“You’ve done your homework.”
“My husband is concerned.”
“Well from the looks of this, he doesn’t need to be—everything seems well enough for now. I am going to send home a few ovulation predictor kits, and I want you to use them according to directions. If you have any questions at all, call the nurse’s desk. Those ladies are pros at making everything clear. Once you have a predictor, I want you to come in and we’ll do an ultrasound on your ovaries and see what’s happening.”
“And that should fix it if there’s anything wrong?”
“No, that should tell us if anything’s wrong.”
Willow looked at him curiously. “What could be wrong that this super-sound thing will show?”
“Well,” the doctor’s mustache twitched with amusement at Willow’s skepticism, “it’ll show if your ovaries are working properly, if they’re releasing the eggs, and if necessary, we’ll order a dye test to see if the egg can get through the fallopian tubes.”
“And if, say, the tube is too small or something? What happens to the egg?”
For the next half hour, Dr. Walston explained more about the reproductive cycle than Willow imagined most people wanted to know. She thanked him for his time, paid for the visit at the front desk, and left with a bag full of boxes that were to become her closest companions in the next month. The whole idea seemed like a waste of time and money to her, until she thought again of how excited Chad would be when she told him everything worked fine and they just needed to be patient.
She jumped on the bus to Fairbury, unlocked her bicycle from the rack behind the Fox, dumped her paraphernalia in the baskets, and strapped on her helmet. Through the streets she rode, hoping to avoid Chad and the questions he’d be sure to ask, and barely remembered to stop at the feed and seed for the roll of fencing she’d planned to use as an excuse for her ride to town. Chad called her name just as she passed Center Street. She waved cheerfully calling, “I got the fencing! I’ll see you at four!”
To her amazement, the next three weeks crawled past. They planted their garden, increased their sheep flock by twenty new lambs, and exponentially grew their chicken production. People had been begging for fresh eggs, free-range chicken meat, and Willow was determined to provide top quality products for those ready to pay. It required inspections by health boards and the FDA—even for their little farm—but they passed without a problem, and the result was more work than ever. Willow loved it.
Chad tilled fields and planted grain and alfalfa, while Willow created even more berry, melon, and flower patches. The work was hard but satisfying. When Brad Waverly needed an extra day’s work to fund one of his many hobbies, Chad gave it willingly and spent the day working on one of the many projects that Willow devised.
Two days after their first anniversary, the ovulation kit told her what Dr. Walston had been waiting to hear. She was ovulating—or about to. The “ferns” showed plainly on the mini microscope included in the kit, and the nurse at Dr. Walston’s office arranged an appointment for ten o’clock the next morning. It was time to discover if everything “worked in that department.” What strange ways they had of describing things.
Having been to the office already was helpful, but nothing could have prepared her for the horrible invasion of the ultrasound wand. While the doctor examined her organs and how well they were or weren’t operating, Willow closed her eyes and whispered repeatedly to herself, “this is for Chad, this is for Chad, this is for Chad. He’s worth it. I think.”
The results were inconclusive, but the doctor showed the swollen ovary where the egg would burst forth at any time in the next twenty-four hours. “Come back tomorrow morning, and let’s see what we see. How about eight?”
Willow left the office in a daze. She was tired, sore, and mentally drained. She took a cab and directed him to the hub, but as they passed the Rockland Towers, she begged him to pull into the portico. “I’ll get out here. Thank you.”
In less than an hour, Willow curled comfortably in a hotel bed, sleeping peacefully.
Portia raced to greet Chad as he climbed from the truck. He absently patted the dog’s head as he hurried into the house. He’d seen Willow’s call, but a fight at the high school was more important at the time it came through, so he’d planned to call her back. He hadn’t planned for a dead battery. Again. It was time to buy a new cell battery—or maybe a cellphone.
The house was empty. The barn, nearby pastures, and greenhouse were empty as well. Unsure what else to do, Chad plugged in his phone and punched quick dial, waiting impatiently for her to answer. She didn’t. However, she had left a voice message that he listened to curiously.
