The Second Time Around Read online

  She glanced at the frozen image on the monitor, a replica of the photo that Annie had captured, before she looked up at Jason and smiled. “Then you’d really have a hard time giving birth to this little guy.”

  “No argument,” he told her. Picking up her dress and panty hose, he placed them on the table beside her. “Here, you might want these.” His eyes then moved to the gown she had on. “Unless you’ve gotten attached to wearing that.”

  “Very funny.” Shedding the gown, Laurel quickly slipped her dress on over her head and arms. And then she sighed, gazing down at her legs.

  “What’s the matter?” Jason asked.

  “Just getting up my oomph to put my panty hose on.” She began gathering the nylon between the thumb and forefinger of each hand.

  He saw no problem. “Why don’t you just skip putting them on this time?”

  Laurel shook her head. “Because I always feel naked without them.”

  “Can’t have that,” he murmured.

  Taking the panty hose from her, he put his own thumb and forefinger on either side of the stocking until it was all scrunched in his hands. Then he squatted down beside the table and began to work the material over her toes.

  She stared at him. In all their years of marriage, he’d never offered to do this before. “What are you doing?”

  “Helping you on with your panty hose,” Jason answered simply. It was an effort not to tear anything. The gauzelike material felt as if he could put his thumb right through it if he wasn’t careful. Why did women wear these things, anyway?

  Annie walked in and then stopped as she took in the sight. She grinned broadly. “Now that man,” she pronounced, looking at Laurel, “is a keeper.”

  Laurel laughed as she leaned forward and ruffled up Jason’s hair, the way she used to when they were first married. He looked up at her, bemused. Her heart swelled.

  “Yes, I know.”

  She’d never meant anything so much in her life.

  CHAPTER 23

  She should have settled into some sort of a comfortable routine by now, Laurel thought as she hurried into the house through the garage. Plastic grocery bags filled to bursting dangled from each wrist as she made her way into the kitchen.

  All the other times, she had settled in. Three pregnancies, three patterns. They all ran the same. First she was exhausted, then energized and then she fell into a kind of nesting mode. Each and every time it had been like that. Each phase had lasted approximately three months.

  This time around, she seemed to go through the entire cycle every single day. As she deposited all the bags onto the island in the middle of her kitchen, she couldn’t help wondering if one morning she was just going to explode.

  At this point in the afternoon, she had reached the nesting mode. But she was not moving nearly as fast as she was accustomed to. Or needed to for that matter. An hour ago, she’d been at the Mayfield residence in north Bedford, showing the house, which seemed to have gotten stuck in a time warp circa 1980, to a young couple who, despite the fact that they were just starting out, really, really, wanted to own their own home. She sympathized with that desire, remembering the way she’d felt when she’d first married Jason. She’d wanted her own home more than anything. So, when it came to the young couple, she’d been full of encouragement and content to allow them to wander through the house slowly—until she’d noticed the time.

  Robert and Lynda were due at the house in less than three hours.

  Which meant that she needed to shop, cook and get ready in approximately two. Laurel felt exhausted just thinking about it.

  With apologies, she had hustled the young couple back outside, told them to think about it and see if they could come close to Mrs. Mayfield’s asking price. Since the house belonged to a seventy-four-year-old widow who was looking to relocate, she’d told them there was definitely some room for play between what Mrs. Mayfield was asking and what she might be willing to accept. Laurel had delivered her suggestion as rapidly as possible, spurred on by visions of undercooked veal, an overly tart apple pie and a dining room table surrounded by some very unhappy, disgruntled dinner guests.

  She had shopped the same way, flying down one aisle and up another in the supermarket located two miles from her home. She’d made it in and out in less than half an hour.

  But now that she was finally home, with everything she needed housed somewhere in the five bags she’d barely managed to drag in, Laurel felt as if all the air had suddenly been sucked out of her. God, but she wished she could tap into something that would make her feel more like her old self instead of merely a two-dimensional version of herself.

  She heard a noise behind her and turned around. The house was supposed to be empty. The tall, lanky frame of her youngest was in the doorway. He looked as surprised to see her as she was to see him.

  “Christopher, I didn’t know you’d be home.”

  He made a little vague movement with his shoulders and then addressed his answer to the wall. “Class got canceled.”

  Laurel began to unpack the various bags. “Good, I could really use some help. I’m running behind.” Which, in Laurel-speak meant that she wasn’t going to be early, the way she usually was.

  But Christopher was already backtracking, making his way to the garage door. “I got plans, Mom.”

  She stopped unpacking and turned around to face him. He wasn’t about to get away so easily. It was time they had this out. The help she was asking for was only an excuse. “Which you didn’t have before your class got canceled.”

  Christopher frowned, temporarily lost in the face of her answer. “Yeah, but—”

  Ordinarily, she let things slide. But not this time. She needed to be a little tougher with “her baby,” she realized. After all, he was twenty, almost twenty-one. Not exactly a child anymore.

  “Look, I need a little help here. Half an hour of your time, that’s all I’m asking.” She pinned him with a look that he could feel even when his eyes were averted from hers. “Is that such a big deal? There was a time when you used to hang around me all the time.”

