Page 57 of The Blessings of Christmas
“You sound like your mother.”
Acid roiled in her stomach. Despite her mother’s cheerful exterior, she had terrible ulcers. The woman worried about everything. Amanda didn’t want to be like her, but her stomach had been bothering her lately. She edged the meatloaf into two separate piles.
Connor continued to pace. Her capable husband could make a shot from center court or put out a five-alarm fire. But when it came to becoming a father, he was helpless. Probably made him furious. “Even if the adoption would fall through, we still have the in-vitro. We’ve loaded the bases this month.”
If only she could be that hopeful. “I know Dr. Castle’s procedure is different than the other ones we tried. Trust me, when you’re the girl on the exam table, they all feel the same. Humiliating. And then you find out it didn’t work.” How well she knew the crushing disappointment and the desperation.
She could feel Connor studying her. “Don’t say it.”
“I won’t but…”
“I know. I sound like my mother.”
“Maybe we should just let nature take its course.”
“Isn’t that what we’ve done the past five years?”
“Yeah, but sometimes it just happens. Look at my baby sister Harper. Mom had Harper late in life.” Sliding back into the chair across from her, he tipped it back.
“She’d had six other children before Harper. Not the same thing at all.”
“Please give this a chance.”
“Trust me. Nothing’s the same.”
Later that night, she could have run a garden hose down the middle of their queen size bed. Connor was gone when she woke up the next morning. Scooting to his side of the bed, she nuzzled into the warmth.
Saturday and she had a big day ahead. The Kirkpatrick clan was having the baby shower, and she’d insisted on helping them set up. Amanda reached deep for the excitement she should be feeling. Nothing. Only caution. Trepidation. She needed a serious attitude adjustment. A fun, rowdy group, Connor’s family would know something was wrong if she showed up in this mood.
“You don’t have to come,” her sister-in-law McKenna told her when she called later that morning. “It’s started to snow again.”
Taking a sip of her peach tea, Amanda glanced out the kitchen window. At least two inches of snow already coated the garage roof. “So what else is new? This is Chicago.”
“Harper’s here to help me. Really, don’t go out if it gets messy.”
“Oh, I can’t wait to see Harper.” Maybe it would be good to get out of this house. “I’ll be there this afternoon. Soon as I do the laundry.”
“Whatever. But if the snow gets too heavy, do not go out.”
“Right. Connor will kill me if I got stuck somewhere.”
McKenna chuckled. “Just stay on the main road.”
A Kirkpatrick rule.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”
Three hours later, Amanda wished she weren’t so stubborn. The tires of her sedan spun on the hard- packed snow. Where were the plows? Saturday before Christmas and shoppers were out in full force, clogging the streets and honking their horns.Inching along Harlem Avenue, Amanda took a deep breath, the steely whirring of her tires fraying her nerves. Maybe she should have taken McKenna’s advice and stayed home. Squeaking across the windshield, her wiper blades were having trouble keeping up. She meant to replace them last month but never got around to it, and Connor didn’t need one more thing on his to-do list. He’d been working such long shifts.
She blinked eyes dry from the heat blasting from the vents. So darned hard to see and she didn’t want to clip the car in front of her. When she first left the house, the Christmas carols on the radio had been good company. Now “Jingle Bell Rock” grated on her nerves, and she snapped it off. When she came to a side road, she sure was tempted, but Connor’s words rang in her ears, “If you get stuck on a main road, there are always people around to push you out.”
The stoplight at Lake Street changed to green. Cars jolted forward, but the silver Grand Am in front of her stalled and spun sideways. Two guys leapt from the back seat and pushed. The car lurched forward and they jumped back in the car. So hot in here and she ripped off her green stocking cap and tossed it onto the seat. Traffic inched along.
No side street could be worse than this. When Amanda came to a cross street, she jerked the wheel to the left, took advantage of a break in oncoming traffic and shot through. She could almost hear Connor’s disapproving sigh in her head. “Babe, you are so headstrong.”
McKenna and Harper were probably decorating and the Kirkpatricks always went full out. The house would smell of her mother-in-law’s cooking. Suddenly she wanted to be there more than anything else in the world. But she was late and headed east toward her in-laws’ house on Clinton.
This whole baby shower thing felt surreal. Amanda ran a hand over her flat stomach. Adoption wasn’t the same, not atall. But after five years trying to have a baby, she’d take a baby elephant. At least that was the joke she told in the teachers lounge.
