“Don’t worry,” she said gently. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Elissa cupped her hands around her glass. “I could be pregnant,” she said, putting her most delicate fear into words.
“Does he know?” Tina asked.
“Oh, yes,” she said, looking up. “He made me promise to get in touch with him if that happened. But I can’t see that it would help, to back him into a corner. He loves Bess. I can’t tie him to me for all the wrong reasons.”
“A wise decision,” her father remarked. “But I think you underestimate the gentleman’s feelings. Infatuation dies a natural death without anything to feed it. He’ll get over Bess soon enough—if he’s even still interested in her, that is.”
“But he’s got her now. She’s going to divorce her husband,” Elissa protested.
“Is she?” Mr. Dean looked at her over his glasses and grinned. “Well, we’ll see, won’t we? Eat your ham, darling.”
She glanced from one to the other. “Aren’t you upset?” she began hesitantly.
Tina lifted her thin eyebrows. “About what, dear?”
“The baby, if there is one!”
“I like babies,” Tina said.
“So do I,” her father seconded.
“But it will be...” Elissa hesitated.
“A baby,” Tina finished for her. “Darling, in case it’s escaped your notice, I’ve brought quite a number of unwed mothers into the congregation in years past, and the children have been raised in the church. Little babies aren’t responsible for the circumstances of their birth. They’re just babies, and we love them. Now do eat your ham, Elissa. For all we know you may already be eating for two.”
Elissa sighed. She’d never understand them, but she certainly did love them. “What’s your sermon going to be on?” she asked her father.
He looked at her gently. “On learning to forgive ourselves, after God has. Sometimes he punishes us much less than we punish ourselves, you know.”
She flushed, wondering how he’d learned to read her mind so accurately. “I imagine we’ll all learn from it, then,” she murmured.
He winked at his wife. “Yes, I hope we will,” he replied, and then he concentrated on his meal.
Warchief was back in his cage soon afterward, making enough noise to wake the dead. Elissa carried him into her room, saying a quick good-night before she closed the door.
“Be quiet, or you’ll get us thrown out!” she raged at him.
“Hellllp!” he screamed. “Let me out!”
“Go to sleep,” she muttered, pulling his beak toward her to kiss his green head. He made a parroty sound and wolf-whistled softly. She kissed him again, putting the cover over his cage.
As she slid into bed, minutes later, she wondered how King was and if he was happy now. She hoped he was. She hoped, too, that she wouldn’t be pregnant. Despite the fact that she wanted his child very much, it wouldn’t be fair to tear him between Bess and her own baby. For his own happiness, she had to let him go. She turned her face into the pillow, thanking God for loving parents and the hope of a new beginning.
But hope wasn’t a good enough precaution. Six weeks later, after horrible bouts of morning sickness and fatigue, she went to her family doctor to have the necessary tests. And he confirmed her pregnancy.
She didn’t tell her parents. Despite their support, which she knew she could count on, she had to come to grips with her situation alone. She went downtown to a quiet restaurant and drank coffee for two hours, until she remembered that coffee wasn’t good for pregnant women. She switched to diet drinks and then worried about the additives in them. Tea and coffee and most carbonated drinks had caffeine, herbal tea nauseated her and she hated plain water. Finally she decided that her choices had to be decaffeinated coffee, milk and Perrier. Those should carry her through the next several months.
The thought of the baby was new and delicate, and she sat pondering it through a fog of confusion. Would it be a boy or a girl? Would it have her coloring or King’s? She smiled, thinking about dark eyes in a dark complexion and holding the tiny life in her arms and rocking it on soft summer nights.
The more she considered the future, the more appealing it became. She wouldn’t have King, but she’d have a tiny part of him. Someone to hold and love and be loved by. Maybe that was her compensation for a broken heart. She smiled, overwhelmed by tenderness. She could still work; pregnancy wouldn’t hamper designing clothes. And her parents weren’t going