Insight Page 24

  “Oh, yes. I’ll need to work.”

  Elizabeth propped her elbows on the edge of the desk and steepled her manicured fingers. “I’d like you to come back. As a designer.”

  Olivia’s breath caught. “Really? I…I’d love that.”

  “I’ve been thinking of adding a designer for a while now, and I’d dearly love it if I didn’t have to break in someone new.”

  “Thank you. That’s wonderful news. But—” She framed her very pregnant middle with her hands.

  “There is that,” Elizabeth conceded, studying her. “Do you have a babysitter lined up? I understand you’ll have the responsibilities of motherhood to deal with, and I’ll allow you six weeks paid maternity leave, but I want to be sure I can expect full-time hours and the same quality of work you gave me before.”

  Olivia nodded eagerly. “Of course. And no… I haven’t found anyone yet, but my friend Jayne gave me a few leads. I’ll make some calls tonight.”

  “Good.”

  “Thank you so much, Elizabeth. This is an answer to prayer.”

  “Well—” The designer’s eyes widened and she spread a graceful hand across her breast. “I don’t know about that. But I’m glad to have you back.”

  Olivia practically floated back to the reception area. Bridgett was still handling the phones, which reminded her that she hadn’t returned Judy’s call. She took her phone card to a quiet desk and dialed the number.

  The Realtor picked up on the third ring. “Judy? It’s Olivia Cline…in Chicago…”

  “Oh, Olivia. Good. I’m sorry to have bothered you at work, but I thought you’d like to know that I have a buyer for your house.”

  “You do?” Olivia straightened in her chair. Not merely an interested party, but a buyer? Too good to be true, but please, Lord. “That was quick. You mean an actual offer?”

  “I do.”

  “But what’s the catch?”

  “No catch. He’s offering your asking price.”

  “You’re kidding? You didn’t expect that, did you?”

  “Well, not really, but you just never know in this business. All it takes is one buyer who wants what you’re selling. And it looks like we found him.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful. Thank you for calling.” She was having trouble believing it could be this simple. “What do I need to do now?”

  “I’ll get with the title office and start the paperwork. The guy is from here in town and he doesn’t have a property to sell first. He’s buying it as an investment…a rental,” she explained. “We should be able to close around the end of the month. Let’s see…”

  Olivia heard papers rattling and the sound of a computer keyboard. She sat there, stunned. It had barely been a week!

  “Okay,” Judy said after a minute, “It looks like I have the documents I need. I’ll get the inspection scheduled and you’ve already signed over power of attorney so I can sign for you. It should be an easy contract. I have the fax number you gave me if I need to have you look over anything before we close.”

  Olivia let out the breath she’d been holding and shot up a little prayer of thanks. “Oh, that’s great.”

  “Oh, by the way, Olivia, did you realize you left a painting in the house?”

  “Yes.” She hesitated. “I don’t want it.”

  “Are you sure? It’s a very nice painting.”

  She smiled into the phone. “Well, thanks.”

  “You’re the artist?”

  Me and my big mouth. “Yes. I did it…a long time ago. But I really prefer for it to stay there with the house,” she repeated.

  “Okay… If you’re sure. I’ll be in touch if we run into a hitch.”

  “Thanks, Judy.”

  Olivia replaced the receiver and sat staring out the window. Two amazing answers to prayer in one afternoon! Thank you, Lord. She felt ashamed for ever doubting His care for her.

  Her elation carried her through the afternoon, but as she walked to the train station to catch a ride with Jayne’s husband, Brian, the reality of all that had happened began to sink in.

  So that was that. In the space of an hour, her ties to Hanover Falls had been severed. She could turn the page on a very difficult chapter in her life. It was over now, and there were happier scenes ahead.

  So why did she feel like crying?

  Chapter 36

  Winter hit Chicago in full force on the first day of November, turning the lake to ice and the streets to slush. Olivia looked out the only window in the apartment with a view and shivered as she watched people pass by on the sidewalk below. She’d been in the apartment a week now, and though it was convenient to the office and had allowed her to sell her car, it was a far cry from homey.

