“So what’s the problem?”
“There are four of them.”
JOE DROVE HOME. His older brother Kenny was waiting on the lighted basketball court behind Joe’s home, just as Joe had requested from his cell phone immediately after leaving Elise.
Kenny, like Joe, was unmarried, unencumbered with a houseful of needs that couldn’t possibly be met. He was also unemployed—for the fourth time in almost as many years.
By choice.
His brother got bored easily.
“What’s up?” Kenny asked as Joe joined him five minutes later, having exchanged his shirt and tie for shorts, a T-shirt and three-hundred-dollar tennis shoes.
“Just needed a game,” Joe grunted as he sank a three-pointer.
Kenny swiveled, butted up against Joe as he dribbled and went up for a successful slam dunk. “It’s after nine o’clock. You work in the morning.”
“You don’t, so what’s it to you?” Joe rebounded, took the ball back and lined up another three.
With a quick jump, Kenny stole the ball from him.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Kenny said, turning to grin at Joe as he bounced the ball between his legs and caught it behind him. “I sold Wambo.”
One of Kenny’s many animated video characters. He named a well-known, international video game producer as the buyer.
“I’ve got some changes to make to him—he needs to be a little taller and more agile. And they want a woman to go with him.”
Joe stood while Kenny made the next shot. His brother was up on him four to three. “Congratulations!” he said, slapping Kenny on the back.
Kenny got his own rebound and shot the ball at Joe’s chest.
“Can’t let you be the richest guy in the family,” he joked, but Joe could tell that his big brother was proud of Joe’s accomplishments, too. Mostly Joe was relieved to see that Kenny was finally finding some success with what he most loved to do. What he was good at.
He deserved it.
Joe sank another three. And was in his brother’s face, up and down the half court, pounding the pavement, the backboard, anything he came in contact with as he trounced one of Michigan State’s most celebrated basketball stars.
Kenny asked him again what was wrong.
Joe insisted nothing was wrong. And he showered and went to bed telling himself the same thing.
Elise was a business partner who’d survived incredible odds.
Her private life was not and never had been any concern of his.
Sleep was elusive.
ELEVEN O’CLOCK and Elise still couldn’t quiet her mind at all. She’d taken a hot bath. Done breathing exercises. She’d watched a sitcom. Tried to read—and to coax her independent housemates out from under the bed.
And then she picked up the phone. It was an hour earlier in Arkansas. He’d be home by now after his evening jog. Turning seventy hadn’t slowed him down a bit.
“Elise! Good to hear from you.”
Standing in the middle of her bedroom, Elise studied herself in the antique free-standing, floor-length mirror. There wasn’t a single visible scar on her face. And her body was almost as beautiful.
“I’m sorry to bother you so late.”
“You are never a bother, my dear. But I hear something in your voice that concerns me. Need to talk?”
He’d know it was why she’d called. Why, after all the years since being his patient, she still called. At least once a month. She’d grown up with Thomas, confided her deepest secrets to him, trusted his advice.
After the death of her family, he’d become her protector.
There’d been a time of despair—of separation—when he’d fallen from his pedestal. He’d published photos of her at the various stages of her plastic surgery. She’d long since forgiven him, though.
Now he was just a man. And a very dear friend, with faults and failings like everyone else.
And he’d created the woman who now stood on expensive carpet in a spacious bedroom in a beautiful old home in Lowell, Michigan.
“I’m pregnant, Thomas.”
“Congratulations!” her ex-doctor said with real joy. “So it took the first time!”
“It more than took.” She turned away from her image as fear twisted her features. “I’m carrying quadruplets.”
He swore—something he rarely did. And that scared her anew.
“You’re worried,” she said.
“No,” he answered immediately, his voice reassuring even halfway across the nation. “Just wishing that something would come easy for you.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
Silence. He had doubts. She’d known he would. Feared he would.
Sinking to the handmade floral quilt on her king-size bed, she asked, “What am I going to do, Thomas?”
“Follow doctor’s orders explicitly and have healthy babies.”
The answer surprised her.
“And after that?”
“You’ll raise them.”
“How?” She only had two arms.
“You lived through six years of agonizing pain and debilitation, Elise, beating all the odds over and over again. And you did most of it with a smile on your face. What’s raising four children after that?”
Four children was one thing. Four children at once was another.
“They talked about selective reduction.”
“It’s an option.”
“What do you think?”
“Removing one or two fetuses is common enough practice in quadruplet pregnancies. But it also poses risks to the remaining fetus or fetuses.”
“Do you think I should do it?”
“Do you want to?”
No. Not at all. She could hardly bear the thought. But for the sake of doing the right thing, she was forcing herself to consider the option.
“You can do this,” he said. “You can go through this pregnancy, have these babies, do a good job raising them.”
“I’m scared to death.”
“It’s not the first time, is it?”
He knew it wasn’t.
“Hey.” His voice came again, softer now. “Have you forgotten the one rule of life?”
His wife, Elizabeth, had taught it to her. And to emphasize the message, after every single procedure Elise had undergone during the six years of her recovery, there’d been a gift waiting for her when she awoke.
“To always look for the gift in every situation,” she repeated now.
“You wanted a family. You’re thirty-two. By the time you’re thirty-three, you’ll have a full house.”
With a trembling chin, Elise faced the mirror again. “Mama raised four babies. So can I.”
“That’s my girl.”
CHAPTER THREE
JOE