  The reminder made Christopher petulant. He was trying to pretend that part of his life never happened. “I was ten.”

  “And a lot less complicated,” she recalled. Laurel banked down the ache that suddenly rose up in her throat. Instead, she tried to focus on unpacking the groceries.

  “Yeah, well—” he shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans “—things were a lot less complicated then.”

  And you were a lot less embarrassed to let the world know you even had a mother, she added silently.

  “You know,” Laurel continued out loud as she set the contents of each bag out on the island before deciding where to put it, “there were times back then when I thought you were almost hermetically sealed to me.”

  He snorted. Absently, he picked up the jars of sauce and placed them inside the pantry. “How did you stand it?”

  She smiled at him, a fond expression on her face. “The part that didn’t worry about you becoming too attached to me loved it.”

  Christopher shrugged, disinterested. Disgusted. “I grew up.”

  “Good,” Laurel declared cheerfully. The last bag empty, she folded it and stuck the lot into one of the drawers next to the sink. “Then you can reach the top shelf for me when I need it.” She started to take out the dinnerware and then decided she could do that after the meal was in the oven. “I’ve got your aunt Lynda and a man I went to school with coming for dinner tonight and I’d really rather not hand them frozen entrées on a stick.”

  “Ma—” The single word he drew out fairly dripped with protest.

  How long was he going to continue being embarrassed by her condition? “I promise not to give birth while you’re here.”

  The look on his face was pure disgust, but he held his tongue. He was brooding again, she thought. Her sunny boy had turned into the Grinch—and she couldn’t stand it anymore. She paused for a moment, searching h
is face for some sign of the boy she had once known. The one who kept climbing on her lap and vying for all her attention. He was still in there, somewhere. At least she hoped so.

  “You want to talk about it?”

  Like everything else that had gone on between them lately, the question made Christopher look darkly uncomfortable. “Talk about what?”

  “About why you’re so mad at me,” Laurel answered simply.

  He made an annoyed, unintelligible sound. “I’m not mad at you.”

  She begged to differ on that point. “You leave the room every time I come in, keep to yourself and have hardly said five sentences to me in almost four months.” Christopher turned away from her. “You’re either mad at me or you think I have the plague.” She got in front of him, refusing to be ignored any longer. “Christopher, I’m your mother and I love being your mother, but you have to understand, I am more than just that.”

  His eyes seemed flat when he looked at her. But she thought she saw a glimmer of something beneath. Hurt? Sadness? “Yeah, I know, you’re a hotshot real estate agent.”

  That wasn’t the point she was trying to make. She resented the tone he used. It bordered on insolent. “I’m also a woman, married to a wonderful man I’m very much in love with—”

  He pretended to put his hands on his ears in order to block her out. “I don’t need the birds-and-the-bees speech right now, Mom.” His eyes swept over her belly unintentionally. “You took care of that little thing for all of us.”

  She resisted the temptation to put her hand on his shoulder. “So it is about the baby.”

  “No, it’s about me,” he finally shouted. “It’s about how embarrassing it is to have your senior-citizen mother running around, pregnant.”

  She felt her temper spiking. Another outward sign of the hormone mutiny that was going on inside of her. She struggled to keep it all in check.

  “You never were good in math, Chris. I’m many years shy of being in that category and besides, ‘senior citizens’ don’t like being referred to by that term anymore. I hear they prefer ‘seasoned citizen.’” She pushed a bag of potatoes toward him. “Here, peel these for me.” Her mouth curved whimsically. “I’m too feeble to be trusted with a knife.”

  Christopher opened his mouth, frustrated. “I didn’t mean—”

  She cut him off. “Yes, you did. But you’re wrong. Except for a few extraneous aches and pains I have now that I didn’t have twenty-one years ago, when I was carrying you,” she deliberately emphasized, “I’m still in pretty good shape. Forty-five today is not the same thing as forty-five ten, twenty years ago. Forty-five is still young and vibrant these days.”

  A knife in one hand, a potato in the other, he was about to begin his KP duty when he stopped, horrified. “Are you telling me that you’re going to have another baby after this one?”

  Hearing him, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The very idea of having a fifth child made her feel like doing both. She shook her head. “Oh God, no. Four children is more than enough, thank you.”

  Laurel pulled a very worn recipe book out of one of the drawers. She knew the recipe she was preparing tonight by heart, but it was comforting to have the actual directions somewhere close by. Just in case she forgot something.

  Opening the book and setting it on the counter, she looked over toward Christopher. “I’m going to need a frying pan and also a large pan.” She pointed toward where she kept the items. “And a smile.”

  That only succeeded in producing a frown. “What?”

  “You heard me, mister. I’ve hardly seen you in four months. Since I’ve somehow managed to commandeer you for the next half hour, I’d like you to smile so I can remember my son the way he used to be.”

  Christopher made no reply. Instead, he gave her a sideway glance and what looked like a grimace.

  “Close enough,” she murmured. “You used to look like that when you were a little guy and had gas.”

  She didn’t catch what he said next, but she thought maybe it was better that way.

