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“No, not like that. This is a good stranger.” Then she stopped laughing and brushed a hand through his hair. “You’re going to be a big brother. Do you know what a big brother is?”

  Timmy thought about it. His bestest friend Danny had a BIG BROTHER, and so did his second bestest friend Ronny. And BIG BROTHERS were COOL. They got to ride their bikes in the street, and wear denim jeans and drink soda right out of the bottle and got to stay up late and all sorts of COOL stuff.

  Timmy nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, that’s what you’re going to be. You’re going to be a big brother because Mommy’s going to have a baby. Do you understand?”

  Mama was going to have a baby and he’d already been a baby. He knew that because he’d seen the pictures Mama kept in a big white photo album.

  “Uh-huh.”

  But then he got worried. Timmy turned around to look out the living room door to the hallway – there wasn’t any room for a baby. His mama and daddy had a room and he had a room and his Grandpa Jake slept in the ’verted garage.

  “Where’s he gonna sleep?”

  His mama put a finger under his chin and turned his face back toward her.

  “Well, we won’t have to worry about that for another – ” his mama put up six fingers, “ – this many months. And it might not be a ‘he’…you might have a little sister.”

  Timmy frowned. “Don’t you know?”

  “No, honey, I don’t, we have to wait until the baby’s born. And we were thinking, your daddy and I, that when it was born, it would be really nice if the new baby could sleep in your room.”

  And Timmy suddenly remembered something else that BIG BROTHERS had. Something that was even COOLER than riding bikes in the street or drinking soda out of the bottle.

  “Bunk beds?”

  His mama blinked her eyes and smiled. “Maybe when the baby’s a bit older.”

  “Cool!”

  His mama started to laugh, then must have remembered about her headache because she stopped and squeezed her eyes shut tight.

  “You okay, Mama?”

  “Yes,” she said, very softly, “I will be.” Then she opened her eyes. “You’re a good boy.”

  “And a big brother.”

  “Yes, you’ll be the big brother and protect the baby and help keep it safe.” His mama pushed him away a little. “You don’t mind about the new baby, do you?”

  “No. What’s the baby’s name?”

  His mama cleared her throat. “Well, it doesn’t really have a name yet, but your daddy and I were thinking Linda for a girl—”

  Timmy wrinkled his nose.

  “Um…and maybe Michael…or Peter for a boy?” His mama cleared her throat. “What name do you like?”

  Timmy thought about it. “Clarabell Howdy O’Neal.”

  His mama hiccupped. “O…kay, but what if the baby’s a girl?”

  Timmy didn’t have to think about that at all. “Summerfall Winterspring O’Neal.”

  “I’ll talk to your daddy about it. You go play now.”

  “’Kay! ’Bye.”

  His mama swatted him lightly on the rump as he darted for the back door. “No running in the house!”

  “’Kay,” he shouted but didn’t slow down. He was too excited and only a little bit sad that his mama had turned off the TV before all the kids in the Peanut Gallery got to sing his favoritest song in the whole world.

  But that was kind of okay because he was going to be a BIG BROTHER. And BIG BROTHERS could sing anytime they wanted to.

  Timmy started singing before he reached his bike and was still singing when he coasted down the driveway and into the street. He was a BIG BROTHER and BIG BROTHERS got to ride their bikes in the street.

  “It’s Howdy Doody Time. It’s Howdy Doody Time.”

  He couldn’t wait to tell all his friends.

  Timmy didn’t see the car until it crumpled the front of his bike.

  The driver never saw Timmy at all.

  TIMOTHY PATRICK O’NEAL

  June 10, 1950 – June 6, 1956

  Chapter Three

  Sara

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Caught.

  Looking up, Sara opened her eyes wide and tried her best ‘who me?’ smile. It didn’t work. Danny just stood there in the doorway, coffee mug in hand, and glared down at her.