“Chad. I’m in Rockland—no, I won’t tell you why; it’s a surprise. Anyway, it’s taking longer than I thought it would, so I won’t be home until tomorrow. Call when you can. Oh, and will you check the black-faced lamb? I think she hurt her leg yesterday. I love you.”
To his amusement, there was the same familiar hesitancy after signing off as if she either didn’t know how or didn’t want to disconnect the call. A surprise for him huh? Well, whatever it was, it would give him time on Lacey in the morning before work. That horse seemed to love the early morning rides across pastures and through trees almost as much as he did. He’d go eat in town, come home, go to bed early, and then get up for a morning rendezvous with Lacey. It all sounded wonderful, but he felt as though he’d lost his last friend. “She’s not coming home, girl,” he whispered to Portia on the way to the house.
Chapter 13 0
Lacey plodded through the damp grasses of the pasture early the next morning. The muffled plop of her hoof occasionally became overshadowed by the sound of the same hoof pulling free of mud with a sickening suction sound that belonged in dental offices rather than peaceful fields just after dawn. Hardly conscious of where the horse picked her footing, Chad rode along, dreaming of more sheep, horses, cattle, and of course, afternoons fishing for trout on a lazy summer day.
He’d tried to avoid all thoughts of Willow and what she might be doing. Chad’s mother had called looking for her just after supper the night before, and Chad had to admit she wasn’t home. Marianne wanted to race over to Willow’s hotel to find out whatever the secret might be, but Chad refused to say where Willow was staying and begged his mom not to ruin Willow’s surprise. As a safety measure, he’d called Willow and suggested she turn off her phone.
Maybe she was pregnant. Could you find out so soon after a cycle? He knew, more than most men, he imagined, every nuance of her bodily functions after watching so carefully for any evidence that his wife might finally carry their child. Would Willow run straight to a doctor for confirmation? The moment the thought crossed his mind, he rejected it as unlikely at best. Willow had a surprise and she’d share it when it was time. He could go looking for clues… “Lacey, I’m pathetic. Did you know that, girl?”
The horse tossed her head as though disgusted with him, but Portia, jogging happily at his side, gave a sympathetic whimper. “I guess you did,” he laughed as he gently tugged the reigns to turn the animal around once more.
By nine o’clock, he had milked the goat, moved the sheep to another pasture, and let out the chickens for their daily foray into seed and worms. Chad wandered into the barn with the last load of eggs and realized that they’d need a larger barn at this rate. There wasn’t room for more cows in the winter, the sheep pens weren’t nearly large enough, and to move the chickens in as they’d discussed, would mean a bigger mess than either one of them cared to contemplate. It was time to make some major plans—immediately. Well, after calling their egg customers to let them know their eggs were ready and could be retrieved—from either the farm or the back of Chad’s truck while he was at work.
While Chad planned bigger and better barn like your typical male, Willow, in her own typical feminine fashion, slipped on a new skirt, blouse, and braided her hair before rushing downstairs for breakfast. By eight o’clock, she sat waiting in
the waiting room anxious to see what the doctor would find today yet dreading the process. “Lord, if I was of a scientific bent, I’d design a less intrusive way to examine one’s innards.”
“Excuse me?”
Willow glanced up to see the nurse standing there ready to take her into the room. “I was just informing the Lord that someone needs to reinvent your machine to be less invasive. I dread this.”
Once ushered into the office and given the thin, drafty gown to don once again, the nurse disappeared into the hallway and peals of laughter followed. “Glad I’m amusing,” she muttered to herself as she piled her clothing on the chair and lowered herself to the paper covered table. “Oh this stickiness is only slightly less disgusting than that goo they glop on that thing…”
“Morning, Willow. How did you feel last night?”
“Should I have felt anything?” Confusion flooded her features.