  CHAPTER 24

  The minutes chased each other around the clock. Christopher made no attempt to talk and only answered in single syllables when she put a question to him. Laurel was left wondering if she should say something about his attitude, or just let it go and hope that it would work itself out.

  She had another four and a half months of being pregnant to go and she wasn’t sure she could stand that. Jason seemed to have finally come around, but that could only be temporary again. God, but she felt lonely out here, adrift on this “older” mother-to-be float she was on.

  She was about to make another stab at a conversation when the house phone rang. Christopher looked up, a prisoner hoping to either be paroled or escape.

  “Cut the potatoes into pieces after you finish peeling them,” Laurel instructed before picking up the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Mitchell?” a warm voice on the other end of the line asked.

  She tried to place the voice as she answered, “This is Laurel Mitchell.”

  “Mrs. Mitchell, this is Annie Wise from Blair Memorial. I was the one who performed the amniocentesis on you at the hospital earlier this week.”

  “Yes, I remember.” Laurel wiped her free hand against the towel on the counter, then took the receiver and held it with both hands, bracing herself. A thousand butterflies had suddenly been let loose inside of her stomach, doing barrel rolls. “Is there something wrong?” she asked.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Christopher’s head jerk up in her direction. The knife he’d been using slid out of his hand, onto the counter. He had her full attention.

  And Annie Wise had hers.

  “No, nothing’s wrong,” Annie told her cheerfully, warmth radiating from every word. “I’m just calling to tell you the test results.”

  “Which are?” The question was all but strangled. Laurel had stopped breathing.

  “That the baby is fine,” Annie assured her.

  “Fine?” Laurel echoed, so relieved that she was having trouble processing the word.

  “As in everything seems to be in order and perfect,” Annie laughed. There was a slight pause and then she asked, “Would you like to know the baby’s sex?”

  The question caught Laurel off guard. She thought she already knew the baby’s sex. After all, three tries, three boys. Any sense of mystery had evaporated when Christopher had made his way into the world. She’d felt certain that if she had twelve babies, they would all be males.

  A smile played across her lips. The woman obviously enjoyed telling parents if they were going to have a boy or girl. Why rob her of that after she’d set her mind at such ease?

  “Sure, why not?” Laurel replied whimsically. She saw Christopher shifting, looking at her curiously. “What is it, a boy or girl?”

  “Girl.”

  Laurel felt as if a bomb had just detonated at her feet, rendering her deaf. Or at least, incapable of hearing properly. “Excuse me?”

  “A girl,” Annie repeated. She could hear the woman chuckling to herself. “You’re having a girl, Mrs. Mitchell. In case you’ve forgotten, that’s a softer version of a boy.”

  Laurel felt as if her throat had turned into the perimeter of the Mohave Desert. “You’re sure?”

  Christopher had rounded the island and made his way over to her, concern etched onto his face.

  “Mom, what is it?” he asked.

  But she was busy listening to the woman on the other end of the line. Listening and trying to understand.

  “Ninety-nine percent,” Annie was saying. “I’m forwarding the results of the test to your doctor,” she continued.

  “Okay.” Laurel felt numb. Utterly and completely numb. A girl. She was having a girl. “That’s fine,” she heard herself say although she had no recollection of forming the words. No recollection of thinking or rendering coherent answers. The word goodbye appeared of its own volition, as if it was preprogrammed to appear at a ce
rtain interval.

  “Mom, what’s wrong?” Christopher asked again.

  Laurel blinked, looking down at the receiver. It was just lying there on the island. She needed to hang it up, she realized. Picking it up again, she walked over to the wall unit and hung it up. The receiver fell off, clattering to the tile floor.

  She stared down at it.

  “Mom?”

  Now more than a tinge of concern was locked inside the word. Christopher put his hands on her shoulders, much the way his father would, and tried to get her to look at him. To come out of the trance she was obviously in.

  “Mom, what’s wrong?” he repeated. “Who just called? What did they say?”

  She looked at him, trying to pull her surroundings into focus. Trying to think coherently. It was a struggle. “It’s a girl.”

  His fear prevented him from taking her answer on the simplest level. Laurel Mitchell was a pillar of strength, a woman who could push on and do what needed to be done while battling a 102-degree fever because her kids were sick and needed her. She had never, ever even once, to his recollection, fallen apart.

  To see her like this made the foundations of his newly constructed independent world wobble dangerously. “What?”

  Laurel blinked again, coming around. Letting the sunshine in. A warmth had begun to radiate all through her. “I’m having a girl, Christopher. We’re having a girl,” she amended because everything she ever did had ultimately been for and about the family. As the words finally started to sink in, a smile began to blossom on her lips. “You’re going to have a sister.”

  Relief was ushered in with confusion. He’d never thought about the new addition being female. A little sister to watch over. Something cute and pink that was vulnerable and needed protecting.

  His mouth dropped opened. “You’re kidding.”

  “I wouldn’t know how anymore,” she said honestly, far too shell-shocked to make anything up. A euphoria was gradually taking hold. A thousand fragments of thought began crowding into her head. Her eyes widened as she suddenly realized that she and Christopher were the only ones who knew this wonderful thing. She clutched at his arm. “Your father, I have to call your father.”