Fine things

“Jane O'Reilly, you go right back to bed.”

But she started to cry instead and clung to Bernie. “I'm too scared.”

“What if I go upstairs and we check for monsters together?” Bernie felt sorry for her.

“You go first.” And then suddenly she looked from him to her mother and then back to Bernie. “How come you're sleeping in Mommy's bed if you're not married yet? Isn't that against the law?”

“Well, no …sort of…actually, it's just not usually done, but in some cases it's …it's more convenient …you see …“Liz was laughing at him, and Jane was staring at him with interest. “Why don't we go look for the monster?” He put his legs over the side of the bed, grateful that he had worn the bottoms of an old pair of pajamas. Actually, he had worn them in Jane's honor, and he was glad he had now.

“Can I get into bed with you?” She glanced from him to her mother, and Liz groaned. She had been that route with her before, and whenever she gave in, it meant three weeks of arguments afterwards.

“I'll take her up to bed.” Liz started to get up but he stopped her with a pleading look.

“Just this once …it's a new house …” Bernie intervened and Jane beamed at him and slipped a hand into his. They had an enormous king-size bed, and there was room for all of them, although it certainly curtailed Liz' plans for the evening.

“I give up.” She threw herself back on her pillow, and Jane climbed over Bernie like a friendly mountain, and hurled herself into the small gap between them.

“This is fun.” She grinned at her benefactor and then her mother, and Bernie told her funny stories about when he'd been a little boy, and when Liz fell asleep they were both still talking.

Chapter 11

The plane touched down twenty minutes late because of bad weather when they left New York, but Bernie was waiting at the airport. He had decided to come alone, he wanted to get his parents settled at the Huntington first, and then Liz was going to join them for cocktails. They were going to have dinner at L'Etoile, which brought back happy memories for them, of the night they'd spent at the hotel, making love for the first time and when he'd given her the engagement ring. And he had ordered a special dinner beforehand. His parents were going on to Mexico afterwards, and he and Liz were leaving for Hawaii after the wedding. So this was their only chance to spend a quiet evening together. His mother had wanted to come out the week before, but with Christmas at the store, sales to plan, and moving into the new house, there just wasn't time to spend with her, and Bernie had told her not to.

He stood watching the first passengers disembark, and then he saw a familiar face in a fur hat and a new mink coat. She was carrying a Louis Vuitton traveling bag he had given her the year before, and his father was wearing a furtrimmed overcoat, and his mother was actually smiling when she threw her arms around him.

“Hello, darling.” She clung to him briefly but in an airport he expected it as he smiled down at her, and then glanced at his father.

“Hi, Dad.” They shook hands and he turned his attention to his mother again. “You're looking wonderful, Mom.”

“So are you.” She scrutinized his face. “A little tired maybe, the rest in Hawaii will do you good.”

“I can hardly wait.” They were planning to stay for three weeks. Liz had gotten a leave of absence from school, and they were both looking forward to it. And then he saw his mother glancing around curiously.

“Where is she?”

“Liz didn't come. I thought I'd get you settled at your hotel first, and then she'll meet us for dinner.” It was four o'clock, and it would be five before they got to the hotel. He had told Liz to meet them at the bar at six, and their dinner reservation was for seven o'clock, which would be ten o'clock for them. With the time change, they would be tired that night, and there was a lot going on the next day. The ceremony at Temple Emanuel, the luncheon at the Alta Mira Hotel, and then their flight to Hawaii …and his parents' flight to Acapulco.

“Why didn't she come?” His mother looked prepared to be annoyed, and Bernie smiled, hoping to head her off at the pass. She never changed, but somehow he always thought that she might. It was as though he had expected someone else to get off the plane with his father.

“We've had so much to do, Mom. With the new house and everything …”

“She couldn't come to meet her mother-in-law?”

“She's meeting us at the hotel.”

His mother smiled at him bravely, and then tucked her hand into his arm as they walked to the baggage claim. But she seemed in fairly good spirits for once. There were no reports of neighbors who had died, relatives getting divorced, products that had gone amuck and killed dozens of innocent people. And she didn't even complain when one of her suitcases almost didn't turn up. It was the last one off the plane, and Bernie grabbed it with a sigh of relief and then went to get the car to drive them into town. He chatted about the wedding plans all the way in, and his mother loved the dress she had picked out at Wolffs a few weeks before. She said it was light green and it suited her very well, but she wouldn't tell him more than that. And then he chatted with his father for a little while, and they arrived at the hotel and he dropped them off and promised to return in an hour.

“I'll be back in a little while,” he assured them, like children he was leaving somewhere, and he hopped in his car and went home again, to shower and change himself and pick Liz up. She was still in the shower when he got in, and Jane was in her room, playing with a new doll. But she was looking wistful these days and he wondered if the new house was bothering her. She had spent the previous night with them, and he had promised Liz it wouldn't happen again.

“Hi, there…. How's your friend?” He stopped in the door of her room and looked down at her. And she looked up at him with a small wintry smile as he walked into the room and sat down next to her. And then suddenly she laughed at him.

“You look just like Goldilocks.” She giggled and he grinned.

“With a beard? What kind of books do you read?”

“I mean 'cause you're too big for the chair.” He was sitting on one of her little chairs.

“Oh.” He put an arm around her. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” She shrugged. “Pretty much.”

“What does that mean? You worried about the monster under the bed again? We can check it out, if you like. But there's nothing there, you know.”

“I know that.” She looked at him haughtily as though she could never have said such a thing. Only babies did that. Or kids who wanted to spend the night in their mothers' beds.

“Then what's up?”

She looked him squarely in the eye. “You're taking my mom away …and for such a long time …” There were suddenly tears in her eyes and she looked bereft as she looked at him. And he was overwhelmed with guilt at the pain he had caused her.

“It's …well, it's our honeymoon …and Aunt Tracy will take good care of you.” But he didn't sound convinced and Jane looked positively morbid.

“I don't want to stay with her.”

“Why not?”

“She makes me eat vegetables.”

“What if I tell her not to?”

“She will anyway. That's all she eats. She says dead animals are bad for you.”

He winced, thinking of the dead animals he was about to eat at L'Etoile, and had been looking forward to. “I wouldn't put it quite like that.”

“She never lets me eat hot dogs or hamburgers or any of the good stuff I like …” Her voice trailed off miserably.

“What if I told her she had to let you eat what you want?”

“What's this all about?” Liz was standing in the doorway, wrapped in a towel, looking down at them, her blond hair cascading over her damp shoulders, as Bernie looked up at her with passion.

“We were just discussing something.” They both looked guilty when they looked at her.

“Are you still hungry, Jane? There are some apples and bananas in the kitchen.” Liz had already given her dinner, and a huge dessert.

“No, I'm okay” She looked wistful again and Liz beckoned to him.

“We're going to be late if you don't hurry up. She's okay, sweetheart.” But once the bathroom door was closed, he whispered to her.

“She's upset that we're going away for three weeks.”

“Did she tell you that?” Liz looked surprised as he nodded at her. “She hasn't said anything to me.” And then she smiled at him. “I think she's figured out that you're a softie.” She slid her arms around his neck with a smile. “And she's right.” The towel fell and he groaned as he felt her body against his.

“If you do that, I'll never get dressed.” He slowly took off his clothes, intending to get into the shower, but he couldn't take his eyes off of her, and his interest was obvious as he stood naked in front of her. She fondled him with lingering caresses, and he pressed her against the stack of towels next to the sink, and moments later he was kissing her and she was stroking him. He reached over and locked the door and turned the water on, and the bathroom filled with steam as they made love, and she had to fight not to scream, as she always did when she made love with him. It had never been like that for her before, but it was now, and they both looked pleased afterwards, as he stepped into the shower with a boyish grin. “That was nice…. First course … or hors d'oeu-vres?”

She looked at him mischievously. “Wait till you get dessert tonight…” He turned the shower on and sang to himself as he lathered up, and she stepped into it with him, and he was tempted to start all over again, but they had to get ready in a hurry. He didn't want to be late, or his mother would be annoyed when she met Liz, and he wanted to avoid that at all costs.

They kissed Jane good night, told the babysitter where everything was, and hurried out to the car. Liz was wearing a dress Bernie had bought for her, a pretty gray flannel with a white satin collar, and she wore it with a rope of pearls he had picked up at Chanel for her, and gray flannel Chanel shoes with black satin toes, and her huge engagement ring, her golden hair swept up, her makeup faint but impeccable, and pearl and diamond earrings on her ears. She looked alluring and demure and very beautiful and he could see that his mother was impressed when they met her in the hotel lobby. She looked at Liz searchingly, as though wanting to find something wrong, but as they walked downstairs to the bar, and Liz took his father's arm, she whispered to her son.

“She's a nice-looking girl.” From her, that was high praise.

“Bullshit,” he whispered back. “She's gorgeous.”

“She has nice hair,” his mother conceded. “Is it natural?”

“Of course,” he whispered back again, as they took a table and they ordered drinks. His parents ordered their usual, and he and Liz each ordered a glass of white wine, and he knew she wouldn't take more than a few sips of hers before they went into the other room for dinner.

“So.” Ruth Fine looked at her, as though she was going to pronounce sentence or tell her something terrible. “How did you two meet?”

“I already told you that, Mom.” Bernie interrupted her.

“You told me you met in the store.” His mother remembered everything just as he knew she would. “But you never explained.”

Liz laughed nervously. “Actually, my daughter picked him up. She got lost, and Bernie found her and took her for a banana split while they looked for me.”

“You weren't looking for her?” Liz almost laughed again. His description had been accurate. He had warned her what it would be like. The Spanish Inquisition in a mink hat, he had said, and he was right, but she was prepared for it.

“Yes, I was. We met upstairs. And that was that. He sent her some bathing suits, I invited him to the beach … a chocolate teddy bear or two”—she and Bernie smiled at the memory—“and that was it. Love at first sight, I guess.” She looked blissfully at Bernie and Mrs. Fine smiled at her. Maybe she was all right. Maybe. It was too soon to tell. And of course, she wasn't Jewish.

“And you expect it to last?” She looked searchingly at Liz, as Bernie almost groaned at the rudeness of the question.

“I do, Mrs. Fine.” Liz saw his mother staring at her enormous engagement ring, and she was suddenly embarrassed. His mother's was a third the size of the one he had bought her, and his mother had registered that fact with a practiced eye, like an appraiser.

“Did my son buy you that?”

“Yes.” Liz' voice was soft. She was still embarrassed about it herself but it was so beautiful, and she was deeply grateful for it.

“You're a very lucky girl.”

“Yes, I am,” Liz agreed as Bernie blushed beneath the beard.

“I'm the lucky one.” His voice was gruff, but his eyes were gentle.

“I hope you are.” His mother stared at him pointedly, and then back at Liz as the Inquisition continued. “Bernie says you teach school.”

She nodded. “Yes, I do. I teach second grade.”

“Are you going to continue doing that now?” Bernie wanted to ask her what business it was of hers, but he knew his mother too well to even try and stop her. She was in all her glory, interrogating Liz, the future wife of her only son. Looking at Liz, so sweet and blond and young, he suddenly pitied her and reached out and squeezed her hand with a warm smile, telling her with his eyes how much he loved her. His father was looking at her too, and thought she looked like a lovely girl. But Ruth wasn't quite as sure. “You'll go on working afterwards?” She pressed on.

“Yes, I will. I finish at two o'clock, I'll be home when Bernie comes home at night, and all afternoon with Jane.” It was hard to find fault with that, and the maitre d' came to lead them to their table then. When they sat down, she questioned them about the wisdom of living together before their wedding. She didn't think it was good for Jane, she said primly, as Liz blushed. He had told her it was only for two days and she was somewhat mollified, but everything was cause for comment that night. Not that the night was so different from any other. Ruth Fine always made comment on anything she chose to.

“Christ, and she wonders why I hate seeing her,” he said to Liz afterwards. Even his father's efforts to make the evening go more smoothly hadn't appeased him.

“She can't help it, sweetheart. You're her only child.”

“That's the best argument I've heard for having twelve of them. She drives me nuts sometimes. No, make that all the time.” He looked less than amused and Liz smiled at him.

“She'll relax. Or at least I hope she will. Did I pass the test?”

“Brilliantly.” He reached over and slid a hand up her dress. “My father was drooling over your legs all night. Every time you moved, I saw him look down at them.”

“He's very sweet. And he's a very interesting man. He was explaining several complicated surgical techniques to me and I think I actually understood them. I had some very nice talks with him while you talked to your mother.”

“He loves talking about his work.” Bernie looked at her tenderly. But he was still annoyed at his mother. She had been such a pain in the ass all night, but she always was. She loved torturing him. And now she had Liz to torture too, and maybe even Jane. The very thought depressed him.

He poured himself a drink before they went to bed that night, and they sat in front of the fire, talking of their wedding plans. He was going to dress at a friend's the next day. And Liz would dress at the house with Jane, and Tracy was coming, and she would go to the temple with them. Bernie was picking his parents up separately in a limousine. Bill Robbins, Liz' architect friend with the house at Stinson Beach, was giving her away. They had been friends for years, and although they didn't see much of each other, he was a serious man, and she liked him. And he seemed the appropriate choice for that role in her wedding.

They were both feeling mellow and happy as they stared at the fire and talked.

“I still feel badly about leaving Jane for three weeks,” he confessed to her.

“Don't,” she said, laying her head back against him. “We have a right to it. We've hardly had any time alone.” She was right of course but he still remembered how sad Jane had looked earlier that night when she had objected to staying with Tracy.

“She's so little though …she's only five …what does she know from honeymoons?”

Liz smiled at him with a sigh. She was sorry to leave her too. She seldom had before. But this time she felt she had to for their sakes, and she had come to terms with that. She was comfortable about it now, but it pleased her that he was so concerned about how Jane felt. He was going to be a wonderful father. “You're a big softie, you know that. A giant marshmallow.” She loved that about him. He was the sweetest man in the world, and when Jane turned up in their bed again that night, he lifted her in gently so they wouldn't wake her mother up, and he cuddled her close to him. She was beginning to feel like his own child, and he was surprised himself at the love he had for her. They tiptoed out of bed the next day, brushed their teeth side by side, and made breakfast for Liz, and brought it to her on a tray with a rose in a vase that Bernie put there for her.

“Happy wedding day!” they intoned simultaneously, and she looked up with a sleepy smile.

“Happy wedding day, you guys …when did you get up?” She looked at Bernie, then at Jane, and suspected there was a conspiracy she didn't know about, but neither of them would confess and she sat up to eat the breakfast they had made.

Bernie disappeared after that, and went to his friend's to dress. The wedding was at noon, and they had plenty of time, as Liz carefully braided Jane's hair with thin white satin ribbons. She put on the beautiful white velvet dress they had chosen together at Wolffs, and Liz put a little crown of baby's breath in her hair. She wore little white socks, and brand-new black patent leather Mary Janes, and a navy blue wool coat Bernie had bought in Paris for her. She looked like a little angel as she stood at the door, waiting for Liz, who took her hand and walked outside to the waiting limousine Bernie had ordered for her. She wore a white satin Dior dress, with big bell sleeves and a skirt that stopped at her ankles, so one could see the equally exquisite Dior shoes. Everything she wore was the color of antique ivory, including the matching headpiece that held back her hair as it cascaded down her back like a young girl's. She looked incredible and Tracy looked at her with tears in her eyes.

“May you always be as happy as you are right now, Liz.” She brushed away her tears and smiled down at Jane. “Your mom sure looks good, doesn't she?”

“She does.” Jane gazed at her mother admiringly. She was the prettiest lady she had ever seen.

“And so do you.” Tracy gently touched the braids, remembering her own little girl, and they got into the car and drove to Arguello Boulevard and got out at Temple Emanuel. It was beautiful, and there was something awesome about it as they walked inside. Liz felt her breath catch and her heart pound as she squeezed Jane's hand tight, and the little girl looked up at her as they exchanged a smile. It was a big day for both of them.

Bill Robbins was waiting for her in a dark blue suit, his sober gray beard and kind eyes making him look like a church elder, and the guests were already sitting in the pews as the music began, and suddenly Liz realized what was happening. It had all been like a dream up till then, and now suddenly it was real, and as she looked down the aisle, she saw Bernie standing there, with Paul Berman next to him, and the Fines in the front pew. But it was only Bernie she saw now, bearded, handsome, dignified, waiting for her, as she walked slowly down the aisle to him, to begin her new life.

Chapter 12

The reception at the Alta Mira was a great success, and everyone seemed to have a good time as they stood on the terrace and looked at the view. It wasn't as elaborate as one of the big hotels might have been but it had more charm and Liz had always loved the quaintness of it, and Bernie agreed with her. Even his mother couldn't find fault with anything. Bernie danced with her for the first dance, and his father with Liz and then they switched, and after a little while, Paul Berman cut in on him, and Bernie danced with Tracy while Paul danced with Liz. And after that Bernie danced with Jane, who was thrilled to be included in the ritual. “So what do you think, old girl? Is everything okay?” “Yup.” She looked happier again, but he was still worried about leaving her when they went away. He was taking his brand-new parental responsibilities to heart and Liz had teased him about it again the night before. She worried about Jane too, and she had hardly ever left her in the past five years, but she knew that she'd be safe with Tracy, and they had a right to their honeymoon after all.

“I'm Jewish, what do you expect?” He had claimed finally. “Guilt is important to me.”

“Use it on something else. She'll be fine.” And after his dance with her, he led her to the buffet and helped her collect everything she wanted there, and he deposited her next to her new grandmother and went off to dance with his wife again.

“Hello.” Jane looked up at Ruth, who was staring carefully at her. “I like your hat. What kind of fur is it?” Ruth was somewhat taken aback at the question, but she thought her a pretty child, and fairly polite from what she'd seen of her so far.

“It's mink.”

“It looks nice with your dress …the dress is the same color as your eyes. Did you know that?” She was fascinated by her as she looked at every detail, and in spite of herself Ruth smiled at her.

“You have beautiful blue eyes.”

“Thank you. They're like my mom's. My father is dead, you know.” She said it matter-of-factly, with her mouth half full of roast beef, and suddenly Ruth felt sorry for her. It couldn't have been an easy life for Liz or the girl before Bernie came along. She saw Bernie in the light of a savior now, but so did Liz, so there was no harm in that. Neither Liz nor Jane would have disagreed with her. Only Bernie might.

“I'm sorry to hear about your dad.” She didn't know what else to say.

“Me too. But I have a new daddy now.” She looked proudly at Bernard, and Ruth's eyes filled with tears. And then Jane looked unexpectedly at Ruth. “You're the only grandmother I have, you know.”

“Oh.” She was embarrassed for the child to see her cry. And she reached out and touched her little hand. “That's very nice. You're my only grandchild too.” Jane smiled up at her adoringly and squeezed her hand.

“I'm glad you're so nice to me. I was scared before we met.” Bernie had introduced them that morning at the temple, very carefully. “I thought maybe you'd be real old, or mean or something.”

Ruth looked horrified. “Did Bernie say that to you?”

“No.” She shook her head. “He said you were wonderful.” Ruth beamed at her. The child was adorable, and she patted her hand and caught a cookie off a passing tray and handed it to her. Jane broke the cookie in two, and handed her the remaining half, which Ruth ate, still holding her hand. The two were fast friends by the time Liz went to change out of her wedding gown. And as Jane saw her mother disappear and realized what time it was, she suddenly began to cry silently, as Bernie caught a glimpse of her from across the room, and came hurrying to her side.

