“It’s probably less efficient, though, I should warn you.”
“I can do efficiency on my own.” The crispness was back. “From my obstetrician I need time and attention and openness to the needs of a first-time, single-by-choice mom. If I’ve taken the trouble to write down my questions in advance, I expect a doctor or nurse to take the trouble to give me answers.”
“You’re not wrong …”
“No. But you’d be surprised. People act as if there’s some mysterious, floating magic about having a baby. There’s not.” She was indignant, fluent, still energized. “I’ve done my reading, I have my birth plan in place, my labor partner Kelly is on standby. She’s my best friend, newly married and hoping to be a mom within a year or two herself, and she’s been at the classes with me. She’s coming up here a week in advance of the birth. She’s giving me a portable crib as her gift for the baby, bringing it when she comes.”
“Very practical,” he agreed. As long as the baby co-operated and came at the right time.
“I heard from her this afternoon and it was delivered to her place today. We researched all the available models together and chose the best one. In fact, I’ve researched everything I could, and I’m not going to apologize for that. I keep hearing, Think about that when the time comes, and, You can’t know how you’re going to feel until it happens, and it’s driving me crazy.”
“I can understand that,” he said neutrally, while the doomed and dangerous words birth plan echoed in his head. In his experience, Fate took a perverse delight in throwing the best birth plans out the window from the moment labor began.
Better not tell her that.
Most definitely better not tell her that right now, when she was rubbing her lower back again and wincing as the pain tightened and then let go. “Braxton Hicks,” she said knowledgeably. “I think it was the drive up. I should have taken a break to stretch.”
She took a conscientious second helping of salad with no dressing. They talked about what a pretty drive it was, that last hour after you crossed from New York into Vermont. He offered her the fruit for dessert, and she ate this with the same attitude of confidence that she was doing the right thing. They talked about scenic attractions and prenatal yoga classes and where she might find a health-food store.
He offered her coffee to finish but she said no thank you, and by ten after eight she was pushing back her chair, running one hand over her belly and the other down the silky side of her outfit once again, and saying that she should go.
He leaped around the table to get the chair for her, but didn’t quite make it in time. She was already on her feet and stepping away, her thumb tucking beneath the draping of her scarf to straighten it, while his hands came to rest uselessly against the chair back and his shoulder almost rammed the side of her head.
For some reason, they both froze.
No, not for some reason, for the reason.
The age-old reason.
The age-old thing that happened between a man and a woman.
The words for it were never right, never good enough. The clichés were like overwashed fabric, faded and weak. There was nothing weak about this. It was a slam in the gut, an overpowering onslaught against Andy’s senses.
It had both of them in its grip for seconds he couldn’t have counted even if he’d tried. Five? Forty? More? He saw the echo of his own awareness in her bright eyes, suddenly narrowed, and when he dropped his gaze to her full mouth, this didn’t help, because her lips had parted and the light caught the sheen of moisture there and he could hear the breath coming in and out of her, too rapid and shallow.
She knew. She understood. She felt it.
I am not going to kiss you, Claudia Nelson. I am not going to pull that tight little knot down from the top of your head and run my fingers through your hair …
Nothing was going to happen between them, not tonight and not ever.
She must have reached the same decision. Her laugh was nervous and short. She reached up to twist a tendril of hair between her fingers. “Sorry, I really didn’t expect you to get the chair.”
“You looked tired, is all.”
“I—I am. I’m sleeping so badly.” She shrugged, smiled and frowned, all at the same time.
“Better get used to that.”
“Not every baby is a bad sleeper. I’ve read up on strategies …”
“I’m sure you have,” he drawled, trying not to smile.
She looked at him sharply, and there was a moment when the tension in the air could have switched. Awareness to argument. Sizzle to sniping. But they let go of both moods and she headed purposefully for the front door. “I’ll take a bath. That seems to help.”
“Might help soothe the baby, too, in a month or so.”
“Yes, a lot of the books say that. Thanks for the meal, Dr. McKinley, I really appreciate it.” And I’m calling you Dr. McKinley so you’ll forget what you saw in my eyes.
He cleared his throat. “I’m right here, any time you need me.”
“I’m fine. I’ll take it easy tomorrow, settling in.”
His last glimpse of her as she went along the porch to her front door was of her hand reaching around to her arched back once more, massaging it in a rhythmic circle just above the peachy curve of her backside with the flat of her fingers.
After this, they barely saw each other for several days.
Well, saw each other, but never for long at close hand.
She waved to him from the porch swing a couple of times as he was heading to or from work. He passed her in the street when he was jogging and she was walking back from the store, and they stopped for twenty seconds of greeting.
He heard her on her cell phone one morning, standing in the front yard to catch the best reception. “That was after the merger … Did you look under the original company name? … No, they’re very similar.” It sounded as if her office was having trouble letting go of her, or more likely the other way around.
One night, coming home after dark, he could see her front window lit up and there she was curled under a soft mohair blanket on the couch with a book in her hand. Even from this distance, he thought he could see a picture of a pregnant woman on the cover.
The weather warmed up a little, and he caught sight of her on Saturday afternoon, on a yoga mat in the garden, doing her pregnancy yoga exercises in a white ruched tank top and black stretch leggings, closing her eyes and breathing in, stretching her arms slowly upward, out and down, facing the beautiful sun, making a prayer position with her fingertips poised just below her chin.
That night, he was called out to assist in a delivery of triplets, and had about three hours’ sleep.
On Sunday afternoon, she must have taken a nap—he’d tried, after his long night, but couldn’t—because when he went into the garden himself, to put in a few hours of much needed work, a glance up at her bedroom window showed the blinds tightly closed.
When he’d raked the lawn clear of the last fall’s leaves, tidied the shrubbery into shape and pruned the climbing roses along the side fence, he looked again and found the blinds open this time, to let in the late-afternoon light. He thought he could see a figure moving in there, but she was in the shadows, not near the window and the light. If she’d noticed him down here, it didn’t seem as if she planned to come out and say hello.