  Most of her furniture was in storage and she’d done a bare minimum of decorating. Jayne had decided she was ready to get rid of all her baby things, and passed down a nice crib and changing table and an assortment of other baby gear that Olivia didn’t even know existed. Even looking at the crib set up in the corner of her bedroom, she still had a hard time imagining that in a few short weeks, there would be another little person sharing this apartment with her.

  She’d had her medical records transferred from Hanover Falls to Jayne’s obstetrician, and her first appointment was tomorrow morning.

  She would take the El to the doctor’s office and catch a cab back to work after her appointment. She was anxious to hear what this doctor would say. In spite of the extra weight she was carrying around and all the energy she’d expended during the move—both physical and mental—she’d felt surprisingly good the last few days.

  Maybe it was just good to be back in the city. And away from the stresses she’d had in Missouri. She wondered if Reed had hired anyone to take her place yet. As quickly as the thought came, she pushed it from her mind. She’d come to the city to get away from all that. She forced her thoughts to the amazing events of the past week. It was surely no coincidence that she’d been offered her old job back and sold the house the same day. It felt like confirmation that she’d made the right decision.

  Sighing, she pulled the blinds on the gloomy sky outside and flipped on the lights. There were still four large boxes stacked in the corner of the living room. Might as well tackle those. The movers had distributed the boxes as her labels instructed, but still, her back ached from lugging the cartons across the room and bending to unpack them.

  She hoisted a box from the stack and slid it to the floor. A sharp pain arced across her lower back and she sucked in a sharp breath. She straightened and stretched slowly, testing, wondering if she’d pulled a muscle. Her back seemed fine now, but she went to rest for a minute on the sofa, the only piece of furniture that wasn’t covered with boxes and moving paraphernalia.

  She was just about to get up and get back to work when the pain came again, only this time not so sharp and it moved in a sort of wave from her back to her stomach. Odd.

  She tried to ignore it, and went back to work, sitting cross-legged on the floor to unpack her collection of CDs. She’d never sorted through the discs after Derek’s death, but she’d heard of a place that paid pretty well for used CDs and she decided to weed through the collection and sell some of the ones she never listened to.

  The pain came again just minutes later. What was going on? It felt almost like a contraction…a stronger version of the contractions she’d had almost from the beginning of her pregnancy—Braxton Hicks, her doctor called them. Maybe it was normal for those to get stronger as pregnancy progressed. She should have read more on the subject over the months. If she was still feeling like this tomorrow, she’d search online for some answers.

  But by ten o’clock she was concerned. The pains—if they could even be called that—had been coming at fairly regular intervals and were starting to feel more like what she imagined labor pains to be, yet not like the cramping she’d had before when the doctor in Hanover Falls had put her on bed rest.

  She probably ought to call the doctor but she hated t
o bother him after hours. She hadn’t even seen this doctor yet. She got up and paced the living room, starting to feel a little stir-crazy.

  What if she was in labor? How would she get to the hospital? Why hadn’t she thought these things out before? But she thought she had plenty of time. She’d been so wrapped up in the move, her job, even setting up the crib and getting the few baby things she had organized.

  She looked at the clock. It wasn’t yet nine. Jayne would still be up. She called Jayne’s cell phone, but was immediately routed to her voice mail.

  She thought next of Claire Meredith. Unlike Olivia, Claire had begun devouring books on pregnancy and childbirth the minute she’d discovered she was pregnant again. She would know whether this was anything to be concerned about.

  She punched in Claire’s number. Merely dialing the area code for Hanover Falls brought memories careening back. But she didn’t have time to dwell on them as simultaneously Michael Meredith answered the phone and another contraction swelled.

  “Michael?” she breathed. “This is Olivia Cline. Is Claire there?”

  “Hi, Olivia. How are you? Claire was just wondering about you this morning.”

