Marie went to Times Square, her first day in New York. She wanted the experience of standing in a swirling sea of strange faces and being just as unfamiliar to them as they were to her. She wanted the experience of walking down the street and being a total unknown. She wanted to experience as meaningfully as possible the anonymity that New York could offer a person.

The rude rush of mindless pedestrians was soothing to her shattered soul. The honk and roar and growl of traffic was so different from birdcall and surfsplash that it thrilled her. The thoughtless strangers who jostled her and treated her with no respect were a lullabye for her frayed nerve ends. Marie spent her first day as a New Yorker riding buses up and down the island of Manhattan, surveying the changing scenery from one neighborhood to another and being grateful that nobody treated her with any particular accord.

Several times, people approached her, bent on admiring the baby. The first time, Marie froze stiff as stone. Why was that woman coming over to him?? But all the woman wanted was to tickle his smooth, soft cheek and coo, “What a sweet, beautiful baby!”

In the light of that experience, the approach of the next stranger inspired dread but not terror . . . and in fact, this woman, too, had the most innocent of intentions, stroking Josh’s silky-downed head and marvelling at his rosy cheeks, while not marvelling at any imagined otherworldly attributes. He was just a baby.

But babies are a people-magnet, even in New York. Next to admire him was an older gent. Marie’s heart still pounded wildly at the man’s approach, but this man, like the two women before him, saw only a sweet little baby, nothing more, and his intentions were as benign as the others’.

At day’s end, she headed home by taxi to the hotel room she had temporarily rented. At the corner newsstand, she was a bit shaken up to see her picture and Josh’s peering off the front page of U.S.A. Today. MISSING MIRACLE CHILD, the headline read. She looked in the picture as she had used to look, before she’d cut her hair super-short and dyed it brown-black, plucked her eyebrows to thin lines, and bought a new wardrobe designed to make her look heavier. There was less she could do to Josh’s appearance; but she hoped he had enough of a “generic baby” look not to be too distinctive.

Her new temporary quarters were in a residence hotel, complete with kitchenette, and as she nursed Josh, she debated what to do about her own dinner—eat in or out. She’d bought a few things she could cook in the rudimentary kitchen, but there was no reason not to go out to dinner now.

She relaxed into the chair—less comfortable than her easy chair at home, yet far more comfortable when you factored in the knowledge that here, at last, she had privacy and serenity. Here, no reporters would roust her from the chair demanding the latest tidbits of her life, the last news about Josh. She melted into the chair and into the anonymity that the city afforded her. Here, at last, she could just be “Danielle Walker,” the name on her new driver’s license. Here, at last, she could be free.

When Josh had finished his dinner, she decided it was time for hers. She would eat out. In this city of a million cuisines, she would find a restaurant offering food she had never eaten. If she was going to go into hiding, she would make the best of it. If she’d had to leave Flamingo Cove, at least she would get something good out of it—starting with adventurous dining.

She inquired at the front desk and was told Third Avenue and Columbus Avenue were each a sort of Restaurant Row. “How do I get to them?” she asked, and was rewarded with a look of utter disrespect. How could anyone be so ignorant? the look said. She gloried in it. She revelled in being disrespected—it was so much better than being worshipped.

She made her way to Columbus Avenue and found an Indian restaurant. Marie had never eaten Indian food. The presence of a table full of people who appeared to come from India gave her reason to hope the cuisine might be authentic, too.

Authentic or not, it was delicious. She ate more than she should have, reflecting that if she kept this up, soon the “fat clothes” would be no pose. As she ate, she thought that maybe Elinor and Sheila, at least, would each be able to come up and visit her some time, when all the furor had died down. It might mean waiting a year or more, but surely there would come a time when they could each come to New York and see her without being followed.

She pictured eating out in this very restaurant—Sheila loved spicy foods, and Elinor was an adventurous eater who loved new foods, new restaurants. As Marie pictured joyful reunions with her mother and best friend, she relaxed even more. Yes, she would miss Flamingo Cove. Yes, she knew she would get terribly homesick. But lots of people started over. Lots of people moved to New York or some other big city. Lots of people who knew no one in their new homes still started over and got on fine.

Like all these other people, she would make new friends. She would get a job, or even buy a business—she had the money from the sale of Office Central. She would find a daycare center if she needed to . . . or maybe she’d be a stay-at-home mom, like she’d always wanted, at least for a couple of years. Maybe she’d start a business she could run from home . . . . Her mind took off, soaring with the possibilities. The calm that had begun to edge the fear out of her mind was now replaced, in turn, with excitement.

She was starting a great adventure. Yes, and it was going to be all right. She had done the right thing. She smiled at Josh, then dared to look all around the restaurant instead of shrinking into herself and trying to be invisible. She could start unlearning that reflex now. They were only two of the swarm of faces that populated a great city to get lost in. She was beginning to lose the awful feeling she’d had on arriving—that any minute now, someone was going to recognize her.

Nobody would. Nobody had all day. She was safe.

Finally finishing her dinner, Marie paid the bill and gathered Josh up, walking at an almost exaggeratedly slow pace for the sheer pleasure of knowing she could do it. She even debated walking a little part of the way back to her hotel, as far as she comfortably could while carrying Josh. It would do her good to walk off the hearty meal.

