From the Heart

while in Utah. Molly Phiefer’s just as tough as ever. She celebrated her sixty-eighth birthday in camp. I did a two-partlecture in St. Paul and fished for trout in Tennessee. And I quit smoking.” Her eyes darkened. She drew in her breath. “Pop . . . I’m pregnant.”
    “Pregnant?” His eyes shot open. “What do you mean, pregnant?”
    “Pop.” Kasey reached for his hand. “You’re a doctor. You know what pregnant means.”
    “Kasey.” Dr. Brennan discovered he had to sit down. “How did it happen?”
    “The traditional way,” she said, attempting a smile. “Even modern methods aren’t always reliable,” she added, anticipating the inevitable question.
    He’d let that pass for now. “How far along are you?”
    “What’s today?”
    He was used to her casual indifference to the passing of time. “May seventeenth.”
    “Four months and seventeen days.”
    “Very specific,” he noted with a nod of his head.
    “I’m sure.” She laced and unlaced her hands.
    Observing the nervous move, he switched to professionalism. “Have you seen a doctor? Are you having any discomfort, any side effects?”
    “Yes, I’ve seen a doctor.” She smiled again, soothed by the objective questions. “No, I’m not having any discomfort, and after an unfortunate month of morning sickness, I haven’t any side effects. We’re disgustingly healthy.”
    “And the father?”
    She laced her hands again. “I’m sure he’s very healthy, too.”
    “Kasey.” He cupped his hand over her fingers to stop their movement. “What are his plans about the baby? Obviously, you’ve decided to complete the pregnancy. You and the baby’s father must have come to terms of some kind.”
    “No, we haven’t come to terms of any kind.” She looked at him directly, and some of the vulnerability seeped through. “I haven’t told him.”
    “Haven’t told him?” He was more shocked by this than anything else. It simply wasn’t like her. “When do you plan to?”
    “I plan not to.” She reached for a cigarette and began to tear it into small pieces.
    “Kasey, he has a right to know. It’s his baby.”
    “No.” Her eyes shot up again. “It’s my baby. The baby has rights, I have rights. Jordan can take care of himself.”
    “That’s not like you, Kasey,” he said quietly.
    “Please.” She shook her head and crushed the remains of the cigarette in her hand. “Don’t. I didn’t make this decision overnight. I’ve thought about it for months. I know it’s the right thing to do. My baby isn’t going to be pulled apart because his father and I made mistakes. I know what would happen if I told Jordan.”
    Her voice was beginning to shake, and she took a moment to steady it. “He’d offer to marry me. He’s an honorable man. I’d refuse because I couldn’t bear . . .” Her voice broke again, and she shook her head impatiently. “I couldn’t bear to have him ask me out of obligation. Then he’d want to set me up some kind of financial support. I don’t need it. My baby doesn’t need it. There’d have to be structured visitation rights with the baby bouncing from coast to coast, never knowing where he belonged. It’s not fair. I won’t have it. The baby belongs to me.”
    He took her hands again and gave her a long look. “Do you love the father?”
    He watched her crumple before his eyes. “Oh, God, yes.” Kasey laid her head on the table and wept.
    Her grandfather let her cry it out. He hadn’t seen this sort of grief from her since she had been a child. He kept her hands in his and waited. What sort of man was this Jordan, whose baby she carried? If she loved him, why was she weeping here alone instead of sharing the joy of impending parenthood with him?
    He tried to remember the patches of information from her letters. He knew who Jordan was—the writer she had worked with during late fall and early winter of the last year. Dr. Brennan had admired his work. Kasey’s letters had been enthusiastic and confusing. But he was used to both from her.
    Why hadn’t he read between the lines? And now, for months, she had been dealing with the most important decision in her life alone. He hated to see her this way—lost,weeping. Once he had had to send her away from him. She had been lost and weeping then, too. He had thought his own decision had been right for her, and when the dust had settled, it had been. But the time in between had had its effect on her. He was intuitive enough to know