  She took a slow breath, trying to make her voice sound normal. “I’m doing okay, thanks. How is Claire doing?”

  “She’s great. She thinks she’s starting to…um…blossom a little already.” He laughed. “Here, I’ll let you talk to her.”

  She heard him tell Claire it was her on the phone, and Claire’s happy squeal.

  “Olivia! How are you?”

  “I…I think I might be in labor, Claire.”

  “Really? Oh, I’m so excited for you.”

  Olivia could almost see Claire jumping up and down, her carrot-colored curls bouncing like springs.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m at home. It’s kind of early though. My due date’s not until the end of the month.” She explained the contraction-like pains she was having.

  “That sounds like labor to me,” Claire said. “And lots of babies come a couple weeks early. Has your water broke?”

  “I don’t know…”

  Claire laughed. “Oh, honey, you’d know!” Her voice turned serious. “But you probably ought to call your doctor. Especially if the contractions are that regular.”

  Olivia looked at her watch. “I haven’t had one since Michael answered the phone, but it—” A powerful spasm moved through her. “Ohhh…”

  “Olivia? What is it?”

  She tried to catch her breath. “I…I just had another one. A pretty strong one.”

  “Olivia?” Alarm tinged Claire’s voice. “We’ve only been on the phone three minutes. Those are coming pretty close together. Maybe you’d better hang up and call your doctor.”

  “Okay.” Olivia didn’t need convincing after that last one.

  “I’m fine. Everything’s great, but you don’t have time to chitchat. Call your doctor, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “You’ll let me know what’s going on, right?”

  “I will. I promise.”

  “I’ll be praying for you. Oh, Olivia, think of it! You’re about to meet your baby!”

  Those words brought tears…and then the trembling began. It was time. Ready or not, she was going to have a baby.

  Chapter 37

  “Oh, Olivia, he’s beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.” Claire looked down on the infant cradled in Olivia’s arms.

  Claire’s face practically glowed and Olivia knew she was thinking ahead to the day when she’d hold her own baby in her arms. Claire’s slim figure had already taken on new curves, and her face reflected a quiet joy.

  The baby squirmed and stretched in Olivia’s arms and she bent to kiss his forehead. She didn’t think she’d ever get over the amazing experience of childbirth. Being wheeled into that room alone in fear and pain, and then, just twelve hours later, holding a new little life in her arms. And feeling a joy that had taken her completely by surprise.

  “He is perfect, isn’t he?” She looked up at Claire, feeling such a sisterhood with this woman she’d only known a short time. “I remember you told me—when I first found out I was pregnant—that someday when I held my baby in my arms, it would all make sense.”

  “Did I say that?”

  She nodded. “I don’t pretend to understand everything, but—” she cuddled the baby close “—at least a lot of things make sense that never did before.” She teared up.

  When she looked at Claire, she saw that her eyes were swimming, too. They looked away, then caught each other’s eye again and both started to speak at the same time. As if it were choreographed, they let loose sobs in unison, then broke into giggles, and soon they were laughing uncontrollably.

  A nurse appeared in the doorway. “Is everything okay in here?”

  “Never mind us,” Claire said, when they’d gotten control of their emotions. “You just shouldn’t allow two highly hormonal women in a room together.”

  The nurse rolled her eyes. “I’ll remember that,” she said dryly.

  That set them giggling again. It felt good to share laughter—and tears—with a friend on this occasion.

  She wiped the tears away and shifted the baby to the other arm. “Thank you so much for coming, Claire.”

  “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” Claire reached to touch the hospital blanket covering the baby’s feet. “Have you named him?”

  Olivia ran a hand through his thick dark head of hair and the sweet newborn scent of him rose up and filled her heart. “His name is Jonathan Derek.” She had just decided on a name an hour ago and it was the first time she’d told anyone. It sounded just right. And it seemed fitting that it was Claire who heard it first.

  “Jonathan Derek Cline.” It’s a wonderful name.”

