Becca's Baby

Becca’s stomach protested again. “Is Dr. Hall still there?”

“One moment, please.”

As it turned out, the doctor hadn’t left yet. She was quite willing to repeat what she’d told Becca earlier, in her office. This time, Becca heard every word.

Fifteen minutes later Becca dropped her cell phone into the console beside her. She put her foot on the gas and took the next ten miles at more than a hundred miles an hour. She was the dean’s wife. The town matron. The one other people came to when they had problems. The one who usually managed to solve those problems.

And she was losing it.

Whatever fates had thought her capable of handling this day were wrong. She couldn’t do this.

It was dark by the time she turned off at the Shelter Valley exit. Will would be home, wondering where she was. Hungry. Worried.

The first time they’d thought she was pregnant, Will had brought home a beautiful little antique table box he’d spent their grocery money on, with an inscription carved in its frosted glass top. It had read Mommy’s Treasures.

Inside she’d found a tiny square card on which he’d written, “I’m thankful you’re going to be the mother of my children, but more than that, I’m thankful you’re my wife.”

The box had remained on a shelf in a closet after that first disappointment. And after the second and third, as well. Becca wasn’t quite sure when it had disappeared. She only knew that one day, when she was looking for something in that closet, she’d noticed it missing.

Although they’d never talked about it, Becca knew Will had disposed of it for her. For both of them. The precious box had been too painful a reminder of broken dreams.

Becca couldn’t face him. Couldn’t see to his needs. Couldn’t even see to her own.

So where did she go now?

Her mother? Unequivocally no. Her mother lived in the past. She always had, but Rose’s preoccupation had grown much worse since Becca’s father’s fatal heart attack a decade ago.

And she couldn’t go to Sari. Though she’d always been closest to her younger-by-a-year sister, Sari was still grieving for the daughter, her only child, she’d lost two years before. Becca’s problem couldn’t help but remind Sari of Tanya, would only be a catalyst for more pain.

And as she’d never confided in her two older sisters in her life, now probably wasn’t the time to start.

Mentally running through everyone she knew in town, Becca had reasons for avoiding all of them. Her friends were married, had families they’d be sitting down to dinner with. Her colleagues would be doing the same. Not that she had that kind of relationship with them, anyway. You didn’t show up on their doorsteps with a personal problem. Shelter Valley residents were close enough to know everyone else’s business, but they still respected one another’s privacy.

She thought of the minister at church, but other than the one committee she still served on, she and Will weren’t too active anymore—didn’t even always attend church. She’d grown somewhat distant from Reverend Creighton.

Randi. Driving by Shining Way, the street where Will’s sister Miranda, younger by twelve years, had just moved six months before, Becca suddenly knew where she had to go. She hung a U-turn in the middle of the road and was in front of Randi’s new house in seconds.

“Please be home,” she begged aloud, searching the pretty house for signs of life.

There was a light on in the back—the kitchen—but that didn’t mean anything. Randi always left lights on.

She rang the bell with shaking fingers. And waited. Tapping her foot, counting, blowing the bangs off her forehead, she tried to think where Randi might be if she wasn’t home. Did she have a game tonight? Becca couldn’t remember her having said so when they’d had dinner with Will’s parents and Randi at his brother Greg’s house on Sunday.

Could Becca show up at the field dressed in a suit, looking for her?

“Becca! What a nice— What’s wrong?” Randi stood framed in the doorway, wearing a pair of tight-fitting gym shorts and a T-shirt.

Relieved that her sister-in-law was there, after all, Becca opened her mouth to make light of the day she’d had. To practice on Randi before going home.

She burst into tears, instead.

FUNNY HOW LIFE could be so fickle, Will thought without humor. What had been a great day, from this morning’s discussion, through the golf game and lunch to the late financial meeting, had turned into a nightmare. Becca was missing.

Carrying the portable phone with him, he strode through the house again, looking for the note he must have missed. Becca never went anywhere without leaving him a note. He lifted his briefcase off the kitchen counter, in spite of the fact that he’d already checked there twice since arriving home more than an hour before. And he racked his brain for someone else to call.

There was no council meeting tonight, or any other type of meeting he could think of that she could possibly be attending. She hadn’t said anything about being gone that evening, and she always told him her schedule. He’d already called someone from every one of Becca’s committees, anyway. The Women’s League. The Fine Arts Council. Church. He’d called her mother and Sari, though he was careful not to alarm either of them. Her friends were all eating dinner with their families and hadn’t heard from her. His only comfort was that neither had the hospital nor the police department.

His mind raced ahead, concocting a scenario worse than an accident. Becca was strikingly beautiful. Could she have caught the attention of some sick bastard? Surely not here in Shelter Valley. There hadn’t been a rape in years. And she hadn’t mentioned anything about making the one-hour trip into Phoenix.