A Soft Place to Fall (35 page)

#

The waiting room was empty when Annie
arrived. She hung up her jacket then let Janna, the receptionist,
know she was there.

"Good timing," said Janna, grabbing Annie's
chart. "We had a cancellation. Dr. Markowitz can see you right now.
Leave us a specimen and we'll get started."

Annie followed her down the pale blue hallway
to Room #2. Janna stuck the file folder in the plastic holder and
gestured toward the screen.

"Change, put on the robe, you know the drill.
The doctor will be with you before you get out of your pantyhose."
Janna winked and hurried back to her desk.

How many times had gathered up all of her
hopes and dreams and brought them into this cold impersonal room to
be inspected? She could see herself as a bride of eighteen, a wife
of twenty-three, an exhausted and scared woman of thirty, sitting
there on the edge of the paper-covered table with her feet dangling
and her hands folded in her lap, waiting for the doctor to tell her
what she already knew.
I'm sorry, Annie, but you're not
pregnant.

She had no reason to believe this time would
be any different.

"Good to see you, Annie." Ellen Markowitz
knocked twice as she opened the door. "How're you doing?"

"Pretty well," Annie said, noticing the goose
bumps racing up and down her bare legs. "New hair style?"

Ellen wrinkled her nose. "Hope springs
eternal. Saranne at Hair Today swears she understands curly hair
but I'm not convinced. I think I look like the love child of
Bernadette Peters and Don King."

Annie laughed out loud. "I think it looks
terrific," she said. "I should pay Saranne a visit myself."

Ellen slipped her glasses on and scanned
Annie's chart. "So you're here for your annual pap and checkup."
She scribbled a note. "When was your last period?"

Annie scrambled for a date. Her periods, her
finances, her life – everything had been screwed up since Kevin
died. "I don't know exactly," she said. "Late August, maybe."

Ellen looked up. "You're sure."

"Fairly so."

Ellen flipped some pages. "Your cycle ranges
anywhere from 26 days to 45 so we're still in the ballpark."

See, Galloway? You're late. You've been late
before. You'll be late again.

"Any symptoms I should know about?"

Annie hesitated. "I've been tired a great
deal during the day then I have a burst of energy at night."

"I hear you're working on some statuary for
Warren's museum. That must keep you pretty busy."

"It does," she said. "I'll admit to being
more than a little obsessed with the project."

"Well, that could certainly explain the
fatigue." She met Annie's eyes. "Anything else I should know
about?"

Annie took a deep breath. "Morning sickness."
She forced a laugh. "Or maybe I should say sickness in the
morning."

Ellen nodded and scribbled another note. "One
second." She lifted the wall phone and pushed two buttons. "Janna,
did you run the Galloway specimen yet . . . okay . . . great . . .
add a number three, please . . . thanks."

This isn't really happening. I'm almost
forty years old . . . I've just managed to pull my life back
together . . . I've found a wonderful man who has never once said a
word about kids . . . .

"Lie back and relax," said Ellen as she went
over to the sink to wash her hands, "and we'll see what's
happening."

The paper crinkled loudly as Annie settled
herself in position. Men hadn't a clue how awkward the whole thing
was. Did any of them realize the way women obsessed about proper
footwear in the stirrups? Bare feet? Socks? Shoes? Silly thoughts
designed to take her mind off why she was lying there on that table
with her heart even more exposed than her body.

Ellen positioned herself at the foot of the
table. "Scoot down a little more . . . good . . . let's see . . .
there are some cervical changes in keeping with early first
trimester . . . tender here?"

"Yes."

"Here too?"

"Ouch! Yes."

"Your uterus is slightly enlarged which may
or may not mean anything." She pulled off her surgical gloves and
tossed them in the receptacle. "You can sit up, Annie."

Easy for you to say, Ellen.
"So what
do you think?" she asked, wishing her voice didn't sound so
vulnerable. "Am I --?" She couldn't say the word. It held way too
much power.