Still indecisive, she stepped outside the restaurant and looked appraisingly at the sky. It was 7:30, which in summertime is still well within daylight hours, but the sky had darkened and lowered. Rain seemed imminent. Marie opted for prudence and hopped on a bus. Fumbling with one hand in her purse while holding Josh, she drew out the fare and dropped it in the farebox. Then she started to make her way down the aisle of riders, many of whom were absorbed in their newspapers.

As she worked her way down the aisle, a fortysomething woman looked up at Marie intently. She peered as if studying her face. For a minute, the old fear returned. But the woman turned her head without showing any recognition and began to peer just as intently at someone else.

Marie rushed toward one of the last seats on the bus, settling Josh in her lap. In a minute, a woman and child were standing alongside Marie. When Marie realized the girl was blind, she almost got up and offered her own seat, but now the exciting day filled with alternating fear and hope and promise was beginning to exact its toll on Marie; she decided that standing and holding Josh was more than she was up for. She stayed seated. The woman standing there—apparently the little blind girl’s mother—noticed Josh and began to fuss over him. “There’s a baby, Jenny,” she explained to her daughter.

Jenny edged carefully closer to Josh, who was placidly waving his arms in Marie’s lap. Standing in front of the baby, the little girl was almost eye-to-eye with him. Suddenly the bus lurched, and Jenny’s face was an inch from Josh’s. The baby’s idly swatting hand made soft contact with the little girl, brushing her cheek like a stroke of silk.

She suddenly lurched in a way that had nothing to do with the bus’s motion. She turned to her mother, an expression of something even beyond amazement twisting her face, her mouth gaping, her eyes alternately scrunching up and going wildly wide, as Jenny tried to make sense of this whole new dimension that had suddenly been added to her world.

“Mama?” she asked, reaching hesitantly toward her mother, touching the face she had never seen before.

Marie just wept.

THE END

The reporters cursed themselves for not being there. Though they were still returning regularly in search of crumbs of information, no one was keeping all-night vigil.  So of course, they all missed being there when the intruder struck. Still, they had a field day with the story. The would-be killer was a member of The Church of Repentance—Connor’s church. Though not acting under Connor’s direct orders, he’d certainly been inspired by Connor’s fiery rhetoric. And Connor said nothing to repudiate Todd’s actions when the press sought him out for comments.

It was clear to Marie that she couldn’t live a normal life in Flamingo Cove. She would have to move. Even if Todd was kept permanently locked up, and even if Connor himself made no move to finish what Todd had started, that wouldn’t be the end of it. Some other religious fanatic would come along, be it a member of The Church of Repentance or a freelance loony, and try to succeed at what Todd had attempted.

Too, the others weren’t leaving her alone, either—the ones who wished only good for her and Josh, but who insisted on venerating him as the Second Coming. The prayer groups still gathered near her house, exercising their right to free speech by praying loudly for the health and well-being of Josh, or praying to him to help them from their troubles and travails.

Even trips to the supermarket were problematic. Just the day before, while Marie was standing in the checkout line, a woman had pushed through, not to cut in with her groceries but to drop to her knees and make the sign of the cross before Josh while she kissed her rosary, then held it out to touch Josh with it as if that would make it truly holy. And it wasn’t just an isolated case. No amount of entreaties for privacy, no amount of pleas that Josh was an ordinary baby seemed to carry any weight.

Just the day before, when Marie was at the library, Josh had sneezed a tiny sneeze; one of the librarians had said, “Bless yourself.” It didn’t bode well for his chances of growing up like a normal child. And that was what Marie desperately wanted—a normal childhood for her son and a normal motherhood for herself.

In Flamingo Cove, clearly, they couldn’t have that. In fact, she doubted they could have it anywhere, as well known as they were. But she began to craft a plan, a plan that related to her earlier comment about the witness protection program. Although she couldn’t really get into the program, maybe she could still change her name, alter her appearance, take the money from the sale of the business, and move to another town. Maybe even a big city, where it would be easier to get lost in the dense humanity. Move, change her name, and start over.

Gary was paying her well for the business—far beyond what it was worth. He’d always wanted it passionately, beyond what was reasonable for a marginal business. She was sure it was a grudge matter because she’d won the business in the divorce settlement, after he’d poured so much of himself into establishing it. It had been a point of sore contention in court. Well, if he wanted it that badly, fine! Let him pay for it—through the nose.

They shook hands on the deal and signed the papers in her office. She was still shaky as she gripped the pen. A week had passed since the attack, but her nerves were nearly as raw as the night it happened. Every footstep behind her made her whirl around in fear. Every knock at the door made her cringe. Every unfamiliar voice made her quake.

She didn’t feel safe at home, and she didn’t feel safe at work. Not for the first time, she seriously considered hiring an armed guard, but she couldn’t live that way for the rest of her life. Elinor offered for Marie and Josh to move in with her “till things die down.” Marie didn’t fancy moving back in with her mother at age thirty-four; though, and besides, they couldn’t be together every minute; an assassin would just wait till some time when Elinor was off doing her own thing. Last, though it was far from the least consideration, Elinor’s invitation was “till things die down,” but Marie wasn’t sure things ever would.

Clearly, her only choice was to move—move and change her identity.

She felt guilty over spiriting Cole’s son away from him, but she didn’t see any alternative.

It was Pastor Hemmings who helped her put her plan into action. He had a friend who was ex-F.B.I., who was knowledgeable about false identities. He couldn’t issue her fake documents or give her any official help—he wasn’t even with the Bureau any longer—but he had a lot of good information about the nuts and bolts of starting a new life. He laid out a plan for her and helped her put it into action. Now that the sale of the business was going through, she would have the money to effect the plan.