  With what she hoped would sound like a long-suffering sigh, Sara dropped the sponge into the bucket of warm soapy water and sat back, pulling off the rubber gloves as discreetly as a sweating seven-months-one-week pregnant woman in shorts and a faded 2XL L.A. Rams tee-shirt could.

  “I’m not doing anything,” she said and hoped he’d believe her words instead of his own eyes. But after five years together she knew better.

  Danny set the mug down on the top of the counter, which Sara had so diligently scrubbed, hard enough to make her jump.

  “Hey! Careful with the crockery. That’s a K-Mart special, you know.”

  Danny leaned down and grabbed the gloves out of her hand before he picked up the bucket and poured it into the sink behind her.

  “Why should I be careful?” Walking around her, he squatted and slipped his hands under her arms, taking most of her now-considerable weight as she struggled to get her bare feet under her. “When it’s obvious I’m the only one around here who is.”

  “You…aren’t the…only one. Wait!”

  Sara felt Danny’s body go rigid, his fingers digging into her skin, and knew he was probably thinking of the time during her second trimester when she’d stood up too quickly and passed out. She woke up a few hours later in the hospital with Danny and her OB/GYN staring down at her like anxious vultures. The baby was fine, Dr. Palmer had told her, but she was suffering from hypertension…which was nothing to worry about IF she took it easy. She’d crossed her heart and promised she would…and she had…more or less. There were just so many things that needed to get done.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. The panic in his voice almost scared her.

  “Nothing.” Reaching behind her to give his leg a reassuring pat, Sara braced her feet against the floor and pushed. “I just didn’t…have any…leverage. There….”

  It took three deep breaths before the miniature fireworks display in front of her eyes stopped and another before she felt steady enough to slap his hands away and turn around.

  “See, I’m fine. It just takes longer for pregnant elephants to get up.”

  Danny glared down at her. That was the problem with marrying a man seven inches taller than her own five feet five inches, you were always looked…or glared…down at.

  Even so she still hoped the baby – William Dennis or Emily Melinda or A-Couple-Others-Still-Under-Consideration – would get some of that height along with his blue-green eyes to go with her strawberry-blond hair.

  Sara offered him a cute little pout. He shook his head, not buying it.

  “The only time a pregnant elephant has a problem is when she doesn’t listen when her doctors tell her to take it easy.”

  “I was taking it easy. I was sitting down.”

  “Halfway under the kitchen sink? What were you doing under there anyway?”

  “Washing the pipes.”

  “The pi— Why?”

  “It’s called ‘nesting’. And it’s very popular among pregnant elephants.”

  For a minute he seemed at a loss for words and she almost applauded. After the hospital scare Danny never seemed to stop talking about what could happen to her or to the baby if she DIDN’T REST. “Take it easy, take it easy,” had become his daily mantra.

  So it was kind of nice to hear nothing.

  “Look,” she said, breaking the silence, “I know what can go wrong and I am tak—” The room shifted and she had to grab the front of his tee-shirt to keep he
r balance. “Whoa.”

  Danny’s face went white. “What?”

  “I…don’t…hmm.”

  Sara shook her head and listened to what sounded like waves pounding against the inside of her ears. It was like hearing the ocean in a shell – distant, but peaceful. What wasn’t peaceful was the way Danny’s face swam past her in the opposite direction from the way the kitchen was leaning. The ocean inside her head was getting choppy. And hot. God, it was hot!

  “The air-conditioning go off?” she asked and watched his mouth move as he pitched and rolled in front of her.

  She couldn’t hear him over the wave sounds, but that was probably just as well, because she really didn’t feel like listening right now. Sweat erupted from her forehead, sliding down her face just as her legs began to melt.

  Then he grabbed her and instantly the air cooled and the waves inside her head began to ebb.

  “SARA!” Danny’s face was red and he was yelling. “WHAT IS IT? TALK TO ME?”

  “Phew!” Sara backed away to wave a hand through the air between them. “You had onions for lunch again, didn’t you?”

