Time and Again

the comment, she looked back and forth between her parents. They were young, hardly more than forty, and vital. She knew there was nothing unusual about couples in their forties having babies. But they were her parents.
    "You're going to have a baby. I don't know what to say."
    "Try congratulations," Will suggested. "No. Yes, I mean. I need to sit down." She did, on the floor between their chairs. She discovered sitting wasn't enough and took three long breaths. "How do you feel?" Caroline asked. "Dazed." She looked up, studying her mother's face. "How do you feel?"
    "Eighteen- though I have talked Will out of delivering this one himself here at the cabin, the way he did with you and Sunny."
    "The woman's lost her sixties values," Will muttered, though he had been tremendously relieved when Caroline had insisted on an obstetrician and a hospital. "So what do you think, Libby?"
    She rose to her knees so that she could hug each of them. "I think we should celebrate."
    "I'm one step ahead of you." Rising, William went to the refrigerator, then held a bottle aloft. "Sparkling apple juice."
    The cork popped with a sound as festive as champagne. They toasted each other, the baby, the absent Sunny, the past and the future. Cal joined them, drawn in by their pleasure in each other. Here was one more thing that time hadn't changed, he thought. The giddy delight a coming baby brought to people who wanted it.
    He'd never thought very seriously about starting a family. He'd known that when the time, and the woman, were right the rest would fall into place. Now he caught himself imagining what it would be like if he and Libby were toasting their own expected child. Dangerous thoughts. Impossible thoughts. He had only a matter of days left with her-hours, really-and families required a lifetime.
    Even as he yearned for one life, watching Libby's parents together reminded him of his own family. Were they watching the sky, wondering where he was, how he was? If only he could let them know he was safe.
    "Cal?"
    "Hmm? What?" He blinked and saw Libby staring at him. "I'm sorry."
    "I was just saying we should build a fire."
    "Sure."
    "One of my favorite spots here is in front of the fire." Caroline hooked her arm through William's. "I'm so glad we stopped by for the night."
    "For the night?" Libby repeated.
    "We're on our way to Carmel," Caroline decided on the spot, and gave William's hand a vicious squeeze before he could speak. "I craved a ride along the Coast."
    "What she craved was a cheeseburger under her alfalfa sprouts," William said. "That's when I knew she was pregnant."
    "And being pregnant entitles me to an afternoon nap." Caroline sent her husband a slow smile. "Why don't you tuck me in?"
    "I could use a nap myself." With his arm around her shoulders, they started out. "Carmel? Last I heard we were spending a week here. Since when are we going to Carmel?"
    "Since four's a crowd, dummy."
    "That may be, but I haven't decided if I like the idea of Libby being with him."
    "She likes it." Caroline walked into the bedroom and was flooded with memories. The nights they'd shared, and the mornings. They'd made love in that bed, argued politics, planned ways to save the world from itself. She'd laughed there, cried there and given birth there. She sat on the edge and let her hands run over the spread. She could almost feel the murmur of memories.
    Will, his hands tucked in the back pocket of his jeans, paced to the window.
    She smiled at his back, remembering how he had been at eighteen. Even thinner, she recalled, even more idealistic, and just as wonderful. They had always loved this place, being children there, having children there. Even when things had changed, they had never lost that cocksure certainty of who and what they were. She understood him, heard his thoughts as if they were in her own head.
    "A cargo pilot," Will muttered. "And what the hell kind of name is Hornblower? There's something about him, Caro, I don't know what, but something I'm not sure rings true."
    "Don't you trust Liberty?"
    "Of course I do." He looked back, insulted. "It's him I don't trust."
    "Ah, the echo of time." She cupped a hand to her ear. "The exact words my father once spoke when referring to you."
    "He was a poor judge of character," Will muttered, and turned back to the window.
    "Most men are when it comes to the choices their daughters make. I remember you telling my father that I knew my own mind. Let's see, was that the first or second