“What's the matter, sweetheart?” His mother had gone for a last dance with the father of the groom. Bernie bent and put an arm around her.

“I don't want you and Mommy to go.” Her voice was a tiny wail, and he felt his heart breaking in half.

“We won't be gone that long.” But three weeks seemed an eternity to her, and he wasn't sure he disagreed with her. It seemed like a hell of a long time to leave her with someone else, and as Tracy approached, Jane only cried more, and a moment later Ruth had returned, and Jane clung to her as though she'd always known her.

“Good lord, what's happening?” Bernie explained and Ruth looked sorry for her. “Why don't you take her along?” She whispered to her son.

“I'm not sure Liz would think that's such a great idea…. It is our honeymoon. …”

His mother looked at him reproachfully and then down at the crying child. “Could you forgive yourself for that? Could you really have a good time thinking about her?” He grinned at her.

“I love you, Mom.” Guilt did it every time. And a moment later he went to find Liz and told her what he thought.

“You can't take her with us. We don't have anything packed, we don't even have a room for her at the hotel.”

“So we'll get one…. We'll stay somewhere else if we have to. …”

“What if we can't get another room?”

“Then she'll sleep with us.” He grinned. “And we'll take another honeymoon.”

“Bernard Fine …what's happened to you?” But she was smiling at him, grateful to have found a man who loved her child so much. She had had qualms about leaving her anyway, and in some ways this was easier. “Okay. Now what? Do we run home and pack?”

“As fast as we can.” He glanced at his watch, and then ran out to the reception again, kissed his mother hastily, shook hands with Paul Berman, and his father, and swept Jane into his arms as Liz appeared and the rice began to fly. Jane looked frightened suddenly, as though she didn't understand and thought he was saying goodbye, but he tightened his arms around her and whispered in her ear. “You're coming with us. Just close your eyes so you don't get rice in them.” She squeezed them tightly shut and grinned happily as he held her in one powerful arm, and grabbed Liz' hand with his free hand, and they raced for the door as rose petals and rice flew, and a moment later they were in the limousine, speeding back to San Francisco.

It took them ten minutes to pack Jane's things, including all the bathing suits he'd bought her the summer before, and they made the plane on time. There was one seat left in first class, and he bought it for Jane, hoping they would be as lucky at the hotel, and Jane grinned at them as she boarded the plane. Sweet victory! She was going with them. She bounced happily on Bernie's lap, and then slept peacefully in her mother's arms as they flew west. They had all gotten married. And Bernie leaned over and kissed Liz gently on the lips as the lights in the plane went down so the movie could come on.

“I love you, Mrs. Fine.”

“I love you,” she mouthed so as not to wake the sleeping child. And she nestled her head gently against his and dozed until they reached Hawaii. They spent the night in Waikiki and the next day flew on to Kona on the island of Hawaii. They had reservations at the Mauna Kea Resort Hotel, and the gods were smiling on them. They were able to get one room adjoining theirs by turning in the suite Bernie had reserved for them, but at least they didn't have to share a room with the child, not that it mattered in the end. There was a monster under her bed at Mauna Kea too, and she spent most nights sleeping between them in the big bed, as the sun came up over the palm trees. It was a honeymoon they shared, all three of them, and a story Bernie knew they would tell for years as he grinned sheepishly over her head at Liz at night, and sometimes they just lay in bed and laughed at how funny it was.

“Paris, in the spring, I swear!” He held up a hand like a good boy scout and she laughed at him.

“Until she cries again.”

“No, this time, I promise … no guilt!”

“Ha!” But she didn't mind. She was glad. She leaned over Jane's sleeping form and kissed him again. This was their life after all, and they shared it with Jane. It was a heavenly three weeks and the three of them returned from “their” honeymoon brown and happy and relaxed and Jane bragged to everyone that she had gone on her Mommy's honeymoon. It was a memory the three of them would cherish forever.

Chapter 13

The months after Hawaii seemed to fly, and they were busy all the time. Bernie was scheduling all the summer and fall shows for the store, planning for new merchandise, having meetings with people from New York. Liz was busy with the house, and she always seemed to be cooking, baking, or sewing for him. There was absolutely nothing the woman didn't do. She also entertained for him, and did everything herself. She even grew roses in the little garden on Buchanan Street, and she and Jane had a vegetable garden on the deck which Tracy had helped them start. Life seemed very full these days, and April came along almost immediately. It was time for him to go to New York on a trip for the store, and then on to Europe as he did every year at that time. Liz had never been to New York or Europe before and he could hardly wait to take her. In some ways, he was tempted to take Jane too, but he had promised Liz this would be their real honeymoon, and an excellent solution had come along. He had planned the trip so that Liz would be on vacation from school for two weeks, and Jane was, too, of course, so they were taking her to stay with Grandma and Grandpa Fine, and she was so excited about that, she hardly seemed to mind that she wasn't going to Europe with them.

“And …” she announced on the plane, “we're going to Radio City Music Hall!” It was to be a triumphant tour. The Museum of Natural History to see the dinosaurs, which she was studying in school, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty. She could hardly wait, and neither could Ruth, from what Bernie could gather on the phone. Their phone calls were much easier these days. Liz was constantly calling Ruth just to say hello and give her the news, which took the pressure off him, and all his mother wanted to do was talk to Jane anyway. It was amazing that she liked the child so much, but Jane doted on her. She loved the idea of having a grandmother now, and she had asked Bernie very solemnly one day if she could use his name in school.

“Of course.” He had been stunned when she asked, but she had been serious. And she had become Jane Fine officially in school the next day. She had come home beaming at him. “Now I'm married to you too,” she said. But Liz seemed pleased as well, and she was relieved to know that Jane would be in good hands while they were away. Tracy would have been her first choice at home, but she and Jane didn't always get along these days. Jane was becoming more sophisticated than their old friend, which made Tracy laugh. She was relaxed about it, and happy that the threesome were as happy as they obviously were.

And in New York, “Grandma Ruth” was waiting for the plane at Kennedy.

“How's my little sweetheart?” For the first time in his life, Bernie felt no one hanging on his neck with those words and for a moment it felt strange to him, and then he watched Jane fly into his mother's arms and it brought tears to his eyes as he shook his father's hand and Liz kissed them hello, and then he gave his mother a hug, and Liz kissed her too, and the five of them went home to Scarsdale chattering and talking all at once. It was as though suddenly they had become a family instead of enemies, and he realized that Liz had done that for them. She had a remarkable way of touching everyone, and he saw her smiling at his mother in the car as the two women exchanged a knowing look about something Jane had said, and then they smiled. It was a relief to know that his parents had accepted her. He had been afraid they never would, but he hadn't realized the impact that being grandparents would have on them.

“And now my name is just like yours,” she announced proudly in the car, and then got serious. “It's a lot easier to spell. I never could spell the other one.” She grinned toothlessly. She had just lost her first tooth that week, and told her grandmother how much the tooth fairy had brought.

“Fifty cents?” Ruth was clearly impressed. “It used to be only ten cents.”

“That was in the olden days,” Jane said with disgust, and then kissing her grandmother's cheek, she whispered to her. “I'll buy you an ice cream cone, Grandma.” As her heart melted in the child's small hands.

“We're going to do a lot of fun things while your mommy and daddy are away.” She called him Daddy now too, and he had asked Liz once if he should adopt her formally.

“You could,” she had replied. “Officially, her father has abandoned us, so we can do anything we want. But I don't see why you have to go to all that trouble, sweetheart. If she uses your name, it becomes legal by usage over the years, and she decided to call you Daddy all by herself anyway.” He had agreed with her. It didn't seem appropriate somehow to drag Jane through court unnecessarily.

It was the first time in years he had stayed at his parents' house, and he was surprised at how pleasant it was with Liz and Jane there with him. Liz helped his mother cook dinner, and then clean up afterwards. Their maid was sick, which was the only dismal bulletin she gave that night. But since all Hattie had were bunions she'd had operated on, even that wasn't up to her usual gruesome standards of strokes and heart attacks. And everyone was in a good mood. The only problem was that he felt desperately uncomfortable when Liz wanted to make love to him that night.

“What if my mother comes in?” he whispered in the dark and she giggled naughtily.

“I could climb out the window and wait on the lawn until the coast is clear.”

“Sounds good to me, sweetheart …” He rolled over and slid a hand into the satin nightgown she wore, and they giggled and wrestled and kissed and made love, whispering, feeling like wicked kids, and afterwards as they talked in the dark, he told her what a change she had brought to his entire family. “You can't imagine what my mother was like before you came along. I swear, sometimes I hated her.” It seemed a sacrilege to say it under her own roof, but sometimes it was true.

“I think Jane is the one who cast the spell.”

“I think it's both of you.” And as he looked at her in the moonlight, his heart was full. “You're the most remarkable woman I've ever met.”

“Better than Isabelle?” she teased, and he tweaked her boob.

“At least you haven't taken my best watch …only my heart. …”

“That's all?” She pouted prettily, which made him want her again as he slipped a hand between her thighs. “I had something else in mind, monsieur.” She put on an accent for him and he attacked her again, and they both felt as though the honeymoon had begun, and Jane didn't come in to sleep with them that night, which was just as well, because Liz' nightgown seemed to have disappeared somewhere underneath the bed, and Bernie had forgotten to bring pajamas with him.

But they looked very respectable at breakfast the next day in their dressing gowns, and his mother made an announcement as she and Jane made orange juice. “We won't have time to take you to the airport today.” They exchanged a meaningful look, and Jane didn't look upset at all. “We are going to Radio City Music Hall. We already have the tickets.”

“And it's the first day of the Easter Show!” Jane was so excited she could hardly control herself, and Bernie smiled as he glanced at Liz. His mother was a smart one. She had set it up so Jane wouldn't have to go to the airport with them, and cry when they left. It was perfect, and instead they waved goodbye to her as she and Grandma got on the train, which was an excitement in itself, and Grampa was going to pick them up at the Plaza Hotel! “Imagine that!” Jane had said. “And we're going to ride in a hansom cab, that's a carriage with a horse! Right into Central Park …” There had been just a moment when they hugged her goodbye that her lip had trembled just a little bit, but a moment later she was gone, and chatting happily with Ruth as Bernie and Liz went back to the house and made love again. They carefully locked the door when they left, and a cab took them to the airport, and the honeymoon began.

“Ready for Paris, Madame Fine?”

“Out, monsieur.” She giggled and they both laughed. She still hadn't seen New York. But they had decided to spend three days in New York on the way back. It was easier for Jane this way, to get the hard part over with, with them gone, and then they could spend time with her in New York on the way home. And it worked better for his meetings anyway.

They flew to Paris on Air France, and landed in Orly bright and early the next day. It was eight o'clock in the morning local time, and they arrived at the Ritz two hours after that, after finding their bags, going through Customs and then getting into town. Wolffs had arranged for a limousine for him, and Liz was awestruck at the hotel. She had never seen anything as beautiful as the lobby of the Ritz, with elegant women, and well-dressed men, and porters walking poodles and Pekingese, and the shops on the Faubourg St.-Honore were even more wonderful than she'd imagined. It was all like something in a dream, and he took her everywhere. Fouquet's, Maxim's, the Tour d'Argent, the top of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, the Bateaux-Mouche, the Galeries Lafayette, the Louvre, the Jeu de Paume, even the Rodin Museum. The week they spent in Paris was the happiest of her life and she never wanted it to end, as they flew on to Rome and Milan for the fashion shows he had to see for the store. He was still in charge of determining all of Wolffs important import lines, and it was an awesome job selecting them. She was impressed at the work he did and she went everywhere with him, taking notes for him, trying on clothes for him once or twice, to see how they moved on an “ordinary mortal” and not someone who was trained to show them off. She told him how they felt, if they were comfortable, how she thought they could be improved, and she was learning a lot about his business as they went from place to place. He also noticed the shows' effect on her. She was suddenly much more aware of fashion, and much more chic. She looked suddenly sleeker and she was more careful about selecting her accessories. She had had a natural flair when they met, and with greater resources she had quickly shown how well dressed she could be. But she wasn't just chic now, she was striking suddenly. And she was happier than she'd ever been, traveling at his side, working with him every day, going back to their hotel room to make love in the afternoon and then stay out half the night, strolling on the Via Veneto or tossing coins into the Fontana di Trevi with him.

“What are you wishing for, little love?” He had never loved her more than he did right then.

“You'll see.” She smiled up at him.

“Will I? How?” But he thought he knew. He wanted the same thing, and they were trying. “Will your wish make you big and fat?” He loved the thought of her that way, carrying his child, but they hadn't been trying for very long, and she smiled at him.

“If I tell you what I wished, it won't come true.” She wagged a finger at him, and they went back to the Excelsior and made love again. It was a lovely thought, thinking of a baby conceived on this second honeymoon of theirs. But when they got to London for the last two days of the trip, it was obvious that that was not the case and she was so disappointed she cried when she told him the news.

“Never mind.” He put an arm around her and held her close. “We'll try again.” They did an hour later, knowing it would do them no good, in terms of conceiving a child, but they had fun anyway. And it was obvious how happy they were, when they flew back to New York, after the best two weeks they'd ever shared. And it was obvious they weren't the only ones who'd had a good time. It took Jane two hours to tell them everything she'd done while they were gone. And it looked as though Grandma Ruth had bought out Schwarz for her.

“It's going to take a truck to take all this stuff home.” Bernie stared at the dolls, the toys, a life-sized dog, a tiny horse, a doll house, and a miniature stove. Ruth looked faintly embarrassed and then stuck out her chin.

“She had nothing to play with here. All I have are your old trucks and cars,” she said almost accusingly. And she'd loved buying all the new toys.

“Oh.” Bernie grinned, and handed his mother the box from Bulgari. He had bought her a beautiful pair of earrings made from old gold coins, surrounded by tiny diamonds in a hexagonal shape. He had bought similar ones for Liz and she was crazy about them. And so was Ruth. She clipped them on instantly and hugged them both, and then ran to show Lou, as Liz held Jane close to her. She had missed her terribly, but the trip to Europe had been so wonderful. And it had done them good to be alone together.

The days they spent together in New York were almost as good. Dinners at Cote Basque and “21” and Grenouille, his three favorite restaurants, and he shared their specialties with her. They had drinks at the Oak Room in the Plaza Hotel, and the Sherry Netherland, went to listen to Bobby Short play at the Carlyle at night and she fell in love with him. She shopped at Bergdorfs, Saks, Bendel's and the legendary Bloomingdale's, but she insisted she still preferred Wolffs, and Bernie took her everywhere with him. She stood giggling with him one day at the bar at P. J. Clark's, watching all the characters come in.

“I'm having such a good time with you. Do you know that? You make my life so much fun, Bernie. I never knew it could be like this. I was so busy just surviving before, it seems incredible. It was all so small and intense, and now everything is so lavish. It's like a giant painting …like the Chagall murals at Lincoln Center.” He had taken her there too. “It's all reds and greens and sunny yellows and bright blues now …and before it was all kind of gray and white.” She looked up at him adoringly and he bent to kiss her again, tasting the Pimm's cup on her lips.

“I love you, Liz.”

“I love you too.” She whispered and then hiccuped so loudly the man in front of them turned around to look at her and she looked at Bernie again. “What did you say your name was?”

“George. George Murphy. I'm married and I have seven children in the Bronx. Want to go to a hotel with me?”

The man next to them at the bar stared in fascination. The place was full of men looking for a quick lay, but most of them didn't talk about their wives and kids.

“Why don't we go home and make another one?” She suggested brightly.

“Great idea.”

He hailed a cab on Third Avenue that took them to Scarsdale by the quickest route, and they got home before his mother came home with Jane. His father was still at the hospital. It was nice being home alone with her. It was nice being anywhere with her, especially in bed, he decided as they slipped between cool sheets. He hated to get up again when his mother and Jane got home. And he hated even more leaving New York and going back to California again. But he had spoken to Paul about it again, to no avail.

“Come on, Paul. I've been there a year. Fourteen months in fact.”

“But the store's only been open for ten. And what's your hurry now? You have a lovely wife, a nice house, San Francisco is a good place for Jane.”

“We want to put her in school here.” But they wouldn't take her application, they'd discovered, unless it was definite that they were coming back. “We can't just hang in limbo out there for years.”

“Not years …but let's say just one more. There's just no one else as competent for the job.”

“All right.” He sighed. “But then, that's it. Is that a deal?”

“All right, all right …you'd think we'd left you in Armpit, West Virginia, for chrissake. San Francisco is hardly a hardship post.”

“I know. But this is where I belong, and you know it too.”

“I can't deny that, Bernard. But we need you out there right now too. We'll do our best to bring you back in a year.”

“I'm counting on it.”

He hated leaving New York when they did, but he admitted that getting back to San Francisco wasn't so terrible. Their little house was nicer than he remembered it, and the store looked good to him on his first day back. Not as good as the New York store did, but good just the same. The only thing he hated about being back was not being with Liz all day long, and he turned up in the cafeteria at her school at lunchtime their first day back to share a sandwich with her. He looked very citified and grown-up and elegant in a dark gray English suit, and she was wearing a plaid skirt and a red sweater they had bought together at Trois Quartiers, with shoes she'd bought in Italy, and she looked very pretty and young to him, and Jane was very proud to see him there.

“That's my daddy over there, with my mom.” She pointed him out to several friends and then went to stand next to him, to show that he belonged to her.

“Hi there, short stuff,” he said, tossing her up in the air, and then doing the same to three of her friends. He was a big hit in the cafeteria, and Tracy came over to say hello to him. She gave him a big hug and announced that her daughter was pregnant again. And he saw the hungry look in Liz' eyes and squeezed her hand. She was beginning to worry that something was wrong with her, and he had suggested that maybe it was he, since she had had a child before. And they had finally both decided to relax about it for a while, and they were trying to, but it still came to mind a lot. They both desperately wanted a baby.

And in June he had a surprise for her. He had rented a house in Stinson Beach for two months, and she was thrilled. It was the perfect place for them. A bedroom for them, one for Jane, a guest room for friends, a huge spacious living room with a dining area, a sunny kitchen, and a sheltered deck where they could even sunbathe nude if they wanted to, not that they would have if Jane were at home. It was perfect for them, and Liz couldn't have been happier. They decided to move there for the two months, and he would commute every day. But they had scarcely been there for two weeks, when Liz came down with the flu, and it took her weeks to get over it. He mentioned it to his father when he called, and Lou thought it was probably her sinuses and she should see someone about starting antibiotics right away. Her head felt heavy all the time and she was nauseous at the end of the day. She was exhausted and depressed and she couldn't remember ever feeling that terrible. It was a little better the second month they were there, but not much, and she hardly enjoyed the place, although Jane was having a ball with all her friends, and she ran on the beach with Bernie every night, but Liz could hardly walk down the street without feeling sick. She didn't even feel up to going into town to try on her dress for the opening of the opera. She had selected a slinky black satin Galanos that year, with one shoulder and a ruffled cape of its own, and she was shocked when she finally tried it on right after Labor Day.

“What size is this?” She was stunned. She was generally a six, but she couldn't even close the dress they had sent her. She looked amazed as the salesgirl glanced at the tag and looked up at her.

“It's an eight, Mrs. Fine.”

“How's it look?” He poked his head in the door and she glared at him.

