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  CHAPTER 9

  The following morning, I flipped on Animal Planet, then kissed General Lee good-bye, leaving a note for Mrs. Houlihan reminding her that I didn’t want her giving out my cell phone number to anybody, no matter how hard they begged. I had my hand on the doorknob before I forced myself to return to the notepad and tear off the phone messages from the previous day and shove the page into my purse. Maybe today would be the day that I finally acknowledged that facing a problem head-on might be easier than being blindsided. Maybe.

  Rich Kobylt, my contractor, was standing in the back garden with his hands on his hips—not, unfortunately, holding up his pants, which sagged dangerously low in the back—and staring at the piles of bricks and debris with yellow police tape still encircling them.

  “Mornin’, Miz Middleton.”

  “Good morning, Rich. I wasn’t expecting to see you today. Did I forget an appointment?”

  He shook his head. “No, ma’am. I was just wondering when I might be able to come back and finish the job. I don’t feel like the job’s complete without having everything put right.”

  I frowned. “I don’t see why this is still roped off, but I’ll check with Detective Riley to be sure and I’ll let you know. But go ahead and submit the bill to my dad, and I’ll tell him to pay it.”

  He scratched the back of his head. “Well, see, Miz Middleton, that’s just it. I already submitted the bill, but when it didn’t get paid I sort of figured you were waiting until the job got finished. ’Cause usually your daddy pays the bills the same week I submit them.”

  The sun seemed to be a little stronger on my shoulders as pinpricks of sweat erupted on my forehead. “Maybe it got misplaced or something. I’ll check with my dad and make sure it gets paid ASAP.”

  “I sure appreciate that. My boy Brian started at Clemson last month and that tuition bill sure has made things a little tight for us at home.”

  “I completely understand, and I’ll make sure it’s all taken care of.”

  “Thank you, Miz Middleton. You have a nice day now, you hear?”

  “You, too, Rich.” I started to leave, but I hesitated. He hadn’t moved, but was now staring at the piles of rubble with a heavy frown.

  “Is there something else?” I asked.

  I thought for a moment that he hadn’t heard me, but instead he turned toward me, a peculiar expression on his face. “Do you ever hear a baby crying sometimes when you’re out here?”

  It was as if a vacuum had suddenly sucked all of the moisture from my throat. I swallowed. “Out here? No. I haven’t. Why?”

  He scratched the back of his head again with thick, blunt fingers. “Well, ever since we found that box with those bones in it, I’ve been hearing it.” He stared silently at me for a moment, as if willing me to say something. When I didn’t, he said, “My wife says it’s probably a cat. I ain’t never seen one out here—just your General Lee and a few palmetto bugs that are just as big as a cat, but I ain’t never seen one. I’m just hoping I’m not going crazy or nothin’.”

  I smiled at him. “You’re not going crazy, Rich. Old houses always have creaks and groans—it’s like their voices. You get used to it after a while.”

  He hesitated for a moment before responding. “I guess,” he said, his false smile matching my own. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. I’ll make sure your bill’s taken care of right away.”

  He tipped his Clemson baseball hat to me and I left the garden that still seemed as full of secrets as it had been the first time I’d seen it.

  I met Jack halfway down the drive as he was walking toward the house. It was always awkward greeting him. Did we shake hands? Kiss on the cheek? Embrace? Kiss on the lips? None seemed appropriate. Which was odd, really, seeing as how we’d somehow managed to create a baby.

  Being the mature adult I was, I opened my purse and pretended to search for a lipstick that I’d spotted the moment I’d opened it. I managed to “find” it right after I’d passed Jack. I held it up like I’d never seen it before. “Sorry to be a few minutes late. I had to speak with Rich Kobylt about the foundation repair.”

  “You’re still ten minutes earlier than the time I said I’d meet you. I’m learning, but there are so many Mellie-isms that I slip up sometimes.” He hurried past me and opened the passenger-side door of the van before helping me inside. He even reached over to buckle my seat belt.

  “Really, Jack? I’m not an invalid. But you might be if you don’t stop treating me like one.”

