Internet and…”
The doctor smiled as though he was about to pat her on the head.
Hope’s blood began to pound in her ears. “I know I sound intense, but you promised that if I didn’t get pregnant in three months and it’s been three months and now I’m dealing with the additional issue of having to time things accurately as though that’s possible. The thing is, my husband wants to try and be relaxed about all of this, which I’m trying to do, but I don’t want to have to approach him about artificial insemination or in vitro until—”
“Hope,” the doctor put a hand on her shoulder. “There’s no need for Clomid now.”
“But I…”
“You’re already pregnant.”
“What?”
“Urine tested positive for HCG.”
She leaned back against the wall alongside the examination table. “I’m pregnant?”
The doctor nodded.
“But, my husband and I just had sex—”
“Once is all it takes.”
“But he’s been… We couldn’t even try until—”
“Apparently the right night.”
“I can’t believe it.” She leaned back against the cool wall of the exam room, closed her eyes, and tried to control the racing, spinning feeling. “What do I do?”
“I presume you’ve continued to take the prenatal vitamins?”
She nodded, rubbed at the goose bumps suddenly lining her arms.
“Set an appointment three to four weeks from now.” He stood and started toward the door. “We’ll do the initial prenatal blood workup and maybe even hear the heartbeat.”
The sound of her own heartbeat filled the room.
Part III
MORNING SICKNESS
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
All Recreation Center Facilities are designed for safe and enjoyable recreation. Violations of stated rules are taken seriously and may result in loss of rec center privileges.
Pregnant.
Hope set the rec center elliptical machine for the doctor-recommended max of thirty minutes and the intensity at seven to keep her heart rate and painfully tender breasts in check.
She ran her fingers lightly across her belly.
Baby on Board.
She was dying to share the unexpected bliss with Jim every time they’d talked, texted, or e-mailed. She couldn’t wait for them to marvel together over how, with all the testing and planning, they’d somehow managed to time her fertility incorrectly for so long. She could barely stop herself from slipping up, but there couldn’t be a more poignant, unforgettable moment than telling her husband he was going to be a father, face-to-face, in London, over a romantic dinner.
A romantic vegetarian dinner.
The thought of consuming chicken, beef, or anything that once sported a face sounded utterly revolting.
Knocked up.
Hope smiled, and set her iPod to the new playlist she’d created by typing baby into iTunes search. Dave Matthews, Ludacris, U2, Lyle Lovett—everyone seemed to have a song to contribute about their baby, infant or otherwise.
Mommy to be.
She warmed up to “Isn’t She Lovely,” Pharrel and Nelly’s “Baby,” and was humming along with Britney to “Baby One More Time,” when she spotted someone in the cardio room doorway.
Her heart-rate monitor blipped upward.
/> Will Pierce-Cohn.
Whether it was the exercise funk that hung thick in the air, or the nonmemory of him tucking her into bed, which hung even thicker, Hope felt queasy.
She pretended to look at her workout stats display.
He looked around for a minute and then disappeared.
She took a deep breath to make sure she stayed below 140 beats per minute.
He reappeared.
She lowered her resistance to 6 and took another deep breath.
He headed in her direction.
She paused the music.
He stopped in front of her machine.
“Oh,” she said tugging out her ear buds and hoping she looked more surprised and casual than she sounded. “Hi!”
“Hey.” He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Finishing up a workout?”
The slightly ashen, first-awkward-meeting-since-that-night base beneath his holiday tan gave way to a hint of color. “I was just about to get started.”
“Thought you might have jogged over here or whatever.” She could only imagine the cast of her own skin. “No Sarah’s class today?”
“More into cross-training lately, I guess.”
“That’s good.”
“You didn’t go, either?”
“Felt like a shorter workout today.”
Across the room, a barbell clunked.
“I was planning to catch spin class, but I got here too late.” He grinned wryly. “Unless I wanted to ride that one bike without a seat.”
Her forced giggle evaporated into the hum of cardio machines.
“So.” He pulled at the ends of the towel wrapped around his neck. “How’re you doing?”
“Great,” she said too quickly. “How was your trip?”
“Really great.” He eyed a row of treadmills. “Just trying to readjust to life as usual.”
“I’m doing the same in the opposite before I leave for London end of next week.”
“Meaning you and Jim have gotten things worked out with schedules and stuff?”
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