“Terrible.” She couldn't have gained weight. She'd been sick since July. She'd finally made an appointment to see the doctor the next day. She had to start school in a week and she needed her energy back. She was even ready to take the antibiotics her father-in-law thought she should try. “They must have sent the wrong size. It has to be a four. I just don't understand it.” She had tried the sample on when she ordered it, and it had swum on her. And that had been a six, and this was larger than that was.

“Did you gain weight at the beach?” He came into the fitting room to look. And she was right. The zipper wouldn't come near to closing at her waist and down the side. There were a good three or four inches of her suntanned flesh separating it. He glanced at the fitter standing by quietly. “Can it be let out?” He knew how expensive the dress was and it was a sacrilege to alter it very much. It was better to order it in another size and let that one go, except that now they didn't have time. She'd have to wear something else to the opening if it couldn't be let out. The fitter took a look and shook her head, and then felt Liz' waist and glanced at her questioningly.

“Madame has gained weight at the beach this summer?” She was French and Bernie had brought her from New York. She had worked for Wolffs for years, and Patou before that.

“I don't know, Marguerite.” She had worked with Liz before, on her wedding dress and last year's opera gown, and other things she had bought. “I didn't think I had.” But all she'd been wearing were loose old clothes, jogging suits, sweatshirts, baggy old shirts, and she had even worn a shapeless cotton dress into the store, and suddenly she looked at Bernie and grinned at him. “Oh my God.”

“You okay?” He looked worried, but she was smiling at him. Her face had gone white, and now it was bright pink, and she started to laugh at him. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him and he smiled, as the salesgirl and fitter discreetly disappeared from the fitting room. They liked working with her. She was always so pleasant to them, and they were so much in love. It was nice to be around people like them. “What's up, Liz?” He looked puzzled as he glanced at her, she was still smiling blissfully, in spite of the lost dress, or because of it.

“I don't think I'll take those antibiotics after all.”

“Why not?”

“I think he's wrong.”

“A lot you know.” He smiled at her.

“You can say that again.” She had missed all the signs. Every one of them. “I don't think this is a sinus infection after all.” She sat down on a chair and looked up at him with a broad grin and suddenly he understood. He stared at the dress and then back at her, amazed.

“Are you sure?”

“No … I didn't even think of it till just now …but I'm almost sure … I just kind of forgot while we were at the beach.” But she suddenly realized that she had skipped a period while they were there. She was four weeks late. But she'd been so sick she hadn't even noticed. And the doctor confirmed it to her the next day. She was six weeks pregnant, he said, and she rushed to the store to tell Bernie the news. She found him in his office, looking at some reports from New York and he looked up the minute she walked through the door.

“Well?” He held his breath and she grinned, pulling a bottle of champagne from behind her back.

“Congratulations, Dad.” She set the champagne down on his desk and he threw his arms around her with a whoop of glee.

“We did it! We did it! Ha ha …you're knocked up!” And she laughed and they kissed and he picked her up off her feet, as his secretary wondered what they were doing in there. They didn't come out for a long time, and when they did, Mr. Fine looked extremely pleased with himself.

Chapter 14

He went to New York alone on his usual fall business trip. He had to go to Paris after that and he thought the trip would be too much for her. He wanted her to rest, keep her feet up, eat healthy food, watch TV and relax after school, he said. And before he left, he told Jane to take care of her. She was stunned when they told her about the baby at first, but after a little bit she was pleased.

“Kind of like a big doll,” Bernie explained. And she was equally pleased that he wanted a little boy, and said she would always be his favorite little girl. She promised to take care of Liz while he was gone, and he called them from New York when he arrived. He was staying at the Regency because it was close to the store, and he had dinner with his parents the first night he was there. They met at Le Cirque, and Bernie walked in with a quiet smile, and saw them sitting at a table waiting for him.

He kissed his mother, sat down, ordered a kir, and his mother looked at him suspiciously.

“Something's wrong.”

“Not at all.”

“You got fired.”

This time he laughed at her, and ordered a bottle of Dom Perignon as his mother stared at him.

“What happened?”

“Something very nice.”

She didn't believe a word he said, and then observing him cautiously: “You're coming back to New York?”

“Not yet.” Though he wished that he would, but even that was eclipsed now. “Better than that.”

“You're moving somewhere else?” She still looked suspicious and his father was smiling. He had guessed their news and the two men exchanged a knowing look as the waiter poured the champagne, and Bernie raised his glass to them.

“To Grandma and Grampa …mazel to v.”

“So?” Ruth looked at him, confused, and then suddenly, like a bolt of lightning striking her, she fell back in her seat, staring at him with open, startled eyes. “No! Is Liz …she's …?” For once in her life she couldn't find the words, and tears sprang to her eyes as he nodded with a broad smile and touched her hand.

“We're having a baby, Mom.” He was so pleased he could hardly control himself and his father congratulated him as his mother jabbered incoherently and they sipped their champagne.

“I just can't imagine … Is everything all right? … Is she eating all right? …How does she feel? … I have to call her when we get home.” And then she suddenly thought of Jane, and looked at Bernie with worried eyes. “How is Jane taking it?”

“I think she was a little shocked at first. I don't think it dawned on her that we might do something like that to her, but we've been spending a lot of time explaining it to her, telling her how important she is to us, stuff like that, and Liz is going to get her some books to deal with whatever negative feelings she has.”

His mother scowled at him. “You're beginning to talk like one of them…. Californians don't speak English anymore. Watch out you don't become one of them and stay out there.” She had been worrying about that since he left, but now all she could think of was her grandchild on the way. “Is Liz taking vitamins?” She turned to Lou, without waiting for her son to respond. “You should talk to her when we call tonight. Explain to her what she should eat, what vitamins to take.”

“I'm sure she has an obstetrician, Ruth. He'll tell her what to do.”

“What does he know? For all you know she's going to one of those hippies in the pie plate shoes, rubbing herbs on her head and telling her to sleep naked on the beach.” She looked at her son ferociously. “You should be back here when the baby is born. He should be born in New York Hospital, safe and sound, where he belongs and your father can look into everything.”

“They have very good hospitals out there, Ruth.” The two men were smiling at her. She was beside herself. “I'm sure Bernie is keeping a good eye on everything.” And he was of course. He had already been to the doctor with her, and he liked the obstetrician she had found through a friend. They were going to do Lamaze training eventually, and Liz was determined to have the baby naturally, with Bernie helping her and holding her hand. It still made him nervous thinking about it, but he didn't want to let her down and he had every intention of being there.

“Everything's fine, Mom. I went to the doctor with her before I left. He seems very competent, and he's even from New York.” He knew that would reassure her but she wasn't listening. She was listening to something he had said first.

“What do you mean, you went to the doctor with her? You stayed in the waiting room, I hope.”

Bernie poured her another glass of champagne and smiled at her. “No. It doesn't work like that anymore. The father is part of everything.”

“You're not going to be there for the birth, are you?” She looked horrified. She thought it was a disgusting trend. They were doing it in New York too, and she couldn't think of anything worse than a man watching his wife give birth to a baby.

“I plan to be there, Mom.”

She made a face. “That's the most disgusting thing I ever heard.” She then lowered her voice conspiratorially. “You know, you'll never feel the same way about her again if you see the baby being born. Take my word for it. I've heard stories that would make you sick…. Besides”—she sat up again with a dignified sniff—“a decent woman wouldn't want you there. That's a horrible thing for a man to see.”

“Mom, it's a miracle…. There's nothing horrible or indecent about seeing your wife giving birth.” He was so proud of her, and he wanted to see their baby coming into the world, he wanted to be there to welcome him or her. They were going to see a movie of a baby being born, so they both knew what to expect. None of it seemed disgusting to him, just a little frightening sometimes. And he knew Liz was a little nervous about it too, even though she'd had one child, but that had been six years before. But it all still seemed so far away to both of them. They still had another six months to go, and they could hardly wait. And by the end of the meal Ruth had not only planned the entire layette and suggested the best nursery schools in Westchester, she was urging him to make his son go to law school when he grew up. They drank a lot of champagne and she was a little tipsy when they left, but it was the nicest dinner he had had with her in a long time, and he conveyed Liz' invitation to them. And he was just drunk enough himself that the prospect of having them stay with them didn't even frighten him.

“Liz wants you to come out for the holidays.” He looked at both of them.

“And you don't?”

“Of course I do, Mom. And she wants you to stay with us.”

“Where?”

“Jane can sleep in the baby's room.”

“Never mind. We'll stay at the Huntington like we did before. That way we won't bother you. When does she want us for?”

“Her Christmas vacation starts on December twenty-first, I think. Something like that. Why don't you come out then?”

“She won't still be working, will she, Bernard?”

He smiled at her. “I've been surrounded by stubborn women all my life. She's going to work right up until the Easter holidays, and then take a leave from school after that. Her friend Tracy will substitute for her. They already have it all worked out between them.”

“Meshuggeneh. She should be home in bed by then.”

He shrugged. “She won't, and the doctor says she can work right till the end … so will you come?”

There was a twinkle in her eyes as she smiled at him. “What do you think? You think I'm not going to come and visit my only son, in the godforsaken place he lives?”

He laughed at her. “I wouldn't exactly call it that, Mom.”

“It's not New York.” He glanced around them wistfully at the cabs flying past, the people walking by, the little shops on Madison Avenue only a few feet from them as they waited for the doorman to find them a cab. There were times when he felt his romance with New York would never end, and San Francisco still felt like an exile to him. “San Francisco's not so bad.” He was still trying to convince himself of that, in spite of how happy he was there with Liz, but he would have been happier with her in New York. His mother shrugged, and looked at him ruefully.

“Just so you come home soon. Especially now.” They were all thinking of Liz and the child she was to bear. His mother acted as though it were a gift especially for them. “Take care of yourself.” She hugged him tight as a taxi finally stopped for them, and there were tears in her eyes as she took a step back from him. “Mazel tov, to both of you.”

“Thank you, Mom.” He squeezed her hand and he and his father exchanged a warm look, and then they waved and were gone and he walked slowly back to his hotel, thinking of them, and Liz, and Jane, thinking how lucky he was …no matter where he lived. Maybe it didn't matter so much for now …San Francisco would be easier for Liz this year, better than slipping on ice, and battling the snow and the elements. It was just as well, he convinced himself…. And the next day when he left it was pouring rain. And the city still looked beautiful to him. It was blanketed in gray, and as the plane rose in the sky, he thought of his parents again. It must have been hard for them, having him so far away. He suddenly understood it differently now that he was having his own child. He would have hated his son to live so far away. And then he leaned his head back against the seat and smiled to himself, thinking of Liz and the baby they would have…. He hoped it would look like her, and he wouldn't have minded a little girl … a little girl…. He drifted off to sleep, and slept most of the way to Europe.

The week in Paris went too fast, and from there he went to Rome and Milan, as he always did. This time he went to Denmark and Berlin, as well, with a round of meetings in London before he left. It was a very successful trip and he was away for almost three weeks, and when he saw Liz again he laughed at her. Her stomach had suddenly exploded while he was gone, and she couldn't wear her clothes anymore. And when she lay in bed, she looked as though she'd swallowed a cantaloupe.

“What's that?” He grinned at her after the first time they made love again.

“I dunno.” She threw out her hands in ignorance as she lay naked on their bed, her hair in pigtails and their clothes strewn across the floor. They hadn't waited very long, and they were in a hurry before Tracy brought Jane home from an excursion they'd been on.

But when Liz got up and walked across the room, and saw Bernie watching her, she felt self-conscious suddenly, and she pulled his shirt on and covered herself. “Don't look at me …I'm so fat I hate myself.”

“Fat? Are you crazy? You've never looked better. You're gorgeous!” He came over and gently fondled her behind, and then let his hand drift over the cantaloupe with fascination.

“Any idea what it is?” He was curious.

She shrugged with a smile. “It's bigger than Jane was at this point, but that doesn't mean anything.” And then, hopefully, “Maybe it's a boy. That's what you want, isn't it?”

He cocked his head to one side, looking at her. “I don't really think I care. Just so it's okay. When do we go back to the doctor again?”

“Are you really sure you want to do that?” She looked at him worriedly and he was stunned.

“What's happened to you?” And then he understood perfectly. “Has my darling mother been talking to you?” She blushed and then shrugged again, trying to brush it off and explain it at the same time, and he held her close to him. “You're beautiful to me. And I want to share this with you …all of it…the good, the bad, the scary part, the wonder of it all. We both made this child, and now we're both going to share it as much as we can. Is that okay with you?”

She looked relieved and her eyes were bright as she looked at him. “You're sure it won't turn you off forever?” She looked so worried and he laughed, remembering their antics in bed only moments before. He waved at the bed and then kissed her tenderly.

“Did I seem turned off to you?” She giggled happily and hugged him tight.

“Okay …I'm sorry …” And with that, the doorbell rang, and they jumped back into their clothes again as quickly as they could, in time to welcome Tracy and Jane. He tossed the child into the air and showed her all the goodies he'd brought her from France, and it was hours later before Liz and Bernie were alone again.

She curled into bed next to him, and they chatted for a while, about his work, the store, the trip, and the child she was carrying. She seemed more interested in that than anything these days and he didn't mind. It was his baby too, and he was so proud of her. He pulled her into his arms, and they went to sleep, as she purred contentedly beside him.

Chapter 15

Bernie's parents arrived the day after Christmas vacation began, and Liz and Jane drove out to the airport to pick them up. She was five and a half months pregnant by then. And Ruth had brought everything from a layette from Bergdorfs to pamphlets about her health that she had forced Lou to bring her from the hospital. She had advice for her that dated back to her own grandmother, and after a close look at Liz' profile in the baggage claim she announced that it was a boy, which delighted everyone.

They stayed for a week, and then went to Disneyland with Jane, to leave Bernie and Liz alone for their anniversary. They celebrated three nights in a row. On their anniversary they went to L'Etoile, and came home and made love until all hours, the following night they went to a huge charity affair given at the store, and on New Year's Eve they went out with friends, and wound up in the bar at L'Etoile again. They had a wonderful few days, but when Ruth and Lou came back, Ruth told Bernie she thought Liz looked terrible. Pale and tired and worn out. And she'd been complaining of pains in her hips and back for the last month.

“Why don't you take her somewhere?”

“I guess I should.” He'd been working so hard, he hadn't really thought of it, and it was going to be difficult for him this year. The baby was due exactly when he made his usual trip to New York and Europe. He was going to have to put it off until after the baby came, and somehow he had much more to do at the store just then. “I'll see if I can.”

His mother wagged an angry finger at him. “Don't overlook your responsibilities, Bernard.”

And he laughed at her. “Whose mother are you, anyway? Hers or mine?” He felt sorry for Liz sometimes, she had absolutely no family at all, except him, and Jane, and his parents in New York. As aggravating as his mother was at times, it was still nice to know that someone gave a damn about him.

“Don't be so smart. It might do her good to get away before the baby comes.” And for once, he took his mother's advice and took Liz away to Hawaii for a few days, and this time they didn't take Jane, although she pouted at them for several weeks because of it. But he came home from the store with stacks of tropical maternity clothes for her, and the reservations already made. He faced her with a fait accompli and three days later they left. And when they returned, she was brown and healthy and relaxed, and she felt like her old self again. Or almost, except for heart-burn, insomnia, back pains, swollen legs, and increasing fatigue, all of which were normal the doctor said. The pains in her back and hips were the worst, but that was normal too.

“God, Bernie, sometimes I feel like I'm never going to be my old self again.” She had gained more than thirty pounds, and she had two months to go, but she still looked cute to him. Her face had filled out a little bit, but it didn't spoil her looks, she just looked younger than she usually did. And she always looked neat and well dressed. He thought she looked sweet that way, although he was aware that his desire for her was waning. But it didn't seem to be a time for that, although she complained sometimes. He was afraid he would hurt the child, especially if they got too enthusiastic, which they often did. And eventually, Liz didn't care about making love anyway. By the end of March she was so uncomfortable, she could barely move, and she was grateful that she didn't have to go to work anymore. She couldn't have stood another day of trying to stand on her feet, keeping the kids in line, or teaching them simple math or their ABC's.

Her class gave a baby shower for her, and everyone brought something they'd made. She had booties, sweaters, hats, an ashtray, three drawings, a cradle someone's father had built for them, and a tiny pair of wooden shoes, along with all the gifts the other teachers had given her. And of course Bernie brought home more baby clothes from the store every few days. Between what he brought home, and what his mother sent from New York, she had enough for quintuplets at least. But it was fun seeing it all, and now she could hardly wait to get it over with. She was getting nervous about the birth, and she could hardly sleep at night. Instead, she would roam the halls, sit in the living room and knit, watching late-night TV, or go and sit in the baby's room, thinking about what it would be like when the baby was born.

She was there one afternoon, waiting for Jane to come home from school, sitting in the rocking chair Bernie had painted for her only two weeks before, when the telephone rang. She thought about not answering it. But she always hated to do that when Jane was out. You never knew when something would go wrong, or they needed her, or she got hurt coming home from school, or it might have been Bernie and she loved talking to him. She pushed herself out of the chair with a groan, rubbed her back, and lumbered slowly into the living room.

“Hello?”

“Good afternoon.” There was something familiar about the voice, but she wasn't sure what. It was probably someone trying to sell something to her.

“Yes?”

“How've you been?” Something about the voice gave her the creeps.

“Who's this?” She tried to sound casual, but she felt breathless as she stood there, holding the phone. There was something ominous about the voice, but she wasn't sure what.

“You don't remember me?”

“No, I don't.” She started to hang up, hoping it was just a prank, but the voice was quick to grab her back.

“Liz, wait!” It was a command, and the voice suddenly lost its fluidity It was sharp and brusque, and suddenly she knew, but it couldn't be … it only sounded like him. She stood very still holding the phone, and said nothing at all to him. “I want to talk to you.”

“I don't know who you are.”

“The hell you don't.” He laughed, and it was an evil, raucous sound. She had never liked his laugh, and now she knew exactly who it was. What she didn't know was how he had found her again, or why. And she wasn't sure she wanted to know. “Where's my kid?”

“What difference does it make?” It was Chandler Scott, the man who had fathered Jane, which was different from being a father to her. What he had done had to do with Liz, but nothing to do with the child. The man who was a father to her was Bernie Fine, and Liz wanted nothing more to do with this man. Her voice told him so when she answered him.

“What do you mean?”

“You haven't seen her in five years, Chan. She doesn't even know who you are.” Or that you're alive, but she didn't tell him that. “We don't want to see you anymore.”

“I hear you're married again.” She looked down at her belly and smiled. “I'll bet the new hubby has bucks.” It was a disgusting thing to say and it angered her.

“What difference does that make?”

“I want to know my kid's all right, that's why. In fact, I think I ought to see her. I mean, after all, she ought to know she has a real father who cares about her.”

“Really? If you were so interested in that, you should have let her know a long time ago.”

“How was I supposed to know where you were? You disappeared.”

That brought something else to mind she couldn't figure out as she listened to him, her heart pounding angrily. There was a lot she would have liked to say to him once upon a time, but now it was so long ago. Jane was seven years old. “How'd you find me now?”

“You're not too hard to find. You were listed in an old phone book. And your old landlady told me your married name. How's Jane?”

Her jaw clenched as he said her name. “Fine.”

“I thought I'd drop in to say hi one of these days.” He tried to sound casual.

“Don't waste your time. I'm not going to let you see her.” She thought he was dead, and Liz wished he were.

“You can't keep her from me, Liz.” His voice had a nasty ring to it.

“Oh no? Why not?”