Marie had a momentary pang of guilt as she accepted the check from Gary, knowing what she was going to do with the money. Leaving her mother and her best friend behind—would she ever see either of them again, or would her future relationship with each of the women be reduced to a series of furtive phone calls? She envisioned herself talking to Elinor and Sheila weekly from a different payphone, always worrying that, even so, someone would trace the source of the calls and find out at least the city in which she’d relocated.

And all because an assortment of zanies, publicity-hounds, religious nuts, zealots, and others with their own agendas were bent on proving that her sweet little son was something special. Well, he was something special, all right—to her, as his mother. Period. End of sentence.

Why couldn’t everyone else accept that?

As she trudged toward the car with Josh on her left shoulder, the diaper bag slung over her right shoulder, and the check securely in her pocket, she wondered how she was going to convert that much money to traveller’s checks without arousing suspicion. Well, tomorrow she’d be gone anyhow.

But wasn’t there still some hope she could stay in this town she was so comfortable in, near her mom and not far from her dad, close by her best friend and able to avail herself of the rest of her support network? A part of Marie hesitated. She really didn’t want to leave. Wasn’t there any other solution? Was she being a coward by fleeing?

She paused uncertainly at the mailbox. In her hand were the letters she was sending out, letters telling her mom, Sheila, Cole, Joanna, and a few other people that she was dropping out of sight. It wasn’t too late to abort the plan. Marie froze, uncertain and afraid.

Then a dumpling-shaped woman in her fifties approached at a quick trot from the north, headed for the mailbox. But she had no letters in her hand. “Oh, the Savior,” she cooed, sinking to her knees on the rough sidewalk and crossing herself. “Bless me, son of God, and help me.”

Just then Reverend Argyle rounded the corner. “Marie!” he effused, beaming at her. “Have you given more thought to joining our church yet? You want to get your son into the church as early as possible. We’d be pleased to have you as a member. A committee is going to call on you tomorrow. Please hear them out and listen to what they have to say.”

“If I could have just a shred of his blanket . . . anything,” the dumpling-shaped woman interrupted. “A relic to take home.” Then she unexpectedly slipped one of Josh’s socks off—of course, he had no shoes on—and clutched it to her like a treasure. Quickly rising to her feet, she scurryied off down the sidewalk.

“Forgive me, Reverend Argyle, but I have a lot to do,” Marie said, rapidly thrusting the letters into the mailbox and turning quickly away.

If Cole was, for once, restrained, the attitude wasn’t universal. In the days to come, it seemed everyone had something to say and was determined to find someone to say it to. Finding an interested reporter was easy; it seemed the population of Flamingo Cove had suddenly doubled with the influx of TV crews, radio newspeople, newspaper and magazine reporters, and freelance writers.

Marie remained in seclusion in the house for five days—recovered from the birth but avoiding the media circus—but there was a steady parade of people in and out, and nobody went up or down those steps without a phalanx of writers and reporters charging at them. They pounced on Elinor and Sheila, on Cole, on Claudia, who had come to see her new nephew, on Ben, who had come to see his new grandson, and on the steady parade of friends, neighbors, deliverypeople, and curiosity-seekers. They arrived in such numbers that Marie was all but ready to install a bakery-style number machine to keep things orderly. At one point she seriously considered hiring a security guard!

The clergy all came to call. Pastor Hemmings was the first, and he was welcome. “It’s not going to be an easy time,” he warned Marie, “but if there’s anything at all I can do—I or my congregation—you let me know. Whether it’s praying with you or for you, or whether it’s help of a more concrete nature. I know your mom and best friend both live nearby, but sometimes it’s nice to know you have a larger support system. Feel free to call on us. Call me at any hour. Here’s my home number, too.”

Reverend Argyle was next, and Marie did her best to welcome him graciously, though her feelings about him weren’t the same as for Pastor Hemmings. Later, as he strutted out of the house to the waiting reporters, he had a statement. “Our congregation is pleased to welcome this baby to the world,” he declaimed in his most oratorical tones.

“Is Marie a member of your church?” Sally asked.

“Not yet,” Reverend Argyle hedged.

Adam and Aaron called on her too. Once again they invited her to join their congregation, and once again she declined. “Then will you allow us to baptize the baby?” Aaron asked hopefully.

“Technically, he’s Jewish,” Marie pointed out. “Granted I don’t observe my religion, but I haven’t renounced it, either. And the child of a Jewish mother is Jewish.”

“But it’s so important—”Adam started.

Aaron laid a restraining hand on Adam’s shoulder. “Think about it,” Aaron offered. “No pressure. But if you ever want us, you know where to find us. We’ll be back to pray for your baby. Meanwhile the congregation is saying daily prayers for him.”

Marie finally went out of the house on the fifth day. Tired of being a prisoner in her own home, she decided the best thing to do was confront the press. Maybe if she gave them a statement, they’d go away. After all, the baby had been born. What more were they waiting for? What more did they think was going to happen? Maybe if she faced them and gave them their story, they’d all go away and her life could get back to normal.

Now that she had she had gotten Cole out, resolving one set of problems, the thing she wanted most was the peace and quiet she could have only when the media left her alone. The clergy were still posturing. Connor was ranting about devil spawn and the need to repent now, Adam about the need to serve God, and Reverend Argyle about the mysterious ways in which God moved. Other local clergy were having their say too, if less loudly.