  He flashed his smile at full wattage before patting my belly. “Precious cargo.” His smile didn’t dim as he shut my door, then climbed into the driver’s seat. “Do you know how to get there?”

  I pulled out my iPhone and a folded piece of paper. “I Googled Dr. Wise’s office last night and plugged the address into my phone’s GPS, and also made a MapQuest printout just in case.”

  “Of course you did,” Jack said, taking the paper from me and glancing at it. “And you’re sure Dr. Wise is the best?”

  I tried very hard not to roll my eyes. “My regular gynecologist recommended her because she specializes in high-risk pregnancies.”

  He turned to me with alarm. “High-risk?”

  This time I gave in to the eye roll. “Only because I’m over forty and it’s my first pregnancy. She gave me a checkup and said everything looked fine so far, and that Dr. Wise will probably do an ultrasound today.”

  “Will we be able to tell if it’s a girl or boy?”

  I shook my head. “It’s too early. Besides, I’m not sure if I want to know ahead of time.”

  “But that would give us time to argue about the baby’s name.”

  “You mean it’s not already decided? You seemed pretty sure about Jack Junior and Sarah.” I couldn’t resist a smile.

  “Oh, those are just at the top of my list. But I was wondering if we should keep to the pattern Nola started.”

  “The pattern?”

  He grinned. “Well, Nola means New Orleans, Louisiana, which—as she likes to announce to strangers—is where she was conceived. I was thinking we could continue on the same theme.”

  I looked at him in horror, not sure whether he was joking. “What, and call the baby Charles or Charlotte?”

  His grin widened. “Or we could be more creative. Like Redress. Or Couch. Or Granite—Granitia if she’s a girl.”

  Despite myself, a small snort of laughter escaped from my nose. I elbowed him in the arm. “Just drive, please. We’re going to be late, and I hate being late.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said as he put the van in gear and pulled away from the curb.

  At the doctor’s office, I expected that Jack would sit down in the waiting room while I approached the registration desk, but after guiding me through the door he tucked my hand neatly into the crook of his arm so that we reached the desk together.

  The woman sitting behind the desk was in her late twenties, with bright blond hair and big blue eyes that widened even farther after she caught sight of Jack. She gave me a fleeting glance before refocusing her attention on him.

  “May I help you?” She actually batted her lashes.

  “Yes,” I said, moving to stand between Jack and the desk. “I have an appointment with Dr. Wise at nine o’clock.”

  She looked disappointed as she turned her attention to me. “Your name?”

  “Melanie Middleton.”

  After a glance at a list on a clipboard, she crossed out a line, then handed me another clipboard. “Fill out the fronts and backs of all three sheets, and don’t forget to sign the back of the third one.”

  I had almost made it to my seat when she called me back. “Mrs. Middleton? I’ll need your insurance card.”

  I returned to the desk and slid my card toward her. “And it’s Miss Middleton.”

  A light erupted in her eyes that could only be called a glimmer of hope. The words seemed to rush out of her mouth before she could call them back. “You’re not ma
rried?” She at least had the audacity to look embarrassed.

  “No,” I said.

  “Not yet,” Jack said simultaneously.

  I glared at him while her gaze moved from me, then to Jack, then back to me. “I’ll let you know when the doctor is ready to see you.”

  I was almost through filling out the forms when my phone buzzed. Blondie looked at me with annoyance before pointing a finger at one of the many PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CELL PHONE signs.

  I glanced down at the screen and saw it was my mother. Making a mental note to call her back, I turned off my phone and stuck it in my purse, noticing the scrap of paper with Mr. Drayton’s phone numbers on it. I’d return his call after I talked with my mother.

  “Mrs. Middleton?” a matronly-looking nurse with graying curls called out from a doorway at the side of the desk.

  “It’s Miss,” the blonde said with a note of satisfaction.

  “Right,” the nurse said as she marked something on the chart she held, her smile not wavering. “Would you come with me, please?”

