Wildflowers from Winter (26 page)

“It sounds like a good idea. But I have a concern.”

Bethany frowned. “What?”

“Aren’t you going to leave? So you start building the café. Then what? You get halfway through, someone puts down a tempting bid on the farm, and you hightail it out of town. You think
that
would be good for Robin?”

“When I start a project, I finish it.”

Evan studied her face, as if looking for an expression or a muscle or a feature that might contradict her statement. He wouldn’t find one.

“So what’s my role in all this?”

Bethany smiled. She couldn’t help herself. Evan was on board. “I’d like to do most of the renovations without contracting out.”

“Why? Robin has plenty of money.”

“Her pockets are deep, but they aren’t bottomless. I don’t think it’s smart to spend a bunch of money if we don’t need to.” Bethany had learned, over the past few months, that the future was a murky, uncertain thing. Who knew? Maybe someday Robin would need all that money, especially with a kid on the way. “Robin says you helped Micah finish their basement.”

“More like Micah helped me.”

She turned up her palm, as if he’d proven her own point. “So you’re the perfect man for the job. Together we convince Robin that this is a great idea. And when the time comes, you help us with the building.” The thought of working side by side with Evan did all kinds of funky things to her nerves, but if it meant getting out of her current rut, and pulling Robin out with her, then she’d just have to suffer through.

Evan’s chest expanded, paused, deflated. “I have this problem, Bethany.”

Her heartbeat fluttered at the way he spoke her name. “What?”

“I’d sure love to get the fields ready for planting. But I sort of have my hands tied at the moment.”

Bethany shoved her hands inside her pockets.

“Planting is a lot of work. Eighteen-hour days, usually for a month straight. Not to mention the cost. It’s not something I can commit to without knowing I’ll be here in October to harvest.”

It sounded like blackmail. Agree to keep the farm or else he wouldn’t help with the café. She considered his words and ticked the months off in her head. Six more until October. She refused to imagine herself in Peaks six months from now. But who said keeping the farm meant she had to stay? She could let Dan’s farm produce another year’s worth of crop, collect some profit from Evan, and say good-bye in the fall. It would be an act of kindness on her part. Give him one last year. Perhaps it would even make her feel less self-serving when the time came to sell.

“When I meet with a Realtor, I can make sure they know not to put the farm on the market until after your harvest.”

Evan scratched his jaw and studied her beneath a darkening sky. “You’d really do that?”

“Yes.”

“And you honestly think this café will help Robin and the baby?”

“I’m sure of it.”

He stuck out his hand. “Then count me in.”

Bethany stared at his offering. She usually didn’t shake on a deal. She was more of a pen-and-paper-type gal. But she swallowed and stuck her hand in his. The heat returned. Instead of pulling away, Evan held her hand captive and gave her a calculating look, as if measuring her word with his stare. She pulled herself up straighter, determined to show him something he could count on.

TWENTY-SIX

R
obin peered across the waiting room. A woman rested her hand on top of her swollen belly and leaned back in her seat, lengthening her body to accommodate the large cargo in front. Her husband—or at least Robin assumed he was her husband—sat in a more natural position beside her, a parenting magazine held in one hand while he pointed at something on the page. The woman pinched her eyebrows together and pushed the magazine away. Robin closed her eyes and shook her head, but the image of the couple’s interaction refused to dissipate.

According to the doctor, Robin was moments away from seeing her child. The baby Micah and she had made together. While she’d had an initial ultrasound to ensure the health of the embryo, all she saw then was a miniscule, flashing blip on the computer screen. Supposedly now she would be able to see the entire baby—head, body, hands, and feet. Robin stared at her abdomen. How would she react to seeing the fingers and toes of a baby that was half Micah?

A nurse appeared from the hallway. Robin sat straighter. Bethany shifted beside her, as if sensing Robin’s distress. The nurse opened the manila folder in her hand and called out an unfamiliar name. The woman with the large belly rocked back and forth in her seat while grabbing on to her husband’s hand. With both of their efforts, she managed to uncork herself from the chair and waddle toward the nurse.

Robin’s heart stopped its gymnastics routine, leaving behind a familiar exhaustion. She closed her eyes and clasped her hands between her knees. Praying was the only way she knew to combat the oppressive lethargy, and she needed God’s help if she was going to get through this.

With a bowed head, she asked God to take the black brew of resentment and apathy percolating in her soul. She envisioned that couple again, and the fissure in her chest widened. Did that woman appreciate her blessings? Did she understand how easy she had it, with her husband by her side? As much as Robin appreciated Bethany’s support, it was Micah she wanted. Micah she yearned for.

“Robin?”

She brought her head up. A woman holding a file stood inside the waiting room. Robin retrieved her purse from the floor, stood, and tried to smile at the blond-haired woman who introduced herself as Mandy, the ultrasound technician. She led them in the opposite direction of the doctors’ offices, toward a small room with an ultrasound machine.

“If you lie down here, we can get started,” Mandy said, motioning toward the inclined bed.

Robin eased onto the side of the bed and swung her legs around while Bethany sat in a nearby chair—the one usually designated for husbands.

“If you’ll just lift your shirt.” Mandy bent over to retrieve something from below the monitor and put on a pair of plastic gloves.

After Robin exposed her rounded belly, Mandy lowered the waistline of Robin’s pants, her face splitting into a giant grin. “Is this your first ultrasound?”

Robin shook her head. “I had one in the very beginning.”

It didn’t seem possible, but somehow the lady’s smile widened. “Well, this will be quite different. We’ll be able to see all kinds of things. Before we get started, would you like to know the sex of your child?”

