I better get busy. You made quite a mess of me.”
“I think you look better than you have in your whole life.” The way he looked at her almost did her in.
No, no, no, she couldn’t succumb again. But she froze as Josh followed her, walking slowly, purposely, with a devilish intent obvious in his blue eyes.
But instead of reaching for her, he reached for her purse and opened it, snagging her cell phone and pulling it out. He extended it toward her. “Call Melissa and leave a message that you won’t be home until morning.”
A whole night with Josh? Did she dare? Or rather, did she dare pass up the chance? How much fun did she allow herself, anyway? Her life was devoted to her work and her child. Not that she and Mary didn’t have fun, but Natalie seldom did anything for herself.
One night with Josh. Melissa would know the truth, but so what? Even if she told their friends—and she probably would—Natalie was no longer a part of this community. It wouldn’t matter what they thought.
She opened the phone, located Melissa’s cell number and dialed it.
Chapter Three
“So what is it?” Natalie asked her gynecologist, pulling her sweater more tightly around her. “You’re not saying anything. I’m in early menopause, right?” When her doctor still remained quiet, Natalie became alarmed. “Is it something worse? Cancer? Am I going to die next week? What?”
“Oh, no, no, honey. I didn’t mean to scare you ’cause it’s nothing like that. I just didn’t know how to say it, but I guess I better just blurt it out. You’re pregnant.”
Natalie laughed. “Of all the people in the world, you know that’s not possible.” Surely Celia Brewster was kidding. She’d been Natalie’s doctor for close to twenty years, but more than that, the two had become friends.
Natalie’s laughter died as Celia stared at her with an unreadable expression. “It must be a mistake,” Natalie pointed out. “A lab mix-up. I could not possibly be preg—” She couldn’t even finish the word.
Celia’s steady gaze never faltered. “There’s no mistake. You are most definitely pregnant.”
Natalie couldn’t believe this. Pregnant at forty-three, when she was supposedly terminally infertile. She’d had sex exactly once in the last several years—okay, more than once if you got technical. She’d lost count of the number of times she and Josh had made love that crazy night of the reunion two months ago. But still…
“How is it possible, Celia? What about my underfunctioning ovaries? Women just don’t get pregnant at my age, even normal ones!”
“You’d be surprised how many women give birth in their forties. As for how you could have overcome your fertility problem, I have a theory about that. Remember when you first came to me as a patient? You were very thin and your periods were almost nonexistent. Underweight women often don’t ovulate.”
Natalie did remember Celia’s concern about her weight. But Natalie’s diet had been more than adequate. She just hadn’t easily gained weight and she was perfectly healthy in every other respect.
“Over the years you’ve put on a few pounds,” Celia continued. “I’m not criticizing—you looked a bit malnourished before. Now you look great and you’re healthy as a horse. But discounting the last couple of months, have your cycles become more regular?”
Frankly, Natalie had never paid that much attention. After adopting Mary, she’d put all thoughts of conceiving her own child out of her mind, so her cycle was inconsequential. But now that she thought about it, she had been more regular the last few years.
She nodded numbly.
“My theory is that in your late teens and early twenties, your body weight was slightly under what you would need to regularly ovulate. In addition, you were under tremendous stress.”
“Because of how badly I wanted to give Josh a baby, you mean?”
“And because you were so young, married, both of you trying to go to school and make ends meet.”
“My doctor at the time did say if I could relax a bit, it might help,” she admitted. “But I thought that was just something doctors said to nervous women patients.”
Celia laughed. “You’re right. But in this case, it’s true. Stress impedes ovulation, too. At some point, when your weight reached a certain level, your ovaries corrected themselves. Absent the stress of worrying about conception, perhaps you approached something like normal fertility. Only you never realized it, because you weren’t having unprotected sex.”
“I wasn’t having any sex.”
“Well, clearly, you’ve had some.”
Natalie groaned. What was she going to tell Josh? What was she going to tell Mary?
“Then there’s also the one-in-a-million theory. Yes, the chances of a woman your age conceiving are quite small. But the chance is there. Kind of like your chances of winning the lottery.”
“Great. Why couldn’t I have won the lottery instead?” But then it hit her. This was better than winning the lottery. She was going to have a baby. Right now, a life was growing inside her. She put a hand to her abdomen, and a sense of wonder replaced the shock and terror.
“Will it be healthy?” she asked in a small voice as her eyes filled with tears.
“You know the risks as well as I,” Celia said gently. “Babies of older mothers do bear some additional potential problems. But I intend to keep a very close watch on you and the baby. First thing, we’ll get you on prenatal vitamins.”
Celia rattled on some more about the various things they would have to watch, the tests Natalie would have to take, but Natalie was hardly listening.
A baby.
MARY BRIGGS ADDED a pinch more curry to the sauce she was making, then took a taste. “Yessss, I am so good.”
As she heard the garage door go up, she checked her watch, pleased that her mother was on time. She pulled a bottle of cold Chablis from the fridge, uncorked it and poured a glass for her mom, knowing how much she liked to sit and unwind after a long day on her feet taking care of her babies.
As her mom entered the kitchen, Mary greeted her with a big smile and extended the glass of wine. But her smile fell as she immediately knew something was up. Her mother’s eyes were glazed.
“Mom, what’s wrong?”
“Uh…what makes you think something’s wrong?”
Relief washed over Mary. “You look funny. I thought you’d had a wreck or something.”
“No, no accidents. Well, not auto accidents, anyway.”
“So something is wrong?”
“Not wrong, exactly. Just shocking.” Her mom set down her purse on the breakfast bar and sank onto one of the bar stools.
Mary
