Was it the first time he’d ever mentioned it? Or had she just never listened before?
Becca had a terrible feeling it was the latter.
The time they had free that summer, they spent in the company of others. With Sari and Bob, Randi and her friends, sometimes John. Sometimes Martha, who—other than receiving a generous check every two weeks from someplace in Connecticut—had not heard from her estranged husband at all. When Becca and Will were alone, their conversations were too fraught with pitfalls that neither of them understood.
They spoke little.
Becca made sure she did any business she needed to do while Will was out of the house, leaving his office to him when he was home.
Which also helped keep them apart.
On the first Monday in August, in her seventh month of pregnancy, she and Will drove to Phoenix for an ultrasound. They were also picking up Todd’s replacement, Phyllis Langford, from the airport while they were in town. During the drive, Becca questioned Will about the new psychology professor. Anything to take her mind off the upcoming ultrasound.
“She seems a very down-to-earth, dependable type of woman,” Will told her. “Highly intelligent.”
Sounded as though Phyllis was someone Becca would like. Right now, though, she liked the excuse of not thinking about what lay ahead even better. “Describe her appearance.”
“Red hair, a bit overweight, medium height, dresses tastefully. Pretty.”
They still had a few miles to go. Thank God.
“She’s not married?”
Of course she wasn’t; she was coming alone.
“No,” Will said patiently.
“Has she ever been married?”
He shot her a sideways glance. “Yes, Bec, she has, though my teachers’ love lives aren’t part of the interview process. She simply happened to tell me in conversation.”
“She’s coming from Boston College, you said?”
“That’s right.”
They were getting far too close to the clinic for Becca’s comfort. She could hardly breathe.
“Is that her alma mater?”
“No. She graduated from Yale.”
Will made a left turn, and they were only a few streets away from the ultrasound place. Please, God, let my baby be all right. Let them find both heart ventricles, all the valves and organs—everything they need to find.
“How old did you say she was?” Becca asked.
Will reached over and held her hand. “I didn’t, but I’d guess she’s about thirty-four.”
“Just a bit older than Randi.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“And she’s never had any children?”
“Not that I know of.” Holding the wheel steady with his knee, he signaled a lane change, clasping her hand all the while.
Becca wondered if Phyllis wanted children as badly as she had. If she ever felt the helplessly empty feeling so deep inside you couldn’t reach in and pull it out.
“Just think, Bec, we’re going to get to see our baby today,” Will said softly.
“Yeah.” And that’s exactly what I’m afraid of. There were so many things they checked for. So many things that could be wrong.
“We’ll get to see his little fingers and toes, see his face.”
“Yeah.” It might be a her.
“Dr. Anderson’s been keeping such a close watch on things, we know he’s growing exactly on course, that his heart is extremely healthy.”
Her stomach relaxed just a little. Will had seen through her sudden intense interest in a woman she’d never even met. “Yeah.”
“He’s kicking hard enough to tell us his parts work.”
With one hand splayed across her belly, Becca smiled. “Yeah.” And then, “Will?”
He glanced over, brows raised in question.
“Thanks.”
AS HE’D predicted, the ultrasound of Parsons, Jr., as Will had taken to thinking of his offspring, indicated that everything was just fine. The measurements were as they should be. All limbs and organs were present and functioning. He, Becca and the ultrasound technician had counted ten fingers and ten toes.
He and Becca had counted them again several times that week—whenever they showed the video of the ultrasound to one or another of their loved ones.
They still didn’t know the sex of the baby—by their choice, mostly—but Jr. hadn’t cooperated, either. It didn’t matter to Will; he was a daddy. At almost thirty-two weeks along, Parsons, Jr. was pretty much a fully developed baby—just needed some growing time.
The phone rang as he was leaving his office on Tuesday, a week after he’d taken Becca into Phoenix. His secretary had already gone for the day.
“Parsons,” he said, catching it on the third ring.
“Dr. Parsons?”
Instantly recognizing the voice, he sat back in his chair. “Yes, Christine,” he said. “I’ve been waiting to hear from you. How are things with your sister?”
He still wished he knew what “things” were. Phyllis Langford, upon her arrival the week before, had confirmed that Christine’s delay was due to her younger sister, but beyond that, she’d been no more forthcoming than Christine.
“She’s doing okay,” Christine said, her voice sounding more animated than he’d ever heard it. And yet, it was still oddly infused with caution, as though that was as much a part of her nature as breathing.
“She had some trouble with an ex-husband, but now she’s back here. She’ll be moving out to Arizona with me. We’ve already shipped our stuff, and I’m just calling to let you know we’re on our way out,” she said.
Will grabbed a pen. “I’ll be at the airport myself to pick you up,” he said. “When does your flight get in?”
“We’re not flying,” she told him. “I decided to drive out, so I’ll have my car with me.”