  I stood and Jack stood, too. “You don’t have to come with me, Jack. I’ll be fine.”

  He blanched a bit, but hid it by smiling. Pressing his hand against the small of my back and leading me forward, he said, “It’s my baby, too, Mellie. I missed all of this with Nola, and I’m not going to miss it again.”

  I wasn’t sure whether it was his touch or his words that made my knees forget how to work, but he was there to gently support me when I stumbled.

  We were led to a giant scale and I stopped, staring at it as if I were an antelope in a circle of hungry lions. “I’m sure that’s not necessary,” I said.

  The nurse—Peggy, according to the name tag on her cheerful pink-heart-covered scrub top—just smiled. “I get that a lot. But it’s very necessary to track your weight throughout the pregnancy. You can take off your shoes if you like.”

  “I promise I won’t look,” Jack said, staring up at the ceiling.

  I took off my shoes, my watch, my bracelet, my necklace, and my earrings and handed them along with my purse to Jack, then stepped onto the scale. “Don’t say anything out loud, okay?”

  Nurse Peggy nodded as she began moving the weights.

  “And don’t look,” I reminded Jack.

  He held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

  “You were a Boy Scout?”

  “I made it to Cub Scouts but was asked to leave when I put a Playboy pinup picture on my Pinewood Derby car.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Just don’t look, okay?”

  Peggy finished adjusting the weights in front of my field of vision, and I closed my eyes.

  I heard a loud wolf whistle behind me. I jumped off the scale. “Jack! You weren’t supposed to look.”

  He smiled so that his dimple appeared. “I’m just kidding. Besides, you’re beautiful to me no matter what you weigh.”

  I waited for Peggy to say, I’ve heard that one before, too, but when she didn’t, I turned to her, only to see her gazing dreamily at Jack.

  “He’s a keeper,” she said to me in a loud whisper.

  I took my belongings back from Jack without looking at him, unable to talk past the thickness in my throat to let her know that he wasn’t even mine to keep.

  After I supplied a urine sample, we were led into the examining room, where Peggy took my blood pressure, then began rolling up my sleeve to draw blood. Being a naturally squeamish person, I turned my head away while Jack took hold of my other hand without asking and squeezed it gently until Peggy told us she was finished.

  Peggy beamed at us, making me disengage our hands. “I just need to ask you a few questions.” She pulled up a pair of reading glasses hanging on a chain around her neck and placed them on her nose. “Let’s see. What is the date of your last menstrual period?” She held her pen poised over my patient folder.

  I blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “When was your last menstrual period?”

  I blinked again. “I don’t have a clue. I’ve never been regular, and I’ve never had a reason to keep track.”

  It was her turn to blink back at me. “So you have no idea when you last had your period? It’s a real help when pinpointing your due date.”

  Jack cleared his throat. “Maybe I can help. We conceived on June twenty-sixth—her fortieth birthday.”

  I closed my eyes, wondering whether being forty should have left me immune to this kind of embarrassment.

  “It’s better than nothing.” Peggy put down the chart and then picked up what looked like a color wheel for choosing wall colors, with two round pieces of cardboard attached in the middle so that they could slide in both directions.

  “Let’s see,” she said, her voice low, as if she were talking to herself. “This isn’t an exact science, but let’s just say you ovulated here.” She turned one of the wheels, and paused a moment to read something. Then she looked up at me and smiled. “And that would make your estimated due date March twenty-third.”

  I felt something like panic squeeze my stomach. March twenty-third. “But that’s so . . . soon.” It wasn’t that I didn’t know a pregnancy was nine months. It was just that bringing my—our—son or daughter into the world was something I’d relegated to the distant future. Something I’d deal with when I could. Something I could postpone. Not March twenty-third.

  Peggy gave me an encouraging smile. “At least you won’t be heavily pregnant during the worst of a Charleston summer.”

  I barely heard her. March twenty-third. Jack took my hand and I let him.

  The nurse placed my folder on a small table and began walking toward the door. “I’m going to get Dr. Wise now.”