  “What?”

  “Onions. You know I can’t handle the smell of raw onions now. Cooked is okay, but raw really makes me want to hurl.”

  “Onions?” He leaned back against the sink but didn’t let go of her arms. “What the hell are you talking about? Are you okay? You looked like you were about to pass out.”

  “You know the old saying – ‘The more pregnant the woman, the more stuff makes her sick.’”

  He let her go then crossed his arms across the CSULB logo on the front of his tee-shirt. “I never heard of that particular old saying.”

  “Then you don’t watch enough TV.”

  Danny looked over the top of her head and sighed. The raw onion smell really was terrible. Since the scare it seemed as though his skin had grown thinner while hers thickened…but maybe that was normal. Daddies-to-be could afford to get all emotional while mamas-to-be couldn’t. A whole new generation depended on ‘Mom’ to keep everything together.

  Sara pulled his arms apart and waddled into them, snuggling her face against his chest to prevent any of the lingering onion scent from pushing her out to sea again.

  “I’m sorry. I’m just being a fat bitch. Forgive me?”

  She felt his arms tighten around her.

  “You’re not fat,” he said and stopped.

  She punched his arm.

  “Hey! I said you weren’t fat.”

  “But you didn’t say anything about me not being a bitch.”

  He ignored the trap. “What really happened?”

  “Nothing, I just got up too fast. Really…and the onions. It wasn’t like the other time – honest. I’m fine.” Pause. “You believe me, don’t you?”

  When he didn’t answer, Sara pushed him away with an exasperated sigh and lumbered over to the breakfast nook to sit down in one of the whitewashed, ladder-back chairs. It had been comfortable when they first bought the set, but now her girth had exceeded the manufacturer’s specifications.

  And there were still almost two months to go.

  Blowing damp bangs off her forehead, she looked down at her belly.

  “I am fat.”

  “You’re pregnant,” Danny corrected, his back to her as he rinsed out the pail. “And it’d be great if you’d realize that every now and then.”

  Sara looked down at the anatomical equivalent of a beach ball. “Believe me, I realize it.”

  “Really? Look, the doctor told you to rest and take—”

  “It easy,” Sara finished. “I know and I am. It’s just that, sometimes, I get this…urge.”

  “To crawl under the sink and wash the pipes.”

  “And get rid of stuff like bleach and cleanser and…furniture polish – the old kind in the bottle your mom gave us that we never use, not the spray kind.” She watched the back of Danny’s head swivel from side to side. “What if the baby got under there and got sick?”

  “I think we have a few months to worry about that before she’s able to get into anything.”

  She.

  Sara smiled. Except for Danny, all the other fathers-to-be in their Lamaze class used the masculine pronoun when referring to their bulge-about-to-be-baby. Danny wanted a daughter – little Emily or….

  “How do you like Roselyn and Hudson?”

  “Who are they?”

  “No, I mean names for the baby.”

  “You’re kidding, right? Besides, I thought we finally decided on Emily Melinda or Victoria Regina.”

  “Or Daniel William, Junior – D.J. for short – or Gerard Butler.”

  He looked at her over his shoulder. “I am not naming my kid after an actor.”

  “No, but you’re okay with naming a kid after a prissy ultra-conservative queen. Guess that’s what I get for marrying a high school history teacher.”

  “Yes, it is, oh, graphic arts designer.” He sighed. “Okay. Fine. Add the names to the list. Now, everything’s washed and…I guess the pipes are clean, so can we talk about taking it easy, now?”

  “Good idea, why don’t you? You do look kind of tired.”

  “Sa-RA.”

  “Dan-NEE.”

  He closed his eyes and Sara knew he was silently counting down from ten to one. He’d been doing a lot of counting since her earlier impromptu visit to the ER and she loved him for it. He’d make as good a father as he was a husband.

