Becca's Baby

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “Lie back down,” the doctor said, easing Becca’s shoulders to the table again.

  Longing for a return to the bliss of ignorance, of hope, of having moments when she actually allowed herself to believe it could all be real, Becca did as she was told.

  The stethoscope was cold as the doctor moved it around on her belly. Becca held her breath, waiting, wishing the doctor would say something. Wishing Will would ask another question. She couldn’t bear to look at her husband. Was afraid of what she might see on his face.

  “Here we go.” Dr. Anderson’s voice was as soft as always, but there was an odd note of satisfaction in it, too. “Who wants to listen first?”

  Becca watched as Will picked up the second headpiece attached to the stethoscope, boosted her up with his free hand and placed the earpieces on her head.

  Before she could even react, her entire being was consumed with the most miraculous sound she’d ever heard.

  Thump-thump! Thump-thump! Thump-thump!

  “It’s so fast!” she choked out. She giggled, then burst into tears. She looked from the doctor’s smiling face to Will’s, as though the three of them had, then and there, created the little life whose heart was beating inside her.

  Taking off her own headpiece, Dr. Anderson handed it to Will. “Here,” she said, “try this.”

  Will moved in closer, leaned down and placed the stethoscope over his ears. Becca couldn’t take her eyes off his, waiting for him to hear that first sound.

  She wasn’t disappointed when he did. His eyes, so closed to her lately, were filled with the same awe, the same wonder and joy that she was feeling herself.

  We did this, his glowing face seemed to say.

  For that moment, she felt as perfect in his eyes as the day they’d first fallen in love.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE FOLLOWING WEDNESDAY, Becca had run out of excuses for skipping the weekly family lunch. She’d been avoiding her mother and older sisters for too long. Besides, they were all scheduled for another update on Samuel Montford, and Becca was eager to hear what they’d found out about Shelter Valley’s founder.

  She was hoping to have her Save the Youth kids enact Montford’s life story on the Fourth of July. Her friend, Martha Moore—Todd’s wife—had offered to write the script for them as soon as Becca’s family had finished their research. Before the birth of her first child, Martha had been a drama major and through the years she’d been involved with the local community theater.

  Becca was grasping at anything and everything in an effort to keep her thoughts occupied. And off Will. Or the baby they’d created. She’d made it through the first trimester.

  Which meant she had a promise to fulfill. She’d told Will they’d only stay quiet about the baby until the end of the first trimester.

  But first, Samuel Montford…

  Sliding the Thunderbird into a spot along the curb outside the Valley Diner, Becca looked for Sari’s car and didn’t see it. Her mother’s was there, though. Betty and Janice—whose homes were on the same block—lived close enough to walk.

  “Becca! Haven’t seen you in a while,” Nancy greeted her when she stepped through the door. Nancy had been Valley Diner’s hostess since graduating from high school two years behind Becca.

  “I’ve been busy.” Becca smiled. The mother of six children, Nancy had blossomed by about forty pounds, but she was still pretty.

  “Found any funding yet for the Save the Youth?” Nancy asked, her brow furrowed. “My Cara’s fifteen now and could sure use something to do after school. She’s spending far too much time watching MTV and on the Internet.”

  “I should have something within the next month,” Becca said. “Keep your fingers crossed.”

  Nancy held up both hands, fingers crossed, then nodded toward the far window. “They’re over there.”

  Becca thanked the hostess with a smile. She’d already seen her mother—could hardly miss her. Rose Naylor was wearing a tall, bright-red feathered hat that could have been worn by one of the Ziegfeld Follies girls back in the 1920s. And a bright-red, highbodiced and very short dress to match.

  Betty and Janice, sitting with her, were both wearing jeans—designer, of course—and stylish blouses. Dressed in her standard suit, with a skirt that had grown just a bit tighter around the waist, Becca envied them their comfort.

  “Lenore’s granddaughter, Kaitlin, came home from Phoenix last weekend with a tattoo on her shoulder,” Rose was saying as Becca approached the table.