The intercom buzzed before Ellen could
answer. The doctor lifted up the receiver, listened, asked a
question, then hung up. "Congratulations," she said to Annie.
"You're going to have a baby."

#

Ellen Markowitz had seen many reactions to a
positive pregnancy test during her six years as an ob-gyn. Some
women cried with joy. Some cried from sorrow. Some women cursed
their husbands or boyfriends or birth control method of choice.
Some women had no reaction at all beyond a stolid acceptance of the
will of God. She had seen young couples embrace each other with
such abandon that she wondered if they were trying to conceive a
second child on the spot. She had seen older couples start fighting
over a peri-menopausal surprise.

But she had never seen the look of almost
holy wonder that she had seen in Annie Galloway's eyes.

Annie's joy was so deeply felt, so deeply
private, that Ellen's eyes teared up and she turned away and
pretended to scribble some notes on her chart. It wasn't often that
she envied one of her patients, but that afternoon she envied Annie
Galloway from the bottom of her heart.

#

Hall had just parked his Rover in the
reserved spot near the door to the Medical Arts building when he
saw Annie dash down the steps. Her hair was loose, a long tangle of
waves and curls that glinted gold and red in the fierce autumn
sunshine. The look on her face – Jesus, he could live to be two
hundred and never forget the look on her face as she darted past
him. She glowed from within. There was no other way to say it. She
had always been beautiful to him but now she was radiant. Her hair,
her skin, the ripe lushness of her body. But now there was
something else added to the mix, a sense of wonder and magic that
could only mean one thing.

"Annie!" He stepped out of the Rover and
waved to her.

If she saw him, she gave no indication. She
floated past him and drifted across the parking lot in the
direction of the main street and Annie's Flowers.

He grabbed the sheaf of papers on the
passenger seat then locked the car. His source in New York had come
through with more information than he had anticipated, none of
which cast Sam Butler in a good light. If any of the allegations
mentioned in the notes were true, there was a good chance Butler
would be serving some serious jail time very soon.

"'Afternoon, Doctor Talbot." Janna favored
him with a friendly smile. "Your three-fifteen called. She'll be a
few minutes late."

He nodded and headed back toward his office,
the image of a radiantly glowing Annie Galloway still in the
forefront of his mind. He couldn't ask Ellen. There was nothing
professional about his concern and they both knew it. Nobody would
stop him if he plucked Annie's chart from the mix and browsed
through it but he wasn't sure he would like the man who did such a
thing. Then again he had done a lot of things these last few weeks
that he wasn't sure he liked. Digging into Sam Butler's background,
for one.

He flipped the lights on in his office and
was shrugging out of his jacket when Ellen popped out of her office
across the hall.

"You're late," she said with mock
disapproval. "Forget to set the alarm?"

"Twins," he said, tossing his packet of
papers down on his desk.

"Newborn or age of consent?"

He couldn't help but laugh. "The Pelletiers
delivered early."

"Healthy?"

He rapped his knuckles on the side of his
credenza. "So far, so good. They'll need a little hospital time
until they build up their weight, but it all seems routine."

"Great." The furrow between her brows seemed
to deepen despite the good news. "After all they went through
trying to conceive those babies, they deserve a happy ending."

"Don't we all," he said, settling down his
desk. "I saw Annie Galloway on her way out."

Was he crazy or was Markowitz glowing now
too?

"Did she say anything?"

"No," he said, "I don't think she even knew I
was there."

Ellen nodded but said nothing.

"Is she okay?"

"She's fine," Ellen said as a smile broke
across her narrow face. "She's just fine."

And that was how he learned that the woman he
had loved and lost was going to have a baby by a man who might be
welcoming in the New Year behind bars.

#

Annie hurried past the window of Annie's
Flowers, past the book shop and DeeDee's Donuts and ran straight
for her truck. She turned the key and slammed it into reverse
without giving it even a second to warm up. She would make it up to
the Trooper one day but the need to be with Sam was too strong to
deny.