“Some women feel pinching on the side that is ovulating… for you it’d be your right side.”
“Well, I felt a dull ache for a while last night, but it felt better after I ate so I just assumed…”
Dr. Walston and his nurse exchanged glances that seemed to mean something, but Willow didn’t know what. The screen—oddly colored and three-dimensional—fascinated Willow this time. Watching the changing pictures of the inside of her body helped override some of her discomfort. “So, do you see what you’re looking for?”
“I see what I expected. I’d like to do another one in a couple of hours, but I think I’ve seen enough to know what I think I want to try first.”
She stared at Dr. Walston, waiting for him to elaborate. “And that is?”
“Well, it doesn’t look like your egg is releasing. The ovary is trying, but it swells and then reduces.”
“Can you do anything to make it release?”
“We have a drug we’d like you to try next month, starting five days after your cycle. Then you’ll use the same ovulation kits, and when you see that you’re ovulating, come in. Don’t bother with an appointment; just come. I want to see if it looks like an egg released.”
Willow stared at the screen and then raised her eyes to the doctor’s face. “It sure seems like a lot of hassle. I mean, my mother, in less than ideal circumstances, was pregnant with the only chance she ever had to get pregnant, and look at me.” She sat up and wrapped the paper “gown” around her tighter. “Is it right to play round with this stuff?”
Dr. Walston took her hand and waited for her to finish. “You don’t have to do anything with this information. It might not do this every month, and yet it might. We don’t know. I understand why some people have problems with in-vitro or other procedures, but if your thyroid doesn’t work, we give it the right treatment to fix it. I personally don’t see any difference between making one this of your body work and making another work.”
“Do I want to know what in-veto is?”
He barely stifled a laugh. “Vitro. In vitro fertilization. I don’t think you want to know.”
“Good. I’ll just trust you on that. So I take these pills and it makes the egg drop?”
“You make it sound like soup, but yes. That’s exactly what you do.”
A look crossed her face that made the doctor pause before he left the room. Finally, Willow picked at her cuticles and whispered, “Is it wrong not to say anything to my husband until we know?”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“He’ll get his hopes up. What if it doesn’t work?” Willow looked miserable.
“Well, I don’t usually recommend keeping things from your spouse, but waiting a month before you say anything so you have something concrete is understandable. If you feel guilt, I’d tell him. If you are just concerned about doing what is right, perhaps you can talk to your pastor or priest.”
“So where’s my surprise?” Chad wrapped his arms around his wife as she climbed off the bicycle.
“They said it’d be at least a month, but hopefully it’s all ‘ordered’ and ready to go.”
“A month! I’ll have the new barn built by then!”
Whirling in place, Willow stared at him slack-jawed before she laughed. “You had me going there for a minute.”
“No, I’m serious. We’re going to need more room for animals next winter, and I think we should consider a larger and warmer hen house.”
They walked to the house discussing Chad’s plans and Willow’s idea for getting broody hens. “I don’t know why Mother never found a source for them. I think it’d be a much better way to keep new generations of chickens arriving on a regular basis.”
“Wouldn’t it get bad to have such close interbreeding?”
“I read an article once—kept it too. It was about how there are co-ops that swap hens on a regular basis and with different people each time in order to keep the bloodlines ‘fresh’. It was really interesting. There’s one for this area and one near Chicago. Between the two of them, we should be able to keep a fresh genetic pool at all times.”
“So,” Chad began again teasing, “what can you tell me about this surprise?”
“Absolutely nothing. And, if you keep bugging me about it, I’ll call and cancel. If you knew what I had to go through to make this happen, you’d feel guilty right about now.”
The scent of venison stew hit her the moment she opened the kitchen door. Chad didn’t cook much, especially on the woodstove, but he’d managed to perfect stew in the two years he’d known Willow, and he’d also learned that she loved nothing more than coming home to the scent of a simmering pot of it. Bread warmed on the warming shelf and the coffee table was “set,” with windows opened to send the heat out of the kitchen and draw the cooler evening air through the house. She still felt awkward eating on the couch, but when the kitchen was too warm for Chad’s taste, he always moved them into the living room, and Willow didn’t have the heart to complain.