  A glimmer of my old self, the one who craved control and order—two things that had been conspicuously absent from my life in the last few months—shimmied to the surface and I began to think again in the comforting patterns of spreadsheets and calendars.

  “When do I do my birth plan?” It was something I’d read about in one of the books Jack had bought for me, and after listening to Sophie talk about natural childbirth, getting my plan down on paper had suddenly become very important. I didn’t want to risk running out of time, especially now that I realized there was so little of it. “I want to make sure that I get an epidural as early as possible. Maybe even as early as the eighth month.”

  I could tell that Peggy had heard that a lot, too, by the battle-weary look on her face. “I’m sure Dr. Wise will go over all of that with you. You still have plenty of time.”

  “And I’d like to be unconscious during the delivery, if they still do that.”

  Peggy’s smile was thinning. “You can go over all of your concerns with Dr. Wise. Right now, I need you to get into this gown—opening in the front, all of your clothing off—and push this button when you’re ready.” She indicated a square button mounted on the wall next to the examining table.

  As the nurse moved toward the door, I looked at Jack. “You can wait outside while I change.”

  “Really, Mellie? It’s not like I’ve never seen you without your clothes on.”

  My face flamed as Nurse Peggy suppressed a giggle before leaving the room, the door smacking shut behind her.

  I made Jack turn his back while I put on the aqua gown, then assumed the position on the examining table with the blanket draped modestly in place. I pressed the button and after only a few minutes a statuesque woman with dark blond hair pulled back into a chic chignon entered the room. She wore a stethoscope and a lab coat; otherwise I might have mistaken her for a model who’d lost her way to a photo shoot. I was embarrassed to admit how relieved I was that Jack hardly seemed to notice.

  She held out her hand to me and smiled, her teeth perfect. “I’m Dr. Diane Wise.”

  Jack and I introduced ourselves, then shook hands with the doctor while I tried very hard to suck in my stomach so I wouldn’t appear too troll-like next to Wonder Woman, especially with Jack in the same room.

&nb
sp; “So,” she said, clasping her hands together as she approached the examining table. “Let’s take a look and see what we have here.”

  I glanced at Jack, thinking that now would be an appropriate time for him to leave. Instead he was sitting in a chair and leaning forward, looking like a medical student at his first autopsy.

  Accepting my fate, I stared up at the ceiling while Dr. Wise examined me, starting with my breasts, then moving down to my abdomen. She pressed gently on the slight mound of my stomach, moving her hands to various points, then seemed to be doing some sort of measurement with three of her fingers. She straightened, then glanced at my chart with a small frown.

  “You’re looking a little large for just twelve weeks. We’ll have to see what the ultrasound says.” She smiled reassuringly at both Jack and me, and I smiled back only because I’d become immune to people telling me that I was large.

  When she’d completed the physical exam, she said, “I’m going to use a fetal heart monitor now to hear the baby’s heartbeat.” She set up a small machine that looked like a transistor radio and flipped it on, then lubricated my belly with a warmed gel. Using a wandlike device, she began running it over my abdomen, stopping it when a muffled thud-thud emanated from the speaker.

  Jack stood next to me, his hand somehow holding mine again, and we were both grinning stupidly at the doctor. “Is that the baby?” Jack asked, his voice hushed.

  “It is.” Dr. Wise moved the wand back and forth, the thud-thudding sound getting quieter, then louder. A small pucker formed again at the bridge of her nose as she moved the wand around, back and forth, pausing it in the same two spots again and again.

  “Is there something wrong?” I asked, my voice higher than normal. Jack squeezed my hand.

  The doctor gave us both another reassuring smile, and I wondered whether she had to practice that in the mirror. “The baby sounds healthy. Let’s see what the ultrasound tells us.” She walked toward the corner of the room, where a mobile ultrasound machine stood, and wheeled it next to the examining table. It had a keyboard and a screen that Dr. Wise kept facing her, and a wand that was larger than the one used to check the fetal heart rate. After adding more warm lubricant, she began sliding the wand across my abdomen, focusing on the same spots she’d focused on before.