LITMIR.BIZ

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burly deliveryman’s question brought Nicole back to the present. “Oh.”

      Nicole looked around, debating. Dennis hadn’t said anything about where he wanted the set and it wasn’t the sort of item that could be easily moved around. Once it was set down, it would be there for the duration, unless he had some strong friends.

      There was an empty space facing the sofa. She noticed the cable outlet on the wall a few feet away.

      Nicole pointed to it. “There, I guess.”

      The burly man nodded. “Looks good to me.” He and the other deliveryman moved the set into position. Within moments, the cardboard packing was being removed.

      While his partner took the flattened cardboard out to the truck, the burly man took out a clipboard and presented it to her. He jabbed a short, stubby finger at a space on the bottom of the form.

      “Just sign here, madam, and we will be out of your way.”

      Nicole wrote down her name, then paused. The deliverymen were probably expecting a tip. She felt in her pocket for a bill. It was empty. Nicole frowned. “I’ll just go get my purse—”

      The man took the clipboard from her as he shook his head. “No, that’s okay. You buy the baby something from me.”

      He laughed under his breath. Walking out of the apartment, he called out something to his partner. The other man peered out of the back of the truck and laughed as well, but it was a benevolent sound.

      Nicole remained in the apartment a moment longer. She was tempted to look around a little more. It wasn’t right, but then she’d never slavishly tread the straight and narrow path. If she had, she would have never run off with Craig to begin with.

      She approached the closet between the living room and the master bedroom, wondering if it was as neat as everything else or if he was the type to stuff everything out of sight. After a momentary debate, decorum won over curiosity. That and the fact that if the closet was crammed with possessions, they would come tumbling out if she opened the door. She didn’t want to spend the next half hour trying to stuff everything back.

      Nicole let herself out, locking the door behind her. The delivery truck was just pulling out of the complex. The day looked much too nice to remain cooped up in the apartment with cans of light yellow semigloss paint. Nicole pocketed Dennis’s key and decided to pay a visit to her sister and her brand-new nephew. She needed her spirits lifted.

      The sun was fading from the sky when Nicole returned. Walking through the door, she kicked off her shoes. She’d bought them for comfort, but now they pinched. Her feet felt swollen, just like the rest of her. Not that she could see her feet to verify that.

      Nicole sighed, trying to take heart in what she’d seen this afternoon. Three weeks after delivery and Marlene looked great. Miraculously, her figure was back to what it had been before she had gotten pregnant.

      She opened the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of orange juice. Nicole fervently hoped she’d look as good as Marlene did three weeks after she delivered. Even six weeks after she delivered.

      There was something different about her sister, Nicole mused. A definite change that transcended appearance. That undercurrent of urgency to prove something, to constantly achieve something had dissipated. Marlene was a different person now.

      Miracles, it seemed, still happened.

      Suddenly too tired to make the trip from the kitchen to the living room, Nicole sank down in a chair beside the kitchen table and nursed her glass of juice.

      If Marlene still seemed a little tense, she thought, it was because she was really trying hard to be the perfect mother as well as a successful businesswoman.

      Nicole’s mouth curved, but there was only bitterness in her smile as the word mother echoed in her mind. It was small wonder if Marlene felt lost. Her sister had no example to follow. Neither of them did. There were no warm memories of a mother’s love to remember, no examples of selfless caring to emulate. They had no real-life experiences to serve as reference.

      Nothing other than what Sally had provided as their housekeeper. Sally, who had staunchly remained with Marlene after James Bailey had died, was gruff and spoke plainly, but she had a soft spot in her heart for the motherless children they had been. It was Sally who had given them the only attention and affection she and Marlene had ever known. Still, Sally was no substitute for the real thing.

      Nicole looked into her glass, tilting it and coating the sides as she thought. Though they never spoke about it, Nicole imagined that Marlene felt exactly the same way she did. That ever since Laura Bailey had abandoned them, there had been something missing from their lives.

      Something very important, no matter how hard she tried to deny it.

      Nicole felt her eyes misting again.

      Damn, what was it with her today? Everything was making her cry. She hadn’t thought about her mother walking out on them in years.

      Nicole exhaled loudly, bracing her shoulders which under the present circumstances wasn’t easy. She wasn’t going to allow memories of her mother, or lack of her mother, to prey on her mind now. As far as she was concerned, her mother was dead. Laura Bailey had died the day she had accepted her husband’s generous monetary settlement in exchange for leaving her children’s lives forever.

      She set down her glass and sniffled. This weepiness had to stop. Being pregnant certainly had its downside. Wiping her eyes with her handkerchief, Nicole curved her other hand around her belly. Though she adored the baby she carried with every shred of the love that no one had ever bothered to tap into, Nicole absolutely hated being pregnant. Almost from the very beginning, it had felt as if she were dragging around an old-fashioned steamer trunk filled to capacity with rocks. Rocks that shifted and moved independently of her. Luckily, she had Marlene to lean on. Marlene had given birth in the beginning of December and knew what lay ahead.

      Unlike Marlene who had anticipated the delivery with some trepidation, Nicole couldn’t wait to give birth and be done with it. She was passionately looking forward to shedding this elephantine weight she was struggling with. Naturally thin, she had never carried any excess weight until now. And as for her emotions, they had never been in such a state of constant flux as they had been these past months. Minor things taxed her patience and as for the major ones, it was almost beyond endurance. It was a struggle just to get through the day.

      Rising, Nicole saw her reflection in the chrome trim on the stove. A pregnant woman was supposed to glow. If that was really true, then someone had failed to issue her the requisite mother-to-be glow kit. Par for the course. If her ship ever came in, she’d probably be standing in the airport at the time.

      Damn, she had to shake this mood.

      Nicole wandered back to the refrigerator and opened it again. There wasn’t anything in it that hadn’t been there that morning. It was filled with healthy food. Nothing tempted her. Marlene had asked her to stay for dinner but Nicole had taken a rain check because she wanted to be alone. Why, she hadn’t the faintest idea.

      Or maybe she did.

      Nicole dearly loved her sister, even though they had approached life from different paths, and there wasn’t anyone else’s company she enjoyed more. But Marlene seemed caught up in her child and even in Sullivan, the brother of the man who had donated his sperm to create Robby. Nicole felt as if she were intruding.

      She felt, she thought now as she listlessly shifted food on the top shelf, like an A-number-one grouch right now.

      Nicole let the refrigerator door slip from her fingers. It sighed shut, eliciting an echoing sigh from her. Maybe she’d just catch the news on TV and then go to bed, even though it was early. With any luck, she’d feel better tomorrow.

      She’d just walked out of the kitchen when the doorbell rang. Automatically, she glanced at her watch. It was past six o’clock. She wasn’t in the mood for visitors. Lately, she mused, she wasn’t in the mood for very much. Except for fudge ripple ice cream,

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