  “It was painted on, Mom,” Becca said, taking one of the two empty seats. “It washed right off.”

  “It’s the thought that counts, that’s what I told Lenore, and it could have been real. I once knew a girl during World War II, who walked into a men’s tattoo parlor and had one done on her left cheek, and I don’t mean her face.”

  Sharing a smile with her older sisters, Becca sat back and picked up the menu. She needn’t have worried about explaining her absence these past weeks. As she suspected, her mother probably hadn’t even noticed. Becca never supplied juicy gossip. Or created it, either.

  “What’s been so critical that you had to miss these lunches?” Betty asked, pen in hand.

  Okay, so she’d been a little hasty in abandoning her worry.

  “Not the day care.” Becca chuckled, knowing that was the one activity of hers that drove Betty nuts. Her older sister saw no sense in Becca spending so much of her valuable time taking care of other people’s kids when there were professionals being paid to do it.

  She also knew that Betty had such a problem with her volunteering there because she thought Becca was rubbing salt in her own wounds. Betty had never understood that the little bit of mothering she’d been able to experience at the day care had been a balm, instead.

  Janice leaned forward, her arms resting on the table. “Tell us what you’ve been doing!” she said. “Maybe there’s something we can help you with.”

  Smiling at her sister, Becca shook her head. “It’s all the usual stuff. I’ve just got more meetings, with the council thing being a paid position now, instead of volunteer committee work.”

  Janice would do anything for anyone; unfortunately she also wanted to climb right into your skin.

  A couple of minutes later Sari joined them. “Where’ve you been?” Becca asked softly beneath Rose’s chatter. Their mother was reaching a crescendo as she expounded her views about Mark Baxter’s choice of wives. Mark was a widower, an old friend of their father’s, and he’d chosen poorly in Rose’s opinion.

  “With Bob—he came home for something and we got…carried away,” Sari whispered, her eyes glowing. Becca’s stomach gave a happy little flip. Sari was looking better every day. Dressed in overalls, belted at the waist, and a figure-hugging black top, she didn’t seem much older than the daughter she’d lost.

  They ordered lunch, salads for everyone, before Betty pulled out her notebook. “Okay, Sari, you’re up.”

  Rose glanced at her youngest daughter. “You look very nice today, sweetie.”

  So the change in Sari wasn’t just Becca’s wishful thinking. Even her mother had noticed.

  “You do look good,” Betty confirmed. Janice nodded agreement.

  Sari blushed at all the attention, obviously ready to slide under the table.

  “Before Sari starts, I just want to say that I’ve tried every avenue I can think of, but I still can’t find any recent word on Sam Montford. The man sure travels a lot,” Becca said, rescuing her.

  “I heard he was in the Peace Corps,” Janice said.

  “Yeah, but that was a few years ago,” Betty added.

  “Has anyone heard from his parents?” Janice asked. “Their mansion is close to your place, Becca. Any sign of life there?”

  Becca shook her head. “Except for the cleaning lady and groundskeeper, no one’s been there since they went to Europe. Sam hasn’t been there once in the ten years since he left. All I can say is, the man sure doesn’t want to be found,”
she muttered. “I guess we may have to do this thing without him.” She turned to Sari. “So, what’ve you got for us?”

  Sari took out her notes, her eyes intent on the page, and started to read. At some point, while Becca hadn’t been paying attention, her younger sister had developed almost as passionate an interest in Samuel Montford as Becca had. Sari had filled her in on the previous report.

  “After his wife and son were killed in Boston,” she began now, “with his affairs tied up so that his family would be comfortable but unable to obtain the balance of the Montford fortune, Samuel packed up the few belongings that mattered to him.” Sari paused. Swallowed hard. “A scarf Clara had given him, the baby’s blanket she’d knitted—and then he left Boston.”

  “Did he have relatives someplace he was going to stay with?” Betty asked.