  “Okay,” she said, “I’m sorry.” Danny opened his eyes and looked at her. “And I promise I’ll try…no, I will take it easy until Emily or Vicki or…whoever shows up. But all bets are off after that. Got it?”

  Danny nodded, wiping his hands on a dishtowel as he walked toward her. “Yes, ma’am, anything you want, ma’am. But for now….”

  Sara crossed both her heart and the top half of her mountainous belly. “Rest. And I will. Right after we get back from Buy Buy Baby.”

  He stopped wiping. “But we were just there.”

  “They called yesterday and said the car seat we ordered came in. Remember?”

  “Oh, right. But we don’t have to get it right now, do we?”

  “Yes, we do. We can’t bring the baby home from the hospital without a car seat.”

  Danny tossed the dishtowel onto the table and squatted at her feet. Sara envied him his ability to do that without turning red and huffing like a broken airbrush.

  “We still have a couple months.”

  “So? Look, I need to have everything done and perfect before I really have to take it easy. Please, Danny, everything has to be perfect before—”

  And then the baby – little Emily or Vicki or D.J. or Gerard or whoever – added her or his two cents’ worth.

  “Ow!”

  Danny’s back straightened and his head came up, giving a great imitation of a meerkat on alert. “What is it?”

  “Just the newest member of the Cortland family doing a pirouette on my kidneys. Which reminds me.” She held out her hands, wiggling her fingers. “Help me up and I’ll hit the head before we go.”

  Danny stood and only mumbled a little to himself as he took her hands. “I can go myself, you know. All I have to do is pick up the car seat and come home. Shouldn’t take more than thirty minutes, tops.”

  Sara squeezed his hands and smiled. “I want to pick up a couple more receiving blankets and maybe some onesies and stuff.”

  “You should rest.”

  “I’ll rest when we get home. Promise. Now, pull.”

  Danny’s sigh scented the air with onions again, but Sara held her breath as she tightened the muscles in her legs and leaned forward, preparing to push off. And maybe she shouldn’t have because suddenly the bright Saturday morning light was obscured by thousands of swirling dots – red to green, ye
llow to purple, blue to orange – that flashed and flared and exploded in front of her eyes.

  “Okay,” he said and his voice sounded so far away, so far above her, “but this time I’m holding you to that promise.”

  She blinked and the last thing she saw was his face.

  He was smiling.

  “Danny? I don’t feel so—”

  Chapter Four

  Elisabeth

  (1914)

  “Why are you hovering at the threshold, Elisabeth? Either come in or leave.”

  Since leaving was not an option, she entered the parlor and tried not to tremble when the dog lifted its massive gargoyle head and growled.

  “Julius, hush now,” her mother reproached with more kindness than Elisabeth herself had ever received, “you know how you frighten her. Now then, Elisabeth, I understand that you feel obliged to go out this evening, is that correct?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “I see no reason for that, Elisabeth. You’ve already been out twice this week. Surely your…friend will understand your cancellation.”

  Elisabeth tugged at the vertical plane of her shirtwaist, following the ribs of the corset beneath, as if straightening a flaw in the material.

  “Stop that fidgeting at once. How do you ever hope to attract a husband?”

  As if that was still a possibility.

  She was thirty-nine, as her mother kept reminding her, well past the time when any man might be interested in making her acquaintance, and decidedly plain…another flaw her mother was fond of reaffirming. Whereas her mother had been a noted beauty of her time, petite, wasp-waisted, with golden hair and sapphire eyes, Elisabeth had taken after her father: sturdy and tall with a ruddy complexion, mouse-colored hair and mud-green eyes that weren’t shortsighted enough to avoid the many mirrors that were prominently displayed about the house.

  “How many times must I remind you that men do not like women who cannot keep still?”

  Elisabeth clasped her hands together.

  “Now, take one of my blue note cards and send your friend your regrets.”

  “No.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Elisabeth lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry, Mother, but I must keep my appointment.”