“Try explaining to a judge that you're keeping a natural father from his daughter.”

“Try telling him you abandoned her six years ago. I'm sure he'll be very sympathetic to you after that.” The doorbell rang, and Liz felt her heart pound. It was Jane, and she didn't want her to hear her talking to him. “Anyway, get lost, Chan. Or to put it a little more clearly for you, go screw yourself.”

“I think you just did. I'm seeing a lawyer this afternoon.”

“What for?”

“I want to see my kid.”

The doorbell rang again and she shouted out to wait just a minute.

“Why?”

“Because it's my right.”

“And then what? You disappear for another six years? Why don't you just leave her alone?”

“If that's what you want, you'll have to talk to me.” So that was it. Another scam. He wanted money from them. She should have known.

“Where are you staying? I'll call you back.” He gave her a number in Marin, and she jotted it down.

“I want to hear from you by tonight.”

“You will.” Sonofabitch, she said through clenched teeth as she hung up and she went to the door, looking pale, and let Jane in. She had been banging her lunch box against the door and there was a big chip on the black paint and Liz yelled at her, which made her cry, and she slammed into her room, as Liz went in and sat down on the bed, close to tears herself.

“I'm sorry, sweetheart. I had a rough afternoon.”

“So did I. I lost my belt.” She was wearing a pink skirt with a white belt she loved. Bernie had brought it from the store, and she treasured it, like everything else he gave her, and most of all himself.

“Daddy'll bring you another one.”

She looked slightly mollified as she sniffed and Liz held out her arms, as Jane came to her reluctantly. It was a hard time for all of them. Liz was tired. Bernie was on edge, thinking she was going to have the baby every night when they went to bed. And Jane wasn't sure just how the newcomer would affect her life. It was natural that they were snapping at each other a little bit. And this sudden reappearance of Chandler Scott didn't help. Liz brushed the hair back from Jane's face, and gave her a plate of the cookies she'd made for her that day, and a glass of milk, and when Jane sat down at her desk to do the homework she'd been given in school, Liz went quietly back to the living room. She sat down with a sigh, and dialed Bernie's private line. He picked it up himself, but he sounded busy when he did.

“Hi, sweetheart, bad time to talk?” She was so damn tired, and she was having contractions all the time, especially when she was upset, like now, after talking to Chandler.

“No, no, it's okay.” And then suddenly he realized with a start. “Is it time?”

“No.” She laughed. She wasn't due for two more weeks. And it could be late, the doctor always reminded her.

“You okay?”

“I'm fine …more or less …” She really wanted to talk to him before he came home. She didn't want Jane to overhear her telling him about Chandler Scott. “Something very disagreeable happened today.”

“Did you get hurt?” He was beginning to sound like Grandma Ruth and Liz smiled, but not for long.

“No. I got a call from an old friend. Or an old enemy, I should say.”

He looked puzzled as he frowned. What enemies did she have? None she'd ever mentioned to him. Not that he could remember anyway. “Who was that?”

“Chandler Scott.” The name electrified them both, and there was a long silence from his end.

“Is that who I think it is? Your ex-husband, right?”

“If you can call him that. I think we lived together for a total of about four months, and legally a lot less than that.”

“Where did he come from?”

“Jail probably.”

“How the hell did he find you?”

“My old landlady. Apparently she gave him my married name and told him we were living here, and it was easy after that.”

“You'd think she'd ask before she gave the information out.”

“I guess she saw no harm in it.” She stretched uncomfortably on the couch. Everything was uncomfortable. Sitting, standing, lying down. Even breathing was difficult now, and the baby felt huge, and moved constantly.

“What did he want?”

“He claimed he wanted to see Jane.”

“Why?” Bernie sounded horrified.

“Honestly, I don't really think he does. He said he wanted to 'discuss it' with us. He said he'd go to an attorney about visiting rights unless we talked to him.”

“That sounds like blackmail to me.”

“It is. But I think we ought to talk to him. I said we'd call him back tonight. He gave me a number in Marin.”

“I'll talk to him. You stay out of it.” He looked worried as he stared at his desk. The timing was just terrible. Liz didn't need a headache like that at a time like this.

“I think we ought to talk to an attorney ourselves. Maybe he has no rights by now.”

“That's not a bad idea, Liz. I'll check it out before I come home.”

“Do you know who to call?”

“We have counsel for the store. I'll see who they suggest.” He hung up after that, and Liz went back to see if Jane had finished her math homework. She was just closing her books and she looked up at Liz expectantly.

“Is Daddy bringing me a new belt tonight?” She looked hopeful and Liz sat down with a sigh.

“Oh sweetheart … I forgot to ask …we'll ask him tonight.”

“Mommy …” She started to cry, and Liz felt like crying herself. Everything seemed so difficult suddenly. It was hard enough just moving around and putting one foot in front of the other these days, and she wanted to make things easier for Jane, not more difficult. Poor Jane was all shook up about the baby coming into her life and changing everything. She climbed onto her mother's lap, still wanting to be the baby herself, and Liz held her while she cried. It made them both feel better afterwards and they went for a long walk, and bought some magazines. Jane wanted to buy some flowers to give to Bernie when he came home, and Liz let her pick a bouquet of iris and daffodils, and they walked slowly home again.

“Do you think the baby will come soon?” She looked at her mother half hopeful and half afraid, and half wishing it would never come at all. Although the pediatrician had told Liz that Jane was a good age to deal with this sort of thing. He thought she'd adjust very quickly once the baby was born, but Liz was beginning to wonder about it.

“I don't know, sweetheart. I hope so. I'm getting pretty tired of being fat.” They exchanged a smile as they walked hand in hand.

“You don't look so bad. Kathy's mom looked terrible. Her face got all fat like a pig”—she distorted her face and Liz laughed—“and she got all these blue things in her legs.”

“Varicose veins.” She was lucky, she had never gotten them.

“It must be horrible, having a baby, huh?”

“No, it's not. It's beautiful. I don't know, afterwards it's all worth it. You forget all this yucky stuff, and it's really not so bad. If you have a baby with a man you love, then it's the nicest thing in the world.”

“Did you love my daddy too?” She looked worried and it was odd that she should ask the question today, when Chandler Scott had called after all these years, and Liz was reminded of how much she had hated him. But she couldn't tell Jane that now, and wondered if she ever would. It might affect the way she saw herself, Liz thought.

“Yes, I did. Very much, in fact.”

“How did he die?” It was the first time Jane had asked her that, and she wondered if she had heard something that afternoon. Liz fervently hoped not.

“He died in an accident.”

“A car accident?”

It seemed as reasonable as anything else. “Yes. He was killed instantly. He didn't suffer at all.” She thought that might be important to her and it was.

“I'm glad. It must have been very sad for you.”

“It was,” Liz lied.

“How old was I?” They were almost home and Liz was so out of breath she could hardly talk.

“Just a few months old, sweetheart.” They swung up the front steps and she unlocked the door with her key, and inside she sat down at the kitchen table, while Jane put the flowers in a vase for Bernie and looked at her mother with a happy smile.

“I'm so glad you married Daddy. Now I have a daddy again.”

“I'm glad too.” And he's a hell of a lot better than the other one.

Jane took the flowers into the other room, and Liz started cooking dinner for them. She still insisted on making dinner every night, baking bread, making everyone's favorite desserts. She wasn't sure what she'd feel like after the baby came, or how busy she would be, and it was easier to spoil them now. She made a point of it every day, and Bernie looked forward to coming home and eating the treats that she had made for them. He had gained ten pounds himself, and laughingly blamed it on the pregnancy.

He came home early that night, made a big fuss over them both, thanked Jane for the flowers, and only appeared as worried as he was when he and Liz were alone after Jane had gone to bed. He had refused to discuss the subject before, for fear the child would overhear what they said. And now he closed their bedroom door, and Jane's, and turned their television on, so she couldn't hear them talk, and then he turned to Liz with troubled eyes.

“Peabody, our attorney for the store, recommended a guy to me. His name is Grossman, and I talked to him this afternoon.” He also trusted him because he was from New York and had gone to Columbia Law School. “He says this thing's not good. The guy has rights.”

“He does?” Liz looked shocked as she sat uncomfortably at the foot of their bed. She felt out of breath again. She was really miserable. “After all these years? How is that possible?”

“Because the laws are very liberal in this state, that's why.” He was sorrier than ever that Berman hadn't moved him home to New York before this. “Apparently, if I'd adopted her by now it would be too late for him. But I didn't. That was my mistake. I didn't think we had to bother with the legalities, as long as she was using my name anyway.” And now he could have kicked himself, after what the attorney had said.

“But what about the fact that he abandoned her …abandoned us, for chrissake?”

“That might actually win the case for us, but the problem is, that isn't automatic. That depends on the judge, and it would have to become a 'case' and the judge would have to decide how he felt about the abandonment. If we win, great. And if we don't, we can appeal his decision. But in the interim, and even before this thing would get to court for the first round, which could take a while, they would give him temporary visitation, just to be 'fair' to him.”

“The man's a jailbird, for chrissake, a con man, a snake.” He had never seen Liz so worked up before. She looked as though she hated the man, and he knew she had good reason to. He was beginning to hate him himself. “They'd expose a child to him?”

“Apparently, yes. The assumption is that the natural father is a good guy until proven otherwise. So first they'd let him visit Jane, then we'd go to court to fight it out, and then we win or lose. But in the meantime, we'd have to explain to her who he is, why he's visiting her, and how we feel about it.” They both looked horrified, as horrified as he had felt when he spoke to the attorney that afternoon. He decided to tell her all of it. “And Grossman says that there's a good chance we wouldn't win. This state is extremely in favor of father's rights, and the judge could be sympathetic to him, no matter how big a sonofabitch we think he is. The theory seems to be that fathers have rights, no matter what, unless maybe they beat their kids or something like that. And even if they do that, apparently provisions are made to protect the child but still allow the abusive parent to see the child. Isn't that encouraging?” He was so angry he had gone at it full force, and suddenly as Liz started to cry, he realized how foolish he had been. She was in no condition to face the possibility of all that. “Oh baby, I'm sorry. … I never should have told you all that.”

“I have to know it if it's true,” she sobbed. “Isn't there anything we can do to get rid of him?”

“Yes and no. Grossman was honest with me. It's against the law to buy this guy off, but it's been done before. And he suspects that's all he wants. After seven years, it's not very likely that he's interested in teaching Jane to ride a bicycle. I think probably he just wants a few bucks to tide him over till he winds up in jail again. The only trouble is, if we do that, he may turn up again, and again, and again. It could be a bottomless pit.” But for the moment, he was tempted to try it at least once, and maybe that would get rid of him for good. He had thought about it on the way home, and was willing to give him ten thousand bucks to get out of their lives. He would have given him more than that, but he was afraid if he gave him too much, it would whet his appetite. He said as much to Liz and she agreed with him.

“Shall we give him a call?” She wanted to get it over with, and the contractions were driving her nuts tonight. She could feel her heart race as she handed Bernie the paper she'd written Chandler's number on.

“I want to talk to him myself. And I want you to stay out of it. For all you know, this is just a ploy to catch your attention again, and the less satisfaction he gets, the better off you'll be.” It made sense to her, and she was happy to let Bernie handle all of it.

The phone rang at the other end, and Bernard asked for Chandler Scott. They waited for what seemed a long time, and he held the receiver so Liz could listen too, as a male voice came on. He wanted to know if he had the right man, and she nodded at him and signaled that it was. Bernie took it from there.

“Mr. Scott? My name is Fine.”

“Oh?” And then he understood. “Right. You're married to Liz.”

“Correct. I understand you called this afternoon, about a business deal.” Grossman told him not to mention the child or what the money was for, in case Scott was recording him. “I have the results on that for you now.”

Scott was quick to understand. He liked a man who didn't mess around, although it had been fun talking to Liz again. “Do you think we should all meet to talk it out?” He was talking in the same veiled terms as Bernard, afraid of the police perhaps. God only knew what he was into now, Liz thought.

“I don't think that's necessary. My client has come up with a price for you. Ten thousand, for the whole package. One time only, for your previous services. I believe they want to buy you out.” The meaning of that was clear to all three of them, and there was a long silence at the other end.

“Do I have to sign anything?” He sounded cautious.

“That won't be necessary.” Bernie would have liked that but Grossman had already told him it wouldn't be worth the paper it was written on.

He came right to the point, and he sounded hungry to Bernie. “How do I get it?” In a brown paper bag at the bus station, Bernie almost laughed, except it wasn't funny. And he wanted to get rid of the sonofabitch as soon as he could, for all their sakes, especially Liz, who did not need the heartache right before the birth of their baby.

“I'll be happy to meet you with it.”

“In cash?”

“Of course.” Bastard. All he wanted was the money. He didn't give a damn about Jane. He never had, just as Liz had told Bernie.

“I'll be happy to give it to you tomorrow.”

“Where do you live?” At least their address was not listed in the phone directory, and Bernie was suddenly glad they had done that. And he was equally reluctant to meet him at his office. He wanted to meet him in a bar, or a restaurant, or a doorway. It was beginning to feel like a sleazy movie. But he was trying to think of where to tell him he would meet him.

“I'll meet you at Harry's, on Union Street, at lunchtime. Noon.” His bank was only half a block away, and he could give him the money and then come home to check on Liz.

“Great.” Chandler Scott sounded delighted and as though he didn't have a care in the world. “See you tomorrow.” He hung up quickly and Bernie turned to Liz.

“He'll take it.”

“Do you think that's all he wants?”

“For now. I think to him that's a hell of a lot of money, and right now he can't see beyond it. The only problem with this, as Grossman says, is that he can come back at us again, but we'll just have to face that when he does.” He couldn't afford to have it become a monthly arrangement. “With any luck, we'll be living in New York when he gets hungry again, and he'll never find us. I think next time we'll skip informing your ex-landlady when we move, or maybe you should just tell her not to give out any information.” Liz nodded. And Bernie was right, once they were in New York, Chandler probably wouldn't be able to find them. “I didn't want to meet him at the store, because then he'd always know how to find us.” She looked up at him with grateful eyes and shook her head.

“I'm so sorry I got you into this, sweetheart. I promise I'll pay you back when I save up the money.”

“Don't be ridiculous.” He put an arm around her. “This is just one of those things and we'll get it all cleaned up tomorrow.”

She looked at him with sad, serious eyes, remembering the pain Chandler Scott had caused her, and then she felt a tremor run through her and she reached a hand out to Bernie. “Will you promise me something?”

“Anything you like.” He had never loved her more, as he sat looking down at her with her enormous belly.

“If anything ever happens to me, will you protect Jane from him?” Her eyes were huge in her face and he frowned at her.

“Don't say things like that.” He was Jewish enough to be superstitious, not as much so as his mother, but enough. “Nothing's going to happen to you.” Although the doctor had warned him that women sometimes got unusually fearful, or even morbid just before they gave birth. Maybe that meant the baby would come soon.

“But will you promise? I never want him to get near her. Swear to me …” She was getting agitated and he promised.

“I love her like my own, you know that. You don't ever have to worry.” But she had nightmares as she lay in his arms that night, and he was nervous himself as he went to Harry's to meet Scott with an envelope with one hundred hundred-dollar bills in it. Liz had told him to look for a tall, thin, golden-haired man. She warned him that he might not look like anyone he might expect to meet for this purpose.

“He looks more like you'd expect to see him on a yacht or as though you'd love to introduce him to your baby sister.”

“That's terrific. I'll probably walk up to some normal guy, hand him the envelope and he'll punch me … or worse yet, take it and run.”

But as he stood at the bar at Harry's, feeling faintly like a Russian spy on a mission, watching the lunch crowd arrive, he saw him immediately as he walked in. As Liz had said, he looked handsome and jaunty. He was wearing a blazer and gray slacks, but when one looked more closely, the blazer was cheap, the shirt cuffs were frayed, and his shoes were all but worn out. His con man suit was in serious disrepair, and he looked like an aging preppie down on his luck as he walked to the bar and ordered a Scotch straight up, and held it with a trembling hand, eyeing the crowd. Bernie had not told him what he looked like, so he had the advantage. And he was almost certain this was his man. He watched Scott chat with the bartender. He said he had just returned from Arizona, and after a few more minutes and half his drink, he heard him admit that he'd been in prison there. He shrugged with a boyish smile.

“Screw 'em if they can't take a joke…. Hell, I passed a few bad checks, and the judge went nuts. It's good to be back in California.” It was a sad commentary on the state's laws, and once again Bernie was sorry they weren't back in New York, as he finally decided to approach him.

“Mr. Scott?” He spoke in a quiet voice, and slid discreetly next to Chandler as he stood with his second drink in his hand. And he was obviously very nervous. At close range, he had the same blue eyes as Jane, but so did Liz, so it was difficult to say whose eyes Jane had inherited. He had a handsome face, but he looked older than his twenty-nine years. He had thick blond hair which fell over one eye, and he could easily see how Liz might have fallen for him. He had that innocent boyish air, which had made it easy for him to rip people off, and convince them to invest in his bunko schemes. He had been kidding people ever since he was eighteen, and his frequent arrests didn't seem to stop him. But he still had the naive look of a midwestern kid, and one could see how he might have tried to give himself the aura of the country club at one time, though he appeared to be down on his luck now, and he looked at Bernie with nervous, hungry eyes the moment he spoke.

“Yes?” He smiled, but only his mouth moved. His eyes were as cold as ice as they slid over Bernie.

“My name is Fine.” He knew that was all he had to say.

“Great.” Chandler beamed. “Got something for me?”

Bernie nodded, but did not rush to hand him the envelope, as Chandler Scott's eyes took in every detail of the clothes he was wearing. “Yes, I do.” The eyes then took in his watch, but he had been careful not to wear a Patek Philippe, or even his Rolex. He was wearing a watch his father had given him years before, when he was in business school, but even that wasn't cheap, and Scott knew it. He suspected that he had hit a live one.

“Looks like little Liz found herself a nice husband this time around.”

Bernie did not comment. He silently pulled the envelope from his inside breast pocket. “I believe this is what you want. You can count it. It's all there.”

He glanced at Bernie for the flicker of an instant. “How do I know it's real?”

“Are you serious?” Bernie was shocked. “Where the hell do you think I would get counterfeit money?”

“It's been done before.”

“Take it to the bank, have them take a look. I'll wait here.” Bernie refused to look worried, and Scott didn't look as though he was going anywhere as he thumbed through the hundred-dollar bills in the envelope. It was all there. Ten thousand dollars. “I want to make one thing very clear before you go. Don't come back again. We won't give you a dime next time. Is that clear?”

His eyes bore into Chandler's and the handsome blond smiled. “I get the message.” He drained his drink, set down the glass, slipped the envelope into his blazer, and looked at Bernie one last time. “Give Liz my love. Sorry not to have seen her.” Bernie wanted to kick him in the gut, but he sat very still. It was interesting he hadn't mentioned Jane once since they'd met. He had sold her for ten thousand dollars, and with a casual wave at the bartender, he strolled out of the restaurant and sauntered around the corner, as Bernie sat shaking at the bar. He didn't even want his drink. He just wanted to go home to Liz, and make sure she was all right. He was faintly afraid that he might show up to bother Liz, or try to see Jane in spite of the arrangement. But Bernie found it difficult to believe that he cared about the child. He had shown absolutely no interest in her.