But how long could they feed off nothing? Surely once there was nothing more happening, the media would drift away. And surely once the media stopped feeding the clergy’s frenzy, they’d quit their posturing and find other matters to occupy their time.

Marie couldn’t wait.

So she tried to kick off the separation process by facing the media and talking to them. One fine morning, when Josh was five days old, Marie put on a nice-looking, loose-fitting dress and stepped out on her front stoop. The sharks began circling. “I’ll make a deal with you,” Marie said. “I’ll give you a statement, and then I’ll answer your questions. I’ll stay and answer them all. But then that’s the end of it. I don’t want you here anymore. There’s no story.

“Look, this is my son, Joshua.” She held the baby up for the press to see. He was wearing a diaper, a pair of shorts, and a light shirt—ample clothing in the eighty-two-degree weather. “See how ordinary he looks? He’s a special baby to me, yes, because he’s my son, my firstborn, and because I had reached the age of thirty-four—yes, that’s my age, and you may quote me—without having had a child. Most of you know I had a miscarriage during my first marriage. Most of you also know that my second marriage is now over. We haven’t drawn up the papers yet, but Colton Erlig no longer lives here. There will be no further statement or comment on that, so please don’t ask.

“Josh is a normal baby, as you can see. He has no horns and no halo. He also didn’t come from outer space, and he isn’t Elvis reincarnate either. At least, I haven’t heard him singing ‘Hound Dog’ yet.”

There were appreciative chuckles in the assembled group.

“He weighed eight pounds, three ounces when he was born five days ago, during a normal, uncomplicated, although somewhat lengthy birth. He was born here, in my house, with a local midwife, Anna Shelton, in attendance. He does all the normal things a baby does—cry, eat, sleep, pee, poop, and coo. He does nothing unusual. He gives no indication of being any different from any other five-day-old infant, and he’s only special because he’s mine.

“That’s my statement. I’ll now take questions—not about the breakup of my marriage—and then that’s it. No more. And I mean it. No more! I want to get back to leading my life. So ask anything you want now, but then that’s it. No more. Please!”

But of course, there were reporters who’d missed the press conference, reporters from out of town or from neighboring communities, or those who merely had the misfortune to be following other stories, or who, for whatever other reason, weren’t there when Marie made her statement.

The question-and-answer period took another forty minutes after her speech, and when she’d done with it, she devoutly hoped she had seen the last of the reporters. But with the stragglers who’d missed out wanting to get their turns. Marie found, in the days ahead, that although there were fewer reporters around than before, she was certainly not free of them. Even some of the ones who’d been present for her informal press conference came back to interview her again, thinking something newsworthy might happen.

And it did.

Josh was ten days old now, and Marie was happily settled into living alone . . . alone but for Josh, that is. With her son in the next room, Marie didn’t feel alone at all, despite Cole’s absence from her home and her bed. It was only his absence from her heart that she might have felt, and she realized with some pain that he’d been missing from her heart long before she asked him to leave.

At 8:00, with Josh tucked in his crib, which was now back in his room, Marie herself got into bed. Her nights were interrupted by feedings—the baby woke up around 9:30 and again around 1:30 or 2:00 to nurse—and Marie was understandably deficient in sleep. She didn’t see much sense in going to sleep at 8:00—not when the phone was likely to ring and the baby was sure to awaken around 9:30—but there was no reason not to get in bed with a good book and relax.

Marie alternately read and dozed till 9:20 when, sure enough, Josh started stirring. Marie heard a tentative noise or two as he came awake and rustled in his crib, then a full-throated wail as he loudly proclaimed his hunger. Dragging herself out of bed, she went to his crib. After changing his diaper, she took him back to her bed to nurse him. He fell asleep at her breast, and she kissed his dewy head, sweaty and sweet-smelling, before lovingly replacing him in his crib. Then she scrambled back to bed to try to sleep quickly before he awakened again. As worn out as she was, it was no effort to fall instantly into a sound sleep.

She awoke some time later. Feeling drugged with tiredness, she listened for Josh’s cry but heard nothing. Then what had awakened her? It wasn’t light out—she hadn’t slept through the night and awakened to morning. She wasn’t thirsty, didn’t need to go to the bathroom. At length she decided there was no reason, and she rolled over to seek sleep again.

Then she heard it—the faintest of noises, but not one she recognized. She didn’t have a cat or dog. Tropical fish don’t make noises, and this surely wasn’t the sound of the tank filter motor. Staying perfectly still, she listened keenly. There it was again.

Marie rolled toward the edge of the bed and sat up, intending to investigate. Then she thought better of it and stayed perched where she was, her muscles straining with tension. What if it were a burglar? Indecisive now, she hesitated at the edge of the bed, her ears thirstily drinking in the occasional sounds, which seemed to emanate from the living room.

Her brain, her nerves, her muscles were all at war with themselves. Part of her naturally wanted to get up and investigate the noise. Part of her held back. The fight-or-flight dilemma kicked in—should she seek a suitable weapon and meet the intruder head on? Or should she dash down the hall, grab up Josh, and flee out the back door?

Now the noise was nearer. A cautious footfall outside her doorway made her shudder in horrified apprehension. Instinct kicked in, telling her the best course was to play possum. She quickly lay down again. A figure lurked in the doorway. Marie closed her eyes, lest the intruder see their glint and know she was awake. Let him steal my rings, my money, everything—just don’t let him hurt me, rape me, kill me. Don’t let him tie me up—I need to get to my baby when he cries for me.

