Once in Every Life

"Yesterday you had a baby. Our son."

She started shaking, and all of a sudden remembered where she'd seen this man. He wasn't an intern. He was the man she'd chosen in the theater of second chances.

"Oh my God ..." She clamped a hand over her mouth.

It had been real. Real.

The bus had killed her. She'd died in Seattle and been reborn in the body of a woman who'd died in childbirth. Questions and concerns and hopes and fears tumbled one after another in her mind. What did one do at a time like this? Laugh, cry, scream?what?

One thing at a time, Tess. Only one.

She took a deep breath and offered him a tenuous smile. "I?I need some time here. To think. How about getting me that aspirin?" At his utterly blank stare, she added, "Acetaminophen is fine, too. Whatever you have. That and a glass of ice water would be great."

"Aceta?what?"

"Tylenol."

He shook his head. "I don't understand, Amarylis. What are you asking for?"

Tess shoved her hand through the bunched-up sheets in search of the nurses' button. Except there was no button; no button, no metal railing, no utilitarian food tray. There was only a splintery, old-fashioned wooden bed.

The woman had given birth at home?

Tess shivered. No wonder the poor woman had died.

She glanced around the room for a bottle of something?anything?that would take the edge off her migraine. Sunlight spilled through a small, thick-paned window and splashed across a dull, planked floor. Blue

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gingham curtains hung listlessly on either side of the small window, their hand-hemmed edges bleached from too many days in the sun. No flowers peeked through the glass or brightened the sill. Against the far wall, standing alone and unadorned with photos or knick-knacks, was an oaken washstand with a tilted mirror. A white crockery ewer and basin sat dead center on a wrinkled white scrap of lace.

A prickly-hot feeling crawled through Tess. Reluctantly she shot a look sideways, and immediately winced. The bedside table was a fruit crate turned

on its side, and the lamp was a small, triangular glass jar with a wick sticking out of the narrow top. Tucked beside the crate was a pink porcelain chamber pot.

Horror rounded her eyes. She thought of the cowboy and the knight in shining armor, and shook her head in denial.

No, Carol wouldn 't do that to me....

"What is it?" the man asked anxiously. "Should I call Doc Hayes?"

"Where am I?"

"At home ... on San Juan Island."

Tess felt a tiny stirring of relief. At least she was still in Washington; she could get home from here.

But her location wasn't really the issue, and she knew it. She took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut. It took every scrap of courage she possessed to ask the next question: "What year is it?"

There was a heartbeat's pause before he said quietly, "It's 1873."

"Oh, no." She covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh, shit ..."

Eighteen seventy-three.

No television, telephone, electricity. And that was just

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