Insight

by Deborah Raney

  Maybe it was just the old problems. She probably ought to go to the doctor and get back on some iron pills. Her cycle had always been somewhat irregular—part of the package of her particular ailment—but now that she thought about it, it had been a while since she’d had a period. In fact, she wasn’t sure she’d had a period since moving to Hanover Falls two months ago. And she could barely remember the last time before that.

  Another rush of nausea went through her, only this time its source was completely emotional. What if she was…? No. She couldn’t even allow herself to think about the possibility.

  She finished dressing and drove to Reed’s house. She went around to the back and let herself in the kitchen as he’d instructed her before she left yesterday.

  She shut the door with more force than necessary, hoping to announce her entrance without surprising him. “Good morning,” she chirped as she went down the steps to the studio.

  Reed was at the easel already, brush in hand, full palette balanced on his forearm. “Hi. Be with you in a minute.” He went right on painting without glancing up, but his greeting wasn’t unfriendly.

  “That’s okay. I have these canvases to finish. Don’t stop. I smelled coffee when I came through the kitchen. Can I get you a cup…or another cup?”

  “Oh…yeah, that’d be nice.” He dabbed a few strokes of paint on the upper half of the canvas with a flourish and dunked the paintbrush into the jar of turpentine. “My cup is over there.” He motioned with an elbow.

  “Got it.” Olivia dropped her purse and jacket on a chair in the corner, retrieved Reed’s mug off the counter and went to pour coffee. She found a fresh, unopened carton of half-and-half in the door of the refrigerator. “Hey, you got cream!” she hollered down to him.

  “Oh, yeah. I thought you might appreciate that.”

  “Very much. Thanks.” She carried the two steaming mugs down to the studio and set Reed’s coffee beside him on the tabouret. He glanced briefly her way, but went on working, seeming deep in thought.

  She took a sip from her own cup and went to work with the stapler, stretching a length of canvas over a framework of pine strips.

  A crash split the air and Olivia jerked her head up in time to see the contents of his mug splatter across the hardwood floor.

  “Ouch!” Reed yelped, grabbing one bare foot and hopping away from the steaming puddle that crept across the floor.

  A dark stain wet the flared bottoms of his jeans.

  “Are you okay?” She jumped up to help him clean up the mess.

  Growling something she couldn’t understand, he grabbed a roll of paper towels from beside the clean-up sink. He yanked off a too-small scrap and dabbed at the mess. “Where did that come from?” His voice was taut.

  Was he blaming her for his clumsiness? She clenched her jaw, but pulled off a length of paper towel and knelt beside him, picking up the jagged pieces from the mug and sopping up the now tepid liquid. “Be careful you don’t cut your foot. Did you get burned?”

  “I’m fine,” he said tersely. “That’s probably not a good place to set a cup of coffee in the future,” he said, without looking at her. “I had no idea it was there.”

  Her hackles stood at attention. He was blaming her. She pummeled the floor with the soggy wad of paper, fuming, but she managed to sputter an apology. “I’m sorry.”

  He straightened and rocked back on his knees, meeting her eyes. “No. I’m sorry. Here…” He reached to take a piece of broken pottery from her hand. “It wasn’t your fault. I should have explained.”

  She cocked her head, questioning.

  “I still don’t see very well…since my surgery. My peripheral vision especially isn’t good. It’s probably better if you don’t put anything spillable near me without warning me.”

  Some of the steam went out of her. “I’m so sorry. I…I didn’t know.”

  “Of course not.” He gave her a guarded smile. “How could you know I’m an accident waiting to happen?”

  “But how do you…” She motioned toward his easel, then bit her lip, regretting she’d started the question. If he hadn’t explained by now, it was obvious he didn’t like to talk about it.

  But he shook his head. “I can see pretty well up close…thanks to the surgery. It’s across the room that gives me trouble.” He shot her a sheepish grin. “Or right next to my elbow.”

  His blue eyes held a charming gleam and she couldn’t stay angry. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t know.” She should have warned him she’d put the coffee there. Even if she hadn’t known about the problem with his sight, she could remember how engrossed she always became when she was working on a painting. Derek had often “materialized” at her side, sending her heart into a tailspin. She’d asked him a hundred times to warn her before he sneaked up on her. But he’d seemed to take a perverse pleasure in seeing her jump out of her skin.

  “Hey.” Reed’s gentle tone drew her back. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. It wasn’t your fault.”

  For some reason, the tenderness in his eyes, his tone, brought a lump to her throat. “Thanks,” she murmured. But she turned her back to him and hurried up to the kitchen with the wad of broken pottery shards and soaked towels, afraid he would see the tears she couldn’t explain to herself, let alone to him.

  As she pulled into the garage that night, a fluffy brown tabby-striped kitten trotted around the corner of the house. She watched in her rearview mirror as it scampered into the garage behind her. She’d seen the little cat several times in the yard behind the house. At first, he’d shot under the fence the minute she opened the back door. But then he’d let her stroke him for a bit, and she was delighted by his ferocious purr when she did. She’d always liked houses with cats. Derek had been allergic to them, so they’d never owned one. But she enjoyed watching this one and had started leaving the milky dregs of her morning oatmeal on the back stoop for him.