The baby! The intruder had stepped back from Marie’s doorway and was heading down the hall toward the baby’s room! Marie heard more soft footsteps, confirming that the person, whoever it was, was stealthily inching nearer Josh’s room. Then he didn’t want to rob her. But then . . .what?

She cast about in her mind for a weapon. She didn’t own a gun or even pepper spray. If she went to the kitchen for a knife, or a frying pan to conk him with, he might hear her. Or he might hurt the baby before she could get back to crash the pan down on his head. But what did she have at hand in the bedroom that could possibly double as a weapon? In the darkness, her mind’s eye scanned the room swiftly, opening drawers and searching the closet. What did she have that would be useful against the intruder?

At last she thought of her nighttable lamp. Though small—which at least made it easier to wield—it was relatively heavy. What’s more, it had a square base with sharp corners, which made it a good weapon. Groping in the dark, she quietly unplugged it, lifted it, then realized she had no clothes on! Putting the lamp down, she hastily fumbled her way into the robe she had left at the foot of the bed. Once decent, she grabbed the lamp again and tiptoed down the hall to Josh’s room.

The man was standing partway into the room, trying to see through the darkness. Just enough light from outside filtered in through the blinds to let Marie make out the intruder’s form, though she couldn’t see his face or what he was doing. He didn’t actually seem to be doing anything at the moment. She presumed he was trying to get his bearings without turning on the light. But what was he up to? What was his purpose? Well, she wasn’t going to wait around to find out, and she certainly wasn’t going to ask him!

He was appreciably taller than she, but she figured she’d aim for the back of his skull. As she raised the lamp to smash him with it, he heard or sensed her and turned sharply around. Forced to act faster than she’d wanted to, she rapidly arced her arm toward his head. The sharp corner of the lamp’s base hit him in his left temple, causing him to reel backward and then fall to the floor. As he did, something dropped with a muffled thud onto the carpet. Something that glinted ever so slightly in the hint of light that found its way through the blinds.

The man was on the floor, groaning. Marie bent low and managed to recognize the barely glinting object as the sharp blade of a wickedly large knife. Did he mean to use that huge knife on her little baby? But why? Why was he after Josh? Still, this was not the time to ask questions. Raising her hand, Marie swiftly struck the intruder with the lamp twice more, till he was no further threat for the moment, lying unconscious and bleeding on the floor of Josh’s room.

Only then did Marie start to tremble in delayed response fear. Groping wildly for the light switch, she finally made contact and clicked the light on. At the now-fully visible sight of the nastily sharpened knife on the carpet, a sudden wave of nausea overtook her. She raced to the phone to call the cops but had to detour to the bathroom, retching violently. Finally she was able to dial 911.

The cops arrived before the man came to. Somehow Marie had had the presence of mind to remove the knife just in case he came around before help arrived. Somehow she’d also had the presence of mind to use a tissue to pick it up. She’d seen enough cop shows on TV to know not to disturb his fingerprints.

Later, in custody, the suspect admitted he was a member of Connor’s church. Todd—that was his name—had been bent on stabbing “the devil’s seed, the Antichrist” to death. His only remorse was for failing in his mission.

Josh woke up for his feeding, and Marie moved the crib back into her room. When she had finished nursing Josh and had put him back down in her room, she turned out the light but left the bathroom light on.  She felt safer with some light illuminating the place. She padded out to the living room to turn a lamp on out there, too. Then she detoured into the kitchen on her way back, in search of a weapon.

Her hand started shaking all over again as she selected her longest, biggest, sharpest kitchen knife to take back to bed with her. Carefully she positioned it within easy reach on the nighttable. Just to be safe, she had brought in her heaviest frying pan as well, and she left it on the floor, where she could readily grab it.

But even with the light on and the arsenal at hand, sleep eluded Marie for the rest of that night.

In the morning, she went back to look at Josh’s room. The bloodstain had dried on the carpet, a sordid image of hate painted in rust brown. She got club soda and worked at it, but every time she looked at it, she was overcome with a fresh wave of nausea, and finally she had to give up. She called her carpet cleaner and told him it was an emergency. He kindly pushed aside another client to come and take care of the stain. Till he got there, she diapered Josh in a towel. She couldn’t bear to go back in his room for a fresh diaper. She couldn’t bear to look at that terrible mark.

She didn’t dare go to the hospital. She could just imagine! So she called her doctor’s office, then called the nurse-midwife with whom she had also consulted. “I’ll be right over,” Anna said. It was 10 PM by now. Why do babies love to get themselves born at night? Marie mused between contractions.

But in fact, Josh had no intention of getting himself born that night. He took his sweet time, while Marie gripped the mattress every time a contraction seized her. She broke a nail in the process. Her sweat soaked the sheet.  She forgot all the breathing techniques she’d learned in Lamaze, and for a time she even forgot about the plague of clergy, writers, and faithful-at-large that had been visited on her.

The doctor checked by phone several times, consulting with Anna on the progress of Marie’s dilation . But Anna assured the doctor that it seemed like it was going to be a routine, uncomplicated birth, albeit a slow one. It seemed as if Josh was in no hurry to face the throngs. He had it cozy in his built-in seclusion. Why rush to leave? It might be the last privacy he’d have for a long time.

By sunrise, the pains were coming one on top of another. “Are you sure you don’t want to call your mother? A friend?” Anna suggested for the tenth time, but Marie resisted. She did not want Elinor there—that would offer her no comfort. And while Sheila might be a comfort, Marie didn’t want to drag her away from her own family. Marie would get through this on her own; she’d better get used to doing just that as she marched through life, and here was as good a place as any to start. If she could get through this by herself, she could manage anything.

