Bess watched as Agnes flit around the kitchen, humming to herself as she worked to prepare Thanksgiving dishes for the next day’s meal. It had been almost a month since she discovered that her worst enemy was alive and kicking, a long month in which she teetered between worry that he might find her when she was still pregnant and her baby vulnerable and despair that the only way to totally protect her child was going to be to get as far away from the baby once it was born.
This must be what love felt like, she thought, this gnawing in the gut with the need to protect, the soft, fuzzy feeling in her chest when she allowed herself to fantasize about watching her child grow. Sometimes, she would sit in the rocker in her room imagining a little girl she could teach to sew and make crowns out of daisies or a little boy she could learn to fish with and hunt for doodlebugs in the mounds of sand around the farm. They were sweet dreams that helped to keep the dark, bloody nightmares at bay.
Agnes took the bubbling chocolate off the stove, pouring it deftly into the homemade pie crusts she had already baked in the oven. The kitchen was filled with the sweet, mouth-watering scents of the pies and pumpkin bread. As Bess watched, Agnes separated her eggs with one hand, whipping the whites and a touch of sugar into a healthy meringue that peaked more than six inches above the chocolate filling. After Agnes placed the finished pies in the oven for the meringue to brown, she turned to Bess with the remaining chocolate filling, lifting the spoon so that a healthy portion of the thick, brown pudding dripped back into the pan.
“Would you like to clean up this dish for me?” she laughed.
Bess wasn’t hungry, hadn’t been hungry since she’d seen the article in the newspaper. Still, she couldn’t be responsible for dimming the sparkle in the older woman’s eyes, so she summoned up an enthusiastic, you bet, and took the pan and spoon out of Agnes’ hands. The filling was warm and silky, with just the right contrast of bitter to sweet. She felt it slide down her tongue and into her belly like a cuddly blanket and sighed despite her tension.
“I’m sorry that Judd has to work tomorrow,” Bess said. “I guess emergencies don’t take a holiday.”
Agnes frowned. “No, they don’t. And Judd has always been the one to cover on holidays. He wants his men to be able to spend the time with their families.”
Bess knew without asking that Agnes was wanting Judd to have a family to come home to instead of just his mother and a stranger carrying his brother’s child. Bess was surprised to realize that she wanted that for Judd, too, that she was beginning to understand just what family might mean from living in the Taylor household.
Just as long as Lillian wasn’t a part of that family.
She finished the chocolate and stood to take the pan to the kitchen sink. A sudden, sharp pain shot across her belly, so intense that she dropped the pan, doubling over and just catching herself on the table to keep from falling to the floor. She managed to get back into the chair where she’d been sitting, just as Agnes reached her, a bony hand wrapping around Bess’ arm and squeezing tight.
“What is it?” Agnes pleaded.
Bess couldn’t answer because another pain, more intense than the first, shot through her again. She shook her head and moaned, and the eyes that looked up at Agnes were filled with fear. The next few minutes were a blur as Agnes ran to the phone to call an ambulance, and Bess used up the little energy she had concentrating on the next breath.
They were met at the emergency room entrance by a harried looking Judd, who towered over the EMTs and grabbed Bess’ hand with fingers that shook slightly. She was on oxygen then, and watched the buzz of activity around her through a haze of pain. Judd’s palm against her forehead lessened her fear. She did her best to relax back into the hospital bed they transferred her into as the doctor and nurses worked around her. A blackness began at the edges of her vision. She watched it close in on her with a certain detachment. The last thing she saw before the darkness enveloped her completely was Judd’s haggard face as his black eyes bore into her, not glaring for once but somber with just a touch of desperation in them. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he had more at stake in all this than just Daniel’s child.
When she woke, it was to find Judd glaring at her again. He grabbed her hand and shook it. “You haven’t been eating enough. You’re on bed rest for the duration of your pregnancy. Hopefully, that will be enough.”