A baby . . . I'm going to have a baby!

She repeated the words out loud and she still
couldn't quite believe they were true. Seven months for now, on a
warm day in June according to Ellen, she would give birth to a baby
whose ribbon of DNA would link her and Sam together forever. A baby
whose very existence was proof of their love.

"Any questions?" Ellen had asked her before
Annie left the office.

"Yes," said Annie. "How on earth did this
happen?"

Ellen, bless her heart, bypassed the easy
joke for an honest answer. "I don't know," she said. "All I know is
that there couldn't be a luckier baby in the world."

A baby . . . a tiny, helpless, demanding
infant whose needs and desires would take precedence over
everything for a long time to come . . . .

"A miracle," she whispered. A
one-in-a-million kind of miracle sent to two people who had
believed their chance at real happiness had passed them by.

That's how you feel, Galloway, but are you
so sure it's how Sam feels?

They had only talked about children once,
when Annie told him she couldn't get pregnant. He had looked at her
with deep understanding and never broached the topic again. She had
interpreted his reaction as one of compassion and acceptance but
now she wondered if she had only seen what she wanted to see. He
had spent part of his teens and his entire adult life raising his
brothers and sisters. He had more hands-on parenting experience
than most parents his age. Maybe what she had been looking at was
sheer relief. Been there, done that, and he was glad he wouldn't be
doing it again with her.

But babies weren't just by invitation only.
Sometimes they appeared on the wings of a miracle and left it to
you to figure out how to fit your lives around them.

How romantic, Galloway. What if the thought
of a baby just makes him feel trapped? Your miracle could send him
looking for the exit.

Well, it was too late to worry about that
now. It had been too late from the moment sperm met egg two months
ago. The sooner she told Sam, the better. That was the one thing
she knew for certain. Oh, there were probably better ways to handle
a situation like this. Sweeney would no doubt have a dozen
strategies all designed to break it to a man gently. But Annie had
never been one for strategies when it came to love. If she had
been, she never would have stayed with Kevin right up until the
bitter end. All she knew, all she cared about, was getting to Sam
and telling him that she was pregnant with his child.

Would he be happy about it?
Please, God,
please . . . .
Would he feel burdened with more responsibility?
Not Sam . . . he'll understand.
Would he swing her up into
his arms and kiss her senseless or would he tell her that she was
on her own? She couldn't imagine such a thing. He was as honorable
a man as she had ever known, the kind of man a smart woman dreamed
about.

He would be shocked, of course. So was she.
In truth, the reality still hadn't sunk in, only the need to share
the news with the one man on earth who would care as much as she
did. They had never discussed a family, not in so many words. What
they had together felt like forever but neither one of them ever
talked about tomorrow.

You never discussed the future? Not even
once? Doesn't that seem a little strange, Galloway?

How would she know what was strange? She had
married the first boy she ever dated and she had stayed married to
him for almost twenty years. She was still stuck back in the land
of senior proms and going steady while the rest of the world had
long since moved on.

Maybe you didn't do things like talk about a
future together once you were past the first flutter of youthful
longing. Maybe you were meant to be sophisticated and mature enough
to just let the future take care of itself -- or not, as the case
may be -- and not worry and wonder like a teenager in love for the
first time.

Unfortunately, Annie felt like that teenager
when she was with Sam. Once upon a time her capacity for joy had
been boundless but time and circumstance had taken that gift away
from her. But now she could feel herself growing more lighthearted,
more joyful with every day she spent in his company, more like the
woman she used to be, the one she had all but forgotten. He
delighted her, thrilled her, made her believe that the second time
around could be even more wonderful than the first – maybe because
this time she knew how precious and fragile it all was.

And she would tell him all of that and more
right now, this very afternoon.

It was almost three o'clock. He was probably
still in the old barn behind Warren's house, working on one of the
canoes but just in case he'd come home early, she decided to drive
up their road and see if his truck was in the driveway.