He hurried outside, got back in his car, and drove to Buchanan and Vallejo. He left the car in front of their garage and hurried up the steep steps. He felt shaken by the encounter and he wasn't sure why, but all he knew was he had to see Liz. He struggled with the key, and at first he thought there was no one home, but as he looked into the kitchen he saw her. She was brushing the hair out of her eyes and baking more cookies for him and Jane.

“Hi there.” His face broke into a slow smile. He was so relieved to see her he could have cried, and she sat down heavily on a kitchen chair, and smiled up at him. She looked like a princess in a fairy tale, except for the enormous tummy. “Hello, sweetheart.” He went to gently touch her face and she leaned her head against him. She had been worried about him all morning, and feeling guilty because of the trouble and expense she had caused him.

“Did everything go all right?”

“Perfectly. And he looked exactly the way you said he would. I suspect he's very hard up for money.”

“If that's true, he'll wind up in jail again pretty soon. That man has pulled off more scams and con jobs than anyone can imagine.”

“What does he need the money for?”

“To survive, I guess. He's just never known how to earn a living any other way. I used to think that if he put as much effort into something honest, he could have been the head of General Motors by now.” He smiled at her. “Did he say anything about Jane?”

“Not a word. He just took the money and ran, as the saying goes.”

“Good. And I hope he never comes back again.” She heaved a sigh of relief and smiled at Bernie. She was so grateful to have him, especially after the tough times she'd been through before him. She never lost sight of how lucky she was now.

“I hope so too, Liz.” But he wasn't convinced they had seen the last of Chandler Scott. He was just too slick, and a little too cheerful. But he didn't tell her that. She had enough to think about. He wanted to suggest adopting Jane to her now too, but he didn't want to burden her with anything until after the baby was born. She was so tired and so uncomfortable most of the time. “Anyway, just put it out of your mind. It's all over, finished, goodbye. How's our little friend?” He rubbed her tummy like a Buddha and she laughed.

“He sure kicks a lot. He feels like he's going to come any minute.” Her baby was getting so heavy and she was carrying it so low that she could barely walk now, and he wouldn't have dared try to make love to her. You could feel the baby's head pressing down on her pelvis, and she said she felt it constantly, pressing on her bladder. In fact, that night she had several sharp pains, and he made her call the doctor. But the doctor wasn't impressed by what she said, and they went back to bed for the rest of the night, although she couldn't sleep.

The next three weeks crawled by at a snail's pace, and ten days past her due date she was so exhausted she sat down and cried when Jane wouldn't eat her dinner.

“It's all right, sweetheart.” He had offered to take them out but Jane had a cold and Liz was too tired. She didn't want to get dressed up anymore and her hips hurt constantly. Bernie read Jane a story that night and took her to school the next day himself, eliminating the need for the carpool. And he had just walked into his office when his secretary buzzed him on the intercom, as he glanced over some reports from New York about their sales figures for March, which were outstanding.

“Yes?”

“It's Mrs. Fine on four.”

“Thanks, Irene.” He picked up the line, still perusing the reports and wondering why she had called. “What's up, sweetheart?” He didn't think he'd forgotten anything at home. He wondered if Jane's cold had gotten worse and she wanted him to pick her up at school now. “Everything okay?”

She giggled, which was a major change from her mood when he'd left that morning. She had been distracted and grumpy and she had snapped at him when he suggested they go out to dinner that night. But he understood how jumpy she was and how lousy she felt and he didn't get upset when she barked at him. “Everything's just fine.” She suddenly sounded excited and happy.

“Well, you certainly sound cheerful. Anything special happen?”

“Maybe.”

“What does that mean?” His antenna suddenly went up.

“My water just broke.”

“Hallelujah! I'll be right home.”

“You don't have to, nothing major has started yet, just a few little cramps.” But she sounded so victorious and he couldn't have stayed away. They had waited nine and a half months for this and he wanted to be there with her.

“Did you call the doctor yet?”

“I did. He said to call him when things start to happen.”

“How long does he think that will take?”

“You remember what they said in class. It could get going half an hour from now, or maybe not till tomorrow morning. It should be soon though.”

“I'll be right there. Do you want anything?”

She smiled at the phone. “Just my sweetheart…. I'm sorry I've been such a bitch these past few weeks. … I just felt so rotten.” She hadn't even told him how badly her back and hips hurt all the time.

“I know you did. Don't you worry about that, baby. It's almost over.”

“I can hardly wait to see the baby.” But suddenly, she was scared too, and when he got home he found her very tense, so he rubbed her back, and talked to her while she took a shower. And the shower seemed to get things started. She sat down afterwards with a serious look, and she winced as she got the first strong contractions. He made her breathe, and got out his favorite watch while he timed them. “Do you have to wear that thing?” She was getting grouchy again, but they both knew why from what they learned in the class they had taken. She was probably going into transition. “Why do you have to wear that watch? It's so gaudy.” He smiled to himself, knowing that she was getting closer. Her irritability meant this was the real thing.

He called Tracy at school and asked her to take Jane home with her that afternoon. She was excited to hear that Liz was in labor, and by one o'clock the pains were coming hard and fast, and Liz could barely catch her breath between them. It was definitely time to go, and the doctor was waiting at the hospital when they got there. Bernie was pushing Liz in a wheelchair as a nurse walked behind them, and Liz signaled to him to stop each time she had a contraction. And suddenly she began to wave frantically, unable to catch her breath as one contraction became two and then three and four without letting up, and she started to cry as they helped her out of the wheelchair in the labor room, and up onto the bed where Bernie helped her take her clothes off.

“It's okay, baby…. It's okay. …” He suddenly wasn't scared anymore. He couldn't imagine anyplace else to be, except with her, as their baby came. She let out a hideous scream as the next contraction came, and a worse one as the doctor examined her. Bernie held her hands and told her to breathe but she was having a difficult time concentrating and she was losing control, as the doctor looked down at her, satisfied with her progress.

“You're doing fine, Liz.” He was a warmhearted man with gray hair and blue eyes, and Bernie had liked him from the first, as had Liz. He exuded competence and warmth, as he did now, but Liz wasn't listening. She was clutching Bernie's arm, and screaming with each contraction. “You're eight centimeters dilated …two more to go …and you can start pushing.”

“I don't want to push … I want to go home. …” Bernie smiled at the doctor, and urged her to pant. And the next two centimeters went faster than the doctor expected. She was in the delivery room pushing by four o'clock, and it was eight hours since labor had begun, which didn't seem long to Bernie as he talked to Liz and quieted her over and over, but it seemed like an eternity to her as the pains continued to roar through her.

“I can't take anymore!” She suddenly screamed, refusing to pant anymore. But they were putting her legs in the stirrups now, and the doctor was talking about doing an epi-siotomy. “I don't care what you do…. Just get that baby out of me….” She was sobbing now like a child, and Bernie felt a lump rise in his throat as he watched her. He couldn't stand watching her continue to writhe in pain and the breathing didn't seem to help her at all, but the doctor didn't look worried.

“Can't you give her something?” Bernie whispered and the doctor shook his head as the nurses began to run around everywhere and two women in green surgical suits came in pushing a bassinet with a heat lamp, and suddenly it all became real. The bassinet was there for their baby. The baby was coming, and he bent low next to Liz' ear and encouraged her to breathe, and then push when the doctor told her.

“I can't…can't…hurts too much …” She couldn't take much more, and Bernie was stunned when he looked at his watch and saw that it was after six o'clock. She had been pushing for more than two hours.

“Come on.” The doctor was intent now. “Push harder …come on, Liz! Again …Now! …that's it…that's it…come on …the baby's head is crowning …he's coming through …come on!” And then suddenly along with Liz' howl of anguish, there was another smaller one, and Bernie stared as the baby's head came from between her legs into the doctor's hands, and he propped up Liz' shoulders so she could watch and push again, and suddenly he was there. Their son. She was crying and laughing and Bernie was kissing her and crying too. It was a celebration of life, and just as they had promised, the pain was almost forgotten. The doctor cut the cord once the placenta was out, and he handed Bernie his son as Liz watched, trembling on the delivery table as she smiled, and the nurse assured her that the trembling was a normal reaction too. They cleaned her up as Bernie held the baby's face next to hers, and she kissed the satin cheek of their baby.

“What's his name?” The doctor smiled at them both as Bernie beamed and Liz continued to touch the baby with wonder.

They exchanged a look, and Liz said her son's name for the first time. “Alexander Arthur Fine.”

“Arthur was my grandfather,” Bernie explained. Neither of them was crazy about the baby's middle name, but Bernie had promised his mother. “Alexander A. Fine,” he repeated, and bent to kiss his wife, with the baby in his arms, their tears mixing as they kissed, and the baby slept happily as Bernie held him.

Chapter 16

The arrival of Alexander Arthur Fine created a stir like no other that had occurred in the recent history of his family. Bernie's parents arrived, carrying shopping bags full of gifts and toys, for Jane, and Liz, and the baby. Grandma Ruth was especially careful about not neglecting Jane. She made an enormous fuss over her, for which Bernie and Liz were grateful.

“You know, sometimes just when I decide I can't stand her, my mother does something so nice, I can't believe she's the same woman who's always driven me crazy.”

Liz smiled at him. They were even closer now that they had shared Alexander's birth. They were both still awed by the experience. “Maybe Jane will say that about me one day.”

“I don't think so.”

“I wish I were sure of that.” Liz laughed at him again. “I'm not so sure I'm exempt. … I think a mother is a mother is a mother. …”

“Never fear. I won't let you …” He patted Alexander's behind as he lay sleeping on his mother's chest after she had nursed him. “Don't worry, kid, if she shows any early signs, I'll beat the hell out of her for you.” But he bent to kiss her, as she sat comfortably in their bed, in an ice blue satin bed jacket his mother had brought her.

“She spoils me rotten, you know.”

“She should. You're her only daughter.” And she had given Liz the ring that Lou had given her when Bernie was born thirty-six years before. It was an emerald surrounded by small, perfect diamonds. And they had both been touched by the importance of the gesture.

They stayed for three weeks, at the Huntington again, and Ruth helped her with the baby every day while Jane was in school, and then in the afternoon she took Jane out for special treats and private adventures. It was a huge help to Liz, who had no one to help her and refused to let Bernie hire anyone. She wanted to take care of the baby herself, and she had always cleaned her own house and done her own cooking. “I couldn't stand having someone else do it for me.” And she was so adamant about it, that he let her. But he noticed that she wasn't really getting her strength back. And his mother said as much to him before she left for New York.

“I don't think she should nurse the baby. It takes too much out of her. She's just exhausted.” The doctor had warned her that that would happen, and Liz wasn't impressed when Bernie told her he thought she'd recover more quickly if she gave up nursing.

“You sound just like your mother.” She scowled at him from her bed. After four weeks, she was still in bed most of the day. “Nursing makes all the difference in the world to the baby. They get all the immunities they need …” She gave him the party line of the nursing enthusiasts, but he still wasn't convinced. His mother had worried him about how tired Liz was, and whether or not it was normal.

“Don't be so California.”

“Mind your own business.” She laughed at him and wouldn't hear of giving up nursing the baby. The only thing that really bothered her was that her hips still hurt, which surprised her.

He went to New York and Europe in May, after his parents left, and Liz was still too tired to go with him, and wouldn't consider weaning the baby. But he was upset when he found her just as tired when he got back, and even more so at Stinson Beach that summer. And he thought she was having trouble walking, but she wouldn't admit it to him or the doctor.

“I think you should go back to the doctor, Liz.” He was beginning to insist. Alexander was four months old, and a strapping baby with his father's green eyes, and his mother's golden curls. But Liz was looking pale and wan, even after two months at the beach, and the final straw came when she refused to go to the opening of the opera with him. She said it was too much trouble to go in and pick out a dress, and she didn't have time anyway. She had to start teaching again in September. But he knew just how exhausted she was when he heard her make arrangements with Tracy to sub for her part-time until she felt better.

“What was that all about? You won't go downtown to pick out a dress, and you won't go to Europe with me next month”—she had turned that down too even though he knew how much she had loved Paris when she went with him before—“and now you only want to work part-time. What the hell is going on?” He was frightened, and that night he called his father. “What do you think it is, Dad?”

“I don't know. Has she been to her doctor?”

“She won't go. She says it's normal for nursing mothers to be tired. But he's nearly five months old for chrissake, and she refuses to wean him.”

“She may have to. She might just be anemic.” It was a simple solution to the problem, and Bernie felt relieved after he had spoken to him but he insisted that she go to the doctor anyway and he was secretly beginning to wonder if she was pregnant.

Pretending to grumble all the way, she made an appointment the following week, but her obstetrician couldn't find anything wrong with her gynecologically She wasn't pregnant again at any rate, and he sent her to an internist for some simple tests. An EKG, some blood tests, an X ray, and whatever else he thought was indicated. She had an appointment with the internist at three o'clock in the afternoon, and Bernie was enormously relieved that she was doing it. He was leaving for Europe in a few weeks, and he wanted to know what was going on before he left, and if the doctors in San Francisco couldn't figure it out, he was going to take her to New York and leave her with his father, and see if he couldn't find someone to figure out what was wrong with her.

The internist who checked her out seemed to think she was all right. He did several ordinary tests. Her blood pressure was fine, the electrocardiogram looked good, her blood count was low, so he ran a few more elaborate tests, and when he listened to her chest, he suspected she might have a mild case of pleurisy.

“And that's probably what's been wearing you out.” He smiled. He was a tall Nordic man with large hands and a big voice and she felt comfortable with him. He sent her to a lab for a chest X ray and at five-thirty she got home, and kissed Bernie, who was reading Jane a story as they waited for her. She had left both children with a sitter that afternoon, which was rare for her.

“See …I'm fine … I told you so.”

“Then how come you're so tired?”

“Pleurisy. He sent me for a chest X ray just to be sure I don't have some weird disease, and other than that I'm great.”

“And too tired to go to Europe with me.” He still wasn't convinced. “What's this guy's name anyway?”

“Why?” She looked at him suspiciously. What was he going to do now? What else did he expect her to do?

“I want my father to check him out.”

“Oh, for chrissake …” The baby was crying to be nursed and she went to his room to pick him up while Bernie wrote the check for the babysitter. Alexander was fat and blond and green-eyed and beautiful and he squealed with delight the minute she approached and burrowed happily at her breast, patting her with one hand as she held him close to her. And later when she set him down to sleep again, she tiptoed out of his room, and found her husband standing there waiting for her. She smiled at him and touched his cheek, looking up at him. “Don't worry so much, sweetheart,” she whispered to him. “Everything is fine.”

He pulled her into his arms and held her tight. “That's how I want it to be.” Jane was playing in her room, the baby was asleep, and he looked down at his wife, but she looked too pale to him, and there were circles under her eyes that never went away anymore, and she was much, much too thin. He wanted to believe that everything was fine, but a gnawing fear inside him kept saying that it was not, and he held her for a long time, and then she went to cook dinner, and he played with Jane. And that night, as Liz slept he looked down at her fearfully. And when the baby woke at four o'clock, Bernie didn't wake her up, but made up one of the bottles with the supplement he took, and held the baby close to him.

Alexander was satisfied with the bottle and cooed happily in Bernie's arms as he smiled at the child, changed his diapers eventually, and then set him down again. He was becoming an expert at that sort of thing, and that morning it was Bernie who answered the phone when Dr. Johanssen called. Liz was still sleeping.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Fine, please.” The voice was not rude, but curt, and Bernie went to wake her up.

“It's for you.”

“Who is it?” She looked at him sleepily. It was nine o'clock, on Saturday morning.

“I don't know. He didn't say.” But he suspected it was the doctor, and it frightened him as Liz read the fear in his eyes.

“A man? For me?”

The caller identified himself as quickly to her and asked her to come in at ten o'clock. It was Dr. Johanssen.

“Is something wrong?” she asked him, glancing at her husband.

But the doctor took too long to answer. It couldn't be. She was tired, but not that tired. She glanced at Bernie involuntarily, and could have kicked herself.

“Can it wait?” But Bernie was shaking his head no.

“I don't think it should, Mrs. Fine. Why don't you and your husband come in to see me in a little while?” He sounded much too calm and it frightened her. She hung up the phone and tried to make light of it for Bernie's sake.

“Christ, he acts like I have syphilis.”

“What did he say it is?”

“He didn't say. He just said to come in an hour from now.”

“Okay, we will.” He looked terrified while trying to pretend that he was not, and he called Tracy for her while she got dressed. Tracy said she'd be over in half an hour. She'd been doing some gardening and she was a mess but she'd be happy to sit with the kids for an hour or two. She sounded as concerned as he felt, but she didn't ask any questions when she arrived. She was cheerful and business-like and sped them on their way.

They barely spoke at all on the way to the hospital where they were meeting the doctor, and they found his office there easily. He had two X rays clipped to a light box when they walked into the room, and he smiled at them, but the smile wasn't cheerful enough somehow, and suddenly, feeling a hand of terror at her throat, Liz wanted to run away and not hear what he had to say to them.

Bernie introduced himself and Dr. Johanssen asked them to sit down. He hesitated for only an instant, and then did not mince words with them. It was serious. Liz was terrified.

“Yesterday when I saw you, Mrs. Fine, I thought that you had pleurisy. A mild case perhaps. Today, I want to discuss it with you.” He swiveled in his chair and pointed the tip of his pen at two spots on her lungs. “I don't like the looks of these.” He was honest with her.

“What do they mean?” She could hardly catch her breath.

“I'm not sure. But I'd like to reconsider another symptom you mentioned yesterday. The pain in your hips.”

“What does that have to do with my lungs?”

“I think a bone scan may tell us more of what we want to know.” He explained the procedure to them, and he had already made arrangements for her at the hospital. It was a simple test, involving an injection of radioactive isotopes to show lesions in the skeleton.

“What do you think it is?” She was feeling panicked and confused, and she wasn't sure she wanted to know. But she had to.

“I'm not sure. The spots on your lungs may indicate a problem elsewhere in your system.”

She could barely think all the way to the hospital, absent-mindedly clutching Bernie's hand. All he wanted was to get away from her to call his father and there was no way he could leave her. He was with her when they administered the injection. She looked gray and terrified and it was only moderately painful. But it was terrifying as they sat and waited for the doctor to talk to them about his findings.

And his findings were profoundly depressing. They believed that Liz had osteosarcoma, cancer of the bone, and it had already metastasized to her lungs. It explained the pain she had had in her back and hips for the past year, and the frequent breathlessness. But all of it had been attributed to her pregnancy. And instead, she had cancer. A biopsy would have to confirm it, the doctors explained, as Liz and Bernie held hands tightly, and tears rolled down their cheeks. She was still wearing the green hospital gown, as Bernie reached out and took her into his arms, and held her with a feeling of desperation.

Chapter 17

“I don't give a damn! I won't!” She was almost hysterical.

“Listen to me!” He was shaking her, and they were both crying as they walked along. “I want you to come to New York with me …” He tried to fight for calm, for air …they had to be sensible …cancer didn't always have to mean the end …what the hell did this guy know anyway? …He himself had recommended them to four other specialists. A bone man, a lung man, a surgeon, and an oncologist. He recommended a biopsy, perhaps followed by surgery, and then radiation or chemotherapy, depending on the advice of the other doctors. He admitted that he himself knew too little about it.

“I won't have chemotherapy. It's horrible. Your hair falls out, I'm going to die …I'm going to die …” She was sobbing in his arms and he felt as though his guts were going to fall out. They both had to calm down. They had to.

“You're not going to die. We're going to fight this thing. Now calm down, dammit, and listen to me! We'll take the kids to New York when I go, and you can see the best men there.”

