12th of Never

room with our baby. Julie was swaddled in a blanket, wearing a pink stocking cap, and waving her fists.
    “She had a good breakfast,” Nurse Kathy said.
    I stood up, took Julie from the nurse, thanked her, and sat back down. Then I held the baby up so that Joe could kiss her, took her back, kissed her cheek, wiped my tears off her face, nestled her in my arms.
    “So,” said Dr. Sebetic, looking at the space between me and Joe. “I have news.”
    He removed his glasses, polished them with a tissue, then squared them on the bridge of his nose.
    “The test results are back and the blood cell appearance is returning to normal. It’s what’s called a polyclonal lymphocytosis, which is a benign, temporary, self-limiting disorder—”
    “For God’s sake, Doctor,” Joe said. “In English, please.”
    “I’m sorry. Let me say it another way. Julie had abnormal lymphocytes, and that diagnosis is a banana peel that many an experienced specialist has slipped on.
    “You see, the blood cells in mononucleosis look just like the ones that you find in lymphoma.”
    I didn’t see.
    I said, “Mononucleosis? The kissing disease?”
    “Exactly. You didn’t have a sterile delivery room, correct? As I was saying, you can look at two slides and one is malignant lymphoma, the other is mononucleosis, and you can’t tell the two apart. Many a pathologist has made the wrong call.”
    I thought I was tracking him, but I was afraid to hope. I held on to my child and my wits, pictured the two slides, imagined doctors slipping on banana peels.
    Dr. Sebetic said, “The bottom line is that Julie is getting better all by herself.”
    “She’s out of danger?” I asked. “She’s going to live?”
    “She’s perfectly healthy and as cute as ten buttons. I’m sorry, but I have to be in a teleconference with Shanghai, uh, five minutes ago. Nurse Kathy will be happy to help you check Julie out of Saint Francis.”

Chapter 108
    OH, MAN, TALK about home sweet home.
    A half hour after leaving the hospital, Joe, Julie, and I were safely and joyously back in our nest on Lake Street.
    Joe put the camera on a five-second delay, set it on the TV console, and ran across the room to the big leather sofa, where he flung himself down and swept me and Julie into his arms.
    We grinned, the two of us—nothing contrived about it. This was over-the-moon time. This was what extreme happiness felt like.
    After the shutter clicked, Joe dashed back to the camera and set it again, returned to his girls, and this time, when Julie looked at the lens, she laughed.
    “Did you see that?” I yelled at Joe, way too loudly. “Did you see her smile for the birdie?”
    “What is this?” Joe said, pointing at her left cheek. “Is this a dimple? Who’s your daddy?” he said, showing dimples of his own.
    We took more pictures, laughed like crazy people, and then put the baby to bed and hit the phones.
    I called my sister and the other three members of the Women’s Murder Club. I called Conklin and then Brady and Jacobi, the two guys I called Boss. Last but not least, I called our dogsitter, Karen, and asked her to bring Julie’s big furry sister home in time for dinner.
    Joe made serial calls to people from coast to coast, all of them named Molinari. And when we were ready to stop shouting and dancing, we went to bed.
    We made tender love, quietly, so we didn’t wake the baby in the next room, and it was so sweet that if I had any tears left, I might have cried.
    I slept hard and woke up laughing.
    Joe mumbled, “Tell me the joke.”
    “A horse walks into a bar. The bartender says, ‘Why the long face?’”
    Joe laughed. “You’re giddy,” he said.
    “Yeah? A hamburger and a french fry walk into a bar. The bartender says—”
    “We don’t serve food here.”
    “Nuts.”
    “You know I love you, Blondie.”
    He went across the hall and returned with the baby. She didn’t cry, which was the most amazing thing, something I was going to love getting used to. She put her cheek on her father’s shoulder and he rubbed her back.
    “I know you love me, Joe,” I said. “But do I hear a ‘but’?”
    “No flies on you, honey. I got a job offer. The job is in DC.”
    I wanted to explode. I shouted in a whisper, “No, you don’t. No, Joe, just flat-out no effin’ way.”
    “For a lot of money. Enough to buy a pretty good house.”
    “Oh, my God.”
    “But.”
    “But
what?
” I asked him.
    “I turned it down.”
    “Really?”
    “I