  She assumed the kitten belonged to one of the neighborhood children, but she’d asked a couple of kids playing in the yard behind her house and the elderly man next door, and no one seemed to know who the cat belonged to. She was terrified she would run over it some night driving into the garage.

  She got out of the car and came around to pick up the kitten. His little motor immediately revved into gear. “Hey, little guy. Where do you belong?”

  Tail twitching, he batted at her face with sheathed claws, his bright eyes challenging her to a boxing match.

  “You little tiger, you. You think you’re pretty tough, don’t you, buddy?”

  He squeaked as if in reply and Olivia laughed. But the soft weight of the kitten’s paw against her cheek moved her unexpectedly. She could hardly remember what it was like to have someone touch her as tenderly as the little animal did.

  She brushed away the thought and went on in the house, closing the door on the kitten’s pleading mews. But when she opened it again a few minutes later to take out the garbage, he was still there, waiting with a comical expectant look on his expressive face.

  “Hey, Tiger. What’s up?”

  The cat tagged along at her heels as she carried the trash bag to the dumpster in the garage. The birds were singing in the tops of the maple trees that towered over the house and a balmy breeze rustled the leaves overhead. It was a beautiful clear evening and it felt good to be out in the fresh air. As much as she liked the house, it was too constant a reminder of how alone she was here in this small town.

  She went to the kitchen for the broom and took it back out to sweep the sidewalks and the patio outside the back door. Mr. Burnside next door was mowing his lawn. It looked like it was all the elderly man could do to maneuver the old push mower across his yard.

  Olivia winced when she saw the demarcation separating their lawns. The grass in her yard was a good two inches taller. She would have to deal with that some day soon. They’d had a groundskeeper in the town house in the city, but Derek had purchased a new lawnmower when he moved and the yard had been immaculate the day
Olivia arrived in Hanover Falls.

  Michael Meredith had come over and mowed the lawn for her a couple weeks ago, but already it was overgrown with splotches of dandelion and some other weed she couldn’t identify towering even higher than the turf.

  When Mr. Burnside spotted her, he turned off his old push mower and shuffled to the sidewalk where Olivia was standing. Tiger scampered over to investigate and Mr. Burnside poked playfully at the cat with the toe of his boot.

  “Looks like that cat’s adopted you.”

  “You haven’t heard anyone asking about him, have you? I still don’t know who he belongs to.”

  “Nope. Haven’t heard anything. I’d say he’s yours if you want him.”

  “Oh, I don’t know if I can keep him.” She didn’t want to tell him that she couldn’t afford her mortgage, let alone pay for shots and neutering. And then there was cat food and kitty litter and who knew what else a cat required.

  “Well, I think somebody better claim him,” Mr. Burnside said. “He’s been making a racket at my window the last few nights. Three o’clock in the morning he comes, crying to get in, I ’spect. I wouldn’t know why. I’ve sure never encouraged him. Never fed him or let him inside…”

  Olivia colored at the obvious hint. Apparently the man had observed her feeding Tiger.

  But he didn’t wait for her to defend herself. He gave a wave of his age-spotted hand. “I better get back on the job. Sun’ll go down before we know it.”

  Olivia went back to her sweeping, but she watched surreptitiously as her neighbor finished mowing, noting the way he followed a spiral path, overlapping the swathe the machine cut each time. If she could figure out how to start the mower, she could probably get the job done.

  Tiger played just out of reach, batting at a fat beetle crawling on the driveway, then loping over to chase Olivia’s broom. She accidentally swept him off his feet, and he tumbled head over paws, like a clown performing a perfectly orchestrated pratfall. He righted himself, looking dazed, and Olivia laughed until tears blurred her vision.

  She leaned the broom against the house, scooped the kitten into her arms and cradled him under her chin. “Kitty cat, you’d better go back where you belong before I get too attached to you.”

  His low meow seemed to say smugly that it was already too late for that.

  The next day, while they sorted through a paint cabinet and organized hundreds of tubes of oils and acrylics, Olivia told Reed about her new feline friend. “I don’t know who he belongs to, but I wish they wouldn’t let him run loose. I’m afraid he’s going to get run over.”

  Reed held a tube of paint close to his face, squinting. He shook his head and handed it to her. “Can you read that? Does that say Vermilion?”

  He’d told her that he’d had eye surgery, but other than the spilled coffee that day, she hadn’t seen other evidence of his vision problems. She took the tube from him and read the tiny print. “It says Viridian.”

  He shrugged. “No wonder I couldn’t make that look right. He dropped the paint tube in the spot marked with a large capital G in the paint caddy they were organizing. “So you adopted a cat, huh?”

  “More like he’s adopted me.”

  “Well, whatever you do, don’t feed it or pet it or pay any attention to it, or you’ll never get rid of it.”

  She stopped and stared at him. “What makes you think I want to get rid of him?”