“What'll they do to me? I don't want chemotherapy.”

“Just listen to them. No one said you had to do that. This guy isn't sure what you need. For all you know, you have arthritis and he thinks it's cancer.” It would have been nice to believe that anyway.

But that wasn't what the lung man said, or the bone man. Or the surgeon. They wanted to do a biopsy. And when Bernie had his father call them, he said to go ahead. The doctors in New York would want that information anyway. And the biopsy told them that Johanssen was right. It was osteosarcoma. But the news was even worse than that. Given the nature of the cells they'd found, and the extent of it, metastasized in both lungs they discovered now, it made no sense to operate. They suggested brief and intense radiation, followed by chemotherapy as soon as possible. And Liz felt as though she had fallen into a nightmare and could not wake up. They had said nothing to Jane, except that Mommy wasn't feeling so great after the baby and they wanted to do some tests. They had no idea how to tell her what had been discovered.

Bernie sat up late at night talking to Liz after the biopsy came back, and she sat in her hospital bed with patches over both breasts where the biopsies had been done. And she had no choice now, she had to wean the baby. He was crying at home, and she was in the hospital, crying in Bernie's arms, trying to express the sorrow she felt, the guilt, the regret, and the terror.

“I feel … I feel as though I would poison him if I would nurse him now …isn't that terrible? Think of what I've been giving him all this time.”

He told her what they both knew anyway. “Cancer isn't contagious.”

“How do you know? How do you know I didn't catch it from someone on the street…some crazy goddamn germ that flew into me …like in the hospital when I had the baby …” She blew her nose and looked at him and neither of them could believe the gravity of the situation. It was something that happened to someone else, not to people like them, with a seven-year-old and a baby.

He was calling his father five times a day these days, and he already had everything lined up for her in New York. Bernie talked to him again the following morning before he went to pick her up at the hospital.

“They'll see her as soon as you get in.” His father sounded grave, and Ruth was crying beside him.

“Great.” Bernie tried to pretend to himself they'd have good news, but he was frightened. “Are they the best?”

“Yes, they are.” His father sounded very quiet. His heart was grieving for his only son and the girl he loved. “Bernie …this isn't going to be easy … I talked to Johanssen myself yesterday. It seems to be pretty well metastasized.” It was a word he hated. But it was new to Bernie. “Is she in pain?”

“No. She just feels very tired.”

“Give her our love.” She needed that. And their prayers. And when he hung up the phone, Bernie found Jane standing in the bedroom doorway.

“What's wrong with Mommy?”

“She's …she's just real tired, sweetheart. Like we told you yesterday. Having the baby just made her get pooped.” He smiled, choking on a lump in his throat the size of her elbow, but he put an arm around her anyway. “She'll be okay.”

“People don't go to the hospital because they're tired.”

“Sometimes they do.” He gave her a sunny smile, and a kiss on the tip of her nose. “Mommy's coming home today.” He took a breath. It was time to prepare her. “And next week we're all going to see Grandma and Grampa in New York. Won't that be fun?”

“Will Mommy go to the hospital again?” She knew too much. She'd been listening. He could feel it, but he couldn't face it.

“Maybe. Just for a day or two.”

“Why?” Her lip trembled and tears filled her eyes. “What does she have?” It was a plaintive wail, as though she knew, as though some spirit in the depths of her knew just how badly her mommy was ailing.

“We just have to love her very much,” Bernie said through his own tears as he held the child. The tears fell into his beard as he held her. “Very, very much, sweetheart….”

“I do.”

“I know you do. So do I.” She saw him crying and dried his eyes with her little hand. They felt like butterflies on his beard.

“You're a wonderful daddy.” It brought the tears back to his eyes again and he held her for a long, long time. It was good for both of them, and they had a special secret that afternoon when he picked her up. The secret of a special kind of closeness and love and courage. She was waiting in the car with a bouquet of pink sweetheart roses, and Liz clung to her all the way home, as she and Bernie told her all the funny things Alexander had done that morning. It was as though they both knew that they had to help her now, that they had to keep her alive with their love and their jokes and their funny stories. It was a bond that laced them even tighter than before, and it was an awesome burden.

Liz walked into the baby's room and Alexander woke up and let out a squeal of ecstasy when he saw her. His little legs shot out, and he waved his arms, and Liz picked him up and winced as he hit the spots where the biopsies were.

“Are you going to nurse him, Mommy?” Jane was standing in the doorway, watching her, the big blue eyes wide and worried.

“No.” Liz shook her head sadly. She still had the milk he wanted but she didn't dare feed him anymore, no matter what they said. “He's a big boy now. Aren't you, Alex?” She tried to fight back the tears that came anyway as she held him and turned her back to Jane so she wouldn't see them. Jane walked back to her room quietly and sat holding her doll, staring out the window.

And Bernie was in the kitchen cooking dinner with Tracy. The door was closed. The water was on. And he was crying into a kitchen towel. Tracy patted his shoulder from time to time. She had cried herself when Liz had told her but now she felt she had to have strength for Bernie and the children.

“Can I get you a drink?” He shook his head and she touched his shoulder again as he took a deep breath and looked up at their friend.

“What are we going to do for her?” He felt so helpless, as the tears rolled down his cheeks.

“Everything we can,” Tracy answered. “And maybe a miracle will happen. Sometimes it does.” The oncologist had said as much, maybe because he didn't have much else to offer. He had talked to them about God and miracles and chemotherapy, and Liz had insisted again that she didn't want it.

“She doesn't want chemotherapy.” He was in despair, and he knew he had to pull himself together. It was just the shock of it. The incredible brutality of the blow that had been dealt them.

“Can you blame her for not wanting it?” Tracy looked at him as she made the salad.

“No …but sometimes it works … for a while anyway.” What they wanted, Johanssen had said, was a remission. A long one. Like fifty years maybe, or ten or twenty … or five … or two … or one….

“When are you going to New York?”

“Later this week. My father has everything arranged. And I told Paul Berman, my boss, that I couldn't go to Europe. He understood perfectly. Everyone's been wonderful.” He hadn't been to the store for two days and he didn't know how long he'd be gone, but his managers had promised to take care of everything for him.

“Maybe they'll suggest something different in New York.”

But they didn't. The doctors there said exactly the same thing. Chemotherapy. And prayers. And miracles. Bernie sat looking at her in the hospital bed, and she already seemed to be shrinking. The dark circles had darkened and she was losing weight. It seemed incredible, like an evil spell that had been cast on them, and he reached out and took her hand. Her lip was trembling terribly and they were both frightened. He didn't hide his tears from her this time. They sat and held hands and cried, and talked about what they felt. It helped that they had each other.

“It's like a bad dream, isn't it?” She tossed her hair back over her shoulder and then realized that it wouldn't be there soon. She had agreed to start chemotherapy when they went back to San Francisco. He had been talking about leaving Wolffs and coming back to New York if they wouldn't bring him back, so she could get care in New York. But his father told him that in truth it didn't make any difference. The doctors were just as good in San Francisco, and it was familiar to her. There was a lot to be said for that. She didn't need to worry about finding an apartment, or a new house, or putting Jane in a new school. And right now they needed to cling to what they had …their house …their friends …even her job. She had talked about that with Bernie too. She was going to keep on working. And the doctor hadn't objected. She was going to get the chemotherapy once a week at first, for a month, and after that once every two weeks, then once every three. The first month would be horrible, but after that she would only be sick for a day or two, and Tracy could substitute for her. The school was willing to let her do that. And they both thought she'd feel better if she didn't sit home moping.

“Do you want to go to Europe with me, when you start feeling better?” She smiled at him. He was so good to her. And the crazy thing was that she didn't feel bad now. All she felt was tired. And she was dying.

“I'm so sorry to do this to you … to put you through all this. …”

He smiled through his tears. “Now I know you're my wife.” He laughed. “You're beginning to sound Jewish.”

Chapter 18

“Grandma Ruth?” Her voice was very little in the darkened room as Ruth held her hand. They had just said a prayer for her mommy. Bernie was spending the night at the hospital, and Hattie, Ruth's old housekeeper, was helping with the baby. “Do you think Mommy will be okay?” Her eyes filled and she squeezed Ruth's hand. “You don't think God will take her away, do you?” She let out a horrible gulp as she sobbed, and Ruth bent down to hold her, her own tears falling onto the pillow beside the child's head. It was so wrong, so unfair …she was sixty-four years old, and she would so gladly have gone instead of her … so young, so beautiful, so much in love with Bernie …with these two children who needed her so badly.

“We just have to ask Him to leave her here with us, don't we?”

Jane nodded, hoping that would do the trick, and then she looked at Grandma Ruth again. “Can I go to temple with you tomorrow?” She knew that their day was Saturday, but Ruth only went once a year, for Yom Kippur. But for this she would make an exception.

“Grampa and I will take you.” And the next day, the three of them went to the Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale. They left the baby at home with Hattie, and when Bernie came home that night, Jane told him solemnly that she and Grandma and Grampa had gone to temple. It brought tears to his eyes again, but everything did now, everything was so sweet and sad and tender. He held the baby in his arms and he looked so much like Liz, Bernie almost couldn't stand it.

And yet, when she was back with them again, things didn't seem so tragic. She came back from the hospital two days later, and suddenly there were the same bad jokes, the throaty voice he loved, the laughs, the sense of humor. Nothing seemed quite as terrible, and she wouldn't let him get maudlin. She was dreading the chemotherapy, but she was determined not to think about it before she had to.

They went into New York for dinner once, and went to La Grenouille in a limousine he had rented for them, but he could see halfway through dinner that she was absolutely exhausted. And his mother urged him to cut the dinner short and take her home. They were quiet on the way back, and that night in bed she apologized again, and then slowly, gently, she began touching him, and fearfully, he reached out and held her, wanting to make love to her, but afraid to do her any harm.

“It's okay …the doctors say we can …” She whispered to him, and he was horrified at himself when he took her with force and passion, but he was so hungry for her, so hungry to hang onto her, to pull her back to him, as though she were slipping away slowly. And afterwards he cried and clung to her, and then hated himself for it. He wanted to be brave and strong and manly and instead he felt like a little boy, nestled at her breast, needing her so badly. Like Jane, he wanted to cling to her, to make her stay, to beg for a miracle. Maybe the chemotherapy would do that for them.

Grandma took Jane to Schwarz once before they left and bought her an enormous teddy bear and a doll, and she had her pick out something she thought Alexander would like. Jane selected a big clown that rolled and made music. And when they got home, he loved it.

Their last night together was warm and comfortable and touching. Liz insisted on helping Ruth make dinner, and she seemed in better shape than she'd been in a long time, calm, and quiet, and stronger. And afterwards, she touched Ruth's hand and looked into her eyes.

“Thank you for everything….”

Ruth shook her head, wanting not to cry with her, but it was so difficult. After a lifetime of crying for everything, how could one stop for what was really important? But this time, she knew she had to hold back. “Don't thank me, Liz. Just do everything you have to.”

“I will.” She seemed to have grown older in the last weeks, more mature somehow. “I feel better about it now. I think Bernie does too. It won't be easy, but we'll make it.” Ruth nodded, unable to say more, and the next day she and Lou took them to the airport. Bernie carried the baby, and Liz held Jane's hand, and she walked onto the plane unaided, as the elder Fines struggled not to cry. But once the plane was gone, Ruth fell sobbing into her husband's arms, unable to believe their courage, and the evil fate that had befallen people she loved so much. Suddenly it wasn't the Rosengarden's grandson … or Mr. Fishbein's father … it was her daughter-in-law …and Alex and Jane …and Bernie. It was so wrong and so unfair and so unkind, and as she cried in her husband's arms she thought her heart would break. She couldn't bear it.

“Come on, Ruth. Let's go home, sweetheart.” He took her gently by the hand and they went back to their car, and suddenly she looked at him, realizing that it would be them one day.

“I love you, Lou. I love you very much….” She began to cry again and he touched her cheek as he held open the door for her. It was a terrible time for all of them, and he was so damn sorry for Liz and Bernie.

When they arrived in San Francisco, Tracy was waiting for them with their car, and she drove into the city with them, chatting and laughing and holding the baby close to her.

“Well, it's good to have you guys back.” She smiled at her friends but she saw easily that Liz was exhausted. She was to go into the hospital the next day to begin the chemotherapy.

And that night, as she lay in bed, after Tracy went home, Liz rolled over, propped her head up on her elbow, and looked at Bernie. “I wish I were normal again.” She said it like a teenager wanting to wish away pimples.

“So do I.” He smiled at her. “But you will be one of these days.” They were both putting a lot of faith in the chemotherapy. “And if that doesn't work, there's always Christian Science.”

“Listen, don't knock it,” she said seriously to him. “One of the teachers at school is a Christian Scientist, and it really works sometimes …” Her voice trailed off, thinking about it.

“Let's try this first.” He was, after all, Jewish and the son of a doctor.

“You think it'll be really horrible?” She looked scared, and he remembered how frightened she had been, and in how much pain, when Alexander was born, but this was very different. This was forever.

“It won't be great.” He didn't want to lie to her. “But they said they were going to give you stuff to knock you out. Valium or something. I'll be right there with you.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek.

“You know, you're one of the last great husbands.”

“Oh yeah? …” He rolled over and slid a hand under her bed jacket. She was always cold these days, and she wore his socks to bed. And he made love to her gently this time, feeling all his strength and love go into her, wanting to give her a gift of himself, and she smiled sleepily afterwards. “I wish I could get pregnant again. …”

“Maybe you will one day.” But that was too much to ask. He would have settled for her life in place of another one, and it made Alexander even more precious to them now. She held him in her arms for a long time that next morning before she went to the hospital, and she had made Jane's breakfast herself and packed her favorite lunch for her. In a way, it was cruder to be doing so much for them. They would miss her more, if something happened.

Bernie drove her to the hospital, and they put her in a wheelchair when she checked in. A student nurse pushed her upstairs as Bernie walked along, holding Liz' hand, and Doctor Johanssen was waiting for them. Liz undressed and put on a hospital gown, and the world looked so sunny outside. It was a beautiful November morning, and she turned to Bernie.

“I wish I didn't have to do this.”

“So do I.” It was like helping her to the electric chair as she lay down, and he held her hand, and a nurse in what looked like asbestos gloves appeared. The stuff they used was so powerful that it would have burned the nurse's hands, and they were going to put that inside the woman he loved. It was almost more than he could bear but they gave her the IV of Valium first, and she was half asleep when the chemotherapy began. And Johanssen stayed to supervise the treatment. When it was over she lay sleeping peacefully, but by midnight, she was throwing up and desperately ill, and for the next five days her life was a nightmare.

The rest of the month was just as bad, and Thanksgiving was no holiday for them that year. It was almost Christmas before she felt halfway human again, and by then she had no hair and she was rail-thin. But she was home again, and she only had to face the nightmare once every three weeks now, and the oncologist promised it would only make her sick for a day or two. After Christmas vacation she could go back to school to teach again, and Jane was like a different child once she was home, and Alexander was crawling.

The last two months had taken their toll on all of them. Jane cried a lot in school, the teacher said, and Bernie was barking at everyone at the store, and constantly distracted. He was using babysitters to help take care of the baby all day long, but even that wasn't working out. One of them got lost with the baby, another never showed up, and he had to take the baby to a meeting, none of them knew how to cook, and nobody seemed to be eating except Alexander. But as Christmas approached and Liz felt better again, things slowly returned to normal.

“My parents want to come out.” He looked at her one night, as they sat in bed. She was wearing a kerchief on her head to cover her baldness and she glanced at him with a sigh and a smile. “Do you feel up to it, sweetheart?” She didn't, but she wanted to see them, and she knew how much it would mean to Jane, and even though he wouldn't admit it, to Bernie. She thought of only a year before, when they had taken Jane to Disneyland and given them a chance to celebrate their anniversary. She had been pregnant then …and their whole life had been directed to living, not dying.

She said as much to him and he looked at her angrily. “It is now too.”

“Not exactly.”

“Bullshit!” All his impotent rage was suddenly directed at her and he couldn't stop it. “What do you think all this chemotherapy is about, or are you giving up now? Christ, I never thought you were a quitter.” His eyes filled with tears and he slammed the door as he walked into the bathroom. And he came out twenty minutes later, as she lay quietly in their bed, waiting for him. He looked sheepish as he came to sit next to her and took her hand in his. “I'm sorry I was an asshole.”

“You're not. And I love you. I know it's hard on you too.” She touched the kerchief on her head without thinking. She hated feeling so ugly, and her head was so round and bumpy. She felt like something in a science fiction movie. “This is awful for everyone. If I was going to die, I should have been hit by a truck, or drowned in the bath-tub.” She tried to smile, but neither of them thought it was funny, and then suddenly her eyes filled with tears. “I hate being bald.” But more than that, she hated knowing she was dying.

He reached for the kerchief and she ducked away from him. “I love you with or without hair.” There were tears in his eyes, and hers as well.

“Don't.”

“There is no part of you I don't love, or that's ugly.” He had discovered that when she gave birth to their son. His mother had been wrong. He hadn't been shocked or disgusted. He was touched, and he loved her more, as he did now. “It's no big deal. So you're bald. One day I will be too. I'm just making up for it now.” He stroked the beard and she smiled.

“I love you.”

“I love you too …and this is about living too.” They exchanged a smile. They both felt better again. It was an hourly battle to keep their heads above water. “What'll I tell my parents?”

“Tell them to come out. They can stay at the Huntington again.”

“My mother thought Jane might like to go away with them again. What do you think?”

“I don't think she'll want to. Tell them not to be hurt.” She was clinging to Liz for dear life, and sometimes cried when she left the room now.

“She'll understand.” His mother, who had been a tower of guilt all his life was suddenly wearing a halo. He talked to her several times a week and she had a depth of understanding he had never found in her before. Instead of torturing him, she was a source of comfort.

And she was once again when they arrived just before Christmas and brought mountains of toys for both the children, and his mother touched Liz to tears when she brought her the one thing she wanted. In fact, she brought half a dozen of them. She closed the door to their room, and advanced on her, carrying two huge hat boxes.

“What's that?” Liz had been resting, and as always, tears had slid from her eyes to her pillow, but she wiped them away quickly as she sat up and Ruth looked at her nervously, afraid that she might be offended.

“I brought you a present.”

“A hat?”

Ruth shook her head. “No. Something else. I hope you won't get angry.” She had tried to match the lovely golden hair she remembered but it hadn't been easy, and as she took the tops off the boxes, Liz suddenly saw a profusion of wigs, in different cuts and styles, and all in the same familiar color. She started to laugh and cry all at once, and Ruth looked at her cautiously. “You're not mad?”

“How could I be?” She stretched her arms out to her mother-in-law, and then pulled out the wigs. There was everything from a short boyish cut to a long page boy. They were beautifully made, and Liz was touched beyond words. “I've been wanting to buy one, but I was afraid to go into the store.”

“I thought you might be …and I thought this might be more fun.” Fun …what could be fun about losing your hair from chemo? …But Ruth had made it better.

Liz went to the mirror and slowly pulled off her kerchief as Ruth looked away. She was such a beautiful girl and so young. It wasn't fair. Nothing was anymore. But she looked up at Liz now, as she stared into the mirror in one of the blond wigs. She had tried the page boy on first and it suited her to perfection.

“It looks wonderful!” Ruth clapped her hands and laughed. “Do you like it?”

