LITMIR.BIZ

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breath in frustration.

      “What?” he asked.

      “What do you mean, ‘what’?”

      “You just huffed.”

      “Oh. Nothing.” She couldn’t talk to him about it. He wouldn’t understand. Besides, he’d already returned his attention to the movie.

      She glanced at the clock on the night table. Ten-thirty. One-thirty in Raleigh. She hoped Maya was able to sleep. She pictured her wrapped in Adam’s arms. Now there was a guy who knew how to comfort someone! Thank God he hadn’t decided to come to the conference. He was now a DIDA volunteer as well, although he hadn’t yet been called to a disaster site. She and Brent had talked him into signing up the year before. He hadn’t needed much persuading in spite of the fact that Maya’d been unhappy with his decision. She was worried enough when Rebecca was in the field; she didn’t want to have to worry about Adam as well.

      “Every time the phone rings,” Maya had once told her, “I’m afraid it’s going to be Dorothea telling me you were killed by a gang of thugs or an earthquake aftershock or a disease from drinking filthy water.” Maya’s worry about her was irrational, but not totally over the top. Rebecca had been shot at once in Africa, although she’d never told Maya about that, and she’d had more than a few run-ins with parasites.

      Two years ago, she fell down the stairs at Dorothea’s and broke her arm. Maya met her in the E. R., and Rebecca was able to make her point: “I’ve never once been injured on a DIDA mission,” she’d said, fighting the pain as the E. R. doc splinted her arm. “It’s home that’s dangerous.”

      Denzel was running through the darkness with a gun in his hand. Rebecca had no idea who he was after or why, nor did she care.

      “You huffed again,” Brent said, without shifting his gaze from the screen.

      “Excuse me for living.”

      He grabbed the remote from the bed and hit the mute button. “What is your problem?” he asked.

      She shifted on the bed so that she was facing him. “What if we got married and something terrible happened?”

      “You said you don’t want to get married.”

      “Hypothetically. What if Dot died? Or your sister or brother? Would you shrug it off like this?”

      Brent stared at her for at least five long seconds. Then he sighed, rubbing his forehead with his palm, and she knew she’d finally gotten through to him. “Of course not,” he said softly. “Whatever happens, we’d be there for each other. We’re great together, Bec.” He reached for her hand, lifting it to his knee. “We’d do DIDA till we keeled over of old age. The cool thing about you … about both of us … is that we’ve always been able to roll with the punches, no matter what’s happening around us. We’re survivors. That’s why DIDA suits us.” He leaned over to kiss her. “I love you, Rebecca. Don’t you get that?”

      She nodded, and he wrapped his arms around her. Resting her forehead against his shoulder, she suddenly pictured herself holding Maya’s healthy, full-term baby, pressing the infant close to her chest, and she felt a loss so sharp and deep it made her gasp.

      She jerked away from Brent.

      “What’s wrong?” he asked.

      She stood up, rubbing her arms. The room was cold, the sound from the TV too loud. “I don’t know what’s with me tonight,” she said. “Sorry I’m being weird. I’m going out on the balcony to smoke.”

      “Want me to pause the movie?” Brent asked as she slid the glass door open.

      She shook her head. “I can’t concentrate. Just let it run.”

      She carried her cigarettes and lighter out to the balcony and sat on the chair overlooking the harbor, trying to shake off the unexpected sensation of losing something precious. Above her, the sky was filled with stars, and below her, lights flickered in the boats lining the piers. She couldn’t blame Brent for being irked by her tonight, she thought as she lit a cigarette. She wasn’t usually like this. It was as though Maya had crawled under the surface of her skin and she couldn’t simply brush her off.

      Maybe Maya and Adam would get serious about adoption now. Maya would eagerly adopt, but Adam desperately wanted his own biological child. He’d be such a joyful father, either way. He’d cook for his kids. Make pancakes in the shape of animals, with Maya watching him, smiling, totally in love with her husband and their brood. Adam was equally smitten with Maya.

      You only needed to be with them for two seconds to know he adored her. Why did Maya get to be loved like that and she didn’t? The thought made her feel small and churlish. She’d felt that way ever since they were kids, when Maya’d received their father’s attention at every turn. Maya had been so much like him—bookish and studious—while Rebecca had their mother’s vitality and spunk. Rebecca’d always been certain of her mother’s love, but it was her father’s she’d craved, and that seemed out of reach. “I have a scholar and an athlete,” he’d say of his two daughters, as though he valued them equally, but everyone knew which daughter he favored. Rebecca was smart, but Maya was smarter. Maya could sit still for hours, with a focus that was uncanny for a child. Their father would read to them in bed, and although Rebecca would try her best to pay attention, she could never make it to the end of a story. “You have ants in your pants?” he’d ask her with a resigned smile, and she’d nod, hopping out of the bed to play with her trucks or run around the house with her arms outstretched, pretending she was an airplane, leaving her younger sister behind to bask in their father’s love.

      Rebecca blew a stream of pale smoke into the darkness, resting her head against the back of the seat. She hated when she relived the past as though it mattered, nursing an ancient jealousy over her sister’s treatment when they were kids. The truth was, they’d both suffered the same loss. If Maya was lucky enough to find a guy like Adam, Rebecca wanted to be happy for her.

      That was part of the problem with her and Brent, wasn’t it? If she was ever going to get married, she should feel about a man the way Maya felt about Adam. So she and Brent were disaster junkies. Big deal. That didn’t feel like enough.

      She stubbed out her cigarette on the concrete balcony, then turned to look through the sliding glass door. She could see Brent, the changing colors of the TV screen altering his features second by second. His eyes were wide, absorbed by the movie.

      “Rebecca’s type triple A,” he’d said once, when they were out with friends, and she knew he meant it as a compliment. “You should see her in the field,” he’d added. “She never sleeps.”

      She’d felt his admiration then. His love. He did love her. She had no doubt of that. What the hell more did she want?

      5

      Maya

      THEY KEPT ME OVERNIGHT AFTER THE D AND C BECAUSE Elaine was concerned about the amount of bleeding I was having, but by morning I was doing much better. Physically, anyway. The nurse wheeled me outside to the sidewalk deck where two other women sat in wheelchairs, waiting for their rides home. I was relieved that neither of them had a baby in her arms. I would have lost it.

      The woman in the next chair looked vaguely familiar, and I wondered if she was the mother of one of my young patients. I often bumped into them without having a clue who they were, although I would recognize their children anywhere.

      Adam pulled up in his silver Volvo and got out. He was pale, his face drawn and tight. The nurse bent over to lock the brakes on the wheelchair, and just as I was about to stand up, the woman who looked familiar spoke up.

      “Adam!” she said, and I instantly realized who she was: Adam’s ex-wife, Frannie. The one who’d decided she didn’t want children. I’d seen pictures of her in Adam’s old photo album. She lived in Boston, though, and I couldn’t imagine what she was doing next to me on the parking deck. I sank back into the wheelchair.

      “Frannie!”

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