Worlds Apart (12 page)

Then she wondered if she could
have the baby.

Whoa. Where did that come from? I
can't have a baby.

Why not?

The faces of the town's bereaved
mothers floated into her mind, and she felt her heart skip a beat
at the same time that her hand flew up to shelter her
uterus.

Why not?

As the day progressed, Tina
realized that the reasons why not were myriad. She knew nothing
about Clive Winslow. She flirted with the idea of running her own
tests, but discarded it. She could poke any other human on the
planet, but she'd never gotten over her squeamishness about
sticking herself with a needle. And there were all those CDC people
showing up at odd hours and rummaging through her lab.

Best to do it the ethical
way.

She met Will in his office for
their weekly lunch meeting. He was setting out cups of tea, and the
odor of toast and butter wafted from the microwave as he removed a
plate. Tina leaned against the door and grinned. “You've been
cooking.”

Will kept a little bistro table in
his office, and he set the plate there with a flourish. “Grilled
Gruyere with Pesto sandwiches and tomato soup.” He pulled a chair
out for her and offered her a sympathetic smile. “Marilyn packed it
up this morning for our meeting. She thought we both needed to
treat ourselves while we hashed out the latest crisis.”

“She's a sweetheart. This is
perfect.” Tina sat and flipped a sandwich onto each of their plates
while Will poured the steaming soup from a thermos. Tina inhaled
the fragrance. “Marilyn makes the best tomato soup of anyone around
here.”

Will joined her at the table,
dunking a corner of his sandwich into the soup and taking a big
bite. He closed his eyes as he chewed. “I've been looking forward
to this all day.”

Their rule was no business
discussion until they'd finished eating, so Tina kept the subject
light until crumbs littered their plates. As Will poured more tea,
she held her breath, then jumped in.

“I'm pregnant.”

The teapot slipped, but he grabbed
it with both hands and set it on the hot plate. Then he leaned back
in his chair and regarded her with serious eyes. After a moment, he
raised an eyebrow. “Congratulations?”

She held her cup and chewed on her
bottom lip, trying to figure out how to answer that.

He leaned forward. “How far?” he
asked.

“Three weeks.”

He nodded and sat back. “I assume
you're telling me because you're thinking of having this
baby?”

The tears that stung her eyes
surprised her. “I am thinking about it, yes. But the reasons not to
have it are good ones. I don't know what to do.”

“Fair enough. You know where I
stand on that issue. But let's see if we can make sense of this.
First, does the father know?”

“
He didn't even want a second
date.” Tina heard the bitterness in her voice. “No, he doesn't
know.”

Will was silent and Tina didn't
dare look at him. Whatever she saw—pity, anger, disgust—she knew it
would be mixed with affection and hurt. She couldn't face it. Her
fingers tightened on the cup. Will was religious, but he was her
friend. He knew all about her, and even if he disapproved of some
of her habits, he stayed her friend. She didn't care about his
religious judgment of her. But she did value his
friendship.

He cleared his throat. “Has this
ever happened before, Tina?”

She heard the unasked
“how many
abortions have you had?”
under his words. As her doctor, he
needed to know that answer. She was relieved to shake her head.
“No. It never has.” She sipped the tea and managed to look up at
him. He had on his noncommittal doctor's face and she was grateful
for the hours spent in medical school perfecting that
look.

“Have you ever thought it through
before this?” he asked. “What you would do if you got pregnant? I
would have thought your immediate response would be
abortion.”

“Me too,” she said. “Normally, I
would have gone right to that and never looked back. But with all
that's happened… all the deaths and all the funerals…” She took a
shaky breath. “I see how the mothers in this town are suffering.
How afraid they are. How determined they are to protect their
children. I just realized I needed to do this. For me. For
them.”

She caressed her stomach, staring
at her fluttering fingers. A certainty settled over her. “And why
not, really? A baby. I can be a mother.”

“Of course you can.” Will's voice
was gruff, and she glanced up at him, surprised at the defiance she
saw in his face. “You'll be a wonderful mother, Tina. We'll all
help you, too. You know that.” He hesitated, then touched her hand.
“It's not a perfect situation. A baby needs a father, but we play
the cards we're dealt. I can't pretend to condone the choices that
led to this—either yours or the father's—but we can move on from
there. I hope you'll allow Marilyn and me to be an extra set of
parents. When you need us.”

She couldn't hold back the tears
and she swiped a sleeve across her face. “Thank you. I would have
preferred to have a husband, you know. But I don't, and I believe I
really want this baby. It feels right.”

“Good.” He squeezed her hand and
let it go. “So you're feeling all right?”

“Fine. It's a little soon for
symptoms, anyway.”

“True, but you've been under a lot
of stress. Start taking prenatal vitamins right away. We'll need to
talk to the CDC folks. I don't want you exposed
anymore.”

She thought about that. “The rate
of new cases has slowed. I think we're on the down side of this
thing. I'm probably safe.”

“You're not taking any chances,
either.” Will picked up their empty dishes. “Doctor's
orders.”

Chapter 14

Tina took on the assignment of
caring for people not ill with the parasite. This was less than
forty percent of the town, and she found herself with time on her
hands. As the sun crept over the trees two weeks later, she loaded
up her medical kit and set off to see Sebastian Ruth. He was due
for a chemo treatment, but with the quarantine, he couldn't go to
Portland, and she was worried about him.

He was chopping wood when she
drove up.

More precisely, he was leaning on
the axe, breathing hard as he glared at the woodpile. He turned to
watch Tina park her car and climb out.

“I can find a teenager to do that
for you,” she said as she walked toward him. Her footsteps were
muffled by his wheezing.