  Sari shook her head, looking around at them. “He joined a wagon train heading west,” she said, “apparently preferring to face the dangers of the wild than live in a society that put skin color above human kindness and goodness and love.”

  “He must have been petrified, a man from his social class joining ranks with the poor and desperate people traveling west,” Rose said. “Most of the people on those wagon trains had nothing more to their names than they could carry, you know.”

  Yeah, they all knew. But no one bothered to tell Rose that.

  “In one of the journals I read, written by someone traveling with him, it said that danger didn’t scare Sam—that’s what they called him, though in Boston he’d always been Samuel,” Sari continued. “He said his life was worth nothing, so losing it would mean nothing. Apparently, whenever there was a dangerous mission or job to do along the way, Samuel Montford always volunteered.”

  Janice squeezed more lemon juice into her glass of tea. “It’s scary what tragedy can do to a person….”

  Remembering their own family’s loss just a couple of years before, the women fell silent. Even Rose. To Becca’s relief, the waitress appeared then, one of the many college students who found work at the diner. She carried a big tray full of salads of every variety— grilled chicken, Caesar, chef, fried chicken—and for Rose, a sampler with egg salad, tuna salad and a small scoop of fruit salad on a single piece of romaine lettuce. With no garnishes. Rose couldn’t see the point of having something on her plate she couldn’t eat.

  “So Sam obviously made it west,” Betty said when they were all enjoying their selections.

  “Yeah.” Sari forked a chunk of fried chicken and lettuce into her mouth, referring to her notes as she chewed. A moment later she began again. “With the help of several Southwest Indian tribes, Samuel slowly healed. Over the next few years, he traveled from tribe to tribe in the New Mexico and Arizona territories…”

  “The Indian tribes all have their own cultures,” Rose interrupted, a smudge of egg salad on the corner of her lip.

  Sari nodded, chewed and swallowed quickly. “Yes, but many of the Arizona tribes borrowed from one another’s religions, incorporated one another’s ceremonies. Dances, songs, even certain rituals were shared among them. And Samuel learned from each one. But he contributed, too. He told them stories, entertained them. And if nothing else, he was a reliable pair of strong arms whenever anyone was in need.”

  Just like Will, Becca caught herself thinking. She’d never realized how totally consumed she was by the man she’d married. All her thoughts invariably returned to him.

  And she was determined not to think about him.

  “With loving care—” Sari’s gaze met and held Becca’s “—and time, Samuel found his way back to life again.”

  “Did he marry an Indian woman?” Janice asked, picking at her Caesar salad.

  “No.” Sari shook her head, shoveling in bites as fast as she could. Becca had rediscovered her appetite, too. “Shortly before his twenty-ninth birthday—sometime in the early 1870s—a group of white people came to the Indian village where Samuel was living. They were a Christian sect bent on civilizing what they saw as the poor Indian savages, intending to teach them Christianity and culture.”

  “That’s right.” Rose nodded. “The government had turned over the task of educating the Indians to the churches,” she said with her usual confident tone.

  “You know, there was an Indian boy at school with us.” She leaned in, lowering her voice to a near-whisper. “Lenore had a crush on him. I think she—”

  “Mother!” Becca interrupted.

  “Well, I’m sure she—”

  “Mother—”

  “Yes.” Rose lifted her napkin to her mouth.

  “Well, anyway, the boy told us about how his tribe had first been introduced to our culture.”

  Sari smiled. “While the missionaries of Montford’s day managed to sway a few natives in their direction, for the most part the ‘savages’ listened with interest, but not with commitment—”

  “She did do it with him,” Rose interrupted again.

  “The white man’s religion had no impact on them,” Sari continued, ignoring Rose. “They weren’t swayed from who they were and what they believed to be true.”

  “That boy wasn’t going to be swayed, either,” Rose said when Sari stopped for another bite. “He got what he wanted and then bade Lenore adios—”

  Sari broke in. “One of the missionary women did sway the heart of Sam Montford,” she said.