By nine AM, Josh had gotten himself born. “Starting your first day at nine like you’re on a time clock,” Marie cooed to the baby as she cradled him in her arms. He wasn’t much to look at, all mottled red and scrunchfaced, though he did have plenty of hair on him.

No halo, no horns, Marie thought wryly. He certainly gave every appearance of being a normal baby boy. Maybe now they’d believe her? Maybe once they had reported the birth, they’d leave her alone?

An enterprising writer from the Courier, stopping by to see if there was any news, recognized the midwife’s car and knew this might be Big News brewing. She staked out the front stoop, waiting for a scoop. When the sound of a newborn’s cry filtered out the open windows, the Courier had its lead story for the next day’s edition.

Sally from Channel 11 got word of the event and came rushing over, brazenly ringing the doorbell. Anna answered. “No comment,” she said. She knew why she was here delivering the baby instead of Marie having gone to the hospital. It was to avoid a media circus. Well, all three rings were about to fill up, but at least she had been able to deliver the baby in relative calm.

That calm was broken by the advent of a thunderstorm. Typical of south Florida weather, it blew up without warning and passed just as quickly. Twenty minutes later, the sun was again shining. But Connor, who had arrived at the house on getting word that the baby was coming, proclaimed it a sign: The Devil has arrived on Earth. The Antichrist has been born.

Marie called everyone after the fact. Even Cole. He had the right to know his son had been born. “Are you sure it’s my son? Not God’s or the Devil’s?” he asked. He’d been awfully snide the last couple of days.

“Would you like to come over and see him?” Marie offered.

“Yeh—sure,” Cole answered.

Elinor chided Marie, “Why didn’t you call me? I would’ve come over and held your hand or mopped your forehead or coached your breathing . . . whatever.” But inwardly she was glad to have escaped that ordeal.

Sheila was congratulatory and wanted to know when she could come over and see the baby.

“Anytime!” Marie answered. What a silly question—since when did her best friend need an invitation?!

Cole got there first. He’d had a client sitting with him when Marie called, but as soon as the client left, he rushed right over. Josh looked at him and started crying. “You’ve been talking to him. You’ve prejudiced him against me,” Cole teased. Then Josh grabbed hold of Cole’s finger, and Cole was entranced. “May I hold him?”

“You’re still his father.”

Father picked up son and held him. This tiny thing was a little person—incredible! A special little person—not by reason of any association with extra-worldly beings, but by virtue of being the fruit of his seed, a new life formed from his own life offering, the next generation of Erligs to carry on the family name . . . even if Cole himself was no longer a part of Marie’s family.

Josh fell asleep in Cole’s arms, and Cole was reluctant to put him down. “I guess I’d better let you rest—both of you,” he sighed, softly putting the baby down in his crib, which had been temporarily moved to Marie’s bedroom. “Well, if there’s anything I can do for you . . . ?” he asked hopefully.

“I’ll let you know,” Marie said.

Anna showed Cole to the door. There were seven reporters and three camerapeople out there now. They clamored for news, pressed forward, thrust microphones at him. Cole looked at the assembled throng of newsgatherers and knew that he, Cole Erlig, had the information they all were waiting for. Then Cole flashed on a picture of the baby boy—his newborn son—sweet-smelling and tender, pink and fragile, gentle and trusting, lying in the crib inside. “No comment,” he said.

They noticed Marie was missing. Her car wasn’t there. She hadn’t been seen at home, or at Office Central, or anywhere else around. “Where’s your wife?” one of the vigil-keepers asked. The two reporters who were looking for an interview perked up and paid attention.

“Out of town for a little while,” Cole answered.

“Where’d she go?”

“When will she be back?”

“Why did she leave?”

“Is she okay?”

“Is she in the hospital?”

“Why aren’t you with her if she’s having the baby?”

The questions came as fast and hard as water from a pressure cleaner. Cole was in his element. He answered them one at a time, relishing the fact that he had all the answers they wanted.

“She went out of town—I’m not at liberty to say where. She’ll be back in a day or two or three. She’s fine, but this has all been difficult for her. She needed a little peace and quiet and privacy. She’s perfectly fine. She’s not in the hospital. She hasn’t had the baby. She’s not having the baby yet.”

“We want to talk to her.”

“We want to see her.”

“Tell us where she is.”

“Now, just let it be. It was all your questions and your everlasting following her around that drove her away in the first place. It seems there’s always at least one of you people on her tail. If it’s not a local reporter, it’s from somewhere up the coast or down, or across the state, or goddam California. It’s the nightly news or the tabloids, the TV newsmagazines or a personality magazine, or it’s some freelance writer wanting to make a name for himself by interviewing Marie, or it’s a religion writer who sees something spiritual here, or it’s a whole bunch of you all at once, worshipping not God but publicity. Good Lord Almighty, you haven’t given us a rest in eight months. I could count on my hands the number of days there hasn’t been at least one writer or one TV reporter around. I wouldn’t need my toes. I’d even have leftover fingers.”

He stopped, then, and turned to go about his business. Suzanne Stock called out, “Do you plan to join your wife in hiding?” Cole waved her away and ignored her, giving no verbal answer.