He saw her face pale, her eyes grow wide, and the grim look on his face softened. “That was a hell of a scare, cupcake,” he told her. “Why are they having to give you nutrients, Bess, when I know how much food Mama puts on the table?”
“Will my baby be okay?” she asked, avoiding his question.
“We’ll make sure he’s born healthy.” His hand moved up to her shoulder and squeezed, comforting her frazzled nerves. “But you have to tell us why you’ve stopped eating.”
“They know it’s a he?”
Judd nodded. “The doctors did some scans to make sure he was all right. You’ll have to start coming up with boy names.”
Bess touched her hand to her belly. “He should be Daniel, for his dad.”
“She’s awake?” Agnes’ voice came from the doorway.
Judd pulled back from the bed and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Yes. Maybe she’ll tell you what has been bothering her.”
Bess bit her lip. She couldn’t tell them the truth, and she didn’t want to lie. “I just haven’t been hungry,” she said. “I didn’t realize how it was going to effect the baby, honestly.”
Judd took two deep breaths, making his nostrils flare. “I don’t believe you.”
Her shoulders slumped. Of course he didn’t believe her. She turned to Agnes, who raised an eyebrow at her and smiled encouragingly. “You’re going to have to believe me,” she said, hating how strained her voice sounded. “It’s the only explanation I’ve got.”
Judd leaned forward suddenly, laying a hand on either side of her head. His black eyes bore into her blue ones. “Why won’t you trust me?” he asked her, his voice just above a whisper. Then, just as suddenly, he turned on his heel and swung out of the room, calling to his mother as he left. “You talk to her.”
Agnes perched on the edge of the bed and took Bess’ hand in her own. Bess squeezed the bony fingers and let the first tears drop from the corners of her eyes. “It’s not that I don’t trust him,” she said.
“Oh, my darling girl,” Agnes tutted, “how is it that you are the only one who doesn’t know that you don’t trust anyone except yourself? Aren’t you tired, baby?”
“I’ve only ever had myself,” Bess explained. “Is it any wonder that I find it hard to trust other people?”
“You’re not alone now. Have we given you any reason to doubt us?”
“I can’t tell you. I’m sorry.” Bess pulled her hand out of Agnes’ loose grasp and balled it into a fist. “If you knew me, the real me, you wouldn’t . . . .” She pursed her lips, unable to finish the sentence. Not being wanted was too painful, even when she went through life expecting just that.
The room fell into silence then, and Bess listened to the beeps of the machines next to her bed, to the ragged breaths Agnes tried to conceal, to the distant echo of alerts being blurted over the loudspeakers in the hospital’s hallways. She took a deep breath, inhaling the tangy, antiseptic scent of the sterile environment, felt the scratchy material of the hospital gown against her skin. She glanced at the needle sticking out of her arm, following the thin tube of liquid to the IV bag, which hung above her head, reflecting the fluorescent lights from the ceiling in prisms of its clear liquid.
Judd came back in the room then, a cup of coffee sending threads of steam over his uncovered head. He sat down in the chair by Bess’ head, propping his big boots on the foot of the bed. He set the coffee on the bedside table, folded his hands on top of his chest and closed his eyes.
Agnes stood up and gave Bess one, last sad look. “I’ll see you in the morning, darling,” she said. “You get a good night’s sleep now.”
“‘Night, Mama,” Judd called without opening his eyes.
Bess swallowed hard. “Aren’t you going too?” she squeaked.
Judd opened one eye and swiveled it in her direction. “Trust is a two-way street, cupcake,” he told her. “We can’t have you doing a runner in the middle of the night.”
Bess scoffed. “I’m not going anywhere until little Daniel is born.”
He opened both eyes then. “Just as I thought,” he said, but that was all. He closed his eyes. Moments later, he was snoring away.
Bess watched him sleep, his strong chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm, and felt something break inside herself. If only she could make herself tell him everything, risk having those black eyes see her for the good and the bad of her. If only.
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