  She suddenly had all the Naylor women’s attention. “Elizabeth Campbell had weathered her own share of life’s pain but, as Samuel put it, she’d learned to endure and ‘wore peace like a mantle.”’

  Becca wondered if that was how she could win back her husband. By finding some peace to wear.

  “Samuel was apparently attracted to that sense of peace, and then to Lizzie Campbell herself,” Sari continued. Not one of them was eating.

  “Before she left with her group, he asked her to marry him.”

  Even Betty was waiting attentively, no longer taking notes. “She accepted.”

  “I knew that,” Rose told them all. “Lizzie is the mother of Samuel’s children.”

  The restaurant’s manager, the pregnant daughter of one of the men Becca had graduated from high school with, came to check on them. A few minutes later, their waitress was back, offering dessert. They all declined in favor of more to drink.

  Except for Sari. She asked for both.

  “Is that all you’ve got?” Betty asked Sari once the younger woman had taken their order.

  “No.” Sari shook her head. “Lizzie stayed behind with Samuel when her group moved on, but he was no longer content just to drift. He wanted a home again.”

  Becca’s heart went out to the town’s founder. She’d never expected her quest to unearth the life of Samuel Montford would affect her so personally.

  “He wanted children,” Sari murmured.

  He wanted exactly what she and Will had always wanted.

  “But whenever he considered returning to Boston with his new bride, a bride he knew his family would approve of, he’d start to suffocate. That was the word he used in his journal—suffocate. He couldn’t make himself go back there, couldn’t live in a society that had rules where its heart should have been.”

  “Can I have some of that?” Rose asked as the waitress delivered Sari’s hot fudge brownie cake with ice cream.

  Sari cut off a chunk, lifted it onto a saucer and passed it to Rose.

  “With the dilemma heavy on his mind, Samuel went into the desert with a couple of his Hopi friends and came back with a new lease on life. He’d discovered a small abandoned settlement—probably a camp left behind by settlers heading west—and had suddenly known what to do. Montford money was going to be put to good use.”

  “That settlement was Shelter Valley,” Becca guessed, caught up in the tale.

  “It was.” Sari nodded. She’d started in on her dessert, but the ice cream was melting on her plate. “Lizzie and Samuel began long weeks of letter-writing, ordering and waiting, but within a year, the
y had their home built, as well as several others, and some of the people he’d sent for had already arrived. He’d founded a town. And he named it for the haven it was to all those who had pure hearts and were willing to work hard to obtain a good life.” Sari finished reading with a flourish.

  Haven. That was exactly how the town felt to Becca. Was why she’d never once been tempted to leave. Until recently.

  Capping her pen, Betty reached for the bill. It was her week to pay. Janice picked up her purse.

  “Wait,” Becca said, more sharply then she’d intended. Four sets of eyes were drawn to her taut face.

  “I have something to tell you.”

  Sari’s eyes softened, though they were filled with worry, too. She knew what Becca was about to say.

  “What?” Rose asked urgently. Her mother had never given up hope that Becca might one day come up with something juicy Rose could pass along.

  “You need help with another committee?” Janice asked when Becca hesitated. “I’ve got a little extra time I can spare you.”

  The offer brought tears to Becca’s eyes. “No, thanks, not at the moment, but I’ll remember that,” she told her sister. “Actually, it’s just that—”

  “What?” Rose demanded, leaning forward so far she was almost out of her seat.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Mouths open, Janice and Betty stared at her. Rose gasped, sank back into her seat.

  “You are?” her mother whispered, one hand to her chest.

  Becca nodded.

  “You’re sure?” Rose asked.

  Becca glanced at Sari and then back at their mother. “Completely.”

  “How far along?” Betty asked, her voice as soft as Rose’s had been.

  “Just passed my first trimester.” She gazed down at the table, brushing off crumbs with her fingers. Afraid of their reaction, their possible doubts, considering her age.