house on South Main less and less, it was just as well.
He was only a man. What grew inside her was a son.
She would never be alone again.
When she felt the pangs of labor, she had no fear. Through the sweaty hours of pain, she held one thing in the front of her mind. Her James. Her son. Her child.
Her eyes blurred with exhaustion, and the heat, a living, breathing monster, was somehow worse than
the pain.
She could see the doctor and the midwife exchange looks. Grim, frowning looks. But she was young,
she was healthy, and she would do this thing.
There was no time; hour bled into hour with gaslight shooting flickering shadows around the room. She heard, through the waves of exhaustion, a thin cry.
'My son.' Tears slid down her cheeks. 'My son.'
The midwife held her down, murmuring, murmuring, 'Lie still now. Drink a bit. Rest now.'
She sipped to soothe her fiery throat, tasted laudanum. Before she could object, she was drifting off,
deep down. Far away.
When she woke, the room was dim, the draperies pulled tight over the windows. When she stirred, the doctor rose from his chair, came close to lift her hand, to check her pulse.
'My son. My baby. I want to see my baby.'
'I'll send for some broth. You slept a long time.'
'My son. He'll be hungry. Have him brought to me.'
'Madam.' The doctor sat on the side of the bed. His eyes seemed very pale, very troubled. 'I'm sorry. The child was stillborn.'
What clutched her heart was monstrous, vicious, rending her with burning talons of grief and fear.
'I heard him cry. This is a lie! Why are you saying such an awful thing to me?'
'She never cried.' Gently, he took her hands. 'Your labor was long and difficult. You were delirious at the end of it. Madam, I'm sorry. You delivered a girl, stillborn.'
She wouldn't believe it. She screamed and raged and wept, and was sedated only to wake to scream
and rage and weep again.
She hadn't wanted the child. And then she'd wanted nothing else.
Her grief was beyond name, beyond reason.
Grief drove her mad.
ONE
She burned the cream sauce. Stella would always remember that small, irritating detail, as she would remember the roll and boom of thunder from the late-summer storm and the sound of her children squabbling in the living room.
She would remember the harsh smell, the sudden scream of the smoke alarms, and the way she'd mechanically taken the pan off the burner and dumped it in the sink.
She wasn't much of a cook, but she was—in general—a precise cook. For this welcome-home meal, she'd planned to prepare the chicken Alfredo, one of Kevin's favorites, from scratch and match it with
a nice field greens salad and some fresh, crusty bread with pesto dipping sauce.
In her tidy kitchen in her pretty suburban house she had all the ingredients lined up, her cookbook propped on its stand with the plastic protector over the pages.
She wore a navy-blue bib apron over her fresh pants and shirt and had her mass of curling red hair bundled up on top of her head, out of her way.
She was getting started later than she'd hoped, but work had been a madhouse all day. All the fall
flowers at the garden center were on sale, and the warm weather brought customers out in droves.
Not that she minded. She loved the work, absolutely loved her job as manager of the nursery. It felt
good to be back in the thick of it, full-time now that Gavin was in school and Luke old enough for a
play group. How in the world had her baby grown up enough for first grade?
And before she knew it, Luke would be ready for kindergarten.
She and Kevin should start getting a little more proactive about making that third child. Maybe tonight, she thought with a smile. When she got into that final and very personal stage of her welcome-home plans.
As she measured ingredients, she heard the crash and wail from the next room. Glutton for punishment, she thought as she dropped what she was doing to rush in. Thinking about having another baby when
the two she had were driving her crazy.
She stepped into the room, and there they were. Her little angels. Gavin, sunny blond with the devil in
his eyes, sat innocently bumping two Matchbox cars into each other while Luke, his bright red hair a
dead ringer for hers, screamed over his scattered wooden blocks.
She didn't have to witness the event to know. Luke had built; Gavin had destroyed.
In their house it was the law of the land.
'Gavin. Why?' She scooped up Luke, patted his back. 'It's okay, baby. You can build another.'
'My house! My house!'
'It was an accident,' Gavin claimed, and that wicked twinkle that made a bubble of laughter rise to her throat remained. 'The car wrecked it.'
'I bet the car did—after you aimed it at his house. Why can't you play nice? He wasn't bothering you.'
'I was playing. He's just a baby.'
'That's right.' And it was the look that came into her eyes that had Gavin dropping his. 'And if you're going to be a baby, too, you can be a baby in your room. Alone.'
'It was a stupid house.'
'Nuh-uh! Mom.' Luke took Stella's face in both his hands, looked at her with those avid, swimming
eyes. 'It was good.'
'You can build an even better one. Okay? Gavin, leave him alone. I'm not kidding. I'm busy in the kitchen, and Daddy's going to be home soon. Do you want to be punished for his welcome home?'
'No. I can't do anything.'
'That's too bad. It's really a shame you don't have any toys.' She set Luke down. 'Build your house, Luke. Leave his blocks alone, Gavin. If I have to come in here again, you're not going to like it.'
'I want to go
'Well, it's raining, so you can't. We're all stuck in here, so behave.'
Flustered, she went back to the cookbook, tried to clear her head. In an irritated move, she snapped on the kitchen TV. God, she missed Kevin. The boys had been cranky all afternoon, and she felt rushed
and harried and overwhelmed. With Kevin out of town these last four days she'd been scrambling
around like a maniac. Dealing with the house, the boys, her job, all the errands alone.
Why was it that the household appliances waited, just waited, to go on strike when Kevin left town? Yesterday the washer had gone buns up, and just that morning the toaster oven had fried itself.
They had such a nice rhythm when they were together, dividing up the chores, sharing the discipline
and the pleasure in their sons. If he'd been home, he could have sat down to play with—and referee—
the boys while she cooked.
Or better, he'd have cooked and she'd have played with the boys.
She missed the smell of him when he came up behind her to lean down and rub his cheek over hers.
She missed curling up to him in bed at night, and the way they'd talk in the dark about their plans, or laugh at something the boys had done that day.
For God's sake, you'd think the man had been gone four months instead of four days, she told herself.
She listened with half an ear to Gavin trying to talk Luke into building a skyscraper that they could both wreck as she stirred her cream sauce and watched the wind swirl leaves outside the window.
He wouldn't be traveling so much after he got his promotion. Soon, she reminded herself. He'd been working so
