Mistletoe Baby

She scrambled around the side of the cart, retrieving the lone item inside and trying to tuck it beneath the hem of her sweater before he noticed. After the holidays, she needed to think seriously about making her fresh start somewhere else, not a small Georgia town that had only one major grocery store. “Hi.”

“You’re out and about early,” he said casually. “You looked so tired when you left Mom and Dad’s last night, I expected you would sleep late.”

The same frantic dizziness she’d felt in the car last week overcame her, a hundred times worse. She willed it away. David would probably notice if she hyperventilated or-

“Miss!” A man in a white shirt and red pharmacy vest was speed-walking down the aisle, waving his hands. “Miss, I’m afraid I need to…Oh, hi, Mrs. Waide.”

Rachel had refilled enough prescriptions here that most of the pharmacy staff knew her by name.

The bespectacled young man gestured at her hood. “I didn’t realize it was you. Thought you were a shoplifter.”

David laughed outright. “A shoplifter? She once made me turn around and drive back into Atlanta when she realized the restaurant left our dessert off the bill.”

“Well, I was afraid it would come out of the waiter’s pay,” she said weakly.

Too bad she didn’t have that Christmas-tree star with her now; she knew exactly what she’d wish for-the earth to open up and swallow her whole before the kid in the vest-

“Well, obviously she’s not a shoplifter. But you wouldn’t believe what people are too embarrassed to buy from this section. When she stuck that box under her-”

“I was on my way to pay for it!” She flinched at the shrillness of her own voice. The pharmacy guy actually rubbed his ear.

David pinned her with his gaze. “What box?”

“Nothing. Girl stuff,” she prevaricated, already walking toward the register.

Her stubborn husband, holding his green basket of skim milk and men’s deodorant, fell in step with her. “You’re embarrassed? Hell, Rach, I’ve bought tampons for you before.”

“That was different.”

“You know, you should probably put the ‘girl stuff,’” he said in an exaggerated whisper, “in the cart so that no one else thinks you’re shoplifting.”

“No one else saw me with it.” But when David chose to pursue something, he was doggedly single-minded. It would be just like him to follow her into the line. She chunked the pregnancy test back into the cart.

His jaw dropped. For a moment, she took satisfaction in having rendered him speechless.

“When,” he demanded, “were you going to tell me?”

“I don’t even know if there’s anything to tell. Hence, the test.”

His blue eyes shone. “You think there’s a chance, though?”

He looked excited, and it was hard to battle back her own automatic eagerness. A baby! What would it be like to hold a baby of her own? She gave a little jerk of her head. Don’t set yourself up for disappointments.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“You’d have to be more than a month and a half along. Maybe two?” In his enthusiasm, he was getting louder, drawing a few glances. “It’s been at least that long since-”

“Hey! Do you mind if we don’t have this conversation in the middle of the grocery store?”

“Good point. I’ll follow you to Winnie’s,” he said decisively. “Unless you want to come home?”

No, she had the memory of too many tests there, too many broken-hearted moments. “David, this could be nothing. It’s probably nothing. I can call you later. Or we could have lunch?” That would give her time to adjust either way.

He stared. “You’ve got to be joking. After everything we went through to…”

You mean everything I went through? It was a knee-jerk reaction. She knew it wasn’t fair. The physical side effects, and a significant portion of the emotional ones, had been hers to bear, but he’d paid his own price for their attempts.

“All right,” she conceded. “I’ll wait for you at Winnie’s.”

She barely allowed herself to peek at her rearview mirror on the drive to their subdivision, but she exhaled in relief as she approached Winnie’s house. David wasn’t behind her yet, so she had a few minutes to get her rioting emotions under control. She’d wanted this so badly, for so long, that hope seemed a natural response. But the timing! Divorce in the middle of a pregnancy? There was fear, too, as she relived the pains that had awakened her in the spring, the sight of blood and the sudden, excruciating knowledge that she and David wouldn’t be parents by winter after all.

With the back of her hand, she dashed away a few tears. Even from the driveway, she could hear the dogs barking in greeting. It was best not to leave Hildie inside when she got excited. Besides, the dogs would pitch a fit when David showed up, and Rachel could do without the clamor. Her temples were throbbing.

By the time David arrived, she’d ushered the dogs into the yard and poured two glasses of tea. It felt strangely formal and a little surreal, her own husband knocking on the front door. She thought briefly of their first date, the way her pulse had jumped when he’d knocked on the door of her hotel room. She’d told him when he asked her to dinner that she wouldn’t be in town long. Then you should definitely have dinner with me, he’d said, undeterred. It’s a limited-time opportunity. He’d been so good-looking.

He still was. The difference was that, back then, she’d delighted in being swept off her feet with no thought for what would happen once she landed.

In the kitchen, she handed him a glass. “Sorry it’s so sweet. I wasn’t expecting you when I brewed it.” David liked his iced tea with barely enough sugar to still call himself a Southerner.

“Thank you.” He studied her face as if searching for clues. Was he trying to decide if she looked pregnant?

“Or there might be some soda left in the fridge,” she said nervously.

“Rach, I didn’t come over for the drink.”

She gripped the back of a kitchen chair. “I know that. I’m just…”

“Anxious?” He smiled gently.

“Petrified. You?” In this candid moment in an acquaintance’s kitchen, Rachel felt closer to him than she had during the past three months in their own house. An unspoken truce sheltered them as they teetered on the edge of discovery.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted.

She returned his smile. “David Waide is unsure of something? The David Waide?”

“Yeah, well, we’ll call that big surprise number two of the morning.” He glanced pointedly at the white plastic grocery bag on the counter.

She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “You know that if it turns out…if it had turned out positive, I never would have kept it from you. There didn’t seem like anything to tell yet. I was still-”

“I get it.” He set his untouched drink on the table. “So.”

Right. The moment of truth. “Why don’t you, uh, have a seat, and I’ll be right back?”

“Okay.” He swallowed. “Rach…”

She looked back over her shoulder.

“I don’t know. I feel like I should say something.” He flashed a wan smile. “Good luck?”

A semihysterical laugh burbled out of her. Once upon a time, the only thing she’d ever worried about before a test was whether her parents would be satisfied with an A, in case she fell short of an A-plus.

She thoroughly read the instructions, even though she’d done this before. After completing the necessary tasks, she decided to rejoin David. Even with the strain between them, she didn’t want to wait by herself for the next three minutes. He was pacing restlessly, but halted when he saw her. The question burned bright in his eyes.

“We’re supposed to wait now,” she explained.

“Oh. How long?”

She glanced at the clock on the microwave. “Probably two more minutes.”

“Ah.” He resumed pacing.

“That’s not helping my nerves,” she said without hostility.