Liz nodded and her eyes danced as she looked in the mirror. She looked decent again …better than decent. Maybe even pretty. In fact, she felt gorgeous—female again. She suddenly laughed, feeling healthy and young, and Ruth handed her another. “You know, my grandmother was bald. All orthodox women are. They shaved their heads. This just makes you a good Jewish wife.” She gently touched Liz' arm then. “I want you to know …how much we love you. If love could have cured her, she would have had the remission they wanted so badly. Ruth had been shocked to see how much weight she'd lost, how thin her face was, how deeply sunk her eyes, and yet she said she was going back to teach after Christmas.

She tried on the rest of the wigs, and they decided on the page boy for her first entrance. She put it on, and changed her blouse. It required something more sophisticated than what she'd been wearing and she walked into the living room, trying to look casual, as Bernie did a double take and stared at her in amazement.

“Where did you get that?” He was smiling. He liked it.

“Grandma Ruth. What do you think?” She asked in an undertone.

“You look great.” And he meant it.

“Wait till you see the others.” It was a gift that had boosted her morale immeasurably and Bernie was grateful to his mother, even more so as Jane came bounding into the room and stopped dead.

“You got your hair back!” She clapped her hands with delight, and Liz smiled and looked at her mother-in-law.

“Not exactly, sweetheart. Grandma brought me some new hair from New York.” She laughed and suddenly Jane giggled.

“She did? Can I see?” Liz nodded and took her in to look in the boxes, and Jane tried on two or three of them herself. They looked funny on her and she and Liz laughed. Suddenly it felt like a party.

They all went out to dinner that night, and like a gift from God, Liz felt better over the holidays. They managed to go out two more times, she even went downtown to see the Christmas trees at Wolffs with Jane and Bernie, and Ruth pretended to disapprove, but Liz knew she really didn't. They had celebrated Chanukah, too, and on Friday they lit the candles before dinner. And her father-in-law's solemn voice as he intoned the prayers seemed right to all of them. Liz closed her eyes and prayed to their God and her own that something would save her.

Chapter 19

Their second anniversary was very different from the first. Tracy invited Jane and Alexander to spend the night with her, and Bernie's parents went to dinner on their own. Liz and Bernie were alone for once, and they spent a quiet evening. He had wanted to take her out, but in the end she had admitted she was too tired. He uncorked a bottle of champagne for her instead, and poured her a glass which she barely sipped as they sat by the fire and talked.

It was almost as if they had made a silent vow not to talk about her sickness. She didn't want to think about that tonight, or the chemotherapy she had to go back for in a week. It was hard enough doing it without talking about it all the time, and she longed to be like everyone else, complaining about her job, laughing over her kids, planning a dinner for friends, and worrying if the dry cleaner could fix her zipper. She longed for simple problems, and they held hands quietly as they stared into the fire, moving carefully through the obstacles of all the difficult subjects to avoid …it even hurt to talk about their honeymoon two years before, although once Bernie reminded her of how cute Jane had been on the beach. She was only five then. And now suddenly she was nearly eight. And Liz surprised him by mentioning Chandler Scott again.

“You won't forget your promise to me, will you?”

“What promise was that?” He was pouring more champagne, even though he knew she wouldn't drink it.

“I don't ever want that bastard to see Jane. You promise?”

“I promised you, didn't I?”

“I meant it.” She looked worried, and he kissed her cheek and smoothed away the frown on her brow with gentle fingers.

“So did I.” He had been thinking a lot recently about adopting Jane, but he was afraid that Liz wasn't well enough to go through all the legal hassle. He decided to put it off until she was in remission and feeling stronger.

They didn't make love that night, but she fell asleep in his arms by the fire and he carried her to bed ever so gently, and then lay looking down at her, feeling his heart break as he thought of the months to come. They were still praying for a remission.

On January fifth his parents went back to New York. His mother offered to stay, but Liz said she was going back to teaching anyway, and even if it was only for three mornings a week, it was going to keep her very busy. She had already had her chemotherapy right after the holidays and she had done well this time. It was a relief to all of them, and she could hardly wait to get back to teaching.

“Are you sure she should?” his mother asked him when she came to see him at the store the day before they left.

“That's what she wants.” He wasn't crazy about it either, but Tracy said it would do her good, and maybe she was right. It couldn't do any harm at least and if it was too much for her, she'd have to give it up. But Liz was very insistent.

“What does the doctor say?”

“That it won't hurt her.”

“She should rest more.” He nodded, he told Liz the same thing himself, and she would look at him with angry eyes, knowing how little time she had left. She wanted to do everything, not sleep her life away.

“We have to let her do what she needs to, Mom. I promised her that.” She was extracting a lot of promises from him these days. And he walked his mother downstairs quietly. There wasn't much left to say, and they were both afraid of the words they had to say. It was all so terrible, so incredibly painful.

“I don't know what to say to you, sweetheart.” She looked up at her only son with tears in her eyes as they stood in the doorway to Wolffs, with people eddying around them.

“I know, Mom. … I know …” His eyes were damp and his mother nodded as the tears came and she couldn't control them. A few people glanced at them, wondering what drama they were playing out, but they had their own lives to lead and they hurried on as Ruth looked up at him.

“I'm so sorry. …”

He nodded, unable to answer her, touched her arm, and went back upstairs silently with his head bent. His life was a nightmare suddenly and it wouldn't go away no matter what he did to stop it.

It was even worse that night when he took his parents back to the hotel after Liz had insisted on cooking dinner. They were leaving the next morning, and she wanted to cook for them. The food had been wonderful, as it always was, but it was a ghastly strain watching her struggle to do all she had done so effortlessly before. Nothing was effortless for her anymore, not even breathing.

He kissed his mother good night at the hotel. They were going to the airport on their own the next day, and then he turned to shake his father's hand, and their eyes met, and suddenly Bernie couldn't take it a moment longer. He remembered when he had been a little boy and had loved this man …when he had looked up to him in his white doctor's coat…when they had gone fishing in New England in the summer…. Suddenly it all came rushing back to him and he was five years old again …and his father, sensing that, put his arms around him as Bernie began to sob, and his mother turned away, almost unable to stand it.

His father walked him slowly outside, and they stood there in the night air for a long, long time, as his father held him.

“It's all right, son, it's all right to cry …” And as he said the words, tears slid down his own face onto his son's shoulders.

There was nothing anyone could do for him. And at last they both kissed him goodbye and he thanked them, and when he got back to the house, Liz was already in bed, waiting for him, wearing one of the wigs his mother had brought her. She wore them all the time now and Bernie teased her about them sometimes, secretly disappointed that he hadn't thought of buying them for her himself. She loved them. Not as much as her own hair of course, but they saved her vanity, and it was a subject of constant conversation between her and Jane. “No, Mommy, I like the other one …the long one…. This one's pretty good.” Jane would grin. “You look funny with curly hair.” But at least she was no longer scary.

“Were your mom and dad okay, sweetheart?” She looked at Bernie questioningly when he got back. “It took you a long time to take them back to the hotel.”

“We had a drink.” He smiled, pretending to look guilty instead of sad. “You know how my mother is, she never wants to let go of her baby.” He patted her hand and went to change, and slipped into bed beside her a moment later. But she had already drifted off to sleep, and he listened to the labored breathing beside him. It had been three months since they'd found out that she had cancer, and she was fighting valiantly and the doctor thought the chemotherapy was helping. But in spite of all of that, Bernie thought that she was getting worse. Her eyes grew larger every day, they sunk deeper, her features grew sharper and she lost more weight, and there was no denying now that she was having trouble breathing. But he wanted to hang onto her anyway, for as long as he could, doing whatever they had to do, no matter how difficult it was for her. She had to fight, he told her constantly … he wouldn't ever let her leave him.

And that night he slept fitfully, dreaming that she was going on a trip, and he was trying to stop her.

Her teaching seemed to bring some life back to her. She loved “her” children, as she called them. She was only teaching them reading this year. Tracy was teaching them math and another sub was handling the rest of the curriculum. The school had been incredibly flexible about letting Liz reduce her schedule. They cared about her a great deal, and they had been stunned at the news she had told them so bluntly and quietly. And word had traveled around the school fairly rapidly, but it was still being spoken in hushed whispers. Liz didn't want Jane to know yet, and she prayed that none of the children would hear it from their teachers. It was no secret to her colleagues, but she didn't want the children to know yet. She knew she wouldn't be able to come back next year. It was too hard getting up and down stairs, but she was determined to finish out the year, no matter what, and had promised the principal she would, but in March word got out and one of her students looked at her sadly, with tears bright in her eyes, and her clothes disheveled.

“What's up, Nance?” She had four brothers and loved a good fight. Liz looked at her with a special smile and smoothed down her blouse for her. She was a year younger than Jane, who was in third grade now. “You get in a fight with someone?”

The child nodded and stared at her. “I punched Billy Hitchcock in the nose.”

Liz laughed. They gave life back to her every day she was there with them. “Why'd you do a thing like that?”

She hesitated, and then jutted out her chin, ready to take the whole world on. “He said that you were dying …and I told him he was a big, fat liar!” She started to cry again and used two fists to wipe her eyes as she mixed tears and dirt and left two giant streaks down her cheeks as she looked up at Liz, begging for a denial. “You aren't, are you, Mrs. Fine?”

“Come here, let's talk about this.” She pulled up a chair in the empty classroom. It was lunchtime, and Liz had been looking over some papers. She sat the little girl down next to her, and held her hand. She had wanted this to come much later. “You know, we all have to die sometime. You know that, don't you?” The little hand in hers held fast to her, as though trying to be sure she'd never leave them. She had been the first to make her a present for Alexander the year before. She had knitted him a little blue scarf with holes and knots and dropped stitches everywhere, and Liz had loved it.

Nancy nodded, crying again. “Our dog died last year, but he was real old. My daddy said that if he were a person, he'd have been a hundred and nineteen years old. And you're not that old.” She looked worried for a minute. “Are you?”

Liz laughed. “Not quite. I'm thirty. And that's not very old …but sometimes …sometimes things just happen differently. We all have to go up to God at different times …some people even go when they're babies. And a long, long time from now, when you're very old and go up to God, I'll be waiting for you there.” She started to choke, and fought back tears of her own. She didn't want to cry, but it was so hard not to. She didn't want to be waiting for anyone. She wanted to be there with them, with Bernie and Jane and Alexander.

And Nancy understood that perfectly. She cried harder and threw her arms around Liz' neck, holding her tight. “I don't want you to go away from us … I don't want you to …” Her mother drank, and her father traveled a lot. Since kindergarten she had had a passion for Liz, and now she was going to lose her. It wasn't fair. Nothing was anymore. And Liz gave her some cookies she had made as she tried to explain about the chemotherapy and that it was supposed to help her.

“And it might, Nance. I might stick around for a real long time that way. Some people do that for years.” And some don't, she thought to herself. She saw the same things Bernie did. And now she hated looking in the mirror. “And I'm going to be here at school all this year, and that's a pretty long time, you know. Why don't you not worry about it for a while? Okay?” Little Nancy Farrell nodded, and eventually went outside to think over what Liz had said, with a handful of her chocolate peanut cookies.

But on the way home in the car that afternoon, Liz felt drained and Jane was staring silently out the window. It was almost as though she were angry at her mother, and just before they got to the house, she snapped her head around and glared at her, her eyes filled with accusation.

“You're going to die, aren't you, Mom?”

Liz was shocked by the suddenness and vehemence of what she said but she knew instantly where it had come from. Nancy Farrell. “Everyone will someday, sweetheart.” But it wasn't as easy to put her off as Nancy. They had more at stake between them.

“You know what I mean …that stuff… it isn't working, is it? The chemo.” She said it like a dirty word as Liz watched her.

“It's helping a little bit.” But not enough. They all knew that. And it was making her so damn sick. Sometimes she thought it was killing her more quickly.

“No, it's not.” Her eyes said that she thought her mother wasn't trying.

Liz sighed as she parked the car in front of the house. She still drove the same old Ford she'd had when she married Bernie, and she parked it on the street. He used the garage for his BMW. “Baby, this is hard for all of us. And I'm trying very, very hard to get better.”

“Then why aren't you?” The enormous blue eyes in the child's face filled with tears and suddenly she crumpled on the seat beside her mother. “Why aren't you better yet? …Why? …” And then she looked up at her, terrified. “Nancy Farrell says you're dying….”

“I know, sweetheart, I know.” Her own tears rolled down her face as she held Jane close to her. And Jane could hear the labored breathing. “I don't know what to say to you. One day everyone has to die, and maybe it won't happen to me for a long time. But it could. It could happen to anyone. Someone could drop a bomb on us while we're sitting here.”

She looked up at her mother and sobbed raggedly. “I'd like that better. … I want to die with you. …”

Liz squeezed her so tight it hurt. “No, you don't…. Don't ever say a thing like that…. You have a long, long life to live. …” But Liz was only thirty.

“Why did this have to happen to us?” She echoed the question they all asked themselves, but there was no answer.

“I don't know …” Her voice was barely more than a whisper, as they sat in the car, together, holding each other tight, waiting for the answer.

Chapter 20

In April, Bernie had to decide whether or not he would go to Europe. He had hoped to take Liz along, but it was obvious she couldn't go with him. She didn't have the strength to go anywhere now. It was a major venture to go to Sausalito to visit Tracy. She was still going to school, but only twice a week now.

And he called Paul Berman to tell him. “I hate to let you down, Paul. I just don't want to go away right now.”

“I understand perfectly.” He sounded bereft for him. It was a tragedy beyond words, and it hurt him each time he spoke to Bernie. “We'll send someone else this time.” It was the second time he had had to skip Europe, but they were being very supportive of him. And in spite of the trauma he was going through, he was doing a fine job at the San Francisco store, as Paul said gratefully. “I don't know how you do it, Bernard. If you need a leave of absence, tell us.”

“I will. Maybe in a few months, but not now.” He didn't want to be working when she neared the end, if it came that soon, although it was hard to predict that sometimes. Sometimes she seemed better for a few days, or she would be markedly more cheerful, and then suddenly she'd be much worse again, and then just as he began to panic, she would fool him by appearing almost normal. It was torture dealing with it, because he could never figure out if the chemo was working and she was finally in remission and would be with them for a long, long time, or if she wouldn't last more than a few weeks or months. And the doctor couldn't tell him that either.

“How do you feel about being out there now? I don't want to press to keep you there under these circumstances, Bernard.” He had to be fair to them, and Bernie had been like his son for years. He had no right to force them to stay in California if his wife was terminal. But Bernie surprised him. He had been open with him from the first, and had told him when they found out Liz had cancer. It had been a terrible shock for everyone. It was impossible to believe that the beautiful little blonde he had danced with at her wedding only two years before was dying.

“To be honest with you, Paul, I don't want to go anywhere right now. If you can have someone else keep an eye on the import lines for me, and go over there twice a year, that would be great. But right now we don't want to go anywhere. This is home to Liz, and I don't want to uproot her. I don't think it would be fair to her.” They had thought about it a lot, and that was their conclusion. Liz had told him point-blank she didn't want to leave San Francisco. She didn't want to be a burden on his parents, or him, didn't want Jane to have to face a new school, new friends, and it was comforting to Liz to be near the people she knew right now, and especially Tracy. She even took comfort in seeing Bill and Marjorie Robbins more than she used to.

“I understand that perfectly.” He had been in California exactly three years, twice the length of time Bernie had hoped to spend in California, but it didn't matter to him now.

“I just can't go anywhere right now, Paul.”

“That's fine. Let me know if you change your mind, and I'll start looking for someone to take on the San Francisco store. We miss you in New York. In fact”—he glanced at his calendar, hoping Bernie could make it—“is there any chance you could come to the board meeting next week?”

Bernie frowned. “I'll have to talk to Liz.” She didn't have chemo that week, but still, he hated to leave her. “I'll see. When is it?” Paul gave him the dates and he jotted them down.

“You don't have to stay in town for more than three days. You can fly in Monday, and go home Wednesday night, or Thursday if you can stay that long. But I understand, whatever you decide.”

“Thank you, Paul.” As usual, Paul Berman was being wonderful to him. It just frustrated everyone that there was so little they could do. And that night he asked Liz how she felt about his going to New York for a few days. He even asked if she would come, but she shook her head with a tired smile.

“I can't, sweetheart. I've got too much to do at school.” But it wasn't that, and they both knew it. And in two weeks it was Alexander's birthday, and she would see his mother then anyway. His father couldn't leave his practice again, but Ruth had promised to come out. She was coming out for the Big Event, and to see Liz.

But when Bernie came back from New York, he saw the same thing she saw when she arrived. How rapidly Liz was changing. By leaving her for only a few days, he got enough distance to realize just how bad it was. And the night he got home, he locked himself in the bathroom and cried into the big white towels she kept so immaculate for him. He was terrified she would hear him, but he just couldn't stand it. She looked pale and weak, and she had lost more weight. He begged her to eat, and brought home every possible treat he could think of, from strawberry tarts to smoked salmon, from the gourmet shop at Wolffs, but to no avail. She was losing her appetite, and she had dropped to less than ninety pounds by the time Alexander's birthday came. Ruth was shocked when she saw her when she came out, and she had to pretend that she didn't notice. But the tiny shoulders felt even more frail than they had before as the two women kissed at the airport, and Bernie had to get a motorized cart to get her to the baggage claim. She could never have walked that far, and she refused to be pushed in a wheelchair.

They chatted about everything except what really mattered on the drive home, and Ruth felt as though she were desperately treading water. She had brought an enormous rocking horse on springs for Alexander and another doll for Jane, both from Schwarz, and she could hardly wait to see the children, but she was deeply troubled by Liz, and amazed as she watched her cook dinner that night. She was still cooking and cleaning house, and teaching school, she was the most remarkable woman Ruth had ever seen, and it broke her heart to see the struggle Liz engaged in daily, just to stay alive. Ruth was still there when she had her next chemo treatment, and she stayed with the children while Bernie stayed at the hospital with Liz overnight. They rolled a cot into the room, and he slept beside her.

Alexander looked a lot the way Bernie had as a little boy, and he was a chubby, happy child. It seemed impossible to believe that he had arrived only a year before, and now this tragedy had struck him. And as Ruth put him to bed that night, she left the room with tears streaming from her eyes, thinking that he would never know his mother.

“When are you coming to New York to visit us again?” Ruth asked Jane as they sat down to a game of Parcheesi. Jane smiled at her hesitantly. She loved Grandma Ruth. But she couldn't imagine going anywhere for a while. “Not until Mommy is better” was the party line, but Jane didn't say that. “I don't know, Grandma. We're going to Stinson Beach as soon as school gets out. Mommy wants to go there to rest. She's tired from teaching.” They both knew she was tired from dying, but it was too frightening to say that.

Bernie had rented the same house they'd had before, and the plan was to go for three months this year, to help Liz regain whatever strength she could. The doctor had suggested that she not renew her contract at school, because it was too much for her. And she didn't argue with him. She just told Bernie she thought it was a good idea. It would give her more time to spend with him and Jane and the baby. And Bernie went along with it. But they were all anxious to go to the beach. It was as though they could turn the clock back by going there. And at the hospital, Bernie watched her as she slept, and he touched her face, and then gently held her hand as she stirred sleepily and smiled up at him, and for a moment his heart gave a leap, she looked as though she were dying.

“Something wrong?” She frowned at him as she raised her head, and he fought back tears as he smiled casually.

“You doing okay, sweetheart?”

