The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,521

sick still. It comes and goes. Look, I don’t want to tell the others just yet. Not until we come back from Florida. The honeymoon will be ruined if we do.”

“Agreed.” Tentatively, he placed his warm hand on her belly. “It’s awhile yet before you feel it in there, isn’t it?”

“It’s a quarter of an inch long,” she said, smiling again. “It doesn’t weigh an ounce. But I can feel it. It’s swimming in a state of bliss, with all its tiny cells multiplying.”

“What does it look like now?”

“Well, it’s like a tiny sea being. It could stretch out on your thumbnail. It has eyes, and even clubby little hands, but no real fingers or even arms yet. Its brain is already there, at least the rudiments of the brain, already divided into two halves. And for some reason which nobody on earth can divine, all its tiny cells know what to do—they know exactly where to go to continue forming the organs which are already there, and only have to perfect themselves. Its tiny heart has been beating inside me for over a month now.”

He gave a deep, satisfied sigh. “What are we going to name it?”

She shrugged. “What about Little Chris? Would that be … too hard for you?”

“No, that would be great. Little Chris. And it will be Christopher if it’s a boy, and Christine if it’s a girl. How old will it be at Christmas?” He started to calculate.

“Well, it’s probably six to seven weeks now. Maybe eight. As a matter of fact, it could very well be eight. So that means … four months. It will have all its parts, but its eyes will still be closed. Why? You’re wondering whether it would prefer a red fire engine to a baseball bat?”

He chuckled. “No, it’s just that it’s the greatest Christmas gift I could ever have dreamed of. Christmas has always been special to me, special in almost a pagan way. And this is going to be the grandest Christmas I ever had, that is, until next year when she’s walking around and banging her little fire engine with her baseball bat.”

He looked so vulnerable, so innocent, so completely trusting in her. When she looked at him, she could almost forget what had happened last night. She could almost forget everything. She gave him a quick kiss, slipped into the bathroom, and stood against the locked door with her eyes closed.

You devil, she whispered, you’ve really timed it well, haven’t you? Do you like my hate? Is it what you’ve been dreaming of?

Then she remembered the face in the darkened kitchen, and the soft heartbroken voice, like fingers touching her. What is there in all the world for me, but pleasing Rowan?

* * *

They got away at about ten o’clock. Michael drove. And she felt better by that time, and managed to go to sleep for a couple of hours. When she opened her eyes, they were already in Florida, driving down through the dark pine forest from the interstate to the road that ran along the beach. She was clearheaded and refreshed, and when she caught the first glimpse of the Gulf, she felt safe, as if the dark kitchen in New Orleans and its apparition no longer existed.

The weather was cool, but no more so than any bracing summer day in northern California. They put on their heavy sweaters and strolled on the deserted beach. At sunset, they ate their supper by the fire, with the windows open to the Gulf breeze.

Some time around eight o’clock, she went to work on the plans for Mayfair Medical, continuing her study of the great “for profit” chains of hospitals, in comparison to the “not for profit” models which interested her more keenly.

But her mind was wandering. She couldn’t really concentrate on the dense articles about profit and loss, and abuses within the various systems.

At last she made a few notes and went to bed, lying for hours in the darkened bedroom while Michael worked on his restoration plans in the other room, listening to the great roar of the Gulf through the open doors, and feeling the breeze wash over her.

What was she going to do? Tell Michael and Aaron, as she had sworn to do? And then he would retreat, and play his little tricks perhaps, and the tension would increase with every passing day.

She thought of her little baby again, her fingers lying on her stomach. Probably conceived right after she’d asked Michael