Becca could have handled the questions, fielded them without making any of her family suspicious. There was nothing to be suspicious about, she reminded herself frequently, since those home pregnancy tests weren’t as reliable as a doctor’s visit…were they? The sticks lied now and then…didn’t they? Things went awry. For all she knew, she’d stuck the wrong end in the cup.
But there was no point in raising any questions in their minds, putting herself under the family microscope, having them all on the lookout for any changes in her. She just didn’t need that right now. Not if she wanted to keep panic at bay.
Lunch had been the usual pleasant couple of hours, she reflected later that afternoon. It was a constant in her life, that once-in-a-week exchange of news and views. Being with her mother, her sisters, joining in the familiar, funny, irritating and completely wonderful conversation, had helped her more than they’d ever know. She’d needed them and, as always, they’d been there for her. They always were. She and her sisters and her mom, no matter how well they knew one another, how irritated they got, how different they were, could always be counted on to offer support.
Besides, they were all helping her with another project that was very dear to her. A civic project that was long overdue. They were researching the biography of Samuel Montford, the founder not only of Montford University, but of Shelter Valley itself. Some of the basic information about their founder was general knowledge, like the fact that he was originally from Boston, that he came from a wealthy family. That he’d lived with some Southwestern Indian tribes for a time. That he’d founded the town almost a hundred and fifty years before. But there was so much more they didn’t know. Like why he’d left Boston to begin with. Where he’d met his wife. Why he’d chosen Shelter Valley as his home.
The man had been an enigma, protecting some aspects of his past with a vengeance that nearly equaled the intense love he felt for his family. But as the future descended on Shelter Valley with frightening speed, Becca felt a desperate urge to remind the town’s residents of their roots.
Before they’d left for an extended stay in Europe, the current Montford heirs—parents to Samuel Montford the fourth—had lifted the family’s ban on the personal details of the first Samuel Montford’s life, allowing Becca to pursue a more thorough knowledge of the man and his town. They even turned over some journals that had been locked in a vault in their private library.
Shelter Valley meant everything to Becca. Home. Family. Security. Love. Everything that mattered was righ
t there in that town. She was planning to reaffirm Shelter Valley’s sense of itself and its history with a big Fourth of July celebration that would culminate in the unveiling of Samuel Montford’s statue.
And thinking of the celebration, she had to start tracking down the founder’s namesake, Samuel Montford IV. He’d left town in disgrace almost ten years before, but surely by now everyone would be willing to accept him back. She knew his parents would be overjoyed—might even come home themselves if Sam was here. In any case, the man should be there for the unveiling of his great-grandfather’s statue. If she—
“You can get dressed now, Mrs. Parsons. I’ll see you in my office in a couple of minutes.”
Becca was brought back to her present surroundings, ones she’d been trying to avoid, with a jolt. The words were the first the doctor had spoken since she’d asked Becca a battery of questions before the exam. The lunch Becca had shared with her mother and sisters several hours before had settled like a rock in her stomach.
Well-versed in the techniques of not panicking, Becca remembered to breathe, slowly and deeply. She nodded and slid off the examining table. Early menopause was all it was. She knew that. So why was she feeling so much anxiety where there was no need for it?
Not for the first time that Wednesday afternoon, she wished her husband was with her.
He would have been, too, if she’d told him she’d made this appointment with a Tucson gynecologist.
She’d decided not to go to her own doctor in Phoenix. There hadn’t seemed any point in involving anyone who knew her—or her medical history. Anyone who might not understand that early menopause could be a good thing.
Changing quickly into the red business suit she’d worn for a meeting at the city offices that morning, Becca shivered. Everyone was saying the weather was unseasonably warm for mid-March, but everyone was wrong. Becca was cold.
Pulling on her jacket, she freed her hair from the collar, glancing around for a mirror. Tongue depressors, cotton swabs, innumerable scary-looking things, but no mirror.
“Menopause is nothing to get worked up about,” she muttered when she found herself hesitating to open the examining-room door. “Nothing to bother Will about, either.”
She was lucky, actually, that Will was so busy with the new signature building at Montford. She could have her little midlife crisis without involving him.
With one last reassuring pat to her flat stomach, she yanked open the door, marched down the hall to the doctor’s office and settled herself in a chair across from Dr. Hall’s desk.
“You’re forty-two, Mrs. Parsons?” the woman asked, frowning down at Becca’s chart.
“Yes.” So it was a little young for menopause; Becca wasn’t complaining. As a matter of fact, she thought the early onset a blessing, cause for celebration. She’d pick up a bottle of Dom Perignon on the way home.
And maybe some steaks, too, if the doctor would just quit frowning. At the moment Becca’s stomach didn’t want Becca to think about steaks.
“It says here that you’ve never been pregnant?” the woman asked, still reading the chart.
Becca shook her head. She didn’t like Dr. Hall’s glasses. They were just a bit too chic for someone who frowned so much. And who wore her hair in that old-fashioned twist that made her look more like a spinster schoolmarm than a compassionate caregiver.
The doctor raised her head, pinning Becca with an expectant stare.
“Have you ever been pregnant, Mrs. Parsons?” Dr. Hall asked.
“No. No, I haven’t.”
“You didn’t want children?” The woman’s lips were pursed, her brow still puckered, but at least her gaze was back on the chart in front of her.
Becca couldn’t help wondering what it was the woman saw there that was so interesting. “A long time ago I wanted children, yes,” she answered slowly. She hated having to tell this clinical woman about one of her greatest heartaches. Hated having to explain something that her regular gynecologist in Phoenix knew so well. “My husband, Will, and I tried for years, went to fertility specialists, spent far more money than we should have trying every way we could to have a family, but it just wasn’t meant to be.”