“I'm fine.” She dropped her head onto her pillow again, but they both knew that the chemicals they were using were so powerful that she could sustain a fatal heart attack just from the treatment. They had been warned of that from the beginning. But there was no choice. She had to do it.

She went back to sleep, and he went out to the hall and called home. He didn't want to do it from the room, for fear that he would wake her. And he had left her with a nurse watching her. He was used to the hospital by now. Too much so. It almost seemed normal to him. Things didn't shock him as they once had. And he longed to be on the floor they had been on only a year before, downstairs on two, having another baby …not here among the dying.

“Hi, Mom. How's it going?”

“Everything's fine, dear.” She glanced across the room at Jane. “Your daughter is beating me at Parcheesi. Alexander just went to sleep. He's so cute. He drank the whole bottle, gave me a big smile, and went right to sleep in my arms. He didn't even move when I put him down.” It was all so normal, except that Liz should have been telling him that and not his mother. He should have been at the store for a meeting, and she should have been telling him that all was well at home. Instead, she was in the hospital being poisoned by chemotherapy, and his mother was watching the children. “How does she feel?” She lowered her voice so Jane wouldn't be as aware of the conversation, but she was listening intently anyway, so much so that she moved Ruth's man on the Parcheesi board instead of her own. Later she would tease her about it and accuse her of cheating. She knew why it had happened, but she needed a little levity in her life. There wasn't much of that these days. And she was only eight years old. But there was a profound sadness about the child, just under the surface, and it was almost impossible to cheer her.

“She's all right. She's asleep now. We should be home by lunchtime tomorrow.”

“We'll be here. Bernie, is there anything you need? Are you hungry?” It was odd seeing his mother so domestic. In Scarsdale she left everything to Hattie. But these were unusual times, for all of them. Especially Liz and Bernie.

“I'm fine. Give Jane a kiss for me, and I'll see you tomorrow, Mom.”

“Good night, darling. Give Liz our love when she wakes up.”

“Is Mommy okay?” Jane turned to Ruth with terror in her eyes as Ruth crossed the room to give her a hug.

“She's fine, darling, and she sent you her love. And she'll be home in the morning.” She thought it would be more reassuring if the love came from Liz and not Bernie.

But in the morning, Liz awoke with a new pain. Suddenly she felt as though all of the ribs on one side were breaking. It was a sudden sharp pain that had never happened before, and she reported it to Dr. Johanssen, who called the oncologist in and the bone man. And they sent her upstairs for an X ray and another bone scan before she went home.

The news was not good when they got it a few hours later. The chemotherapy wasn't working. She had metastasized further. They let her go home, but Johanssen told Bernie that it was the beginning of the end. From now on, the pain would increase and they would do what they could to help her control the pain, but eventually very little would help her. Johanssen told him this in a little office down the hall from her room, and Bernie pounded his fist on the desk right under the doctor's nose.

“What the hell do you mean, there's very little you can do to help her? What is that supposed to mean, dammit!?” The doctor understood perfectly. He had every right to be angry, at the fates that had struck her down and the doctors who couldn't help her. “What do you goddamn guys do all day long? Take out splinters and lance boils on people's asses? The woman is dying of cancer and you're telling me there's very little you can do for the pain?” He began to sob as he sat across the desk staring at Johanssen. “What are we going to do for her …Oh God …somebody help her …”It was all over. And he knew it. And they were telling him there was very little they could do for her. She was going to die a death of agonizing pain. It wasn't right. It was the worst travesty of everything he believed that he had ever known. He wanted to shake someone until they told him that something could be changed, that Liz could be helped, that she would live, that it was all a terrible mistake and she didn't have cancer.

He laid his head down on the desk and cried, and feeling desperately sorry for him and totally helpless, Dr. Johanssen waited, and in a moment, he went to get him a glass of water. He handed it to Bernie with sad Nordic eyes and shook his head. “I know how terrible it is, and I'm so sorry, Mr. Fine. We'll do everything we can. I just wanted you to understand our limitations.”

“What does that mean?” Bernie's eyes were those of a dying man. He felt as though his heart was being torn from him.

“We'll start her on Demerol pills, or Percodan if she prefers. And eventually, we'll move her to injections. Dilaudid, Demerol, morphine if that works better for her. She'll get increasingly large doses and we'll keep her as comfortable as we can.”

“Can I give her the shots myself?” He'd do anything to ease the pain.

“If you like, or you may want a nurse for her eventually. I know you have two small children.”

He suddenly thought of their summer plans. “Do you think we'd be able to go to Stinson Beach, or do you think we should stay closer to the city?”

“I see no harm in going to the beach. It might do you all good to have a change of scene, especially Liz, and you're only half an hour away. I go there myself sometimes. It's good for the soul.”

Bernie nodded grimly, and set down the glass of water the doctor had given him. “She loves it.”

“Then by all means take her.”

“What about her teaching?” Suddenly their whole life had to be thought out again. And it was still spring. She had weeks more of school. “Should she quit now?”

“That's entirely up to her. It won't do her any harm, if that's what you're afraid of. But she may not feel up to it if the pain bothers her too much. Why don't you let her set her own pace.” He stood up, and Bernie sighed.

“What are you going to tell her? Are you going to tell her that it's in her bones?”

“I don't think I have to. I think she knows from the pain that the disease is advancing. I don't think we need to demoralize her with these reports”—he looked at Bernie questioningly—”unless you feel we should tell her.” Bernie was quick to shake his head, wondering how much more bad news they could take, or if they were doing the wrong thing. Maybe he should take her to Mexico for laetrile, or put her on a macrobiotic diet, or go to Lourdes, or the Christian Science Church. He kept hearing remarkable tales of people who had been healed of cancer through outlandish diets, or hypnosis or faith, and what they were trying was obviously not working. But he also knew that Liz didn't want to try the other stuff. She didn't want to go haywire and run all over the world on a wild-goose chase. She wanted to be home with her husband and her kids, teaching at the school where she had taught for years. She only wanted to go so far, and she wanted her life to remain as close as possible to what it had been when it was normal.

“Hi, sweetheart, all set?” She was dressed and waiting in her room, in a new wig his mother had brought out. This one looked so real he couldn't even tell it wasn't her hair, and other than the dark circles under her eyes and the fact that she was so thin, she looked very pretty. She was wearing a light blue shirtwaist dress and matching espadrilles and the blond hair of the wig cascaded over her shoulders much the way her own hair would have.

“What did they tell you?” She looked worried. She knew something was wrong. The ribs hurt too much, and it was a sharp pain like nothing she'd ever had before.

“Nothing much. Nothing new. The chemo seems to be working.”

Liz looked up at her doctor. “Then why do my ribs hurt so much?”

“Have you been picking up the baby a lot?” He smiled at her, and she nodded, thinking back. She carried him all the time. He wasn't walking yet, and he always wanted to be carried.

“Yes.”

“And how much does he weigh?”

She smiled at the question. “The pediatrician wants to put him on a diet. He weighs twenty-six pounds.”

“Does that answer your question?” It didn't, but it was a noble attempt and Bernie was grateful to him.

The nurse wheeled her to the lobby and Liz left with her arm tucked in Bernie's. But she was walking more slowly now, and he noticed that she winced when she got into the car.

“Is the pain very bad, baby?” She hesitated and then nodded. She could barely speak. “Do you think your Lamaze breathing would help?” It was a stroke of genius and they tried it on the way home, and she said it gave her some relief. And she had the pills with her that the doctor had prescribed for her.

“I don't want to take them till I have to. Maybe at night.”

“Don't be a hero.”

“You're the hero, Mr. Fine.” She leaned over and kissed him gently.

“I love you, Liz.”

“You're the best man in the world …I'm sorry to put you through all this …” It was so hard on everyone, and she knew it. It was hard on her, too, and she hated it, but she also hated it for them, and once in a while, she even hated them because they weren't dying.

He drove her home and helped her up the steps, and when they arrived, Jane and his mother were waiting. Jane was looking worried because it was so late and they weren't home yet, but the bone scan and the X rays had taken a long time. And it was four o'clock by the time they got home, and Jane was haranguing Bernie's mother.

“She always comes home in the morning, Grandma. Something's wrong, I know it.” She made Ruth call, but by then Liz was on her way home, and Ruth looked at Jane knowingly as the front door opened.

“See!” But what she saw and Jane didn't was that Liz looked much weaker than she had before and she seemed to be in pain although she didn't admit it.

But she refused to cut down her teaching. She was determined to finish the year, no matter what, and Bernie didn't argue with her about it, although Ruth told him he was crazy when she dropped in on him at the store on her last day in San Francisco.

“She doesn't have the strength. Can't you see that?”

He shouted back at her in his office. “Dammit, Mom, the doctor said it wouldn't hurt her.”

“It'll kill her!”

And then suddenly the rage he felt spent itself on his mother.

“No, it won't! The cancer is going to kill her! That's what's going to kill her, that goddamn rotten disease that's rotting her whole body …that's what's going to kill her and it doesn't make a damn bit of difference if she sits home and waits or goes to school or has chemotherapy or doesn't or goes to Lourdes, it's still going to kill her.” The tears rushed into his throat like a bursting dam and he turned away from his mother and paced the room. He stood with his back to her finally, looking blindly out the window. “I'm sorry.” It was the voice of a broken man, and it tore his mother's heart out to hear him. She walked slowly to where he stood and put her hands on his shoulders.

“I'm sorry …I'm so sorry, sweetheart…this shouldn't happen to anyone, and not to people you love, especially….”

“It shouldn't even happen to people you hate.” There was no one he would have visited this on. No one. He turned slowly to face her. “I keep thinking of what's going to happen to Jane and the baby…. What are we going to do without her?” The tears filled his eyes again. He felt as though he had been crying for months and he had. It was six months since they'd found out, six months as they slid into the abyss, praying for something to stop them.

“Do you want me to stay out here for a while? I can. Your father would understand perfectly. In fact, he suggested it to me last night when I called him. Or I can take the children home with me, but I don't think that would be fair to them or Liz.” She had grown to be such a decent, sensible woman, it amazed him. Gone was the woman who had given him bulletins on Mrs. Finklestein's gallstones all his life, the woman who had threatened to have a heart attack every time he dated a girl who wasn't Jewish. He smiled, thinking back to the night at Cote Basque when he had told her he was marrying a Catholic named Elizabeth O'Reilly.

“Remember that, Mom?” They both smiled. It had been two and a half years before, and it felt like a lifetime.

“I do. I keep hoping you'll forget it.” But the memory only made him smile now. “What about my staying out here to give you kids a hand?” He was thirty-seven years old and he didn't feel like a kid. He felt a hundred.

“I appreciate the offer, Mom, but I think it's important to Liz to maintain things as normally as she can. We're going to move to the beach as soon as school lets out, and I'll commute. In fact, I'm taking six weeks off till the middle of July, and I'll take more if I have to. Paul Berman has been very understanding.”

“All right.” She nodded sensibly. “But if you want me, I'll be on the next plane. Is that clear?”

“Yes, ma'am.” He saluted, and then gave her a hug. “Now go do some shopping. And if you have time, maybe you could pick something nice out for Liz. She's down to preteen sizes now.” There was nothing left of her. She weighed eighty-five pounds, from a hundred and twenty. “But she'd love something new. She doesn't have the energy to shop for herself now.” Or for Jane, but he brought home boxes and boxes of clothes for the children. The manager of the department had a major crush on Jane and hadn't stopped sending Alexander presents since before he was born. And right now Bernie appreciated the attention they were getting. He was so distracted himself that he felt as though he weren't doing either of them justice. He felt as though he had barely looked at the baby since he was six months old, and he snapped at Jane constantly, only because she was there, and he loved her, and they both felt so helpless. It was a hard time for everyone, and Bernie was sorry they hadn't gone to a shrink, as Tracy had suggested. Liz had rejected the idea out of hand, and now he was sorry.

The worst moment of all came the next day when Ruth left for the airport. She stopped at the house first, in the morning before Liz left for school. Tracy picked Jane up every day now, and Bernie had already left for work. But Liz was waiting for the sitter so she could leave for school, and Alexander was down for his morning nap. Liz went to the door, and for a moment the two women stood in the doorway knowing why she had come. There was no pretense as their eyes met, and then Liz reached out and hugged her.

“Thank you for coming. …”

“I wanted to say goodbye to you. I'll be praying for you, Liz.”

“Thank you.” She couldn't say more as the tears filled her eyes and she looked at Ruth. “Take care of them for me, Grandma …” It was only a whisper …“And take care of Bernie.”

“I promise. Take care of yourself. Do everything they tell you.” She squeezed the frail shoulders and noticed suddenly that Liz was wearing the dress she had bought her the day before. “We love you, Liz …very, very much….”

“I love you too.” She held her for one more minute and then turned to leave, with a last wave, as Liz stood in the doorway, watching the cab pull away. Ruth waved for as long as she could see her.

Chapter 21

Liz managed to hang onto her classes until the end of school. Bernie and the doctor were amazed that she could do it. She had to take the Demerol every afternoon now and Jane complained that she slept all the time, but she didn't know how to voice the complaints that she really felt. The real complaint was that her mother was dying.

The last day of school was June ninth, and Liz went in one of the new dresses Ruth had bought her before she left. She talked to them all the time on the phone, and Ruth told her funny stories about the people in Scarsdale.

Liz drove Jane to school herself on the last day, and Jane looked at her happily. Her mother looked wide-eyed and alert and beautiful, just like she had before, only thinner, and they were moving to Stinson Beach the next day. She could hardly wait. And she scampered off to her own classroom in a pink dress and black patent-leather shoes that Grandma Ruth had helped her pick out for the occasion. There was going to be a party with cakes and cookies and milk before dismissal.

And when Liz walked into her classroom, she closed the door quietly and turned to look at her students. They were all there, twenty-one little clean shining faces, bright eyes and expectant smiles, and she knew for certain that they loved her. And she knew just as certainly that she loved them. And she had to say goodbye to them now. She couldn't just leave them, disappear without explaining. She turned and drew a big heart on the blackboard with pink chalk and they giggled.

“Happy Valentine's Day, everybody!” She looked happy today, and she was. She had completed something that meant a great deal to her. It was her gift to them, and herself, and to Jane.

“It's not Valentine's Day!” Bill Hitchcock announced. “It's Christmas!” Ever the wise guy and she laughed.

“Nope. Today is my Valentine's Day to you. This is my chance to tell you how much I love you.” She felt a lump rise in her throat and she knew she couldn't let it. “I want everyone to be very quiet for a little while. I have a Valentine for everyone …and then we're going to have a party of our own …before the other party!” They began to look intrigued and sat as still as they could, considering it was the last day. She called them up, one by one, and handed them each a Valentine she had made, which told them what she loved best about them, their skills, and their best features, and their achievements. She reminded each one of how well they had done, even if it was only at sweeping the playground. She reminded each one of the fun they had had, and each Valentine was covered with cutouts and pictures and funny sayings that were important to each child, and they sat back, a little awed, holding their Valentines like rare gifts, which they were. It had taken her months and the last of her strength to make them.

And then she pulled out two trays of heart-shaped cupcakes and another tray of beautifully decorated cookies. She had made them for everyone, and she hadn't even told Jane. She had just told her that it was for the main party. And she had done some for them, too, but these were special. These were for “her” second graders.

“And the last thing I'm going to say to you is how much I love you, how proud I am of how wonderful you've been all year …and how well I know you'll do in third grade next year with Mrs. Rice.”

“Won't you be here anymore, Mrs. Fine?” a little voice piped up from the back row, and a little boy with black hair and dark eyes looked at her sadly, clutching his Valentine in one hand, and his cupcake with the other. It was so beautiful he didn't even want to eat it.

“No, Charlie. I won't. I'm going away for a while.” The tears came anyway. “And I'm going to miss you all terribly. But I'll see you again one day. Each one of you. Remember that…” She took a deep breath and didn't try to hide the tears anymore. “And when you see Jane, my little girl, give her a kiss from me.” There was a loud sob in the front row. It was Nancy Farrell, and she ran up and threw her arms around Liz' neck.

“Please don't go, Mrs. Fine …We love you. …”

“I don't want to, Nancy. I really, really don't…but I think I have to …” And then, one by one, they came up and she kissed them and held each one of them. “I love you. Each and every one of you.” And with that, the bell sounded, and she took a deep breath and looked at them. “I think that means it's time to go to the party.” But they were a solemn little group, and Billy Hitchcock asked if she would visit them. “If I can, Billy.” He nodded, and they filed into the hall more neatly than they had all year, with their goodies in little bags, and their Valentines. And they looked at her, as she smiled at them. She was a part of them forever. And as she stood watching them, Tracy came by, and sensed what had happened. If nothing else, she knew Liz' last day would be hard on her.

“How'd it go?” She whispered.

“Okay, I guess.” She blew her nose and wiped her eyes, and her friend gave her a warm hug.

“Did you tell them?”

“More or less. I said I was leaving. But I think I said it. Some of them understood it.”

“That's a nice gift to give them, Liz, instead of just disappearing from their lives.”

“I couldn't have done that.” She couldn't do it to anyone. Which was why she had appreciated Ruth coming by the house on the way to the airport. It was a time to say goodbyes, and she didn't want to be cheated of the chance to say them. She had a difficult time leaving the teachers when she left the school, and she was exhausted as she and Jane drove home later that morning. Jane was so quiet that it frightened her and she suspected that she might have heard about her “Valentine party” and resented it. She was still trying not to face what was coming.

“Mommy?” It was the most solemn little face Liz had ever seen as she turned off the car and looked at her outside their house.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“You're still not getting better, are you?”

“Maybe a little.” She wanted to pretend, for her sake, but they both knew she was lying.

“Can't they do something special?” After all, she was such a special person. Jane was eight years old and she was losing the mother she loved. Why wouldn't anyone help her?

“I feel okay.” Jane nodded, but the tears poured down her cheeks as Liz whispered hoarsely. “I'm so sorry to have to leave you. But I'll always be near you, watching over you and Daddy and Alex.” Jane hurled herself into her mother's arms, and it was a long time before they got out of the car and went inside arm in arm. Jane almost looked bigger than her mother.

That afternoon Tracy came to take Jane out for an ice cream cone and a walk in the park, and she left with a lighter step than Liz had seen in months, and she herself felt better, and closer to the child than she had since it had all begun. It wasn't easier, but it was better.

And that afternoon she sat down with four pieces of paper, and wrote a letter to each of them, not a long one, but she told each of the people she loved how much she loved them, and why, and how much they meant to her, and how sorry she was to leave them. There was a letter for Bernie, and Ruth, and Jane, and Alexander. The one to him was the hardest of all because he would never even have known her.

She slipped the letters into her Bible, which she kept in a dresser drawer, and she felt better after she had done it. It had been on her mind for a long time. And now it was done. And that night, when Bernie came home, they packed for Stinson Beach, and everyone was in a festive mood when they left the next morning.

Chapter 22

It was three weeks later, on the first of July, that she was scheduled to come back to town for another treatment, and for the first time she refused. The day before she told Bernie she didn't want to, and at first he panicked, and then he called Johanssen and asked him what to do about it.

“She says she's happy here and she wants to be left alone. Do you think she's giving up?” He had waited till she had gone for a walk with Jane. They would walk down to the water, and sit looking at the surf, and sometimes Jane carried the baby. Liz hadn't wanted any help at the beach, and she was still cooking and taking care of Alexander as best she could. And Bernie was there to help her all the time, and Jane loved helping with the baby.