They came simultaneously.
Neither of them spoke for a while afterward, and he stayed on top of her until he fell out. He rolled next to her on the bed and tried to kiss her, but his lips instead became entangled in her hair. She giggled in spite of herself.
Gordon smiled. 'Cheered up?'
'Against my will.'
'It works every time.'
Marina bit her lower lip and put a finger lightly on his mouth. 'We might have killed the symptoms, but the problem's still there. We still have to talk.'
He nodded. 'Shoot.'
'What are we going to do?'
Her voice was completely serious once again, and Gordon sat up, looking into her eyes, trying to gauge her feelings, trying to determine in which direction she was leaning. 'I don't know,' he said.
'I know the tests that were supposed to be positive were positive and the tests that were supposed to be negative were negative, but I'm still worried. What if they're wrong? What do we do then?'
'There's nothing we can do.'
'I'm not sure it's worth the risk. I don't know if I want to take that chance. I'm not sure I'm willing to go through with it because I'm not sure I could handle it if anything went wrong.'
He put his hand in back of her head and leaned toward her, looking into her eyes. 'It's going to have to be your decision. And I'll be behind you no matter what you decide. But I think we should see it through.
The doctors said everything's okay. There's probably a small margin of error there, but not much.' He smiled at her. 'I think it would be nice to have a little miniature Marina running around here.'
She smiled back at him. 'Somehow I knew that you were going to be in favor of going through with it.'
'What do you think?'
She ran her tongue across her teeth and shrugged noncommittally. 'I
don't know.'
'You're not leaning one way or the other?'
'Well, maybe I am. But--'
'You'd better decide pretty quick, you know.'
'I know. But I'll have to quit school, we'll have to get by on just your salary ...'
'You mean this is because you're worried about money?'
'No, of course not. But we have to take everything into account, and so far the bad points seem to out weight the good.'
'Which way are you leaning?'
She tried to look at him seriously, full in the face, but she could not keep the smile from her lips. 'I'd kind of like a little Marina running around the house, too.'
'Then it's settled.'
'Not quite. I still want to think it over a bit.' She held up a hand. 'I know, I know. I'd better think fast.' She kissed his nose. 'I will.'
Gordon kissed her back, then put his head down on her stomach, as if listening. 'Hey,' he said, sitting back up. 'What about sex? How much longer can we keep on doing it?'
Marina laughed, and her laugh sounded happy, free of troubles. 'I should've known you'd worry about that.'
'I'm not--'
'We can do it as long as we want.'
'It won't hurt the baby?'
She thought for a moment. 'Well, maybe we'll have to try a few new positions. You probably shouldn't be on top all of the time.'
'All of the time?'
She smiled. 'Pretty close.'
He looked at her haughtily. 'Maybe we should give it up for the next eight months or so. Just to be on the safe side. After all, you do have two other holes.'
'Oh no,' she said.
He laughed and kissed her. 'So how do you feel about Sandra?'
'I was thinking more along the lines of Olga or Helga. Perhaps Bertha.'
'If it was going to be a boy you would've planned on Percy?'
'Or Otis,' she agreed.
Gordon leaned back against the brass headboard, his head fitting neatly between two brass bars. 'You laugh now, but we're really going to have to start thinking about names soon.' He cleared his throat. 'If you decide to keep the baby,' he added.
Marina swung her legs over the side of the bed. 'We will have to start thinking about names,' she said.
'We will? For sure?'
She nodded. 'We will.'
'That was quick.'
'I'm a quick thinker.' She walked over to the Queen Anne chair in the middle of the room and took her flowered bathrobe from its seat, putting it on. She pulled her hair from inside of the robe and let it hang outside the collar. She walked out of the bedroom.
Gordon heard her enter the bathroom and a few moments later heard the toilet flush. She walked into the kitchen .. . and came screaming back down the hall.
'Marina!' Gordon jumped out of bed and almost collided with her as she ran through the bedroom door. He grabbed her shoulders. 'What happened?' he demanded. 'What's wrong?'
She was sobbing so hysterically that he could not make out what she was saying. He pushed past her into the hall and hurried into the kitchen.
Where he stopped.
The makeshift cat box Marina had fashioned from a Pepsi carton was overturned, its dirt spilled all over the tile floor. The kitten's food and water dishes had also been emptied onto the kitchen floor.
And everything was covered with cat blood.
Red blood had been smeared all over the yellow refrigerator like paint.
Smears of blood and black guts were trailed across the table top. A gray paw stuck out of the garbage disposal in the sink.
The kitten itself, or what was left of her, was lying in the middle of the floor directly in front of the stove. The body--little more than gutted skin and fur--was spread-eagled on the floor and pinned in place with steak knives. The head, severed from the body, lay like an unused gray tennis ball, dead greenish yellow eyes staring up toward the roof.
Gordon's eyes quickly scanned the room. The windows were shut and locked, as was the door. He ran into the living room, but the front door was also closed and bolted.
How?
What?
He opened the front door and looked outside. The mist had dissipated somewhat, but the air still felt damp. A forerunner of autumn; a taste of the coming fall. His eyes searched the gravel driveway, but he could see nothing unusual. He closed the door and returned to the bedroom where Marina, still crying, lay huddled under the blankets. He knelt next to her. 'It's all right,' he said, hugging her close. 'It's okay.'
But he was not sure himself that everything was OK. He suddenly felt an unfounded irrational fear for the baby.
ONE
The hitchhiker stood next to the off-ramp of Black Canyon Highway on the road to Randall. He had been standing there for several hours and was sweating profusely in the wet heat of late summer, but the stains under his arms and on his back were covered by his expensive jacket. As always, his tie was securely knotted. Next to