  “I wanted him to have Derek’s name. And Jonathan means “God’s gift.”

  “Oh, he is a gift from God, Olivia. He truly is.”

  Olivia rolled over in bed. The now familiar sounds of the baby rooting around in his crib nudged her from sleep. Raising up on one elbow, she squinted at the clock. Arrgh! She flopped back on her pillow. Could people survive on four hours of sleep a night?

  She held her breath, waiting for Jonathan to start wailing. She was exhausted. Jonathan seemed to want to nurse every two hours. And she was sure he was awake more than he slept. Apparently he hadn’t read all the statistics about newborns sleeping twenty-some hours of each twenty-four.

  The squall started in earnest and she flipped on the dim bedside lamp and rolled out of bed. The November wind howled outside and the air in the room felt icy. She grabbed her robe from the end of the bed and shrugged into it.

  She reached into the crib. The blankets were toasty and Jonathan’s tiny hands and toes were warm. He quieted immediately when she lifted him from the crib, but fussed again when she didn’t sit down with him soon enough to suit.

  “Shh…shh…it’s okay, Jon-Jon. Mama’s here.”

  As soon as she sat down with him in the overstuffed chair beside her bed, he nuzzled in to nurse. In a week’s time, they had become old pros at this. She waited for the calming sensation of her milk letting down, and soon the baby relaxed and gulped noisily. He looked up at her with bright eyes, as if to say “thanks for dinner, Mom.” If she felt incompetent as a mother in a dozen different ways, in this she was a success. They were a team.

  Within minutes Jonathan was asleep again, his head heavy and drowsy against her breast. She was wide awake now, but knew she’d manage to get back to sleep—no doubt five minutes before the baby woke to nurse again. She pulled a quilt from the end of her bed and tucked it over her lap. The baby’s warmth was pleasant, her own personal little furnace.

  She watched him in the lamplight, his rosebud mouth still puckered and working in sleep, as though he’d forgotten dinner was over.

  “Oh, Derek,” she whispered. “I wish you could know him.” Instantly, the tears came. “I’m sorry…so sorry you di
dn’t get to meet your son. I’m sorry we didn’t have time to make up for everything we lost.”

  The baby took a deep, shuddering breath and scrunched up his face, looking like he was working up to a good cry. But then his brow relaxed and a fleeting smile flickered on his face. It was gone again almost before Olivia could take a mental snapshot. But it made her laugh. And gave her a tiny glimpse of the future. This little guy in her arms had already become her buddy. She hoped her son would always be her friend. She hadn’t known many true friends in her lifetime.

  Reed. His name was there before she could prevent it. Reed had been a true friend. She wondered what he was doing tonight. It made her sad to think of him. She’d wished a hundred times that she’d met him farther down the road of life. After she’d had time to heal. After she’d settled in to being Jonathan’s mother. But then, Chicago was a long way from Hanover Falls. And some things simply weren’t to be.

  Maybe someday she could learn to look back on the joyful times with Reed—before they’d discovered the perplexing tie that connected Reed to Derek—and just be grateful that he’d been a dear friend.

  It struck her that she had prayed a similar prayer concerning Derek. That, as Scripture said, she could forget what lay behind and strain forward to what lay ahead.

  She wished she knew what that was. She and Jonathan had a cozy existence in this apartment now. But she didn’t dare think ahead to the day when her maternity leave would be over and she would have to go back to work. And beyond that, when Jonathan began to crawl and then walk and run. There were so many dangers here for a little boy. And no yard to run in, no room to have a pet.

  She thought of Tiger and wondered if the kitten was bringing little Katherine as much joy as he’d brought her. She could just see the two of them playing in the beautiful fenced in yard on the Merediths’ quiet street. Tiger probably wasn’t much of a kitten anymore. What a sweet thing Reed had done when he’d redeemed that little cat from the pound.

  Reed. Oh, so many memories. She reeled at the thoughts. And she was so tired. So very tired.