They had not exactly been trying to conceive, but they hadn’t been trying to prevent it, either. Their attitude was that when the time was right, the baby would come. A child was a blessing from God. No one could entirely control the granting of a blessing.
He had an almost irrepressible urge to call everyone he knew and share the good news, but Rachel promised him to silence. She wanted to visit her OB-GYN and confirm the pregnancy with another test, to be absolutely sure. She also advised him that until she passed the first trimester, it would be unwise to tell the whole world about the baby, because in the early stages there was always the possibility of a miscarriage.
In the meantime, she wanted him to keep the news under wraps. He reluctantly agreed to her request, though walking around with the secret was going to drive him nuts. There was so much to think about, so much to plan…he felt as if he were going to pop like a balloon.
I’m going to be a dad. I can’t believe it.
Although he and Eddie had talked about fatherhood often, it seemed incredible that he would soon join the club. He still felt like a big kid himself. To imagine being responsible for a child’s welfare, offering guidance, serving as an example of manhood. It was impossible to wrap his mind around the thought.
He had assumed he would be awake all night, riding high on excitement, but he wound up falling asleep shortly before midnight, exhausted, like a kid who’d eaten too much candy crashing after the sugar rush faded. Rachel climbed in bed, found a comfortable spot in his arms, and drifted asleep, too.
When he awoke sometime later that night, she was gone.
He glanced toward the bathroom. The door was shut, but blackness framed the doorway. She wasn’t in there.
He thought about the nightmare she’d had last night. What if she was sleepwalking this time, fleeing her mysterious dream villain?
It was a melodramatic idea—Rachel might have padded downstairs only to get a glass of water—but he couldn’t discount it. With her announcement of her pregnancy, he felt an instinctual drive to protect her from all harm. That included Rachel accidentally hurting herself while in the throes of a bad dream.
He put on his glasses. The clock read a quarter past three.
He shuffled into the hallway. It was dark. No light filtered up there from downstairs, which it would have if she were in the kitchen.
He was about to call her name, when he heard a clicking sound coming from the room at the end of the hallway. Rachel’s office.
Quietly, he moved down the hall. The door was cracked open about an inch, giving him a narrow view.
Rachel sat before her desk, typing on her laptop. The silvery glow from the display was the only light source in the study, imbuing her face with a ghostly pallor.
What was she doing in here at a quarter past three o’clock in the morning?
He gazed at the screen. He could make out a few words. He leaned forward—and accidentally bumped against the door.
She whirled with a gasp.
“It’s only me,” he said.
She put her hand to her chest, sighed.
“You scared me.”
“I saw you’d gotten out of bed.” He stepped inside the room. “What are you doing up?”
“Oh, only reading about pregnancy and newborns.” She hit a button on the keyboard, closing the programs she had opened. “I’m so excited I can’t sleep. I figured as long as I was awake, I’d do some research.”
He wished there was sufficient light in the room to reveal her eyes, because he was positive that she was lying to him. He knew what he’d seen on the screen, and it had nothing to do with pregnancies and babies.
“When are you coming back to bed?” he asked.
“Right now, actually.” She switched off the computer. Within seconds, the display went black, and darkness fell over the room.
She brushed past him as she left the office. “Coming?”
He glanced at the blackened screen once more.
“Coming,” he finally said, and followed her to the bedroom.
11
Lying in bed together, Rachel cuddled against him. He stared at the dark ceiling, but didn’t close his eyes.
“Thinking about our baby?” she said.
“Yeah.” And other things.
“Justin Anthony Moore,” she said.
Shortly after their marriage, they had picked out possible baby names for a boy, or a girl. Rachel had approached the task with an intensity that approached obsession, as if determining a name in advance somehow secured their child’s future.
“What if we have a girl?” he asked.
“We’re going to have a boy.”
“It’s way too early to tell, Rachel.”
“I don’t care about what the ultrasound might tell us. I know what I feel.”
“I only want a healthy baby. Boy or girl, it doesn’t matter to me.”
“A healthy baby…that’s what I want, too.” She was silent for a minute. “Love, do you ever think of going away?”
“Going away?”
“You know, like having a sanctuary…from the world. Somewhere you could be totally safe…without a care at all.”
“Like a getaway or something?”
“Hmmm…like that.”
“To get away from who?”
“No one in particular. Life…the world. Just the four of us—you, me, Justin…the dog.”
“A secluded getaway would be nice,” he said. “Maybe we can buy one if we start playing the lottery.”
“Maybe…” Her voice had softened to a whisper.
“Where would you want it to be?”
“Somewhere that…no one…knows about…”
“Such as?”
She didn’t answer. Her breathing had deepened. She was drifting asleep.
He lay awake a while longer, mulling over their strange conversation and what he had seen on her computer screen, and eventually, he drifted to sleep, too.
12
He awoke at seven-thirty to find that Rachel had already left for work.
There was a note on the dresser, written in her elegant script: Hey, sleepyhead. Will call with time for OB-GYN appt. Love, R.
At the mention of the doctor, giddiness bubbled through him all over again. But the memory of how Rachel had lied about her late-night Web research quickly put a damper on his excitement.
On his way downstairs to brew coffee, he paused at the threshold of her study. He pushed open the door.
The answers to his questions might reside on her computer. If he looked, Rachel would never know.
But he hesitated. He wasn’t one of those rude individuals who took malicious pleasure in digging through another’s belongings. His mother was nosy like that. He harbored bad memories of her rooting through his drawers and closets, looking for anything she could use to make his life miserable.
He turned away from the study and went downstairs. He brewed a pot of coffee. Tim had repaired his computer yesterday afternoon as promised, so he took the laptop to his office and started to work on some initial