The Shadow Wife

Joelle couldn’t bear to think what that experience had been like for her parents. Her baby, to whom she was already irrevocably attached, no longer felt like a bubble so much as a butterfly, and she couldn’t imagine going through nine months of falling in love with her unborn child only to have something go wrong at the last minute. That thought made her glad she didn’t have to go back to work right away. She was not at all in the mood to deal with stillbirths, and she knew that when she returned after this sick leave, someone else would have to take those cases. If not for her own sanity, then out of kindness to the bereaved parents, who should not have to receive counseling from a healthy pregnant woman immediately after enduring such a loss.

Her baby was more real to her now. The sonogram she’d had several days ago had shown arms and legs, one visible eye, an open mouth. Rebecca had asked her if she wanted to know the baby’s sex.

“Yes!” Joelle had said.

Her mother had been with her, marveling at the image on the screen, and Rebecca pointed out the barely perceptible labia to both of them.

“Three generations of women, right here in this room!” her mother said, and for some reason, that made Joelle cry. Although she had not intended to do so, her imagination flashed forward to a baby dressed in little-girl clothes, a child with braids in kindergarten, a giggling teenager in a prom dress and a happy young woman at her wedding. And who would be the man walking that little girl down the aisle? She was afraid it would not be Liam.

She longed to tell Liam that the baby was a girl, but he had not even mentioned her pregnancy since their conversation in the recovery room after her appendectomy, and she was angry with him for that. She feared expressing that anger, though. Feared pushing him farther away. How would he react if she told him he would soon have a daughter? She was most afraid that he wouldn’t react at all, and if that was to be the case, she didn’t want to know it.

He’d called her every few days while she was away from work, but she’d gotten the feeling he was making the calls out of a sense of duty rather than desire, and their conversations had been short and superficial. She had no idea what was going on inside his head, and she didn’t dare ask him; it was apparent he didn’t want either of them to dig too deeply into the other’s thoughts and feelings. It had been easy to honor his unspoken wishes while her mother had been with her, when she hadn’t felt the need for much contact with anyone else. But now, with her mother gone and two more weeks of recovery ahead of her, she worried that she would have too much time to think.

It was now ten of one, and Liam was late. They were to meet Carlynn at the nursing home at one o’clock. Quinn would drive her there, Carlynn had told Joelle, and he’d run a few errands while she spent an hour with the two of them and Mara. Although Liam wisely had not balked when Joelle told him the plan, she knew he saw this whole outing as pointless, if not preposterous.

She and her mother had met Carlynn for lunch earlier that week at a café in Pacific Grove. Her mother had embraced Carlynn tearfully when she saw her, and the three of them had talked about how different they all looked from that day in Rainbow Cabin, so long ago.

Ellen, of course, had been thrilled to learn that Carlynn was using her healing ability on Mara, and even more pleased to know that Liam had agreed to participate.

“He says he will,” Joelle told the two women at lunch, “though I have the feeling he’s doing it out of guilt. Trying to make up to me for what he can’t truly give me.”

“It doesn’t matter why he’s doing it,” Carlynn had said. “Just as long as we can get him there in that room. That’s what will help Mara.”

Liam’s car turned the corner onto her street, and she stood up and walked down the sidewalk to meet him at the curb, very aware of the way the red blouse gently ballooned over her stomach. He stopped the car and she let herself in.

“Hi,” she said, fastening the seat belt.

“Sorry I’m late.” He glanced in the side-view mirror as he pulled into the street again. He looked so good. Pretty, pale eyes, straight nose and slight point to his chin. She tried not to stare. Her body suddenly felt alive and hungry for him. This was the longest she’d gone without seeing him in years, probably since he’d started working at Silas Memorial, and she could barely stand the intense and untimely desire that was ambushing her here in his car.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Fine,” she said, the word a bland mask for the mixture of anger and desire churning inside her. “It feels good to get out.”

“When are you allowed to drive?”

“Probably next week,” she said. “I feel like I could drive now, but since they say five or six weeks, I’ll compromise on four.”