Baby Chronicles

Author:Judy Baer [Judy Baer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Religious, General
ISBN: 9781426806124
Google: 53DtnXACkyIC
Publisher: Steeple Hill
Published: 2007-09-01T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

Friday, June 25

We’d planned to tell my parents about the baby last night, but neither Chase nor I could muster the energy. We’d spent a good deal of time in prayer and gone to bed early, neither of us feeling much like celebrating.

Tonight, then, I was pleased to see my mother appear at our door with a German chocolate cake with pecan and coconut frosting, an armful of catalogs and my father.

My father gets dragged to a lot of things. The only things he absolutely refuses to attend anymore are rummage sales. He says that rummage sales “diminish his manhood.” Maybe it has something to do with the fact that if my mother finds a piece of clothing she likes, she insists on draping it across Dad so she can see how it looks.

After more than thirty-five years of marriage, Mom is as energetic and full of life as she was at twenty, he tells me in a tone somewhere between awe and dismay. He’d hoped they’d grow old together, but so far he’s the only one willing to age. Of course, living with my mother would make any man grow old quickly. The odds are stacked against him. When he looks at her, however, it’s with a tender, indulgent sort of gaze that tells me how much he’s still in love with her.

Mom, who can read me like a book, studied me with an appraising eye. “You look terrible. What’s happened?”

I was taken off guard, and the story of Chase’s patient just came pouring out.

“He was so young,” I blubbered. “What’s she going to do? I barely slept last night. I can’t get it out of my mind.”

Mom considered me for a moment. “You have a tender heart, Whitney, but I’ve never seen you quite this emotional. It’s as if you were…”

Then she changed her mind about saying more and, with a flourish, spread her catalogs across my dining-room table. “Look at this.”

My jaw dropped as I saw pages and pages of maternity clothes, baby supplies and strollers. “How did you know?”

She eyed me suspiciously. “Know what?”

“That Chase and I are going to have a baby? We just found out. We were going to tell you, but then Chase had this happen at the hospital…”

“So that’s why everything I’ve looked at for the last month has had a baby in it. I sensed that something about you was different.” Her face lit with delight. “Now it all makes sense!”

“You’ve suspected I was pregnant for a month?”

“Mother’s intuition,” she said modestly. “Congratulations, darling. I’m elated for you!”

“What about all that stuff you told me about your being too young to be a grandmother? I thought it might bother you. You have been introducing me as your younger sister for some time now.”

She looked at me mysteriously and blinked slowly. Her smile was serene and wisely maternal. “Darling, I’ll sing it from the rooftops when you and Chase have a baby. And as for my being a grandmother, people won’t believe it.

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