LITMIR.BIZ

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in his bedroom, sneakily, after his parents were asleep, or anywhere they could find to be alone.

      In September Hudson prepared to go back to OSU, which was located in Corvallis, about an hour and a half down I-5 from Portland. Becca didn’t see his returning to college as a problem, but Hudson started growing more distant as the summer wound to a close. Where once he’d been as enthusiastic as she, calling her day and night, he’d started to cool as the shimmering heat of August had slipped into a cooler September.

      And then there was the pregnancy.

      A skipped period she’d barely thought about, and then another that had worried her. She’d always been irregular, but she felt different, and when she finally worked up the courage to buy one of the home pregnancy tests, she’d sat on the edge of the bathtub at her parents’ house and prayed she was wrong—only to see the evidence of the child growing within her, a child she’d always wanted.

      But Hudson?

      Oh, God. Her throat had turned to sand and tears slid from the corners of her eyes before she could take control again, wrapping all the evidence of the test kit in a brown paper bag and burning it in the wood stove before her parents arrived home from work. Neither Jim nor Barbara Ryan would welcome an unplanned grandchild from an unmarried daughter.

      Becca had sniffed back her tears and only told her old cat, Fritter, a tortoise-shelled skinny stray that had attached itself to her, about the pregnancy.

      Afraid, desperate, sensing something had changed with Hudson, Becca tried hard not to cling to him. She’d practiced telling him about the baby. Over and over again in the car, when she was alone, or whispering to the cat in her bedroom, but she wanted to wait for just the right moment, didn’t want to spring it on him. After all, he’d been the one who had the condoms…well, most of the time.

      Finally, as a harvest moon hung low in the night sky, she’d told herself it was now or never, she had to tell him. He deserved to know. It was his right. But before she could force the words over her tongue, he mentioned that he’d known he’d been a little aloof, that it hadn’t been her fault, but he’d been plagued with thoughts about Jessie.

      Once again…Jessie.

      He told her when she was seated next to him on a porch swing at his parents’ ranch. He was in jeans, a work shirt, and boots, and there were bits of straw in his hair. He’d been drinking a lemonade when Becca pulled into the drive, and his mother, a tall woman with dark hair shot with gray, asked if she wanted a lemonade, too. Becca politely declined and sat down beside Hudson on the swing. Beneath her skin anxiety ran like an electric current. Something was wrong. She didn’t know if she had the courage to tell him. She had to tell him about the baby. But she couldn’t bear for him to think she’d deliberately trapped him. Couldn’t bear to think that maybe she had, a little…to have his baby.

      Though she was near him, they didn’t touch. She sensed there was an invisible barrier between them. Maybe he knew she was pregnant and didn’t want to be saddled with a child? But she’d told no one, no one, and she’d even purchased the pregnancy kit from a huge store in Portland, not the local pharmacy where someone might recognize her.

      Hudson finished his lemonade. There was a heavy pause as they swayed gently on the swing and the sun slanted late-afternoon heat waves at them. A breeze ruffled her hair and pushed a few dry leaves across the walkway. Hudson was silent. Not moody, just not really there, his mind somewhere far away. He stared into the middle distance and Becca had the feeling he’d forgotten she was sitting next to him, just a hairsbreadth from his body. How, when she was so aware of him, wanted to kiss him and hold him and tell him she loved him, could he act as if she were invisible?

      It hurt and, in truth, it bugged her.

      They were having a child together!

      “What’s wrong?” she asked him, when she finally found her courage.

      Before he could answer a car bounced down the long lane, its engine thrumming, his sister behind the wheel. Renee slammed on the brakes and the sedan, screeching, jerked to a stop a few feet away, dust from its tires wafting in a cloud their way. Renee stepped out of the car and tossed her short, dark hair. A small notebook stuck out of her purse and Becca remembered she was taking some kind of journalism classes. Probably acing them. She flew up the walk and scarcely looked at Becca as she hurried up the porch steps. But then she’d acted as if she’d barely noticed Becca all summer. They hadn’t been great friends in high school, but when they were classmates at St. Lizzie’s, Becca hadn’t felt quite the resentment she now sensed.

      Or was this feeling of dismissal, of invisibility, just her overactive imagination?

      A product of her crumbling relationship with Hudson?

      “Goddamned brakes,” she muttered, almost to herself. “Hey,” she said, spying Hudson. “You think you could fix them?”

      He shook his head. “You’d better call Mitch.”

      “Bellotti? That moron?”

      “He’s pretty good with cars.”

      “Yeah, he’d probably think I’d go out with him or make out with him or—” She gave a mock shiver.

      “He’s engaged.”

      “Send the girl my condolences. No, I’m not talking to Mitch. Great idea, Hud. Real helpful.”

      “You asked.”

      “Well, forget it. I’m not owing that fat-ass, has-been jock any favors. I heard he already flunked out of OSU. Big surprise.” She opened the screen door and nodded toward Hudson’s glass and the few remaining drops of lemonade settling near the bottom. “Any more of that left?”

      “I think so.”

      She brushed inside, never once acknowledging Becca. But then Renee always had been a bitch. An ambitious bitch.

      Hudson set his empty glass on a table beside the swing. He gazed at her through the shadows but she couldn’t read his expression. Finally, he said, “You know, you remind me a little of Jessie.”

      Becca stared. “What?” she demanded, her voice shaking. The comparison stung, and it hurt far more than Becca wanted it to. Obviously she’d been kidding herself about her affair with Hudson, wrapping it up in love and romance when he’d been harboring feelings for Jessie all along. She understood instinctively that there was no way to fight Jessie’s memory. Jessie Brentwood had been missing for over three years, but she was still very much here.

      “I’m not Jessie,” she said carefully.

      “I know.”

      “Do you? Why would you say…?” Her throat closed and her face grew hot with embarrassment. Who had she been kidding? She’d suspected, no, make that known Hudson had never gotten over Jessie, but to compare Becca to the missing girl…or even worse, fantasizing and pretending Becca was like Jessie was just sick.

      Her stomach, not great anyway, began to roil and she thought she might throw up.

      Hudson said, “I don’t know. Sometimes I think…”

      “I don’t think I want to hear this,” she whispered, all her dreams turning to dust.

      “Look, Becca, I’m leaving for school in a couple of weeks. I was talking to Zeke and we’re heading down together.” She felt a flash of rage at Zeke, sensing he’d been instrumental in Hudson’s current, sober self-reflection but couldn’t say so. “We talked about Jessie, the other day. We never really have much.” He leaned forward and sighed, his hands on his thighs, his foot stopping the swing’s arc. “I’m just wondering…”

      Becca pressed her trembling lips together. A long pause ensued while she waited, dying inside.

      “I just think we should take things slower. Work through some stuff. What do you think?”

      What I think is that I’m pregnant with your child and you’re sitting here next to me grieving

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