That would take her another five days at least. Five days he couldn’t really afford to give her. But he would.
There was just something about her.
“Fine,” he said, but had to add, “Be careful.”
“Always,” Christine said. Somehow he knew her response was more a promise than a platitude.
WHISTLING AS HE LEFT the quiet campus that afternoon, Will looked around him at the big old buildings, the green lawns with benches and tables that would be crowded with students in another few weeks. Shelter Valley grew from a population of three thousand to almost ten thousand when school was in full session. The white latticework gazebos were mostly deserted now, but soon couples would be huddled together there, stealing kisses between classes. The cement-mounted porch swings, located throughout Montford’s campus, would be moving again, rather than hanging lifeless as they were now. Groups of students would be lounging on the grass, studying, campaigning, planning, complaining, telling jokes. The occasional tired kid might be found sleeping there, too.
His step picking up, Will hurried toward his car. God, he loved this place. Looked forward to the day when Parsons, Jr. would be one of the students out on that great expanse of lawn.
Work was due to begin on the new classroom building the second week of September, in time for students to participate in the official ground-breaking ceremony.
The building would be a weathered old man by the time Parsons, Jr. attended Montford.
So would Will.
Too buoyed up to get lost in life’s tangled realities, Will drove through downtown Shelter Valley on his way home, waving to friends and acquaintances who recognized his car as he passed by.
On a whim, he pulled into an angled parking spot along the curb outside Weber’s department store. The old edifice still sported a green-and-white-striped awning, just as it had in days gone by. The floors were wooden and they creaked, something Will remembered from his childhood. That and the clean, chalky smell he’d found so exciting as a little boy. A bell over the door rang as he went inside.
“Will! How the heck are ya?” Jim Weber called out to him from behind the counter. The gr
eat-grandson of the store’s founder, Jim had graduated with Randi.
“Doing well, Jim,” he said cheerfully. “How about yourself?”
“Fine.” Jim nodded. “Business is good. I saw Becca the other day,” he continued, coming around the counter to follow Will down one aisle of the old store toward the clothing department in back. “She’s looking great.”
Yeah, she was, if Will said so himself. Which he didn’t. “Thanks.”
Jim said something else, and Will nodded although he hadn’t heard the remark. He was too preoccupied with his own situation, his own emotional state. It still wasn’t clear where he and Becca were headed, not clear which of his feelings about Becca were real and which merely creations his mind had formed in her image.
With a small wave, he kept on walking when Jim stopped to help another customer.
It didn’t take him long to find what he’d come in for. Weber’s wasn’t that big. Martha and Sari were giving Becca a shower the following month, so Parsons, Jr. would have plenty of things to wear. But Will didn’t want to wait that long for his baby to have some clothes hanging in the closet. Its emptiness was too eerie when he walked in to the nursery late at night on his way to bed.
Settling on two of the tiniest outfits he’d ever seen—triple-checking to make sure they really were for normal, newborn babies—he chose one in green and one in purple. They’d be fine no matter which sex Parsons, Jr. turned out to be.
There might as well be some things in the drawers, too, he thought, and picked up several little packages of T-shirts. Paying for his purchases, accepting Jim’s smiling congratulations once again, Will left the store a relatively happy man. If the past few days were any indication, Becca would have dinner waiting for him, and he was anxious to get home to it. To her.
Even if he did have to retreat to his office alone as soon as the dishes were finished…
HE’D BEEN IN HIS OFFICE for more than an hour, engrossed in the financial plan on his computer in front of him, when Becca slipped into the room. With a brief distracted smile in her direction, he continued with his work. She’d obviously left something she needed on her desk.
Becca didn’t go to her desk. She sat on the sofa across from him—on the edge of the sofa, which had to be hard, considering how much extra weight she was carrying in front these days.
He looked up from the screen.
“I have to talk to you,” she said.
“Sure.” He turned the computer screen away. “You need my help with something?”
“You might say that.” Becca wet her lips, her hands clasped in her lap.
Will waited, happy to be patient with her. At this point, whatever Becca required, he was there to provide. He owed her that.
It also made him feel good to help her. Was even, though he wouldn’t admit it to anyone but himself, a little gratifying to know that she needed him.
She took a deep breath, gazing at him steadily, her brow creased, her eyes almost—was that apology he read there? Pity?
What the—
“Will, I want you to move out.”
She wanted him to—
“What?” He must have heard her wrong.
“I want you to move out.”
“Out of this office?” he asked, his mind a jumbled mass of confusion.
“No.” She shook her head.
Somehow he hadn’t thought so. But nothing else made any sense.
“Out of this house.”
“I own this house.” It was the only thing he could think of to say.
“We both own it,” she reminded him gently.
“Right.” We, as in the two of them together. “So?”
“I want you to move out.”