Feeling that there was no story here, the reporters began easing away. Seeing them go, Cole felt a sharp pang. “Wait!” he called out. But when they turned around as a pack, ready to pounce on his next pronouncement, he found he had nothing else to give them. Short of giving away Marie’s hiding place, he had nothing more to tell. “Anyone want some iced tea?” he offered lamely.

They all left without tea, all except Van Jordan. He didn’t want tea either, but he wanted the location of Marie’s hiding place. “Have we really made it that difficult for you?” he asked sympathetically, putting a comradely arm around Cole’s shoulder.

“Well, it’s not for myself that I mind,” Cole admitted. “But it’s really been tough on my wife.”

“I imagine a leading businessman in the community, like yourself, can handle publicity without it being a problem,” Van wheedled.

“Yes. I don’t have a problem with it personally.” Cole puffed out his chest, not just figuratively but literally.

“It’s too bad that Marie isn’t as strong and brave as you are.”

“Yes, it is.”

“And it’s too bad she won’t be home with you tonight. Sleeping alone is tough when you’re used to sharing your bed. Of course you could always sneak away and join her.” It would be easy enough for Van to follow Cole and find Marie, if he could just persuade Cole to follow after his wife. That was Plan B—just in case Plan A didn’t work. He continued with Plan A in the meanwhile. “If she’s going to be in the spotlight for quite some time to come, she’d really better get used to it. Running away never solved anything.”

“Oh, I agree with you,” Cole said, solemn and earnest, nodding his head in agreement.

“You going up to join her, then?” He listened for agreement with or contradiction to “up”—had Marie gone north, south, or west?

But Cole sidestepped the question. “No, I’ll stay put.”

“Might as well enjoy the peace and quiet. We reporters might just leave you alone as long as Marie isn’t here.”

Cole looked something less than pleased with that prospect.

“It might be nice and peaceful around here till she comes back.”

The frown lengthened. But he didn’t crack.

“Of course, wherever she is, we’re bound to find out eventually. Whether she’s staying in a hotel, with a friend, with a relative,” he watched Cole’s face closely for some reaction, but there was none, “someone’s going to see her. Someone’s going to call and let us know where she is. Whether it’s a desk clerk or maid at a motel, a neighbor of a friend or relative she’s staying with—she’s too well known to hide out. Eventually she’ll be spotted. And someone will call a reporter.

“Sources. Nothing is more important to a writer than his sources. Someone will decide to do us that favor, someone important, someone who understands the importance of the press, as well as the importance of himself in telling us. Someone will tell one of us where Marie is. And they’ll be doing her a favor, too. She certainly knows she’s going to be found. She certainly knows the other shoe is going to drop. She’s probably waiting right now, waiting for that knock at the door, wondering how long it will take them to find her, wishing they’d hurry up and get there, so the suspense is over already. And someone, someone knowledgeable and intelligent, someone we’re all going to be awfully grateful to, is going to tell us where she is.

“Of course, I’m not saying it has to be you. I’m not trying to put any pressure on you. Someone else will tell us. Your conscience can be clear. It’s time someone else got a little of the credit anyhow.”

“She’s at the SurfSide Sea Lodge in Vero Beach. I supposed you’d have found her soon enough anyhow.”

When the knock at the door roused Marie from her reverie, she’d been dreaming of a place where she and Josh were insulated from the world. A hiding place for the rest of her life. A vague and nebulous place to be sure—it might have been a ranch in Montana, a busy block in the heart of L.A., a cabin in the Maine woods . . . but wherever it was, they had privacy there, and anonymity. No prayer vigils. No press. She was free to raise her son in peace.

But it was obviously nothing more than a daydream. The knock at the door told her that. It wasn’t the maid coming to clean the room. She’d been found.

She contemplated ignoring the knock. Maybe they would go away. But she knew better. And, on the off chance it wasn’t a reporter, maybe she should see who it was. Suppose it was just a visitor looking for another guest and knocking at the wrong door. Why cower behind the door all night, thinking the press was lurking out there, if whoever was knocking was someone innocent?

Fat chance! she thought as she heaved herself up from the bed with difficulty and padded barefoot to the door.

“Good afternoon,” Van said when she opened.

She knew it was Cole who’d cracked, Cole who’d given away her hiding place. She knew that without even asking Van. Sheila and Elinor would never have given up her location. Not to Van and not to anyone else. Sheila wouldn’t even have told her own husband. It was Cole, and no question about it. She marched over to the phone, in full earshot of Van, and called her home.

Van would have a field day with this, but she had no privacy anyhow. Whatever she did, it made the papers and the TV newscasts. She couldn’t sneeze without it being reported on the six o’clock news. The press would get this story like it had gotten everything else. What was the difference if it was sooner or later? So when Cole answered, she spoke to him just as if Van weren’t in the room: “Get out. I’ll be home as quickly as I can get there. I don’t want to find you when I get home.”

“But—what did I do?”

“I think you know the answer to that one. I have a visitor. Somebody told him where to find me.”

“But . . . .”

“No buts. No wiggling. No begging. It’s the last in a long series. And I do mean the last. You’re outta there. Now. I’ll be home soon. Get your stuff out. Take what you need now. You can come back for the rest some other time when I’m not there. I mean it!”

Facing the prospect of losing Marie—and his access to all the reporters—Cole immediately called a press conference. If he was going out, he was going out in a blaze of glory. Van missed the conference, being up in Vero with Marie, but quite a few others attended.

The headlines the next day read, MIRACLE COUPLE TO DIVORCE.