Her muscles tightened. Micah would want to know. He couldn’t wait
for anything to save his life. He would have jumped out of his seat with an enthusiastic yes. She swallowed the image and looked to Bethany, as if her friend might be able to answer the question for her. But this wasn’t Bethany’s decision. It was Robin’s.

“No, thank you.”

Lord, does Micah know? Does he know he has a child?

She pressed her lips together. One of the hardest things about all this, one of the things she wrestled with every evening before bed, was that her husband died never knowing. They’d tried for a baby for a year and a half, and Micah never got to reap the joy of all the waiting and uncertainty. She never showed him the positive pregnancy test. She never felt him pick her up in his arms and twirl her in an excited circle. She never saw him jump up on the bed and do one of those victory dances football players do in the end zone. She never watched him get down on his knees, bring her alongside, and thank his Lord and Savior for blessing them with such a gift. Robin blinked away the burning in her eyes.

“Okay, then.” Mandy sat down on a stool and wheeled over to the bedside. “This is going to be cold.” She squirted a dollop of clear jelly onto Robin’s abdomen.

Robin stared straight ahead, stomach clenched against the coolness, avoiding the screen as Mandy brought the transducer to her belly and began gliding it over her skin.

Bethany scooted closer, her chair scraping against the linoleum. “Oh, wow.”

“Do you want to see your baby, Mrs. Price?”

Robin turned toward Mandy, who held the transducer in place. Did people ever tell her no?
No, sorry, I would not like to see my baby. Not without my husband. And since he’s never coming back, I guess I’ll never want to see my baby
.

Mandy’s smile faltered and a trace of confusion flickered in her eyes.
Robin forced the corners of her mouth up. She took a deep breath. She let it out. She turned her head. And she gasped at the image on the screen.

Clear as could be. Not the blob of black-and-white fuzz she’d been expecting but the image of a baby’s profile. An upturned nose, a small body, and a tiny arm raised above its head, as if waving hello. Robin’s throat closed. Something light and warm crept up her legs, filled her stomach, and spread throughout her chest. Her hand fluttered to her mouth. Moments earlier, she couldn’t look. Now, she couldn’t look away.

This baby was real. And this baby was hers.

She wanted to reach out and trace the tiny features over the glass screen.

Mandy moved the transducer, explaining the different images of Robin’s child—the top of the head, the baby’s bottom, arms, legs, the heart. Ten fingers. Ten toes.

The burning returned, pricking her eyes. And this time no amount of blinking would help. A tear dripped onto her cheek and plummeted off her chin, followed by another, and another. In four and a half months this baby would be out of her womb and into the world. A tiny, helpless infant. One that depended on her for survival. In that small ultrasound room, as Robin watched images of her child roll across the screen, she came face to face with the choice God laid before her.

Life or death.

No amount of bargaining, no amount of crying, no amount of anger would bring this baby’s father back. Micah was dead. And for the past several months, she’d joined him. Her heart might beat, the synapses in her brain might fire, but she’d gone to the grave the same day Micah did. She’d declared herself dead right alongside her husband. Only she had life growing inside her. Life that needed her. Life that depended on her. Life that belonged to her.

In the confines of that small ultrasound room, Robin became the rope
in a nasty game of tug of war. Death pulling from one end and life from the other. Which would it be? What side would win?

The gentle whisper of God’s Spirit brushed up against her soul.
Choose life, beloved, so that you may live. Choose life, for the sake of your child
.

Robin squeezed her eyes against the tears, her breathing dense and painful.
I want to choose life, Lord. But how do I let go of this grief?

She imagined God prying her arms open, loosening her hold on the pain she cradled so tightly to her chest. She could think of this tiny baby—half her and half Micah, the epitome of two becoming one—as a heavy burden. A cruel joke. An unwanted offering. Or she could think of this tiny baby as a wonderful blessing. An awesome challenge. A merciful gift. A piece of Micah. Robin drew in a ragged breath. And in the deepest recesses of her soul, she let go. She released her sorrow to God.

She chose life.

Bethany tossed her keys on the counter, where they slid a few inches before resting by the sink. Robin stepped inside behind her, quiet and pale. She hadn’t said a word the entire drive home from the doctor’s office.

Rubbing her fingers beneath her eyes, Bethany stared at the steady drip issuing from the faucet. For whatever reason, Robin didn’t want it fixed. Shaking her head, she dropped her hands to her side, strode to her room, and flipped open her laptop, unsettled by her growing infatuation with the life inside Robin’s womb.

Bethany had never been the type to dream about motherhood, yet as soon as that baby appeared on the monitor, fingerlike tentacles wound their way around her heart, forming an attachment she didn’t want. Building a café was one thing. It had limits. It had closure. A clear beginning and end. But a baby? Babies didn’t come with any boundaries. She couldn’t
let her strange infatuation with Robin’s unborn child alter the course of her future.

She flopped on the bed, slipped off her shoes, and let them fall to the floor. Maybe today would be the day. Maybe when she opened her inbox, a flood of job offers would greet her and erase her preoccupation with Robin’s child. Bolstered by the thought, Bethany stretched her legs on the bed just as Robin appeared like a phantom in the doorway, a trace of a smile shadowing her lips.

“Can I come in?” she asked.

This was new.

Bethany brought her legs to her chest and scooted to the wall. Robin joined her on the bed, catapulting Bethany back to a time they’d sat in similar fashion, sharing secrets, hopes, fears. She couldn’t think of another person she’d laughed or cried with more than Robin. Not even Dominic, who after three years of coupledom should have at least been competition.

While Bethany waited for Robin to begin, her mind teetered between polar desires. Disengagement and yearning. With Robin sitting in front of her and the images from the ultrasound still fresh in her memory, Bethany grasped at disengagement. She looked at the computer screen where she’d typed the address to her e-mail account in the browser. She pressed Enter just as Robin found her voice.