  “Cats are nothing but a nuisance. Oh, sure, they’re cute when they’re little, but I never did have much use for them after they pass that fur ball stage.”

  “I’ve always wanted a cat. But Derek—my husband—was allergic, so we never could have one.”

  He gave a little snort, shrugged, and walked over to his easel. “Looks like you’ve got that pretty well under control. I better get started here.”

  Not knowing quite why, she felt chastened. Maybe Reed just didn’t feel like talking. They’d made small talk most of the morning. And she’d enjoyed every minute. She hadn’t realized how starved she was for someone to share the little everyday things with. But it was true that Reed wasn’t getting much painting done with her yakking away at him.

  She bit her tongue and finished organizing the paints in silence, then started in on the matting project he’d assigned her.

  This job didn’t pay much, but it was all she had right now and she couldn’t afford to lose it. Derek’s retirement account was dwindling at an alarming rate and the house payment was due in another week.

  And with her telling physical symptoms, another unthinkable possibility was becoming more certain every day.

  Chapter 13

  There was a new Hy-Vee grocery out on the highway on the outskirts of town, but Olivia wasn’t in the mood to run into anyone. Not that she knew more than a handful of people in Hanover Falls well enough to do more than say “hello.” Still, tonight she just wanted to get what she needed and get out of there.

  She steered the wobbly cart through a wide aisle of the little food market three blocks from her house. She’d put a carton of milk and a bag of salad greens into the cart, but they were decoys. Her real mission was on the aisle near the pharmacy. Even though the chances of running into one of the three people she knew in town were nil, she glanced furtively around before stopping in front of the display of pregnancy test kits. She grabbed two different brands from the shelf and steered the cart around the corner.

  She figured she would attract fewer curious gazes reading labels in the cosmetics department than standing in front of the birth control and feminine hygiene products. She compared the packages and tucked the cheaper one under the bag of lettuce.

  The clerk at the checkout had to try twice before the box scanned and Olivia had a comical vision of him requesting a price check over the store’s public address system. But it finally scanned and she made it out of the store without running into anyone. A bitter taste rose in her mouth. She should have been on Derek’s arm, whispering excitedly about this purchase, and going home to await the results together—disappointed if they were negative, an unforgettable celebration if the little blue line said a baby was on the way.

  Instead, she felt like a guilty teenager. She hadn’t done anything wrong, but if she truly was pregnant, she was going to feel every bit as desperate as an adolescent mother-to-be.

  She stuffed the change in her wallet and crossed the parking lot to her car. For a town where it only took four minutes to traverse one end to the other, the drive home felt like a cross-country road trip.

  The kit’s instructions said the results might be more accurate if used first thing in the morning, so she put the box on the counter in the bathroom where she’d see it as soon as she woke up.

  As if she would forget. What if she was pregnant? She almost couldn’t breathe at the thought. The morning queasiness had abated somewhat, but now other symptoms had taken its place. Symptoms that were hard to pin on any other ailment. What would she do if she was going to have a baby? The check from Derek’s company would be gone in a matter of weeks, just paying monthly bills, and the amount his Workers’Compensation death benefit provided was a drop in the bucket. She didn’t have health insurance. She had no idea what obstetrical services cost, but snippets of pregnant friends’ conversations came back to her now, accompanied by visions of the pained expressions their faces had held while discussing the financial cost of giving birth. She would barely be able to scrape together enough to make the next mortgage payment. How was she supposed to pay for a doctor, let alone a baby?

  She grabbed the newspaper from the front porch, spread it out on the kitchen table, and began to search the classified ads for a job that paid better.

  A night of thrashing and weird dreams did nothing for Olivia’s state of mind. At four a.m., she finally got up and went into the bathroom. The ominous box sat on the counter where she’d left it. She opened it and spread out the instruction sheet, following it to the letter. There was no room for error here.

  Ten min
utes later, she sat on the side of the bathtub staring at the faint blue line on the test stick. The line was a much paler shade of blue than the example on the box, but there was no denying it was a positive reading. She scanned the instruction sheet again, grasping onto one promising sentence: “In rare instances a false positive indication may result…”

  Please, God, let that be what this was all about. A single clammy bead of perspiration trailed down the crevice between her shoulder blades.

  She couldn’t be pregnant. She just couldn’t. What would she tell Reed? She needed that job. But more than that, Reed had become a friend. Besides the casual acquaintances she’d met at church—and they were really Derek’s friends—Reed was the only ally she had in this town. If she were honest, he was the reason she hadn’t high-tailed it back to Chicago weeks ago.

  She wondered what his reaction would be if she told him. She chewed her bottom lip. If she truly were pregnant, there was no if. She had to tell him. It wouldn’t be fair for him to train her only to have her leave when the baby came. If she even stayed in Missouri.

  But she’d wait until she’d at least seen a doctor. She would be even more mortified if she told him, and then the pregnancy test turned out to be wrong. Still, she found herself praying harder than she’d ever prayed for exactly that to happen. “Please, God. I’m begging you. Just this once, answer my prayer. Please let this all be a mistake.”