He let the axe drop and sat on the
chopping block. “Chop… my own… damn… wood.”

Tina pulled out her portable
oxygen kit and slipped the mask over his head. He pushed it into
place, taking a deep breath when she turned the flow on. They
stayed that way for a few minutes, before he nodded. She reduced
the flow. “Leave it on for now. Let's go inside, shall
we?”

She walked next to him, but made
no effort to assist. He pulled himself up the three stairs to the
porch, then shuffled into the house, settling into his favorite
chair. Tina pulled the other chair over and set about checking his
vital signs. When she was done, she let him remove the
mask.

“How's the pain?”

“Painful. But nothing I can't
handle.” His rested his head against the back of the chair, his
blue eyes searching her face in puzzled regard. “You look
different.”

“I do?” Tina shrugged, reaching
into her kit for a syringe and test tube for blood. “Things have
been hectic in town. You heard about the illness, didn't
you?”

He looked guilty and she smiled a
bit in reassurance. “Don't think you should have been helping. I
would not have wanted you in the clinic.”

He shook his head. “Damn shame
about it all. It never should have happened, Doc. That's all I can
say. It never should have happened.”

She wrapped the rubber tube around
his arm and began searching for a vein. He watched her with
narrowed eyes, then snapped his fingers. “Why, Doc! You're
pregnant, ain't ya?”

“What?” She jerked her head up to
stare at him. “Just barely. How the hell did you know?”

He waggled his fingers in front of
her. “It's just easy to see. The way you look.”

Her eyebrows disappeared behind
her bangs. “I'll have to study that, Mr. Ruth. Find out how you do
it.”

He waved the comment away. “Can't
explain it. It just is.”

He kept his eyes on her as she
took his blood. She felt the tension in his arm, heard the fingers
of his other hand tapping the arm of the chair. His nervous state
was unusual. To distract him, she continued her interview, trying
to get a sense of the cancer's progress.

As she listened to his heart, he
suddenly grabbed her arm. She jerked away in alarm, looking him
over for signs of distress. “What’s wrong? Are you in
pain?”

He was staring at her, eyes wide,
mouth hanging open. He lifted a finger to point at her, but he
didn't seem capable of speech.

Her mind raced through possible
causes of his malaise—stroke, heart attack, aphasia—and all the
emergency treatment she should begin administering, but for some
reason she couldn't move. His eyes held her still, eyes that were
not focused on any internal distress, but on her.

Eyes filled with a terrifying mix
of wonder and revulsion. “Who got you pregnant, Doc?”

She swallowed, this time afraid
for herself. “Wh… why?” She stood and moved a few steps away from
him, but couldn’t seem to move any farther. “That's not really any
of your business, Mr. Ruth.”

His hand snatched out and grabbed
her arm. It was a powerful grip, despite his age and illness. “Say
it is my business, Doc. I need to know if you understand what
you've gotten into. I need to know who got you pregnant.
And I
need to know where he is right now.
”

Tina jerked her arm away from him,
but once again, she couldn’t seem to move away. “This is
ridiculous,” she said. “But if you must know, he was just a... a
guy I met. A one-night stand, all right? That's the only time I saw
him. I don't know where he is now.”

“His name?”

Tina found she was breathing hard.
She couldn't look away from Ruth's hard blue glare. When she didn't
answer, he leaned forward. His voice made her shiver. “What is his
name?”

“Clive Winslow.” She spat the name
between gritted teeth, and grabbed her kit, tossing equipment back
into it. She didn't quite notice her sudden freedom to move, nor
the abrupt lessening of threat from Ruth. “And that's the last time
I want to say that name,” she shouted. “I don't know why it was so
goddamn important, but now you know. I hope you're
happy.”

He began to chuckle. This brought
the wheezing back and Tina hesitated at the door, turning back to
him. His chuckle degenerated into a coughing fit. She dropped her
things back onto the floor and dug out the O
₂
kit
again.

“I'll leave this here for you,”
she said. “It's only good for about thirty minutes, but I'll bring
up a tank right away. You need to keep oxygen with you all the
time, do you understand?”

He put the mask on, nodding, but
gestured wildly at her to stay. She waited until he got his
breath.

He removed the mask. “I know Clive
Winslow.”

For a moment, Tina felt like she'd
been socked in the gut. She placed the small tank in his hands.
“That's nice. I guess he was here to see you. He didn't tell me
what his business was.” She met his eyes without flinching. “I
don't want him to know, Mr. Ruth. You have to promise you won't
tell him.”

He lifted a finger, moving it back
and forth. “You don't know what you've gotten into, do
you?”

She stood. “I know I'm having a
baby. I can handle this on my own. That's all I've gotten
into.”

“No, it's not.” He dropped his
hand back to the chair and regarded her with solemn eyes. He seemed
to relent. “I don't know him well, Doc. But I think he's an all
right fellow.”

“Promise me you won't tell
him.”

Ruth's lips tightened. “There are
things you need to know, Doc. You have no idea how amazing this is.
If you don't want Winslow to know, then somebody else needs to tell
you what the deal is.”

She shook her head. “There is no
deal, Mr. Ruth. I'll take care of this baby myself.” She turned to
the door. “I'll be back with the oxygen tank. And I'll find someone
to chop your wood. You stay inside and rest.”

She was relieved when he let her
go.

Chapter 15

Clive straightened from his lean
against Sheriff Nancy's locked door in Poentreville. The sheriff
herself had just turned the corner two blocks away, her brisk walk
covering the ground in long steps. Her long coat flapped behind
her, as if unable to keep up. She'd spotted him, but no greeting
creased her face as she approached. He didn't move away from the
door.