She’d said it again. Almost as though she meant the incredible, unbelievably painful words.
He wanted to go to her. To touch her. To connect with the woman who’d been a part of his life forever. But she was almost a stranger as she sat there so composed.
So unafraid.
While his life was crumbling around him.
“Why?”
“I think we both need you to.”
“I don’t need it.” There. She was wrong. They could end this nonsense.
“I think you do.” Her face was filled with many things. She still cared about him; he could see it in her eyes. Though he looked, he couldn’t find any spite or anger or any of the other negative emotions that could have explained the words she was uttering. What he did see was much more frightening. Conviction.
“Why?” he asked again. He felt completely unprepared. Completely unlike himself.
“We’ve been drifting for years, Will, going nowhere. You said so yourself.”
“Maybe I was wrong.”
“I don’t think so.”
In all honesty, neither did he, but that didn’t mean—
“We’ve talked about this several times over the past few months, but we’re still just drifting. Nothing changes.”
He opened his mouth to tell her she was wrong. But his conviction didn’t match hers.
“You still aren’t sure what you want, what you feel,” she told him. Her voice wavered, giving Will hope.
“I know I care about you.”
“Caring and being in love are two very different things.”
“Lots of marriages are based on caring.”
“I want love.” She paused, then said slowly, “And you aren’t even sure you want to be married to me.”
“What about you?” he asked. “You’re almost eight months pregnant, Becca. You shouldn’t be here alone.” She was terrified of losing him, wasn’t sure she could cope by herself. Sari had told him all about it.
“In the big city, I’d agree with you,” she said, “but here in Shelter Valley all I have to do is holler and I’d have fifteen people on the doorstep. That’s one of the many things that are so great about living in this town.”
Okay, but still…
“What if you can’t holler? What if you go into labor?”
“Randi has agreed to stay with me for the last month of my pregnancy.”
Will slammed back in his chair, feeling as though he’d just been punched. She’d really thought this through; it wasn’t some rash decision. She meant it. She wanted him to leave his home. To leave her. She’d already made plans for his replacement.
Desperate, Will searched for anything that could justify his staying right where he was.
“You’re trying to push me away because you’re afraid of losing me,” he blurted, gaining hope when he thought about what he’d just said. It made perfect sense. “Just like you didn’t want to love the baby because you were afraid…”
With tears brimming in her eyes, Becca shook her head. “A month ago you might have been right,” she said. “But not anymore, Will. A month ago, maybe even a week ago, I would have been too scared to ask you to leave, even though I already knew then that it was the right thing to do. You need some time to yourself, the freedom to figure out what you really want out of life.”
“I don’t want to move out.”
“I know.” She smiled, but her lips were trembling.
“And I don’t particularly want you to go, but even more than that, I don’t want you to stay.”
Will tried to understand—mostly so he could talk her around. “I just don’t get it,” he said, frowning.
“Don’t you see?” she asked. She stretched her hands out to him, then pulled them back, clenching them together in her lap once again. “If you stay, I’ll never know whether you’re here because it’s expected of you or because you really want to be here.”
She had a point. But he was willing to take his chances, anyway. He didn’t want to move out.
“I need the time, too,” she said, jarring him. “I need to know that my desperation to have you here is because I love you, not because I’m afraid to be without you.”
Oh, God. This was bad.
“I’m forty-two years old,” she told
him, leaning forward as she implored him to understand. “I’m going to be a mother, to have another life dependent on me, and I’ve got to be strong enough, courageous enough, to handle that. I can’t live my life in fear.”
He searched desperately for a rebuttal, for reassurances that this wasn’t necessary, but she just kept on talking.
“Last week, when we went to have the ultrasound, I ruined what could have been an incredible experience by being afraid, every second, of what that doctor might find. While you were busy rejoicing over every finger and toe, over the little mouth that yawned, I was frantically counting heartbeats.” Holding her belly, she continued, “Not to mention the days beforehand that I lost worrying about going to the darn thing—and all for nothing. Those were days I could have enjoyed.”
“Everyone worries now and then, Bec,” he assured her. He had to say something. To try.
“I need the time,” she said again, shaking her head as she looked down at her hands. She raised her eyes to meet his, and he saw tears in them.
“You aren’t sure why you married me. Well, I’m not sure why I married you, either.”
He wasn’t prepared to hear that. Will’s stomach felt like lead.
“I was graduating from college, had no clear place to go, was afraid to be alone. We’d been together for years. You were safe. The known quantity.”
“It had to be more than that!”
“Maybe. I was young, immature.” She shrugged.
“It’s time I grew up, Will.”
She was grown up. An entire town relied on her, and she handled it just fine. Hell, she’d grown up long before he had, accepting their barrenness while he’d still been kidding himself that it simply wasn’t the right time for them to have a baby. She’d faced the facts.
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