Rescue - By Anita Shreve Page 0,31

Inn. Webster’s cousins, Joshua and Dickie, both of them farmers, had keen senses of humor, which Webster remembered from his childhood when they’d lived closer. The jokes got Burrows going, and once Burrows had had a few, there was no stopping him. Webster sat back and stroked Sheila’s arm. He liked seeing his mother laugh to the point of near hysterics. Even Sheila joined in the conversation when she could, though for minutes at a time she was eerily quiet.

“You OK?” he asked.

When she turned to him, he thought he saw tears forming at the corners of her eyes. He put his elbow on the table to shield them from the rest of the group. He’d never seen Sheila cry. His face was inches from hers. The tears frightened him.

“What is it?” he asked, taking her hand.

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

Webster thought it might be the loneliness of having no family at the service and was about to say that he was her family now. He and the bump.

“This is stupid,” she said. “I never do this. I’m just so happy.” She bent her head to his chest, as if embarrassed by emotion. He wrapped her in his arms. “I never thought this would happen to me,” she said. “Not like this. I don’t deserve you, Webster.”

“Are you shitting me?” he whispered into her ear. Sweet nothings from the bridegroom to the bride. “I’m the one who can’t believe his luck. You roll your car precisely on my stretch of road, and I just happen to be in service? What are the odds that the love of my life would do that?”

He felt her laugh.

He pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. If he glanced up, his father, who’d insisted Webster carry one in his suit pocket, would be smiling. Webster held Sheila until she’d fixed herself up. “I really do love your dress,” he said, a compliment that allowed him to pat the deliciously round contour of her lap.

“Do I have mascara all over me?” she asked.

He pulled away and scanned her face. “Right eye, just below the outer edge.”

She swept the mark away, gave the handkerchief back to Webster. She lifted the champagne glass she’d been avoiding. The gesture caught Webster’s mother’s eye.

“Oh, honey, I’ve been waiting this whole time for you to do that.” She and Sheila clinked glasses.

That night Webster and Sheila lay in bed on the first of their three nights of honeymoon. They had chosen to forgo a trip. Webster was happy enough to be in their bedroom cocoon with the prospect of two more days off. On Monday, they would shop for a car seat and a crib with the money his parents had given them as a wedding present. Tomorrow he and Sheila would decide in advance where to put the crib—which tiny part of their already tiny apartment they could carve out as a nursery. But that night they had no worries and no plans. Webster’s mother, like the church lady she was, had arranged for the inn to make up two dinners and to save the rest of the cake, all of which she handed to Sheila when the lunch was over. “A woman doesn’t cook on her wedding night, no matter where she spends it,” his mother said. Sheila hugged her for the first time.

Webster gave his mother an A+ for trying. She seemed to be their biggest fan. Then again, Sheila had something his mother wanted: a grandchild to hold.

Webster put his hands on the bump and thought: This, right now, this is my family.

Sheila drifted in and out of sleep while Webster held her.

They’re contractions,” Sheila said when Webster opened the door at eight thirty in the morning. He’d had an easy night. Not too many calls, and nothing serious. “Not too bad.” She was just into her ninth month. She sat at the kitchen table, a glass of water in front of her, her robe stretched as far as it would go around her belly. She could barely tie the sash. Being pregnant was sometimes funny.

“Braxton Hicks?” he asked.

“Maybe.”

They’d gone to the classes, even though Webster already knew the drill. He kept it to himself, not wanting to stand between Sheila and the information she needed to know. He’d delivered an infant his first month as a probie. Burrows said the second-timers always waited too long. Webster knew about the blood vessels and aorta that twisted into an umbilical cord, the suctioning and