For the Sake of their Baby

“Did you sleep okay?” she asked, turning to look at him.

“Fine. You?”

“Fine.”

“You look great,” he said.

She glanced down at her maternity clothes and protruding belly and smiled wistfully. “Oh, yeah, I’m a real treat. That isn’t your shirt, is it? Or your jacket?”

“Dave brought me some of his brother’s stuff. Liz, what do you remember about your green scarf?”

She popped slices of bread in the toaster. “Move, Sinbad,” she scolded the cat who squeezed his eyes at her and stood his ground. She faced Alex with a troubled expression. “I don’t know. I thought about that last night after I went to bed. When had I worn it last, where had I last seen it? But I can’t remember. It just seems that I had it and then I didn’t have it.”

He picked up the cat and rubbed his sable ears. “What about at the party?”

“I don’t know. It’s been so long ago and so much has happened, I don’t remember what I was wearing that night. I do recall that we hadn’t changed clothes after work or dressed up or anything. It’s important, isn’t it?”

“Very. And you were wearing a greenish-blue dress.”

She looked thoughtful, then shook her head again. “I know the dress, I used to wear it with your scarf, but I don’t remember if I did that night or not. It’s no use.”

“It’ll come to you,” he said with confidence, desperate to ease the strain on her face. He put Sinbad down on an empty chair and added, “I notice you have a big old computer in the guest room now. You know how hopeless I am on those things. But maybe you can use it to help us figure out who really killed your uncle.”

She bit her lip. “I was thinking. Maybe you should go to Sheriff Kapp or the D.A. and explain this…misunderstanding.”

“No.”

She was dressed in a pale-blue cotton blouse and loose white sweater, clothes that did nothing to add color to her washed-out complexion. Was she beautiful? Of course, but her beauty was accidental now. With an incredulous tone to her voice, she said, “What do you mean, ‘No’?”

“Think about it. A brand-new story, a retraction of my confession, they’ll all just think I’m grasping at straws. Worse, the information that you were at your uncle’s house later that night to say nothing of the fact that a piece of your clothing was found in his hand will put you under scrutiny, and maybe not just for second degree murder like me. Your scarf might be interpreted as a would-be weapon that suggests premeditation, they might go after the death penalty. Absolutely no way we’re ever going to chance it.”

“But—”

“I’ve been thinking, too. I need to figure out who killed your uncle and how to prove it.”

“You’re not an investigator. We’ll hire a really good lawyer—”

“I don’t want your name coming into any of this until I know who’s responsible.”

She jerked open the refrigerator and emerged with the orange juice. He set out small glasses and watched as she poured the juice. “That’s very noble, but I repeat, you’re not an investigator.”

Taking the juice to the table, he called over his shoulder. “That baby you’re carrying is mine, Liz.” He moved to her side and gently touched her tummy, praying she wouldn’t flinch like she had the night before. When she didn’t, he left his hand where it was. “I want his or her name to be one he or she will be proud to own. Now that I know you’re innocent, I won’t rest until I clear that name. That’s a promise.”

She stared into his eyes and said, “Can you feel it?”

He hadn’t the slightest idea what she was talking about. “Feel what?”

She put her hand over his and pressed down a little. “Right here. The baby. Kicking up a storm.”

And suddenly he felt a muffled thump against his palm. “Yes,” he said, grinning. “Yes.” He felt several more soft kicks and then it seemed as though Liz’s whole belly kind of shifted to the side.

“You just experienced a rollover,” Liz said. “Trust me, it’s quite a sensation from the inside.”

“I bet it is,” he said, longing to lift her blouse and lay his cheek against her stomach. Instead he reluctantly dropped his hand.

“You have to get over worrying about implicating me, Alex,” she said as she set their plates on the table. “We have to tell—”

“No,” he repeated, and sat down opposite her.

“You still don’t trust anyone, do you?”

“I trust you,” he said.

“But you didn’t trust me when it mattered. You didn’t give the law a chance. You still won’t.”

“You mean that idiot, Kapp.”

“Roger Kapp isn’t so bad.”

“He’s a dangerous fool. Maybe my poor opinion of him stems from the fact that he was out at my house a lot as I grew up, hassling my brothers. He was a deputy then and liked to throw his weight around. Or maybe it’s the way he used you to get to me.”

“Try to put the past behind you. Let’s just talk to him—”

“Look, it’s my hide we’re talking about. And I’m the one who fouled things up. Now, eat something. You need to keep your strength up.”

For the first time since she’d opened the door the night before, she really smiled. Alex drank in the sight—to him more breathtaking than any sunrise—and hoped he’d find a way to make it happen again.

“Tonight we share the same bed,” he said softly, admiring the lovely curve of her jaw. This new clarity of her features was one of the surprising bonuses of her shorter hair. He could see the long, graceful line of her neck, her sweet earlobes, her golden eyebrows. “I don’t know the rules about sex and pregnancy, but surely being held in a husband’s arms is on the approved list,” he added tenderly.

The smiled faded and she grew increasingly silent. He tried concentrating on the taste of fresh eggs and icy juice. He tried living in the moment, relishing the sounds of the soft rain on the roof, the hum of the refrigerator, the distant thunder of waves. The very fact that he was back in the middle of his own life, seated at his own table, looking at his own wife, was astounding and cause for profound thankfulness. He tried to ignore the black cloud he could feel hovering over them both.

Nothing worked. Liz fed Sinbad bits of egg which he seemed to demand with strident yowls. She folded and refolded her napkin, moved her juice glass from one side of the placemat to the other.

“Remember when you found out you were pregnant?” he asked.

That got her attention. She said, “Yes. Of course.”

“You put on that tight red dress with the low, sexy back and bought a bottle of sparkling apple cider. You even soaked off the cider label and replaced it with a champagne label, remember? You made sure we had the evening alone, made a platter of fancy little things to eat, sat me down, mumbled something I couldn’t understand and then started fidgeting. In fact, before you finally got the news out, you did everything but reline the kitchen shelves.”

She smiled at the memory. “Well, I was nervous.”

“I know. And now you’re at it again.”

She stopped folding her napkin into triangles and looked up at him.

“Besides everything, Liz, what’s troubling you?”

“Nothing.”