Reborn

4

Bill came in, entering her hospital room like an unarmed man entering a gladiator ring. "Are you okay, Carol?"

Carol's control almost dissolved at the sight of him. She remembered this afternoon—Bill carrying her to the couch, covering her with a blanket, calling the first aid squad, and staying by her side during the ambulance ride.

"Oh, Bill!" she said, sobbing.

She sat up and lifted her arms, aching to embrace him. Her unaccountable lust of a few hours ago was gone now, gone as if it had never been. This was for friendship, from a deep, simple need for someone solid to hold, to cling to.

But Bill only grasped one of her hands and looked down at her with worried eyes. That had always been his way, it seemed—when she had needed some hands-on support after her parents were killed, he had backed off, just as he was doing now.

But who can blame him for being gun-shy after the show I put on a few hours ago?

She felt her face redden with the memory of it.

"Please, Bill," she said. "I'm so sorry about what I did to you before. I don't know what happened to me. It was like someone else had taken me over."

"It's okay," he said softly, smiling and patting her hand. "We both survived."

"But the baby almost didn't."

His hand tightened on hers. "Baby?"

"Yes! Dr. Gallen says there's every chance the baby's still okay."

"You're pregnant?"

"Four to six weeks along. Maybe that's why I acted so crazy back at the mansion. They say the hormone changes in pregnancy make some women do crazy things."

"I don't know much about that sort of thing," he said, grinning shyly. "But please don't ever do anything like that again. I know they say beware the Ides of March, but you almost gave me a heart attack!" He paused as his smile faded. "A baby—"

His voice choked off and she saw tears spring into his eyes as he worked to speak again.

Finally he managed to say, "Carol, that's wonderful!"

She shook her head and then began to cry herself, unable to hold it in any longer.

"Not so wonderful!" she said finally. "Why couldn't this have happened a year ago? It stinks! Jim's child—and he'll never see him! He wanted a child so bad and we weren't sure we could ever have one, and now we do but he's gone and the baby will be born without a father! Why does God play such rotten, dirty tricks?"

"I don't know. But maybe it's not so rotten. I mean, in a way it means that Jim is still alive, doesn't it?"

Struck suddenly by the wonderfulness of the thought, Carol slowly leaned back on the pillow and allowed herself to float on the warmth and comfort it brought.