“That smells heavenly.”
“It does, doesn’t it? I remembered the turnips this time.” Chad winked at Willow’s mock surprise. “Hey, I’m not that pathetic.”
“So, tell me about this barn idea…”
“Mom, I think she’s pregnant.”
“You said that two weeks after you got married.”
Laughing, Chad described her two trips to Rockland. “The last time, she stayed overnight. She didn’t tell me she went the first time, but I was talking to Ben who runs the shuttle between Rockland and Fairbury, and he mentioned it.”
“So what about that makes her pregnant?” Marianne didn’t quite understand her son’s logic.
“I think she’s going to a doctor to see.”
“Well it doesn’t take two trips and an overnight to get a positive test, Chad.”
“No, but with such a long wait, she might decide to have him check with an ultrasound or something after the test. Maybe that’s why she stayed overnight. She went for the test, then went back a few weeks later to make sure baby was still fine, but they had to schedule the ultrasound and fit her in the next day.”
“Maybe, but I think most offices have them in the rooms now. I don’t think she’d have to come back.”
“She’s so frugal though,” Chad protested doggedly. “I think she probably found the cheapest guy in town, and he probably works with the hospital lab or something.”
His reasoning did make sense. “Did you check the credit card statements or the account online?”
“I wasn’t sure if that was fair. I mean, where do you draw the line?” How he wanted her to say on the other side of checking the accounts.
“I would.”
“Even if she said it was a surprise?”
Marianne’s protest could be heard throughout the—he glanced around and saw no one—empty police station. “This is my grandchild we’re talking about. I want to know if she exists!”
“She?”
“I’m a grandmother. I have an intuition into this kind of thing, and we’re having a girl first. Go check and call me bac
k.”
Chad told her to hold a minute. “Ok, I’ve logged in. Let’s see…”
For the next few minutes, Chad scrolled through the very few credit card transactions, the bank cash transactions, and finally found a check to a Dr. Walston for several hundred dollars. “Bingo. Dr. Walston. I Googled, and he’s in a ‘Woman’s Center’ over on Telegraph.”
“That’s a very well respected center.” Marianne’s voice was excited. “I just looked up gynecologists and obstetricians, and he’s listed!”
Chad grinned. This was it. His wife was finally pregnant. Who knew, just two short years ago, that he’d be chomping at the bit to be a father? Who knew that he’d be sitting at work doing detective work on his wife, rather than the creep who was writing bad checks all over town? Who knew he’d be surfing the web for cradle kits?
“So are you going to be a papa, or what?”
Joe’s voice startled Chad, and he closed out the window of various cradle options. “Officially, I have not been informed of any such thing.”
Joe laughed. “Congratulations, man.”
“Seriously, Joe. You know this town. Don’t let anyone think you think that, much less hear you say it. You’ll have to sit on suspicion until my wife actually deigns to tell me.”
“And I thought you had it bad when you were falling for her. This is worse.”
“Just pray she isn’t sick. This’d be a bad time for her to be bedridden.”
“Oh, my word.” Judith broke in disgustedly. You’ve become Mr. Farmer.”
“I thought this place was empty,” he growled as he hurried out the door.
Chapter 13 1
The next six weeks dragged by for both Chad and Willow. Chad waited daily for Willow’s announcement, and Willow followed orders for medication, testing, and of course, the obvious. He hinted about his surprise, but nothing he said or did tempted her to reveal her secret. She acted utterly normal almost every minute of every day, which drove him nearly insane. While he watched for any sign of morning sickness, swelling feet, or odd cravings, Willow worked her farm, followed doctor’s orders, and waited for the magic date.
Past Forward- A Serial Novel: Volume 4 Page 22