It was awkward at work, that next day. She kept crossing paths with Cole. But the deal with Gary was due to close in a week. I can put up with it for one more week, Marie told herself. If it gets too bad, I’ll just absent myself for this final week. But Marie was not usually the sort to run away from problems—despite her abortive flight from the reporters that had led her to Vero Beach. So she stuck it out, unpleasantness and all.

She compromised. She went home early. Home to the house that Cole no longer inhabited. Home to the usual throng of vigil-keepers and reporters—but no Cole. She found that, oddly, without him there the others didn’t bother her quite so much. Not that there weren’t enough of them—as her due date grew ever nearer, what had once been a mini-throng was growing. The Flamingo Cove police department now kept an officer permanently posted at her house, with another at her office by day.

Cole went back to the motel he’d checked into the night before. The reporters, who had interviewed him at work about the split, didn’t follow him home. He had the peace and quiet that Marie so desperately wanted, but he found he didn’t enjoy it.

As for Marie, she wanted it but didn’t have it. “Can’t you guys find a nice earthquake somewhere to report on?” she pleaded as she went up her front steps, shutting the door firmly in their faces. Two left. Three remained. So did the ever-present vigil-keepers.

Sally, a new reporter, was particularly aggressive. She was the new face at Channel 11—Van had gotten his wish and taken a step up the ladder. As of today, he was reporting the news in Chicago. But Sally, new and eager, was dogging Marie worse than Van ever had. “Can I have an exclusive when you go into labor?” she asked Marie. Marie slammed the door in her face. Literally. The outraged howl from the other side of the door told her she had scored a slam on Sally’s nose, a move she hadn’t intended yet found she felt no remorse about whatsoever.

As she turned toward the kitchen to see about making dinner, she felt a dull twinge. It was something like a period cramp. She paused, but it didn’t repeat itself. Suddenly, though, she didn’t feel very hungry. Nerves, she supposed. But she’d wait to eat . . . just in case.

She lay down. If by chance this was the onset of labor, she was likely not to get much sleep for the next . . . well, realistically for the next few years, but more immediately, for the next night or two. Better nap while she could. In her sleep, she was aware of another cramp, but she didn’t wake up till an hour and a half had passed, when another, stronger pain pierced her sleepiness.

Josh was about to greet the world that so clamorously waited for him.

It almost seemed they were roommates. They never made love anymore. They hardly talked—certainly not the way they’d used to.

For the lovemaking, or lack of it, Marie blamed her swollen belly. It got in the way, even when they were sleeping. Lying on her left, facing Cole, Marie would roll over during the night and wind up with her back to her husband. Rolling over again, she’d brush him with her distended abdomen, and he’d half waken and mumble, “What?” thinking she’d been trying to get his attenion. Her belly got in her way all the time now. It certainly wasn’t very attractive. No wonder he wanted no part of her.

“Don’t be an ass!” Sheila chided her. “That’s not it at all. He’s just too wrapped up in himself to notice you.” And it was true—Cole was more self-absorbed than ever. He’d always preferred to avoid the bother of answering the phone at home. Unless he was home alone, he let it ring till Marie got it. but now he answered the phone whenever it rang. If it was reporters—and most of the time it was—he insisted on dealing with them himself, explaining that Marie was tired, or busy, or simply unwilling to talk to them. That satisfied some of them; the rest just called at work and got her there.

He set up a schedule, telling them when they might and might not talk to him. But if they wheedled and flattered, he’d always give in and talk at other times, and the writers soon learned their way around his self-protective scheduling. They also still called at odd times, trying to catch Marie when Cole wasn’t at home. Often they succeeded.

Cole professed great annoyance at the reporters’ thoughtlessness: “I told them when to call. Why are they calling at other times and bothering you?” But Marie knew the real cause of his unhappiness was not that she had been bothered but that he had missed another chance to be in the limelight.

Finally Marie got an unlisted number. “That should give us some peace for a change,” she said with great satisfaction. Cole had often grumbled at the frequent intrusions, but now that the phone was oddly silent, he fell into a funk. “Withdrawal,” she characterized it to Sheila, unable to suppress a grin at her husband’s expense.

Eventually, Suzanne Stock, of Channel 3, learned the new number; then a Clarion writer got hold of it, and gradually others got it too. Soon the calls were increasing in number again, and Cole gradually came up from the moody depths he’d sunk to.

“Maybe it was Cole himself who leaked the number to Suzanne,” Sheila suggested one evening when she and her husband had dinner at the Erligs’. Cole had grumbled when the phone rang in the middle of a great ham dinner, but then he spent over ten minutes on the phone with the magazine writer who’d called—while the ham grew cold and the conversation went on without him.

But even during the brief respite from phone calls, when the unlisted number first went into effect, Cole barely talked to Marie. He no longer followed her from room to room. He didn’t finish a single sentence for her.  They were strangers, sharing the house.

He harbored too much resentment—it soured him, curdling his feelings toward her. He resented her selling the business to Gary—the sale hadn’t gone through yet, but he knew they were negotiating. He resented every time the reporters insisted on speaking to her, rather than him, taking their insistence as a snub. He resented the baby—it had given her someone other than him to be wrapped up in.

She always referred to the baby as “Josh,” now. Though yet unborn, he was already a person. “Josh was very active today.” “Josh rolled around so much, I think we have a future acrobat.” “Josh kicked me so much today, he’s definitely going to be a football player.” “I’m thinking of clown drapes for Josh’s room.” “I’m tired. Josh and I are going to bed now.”

So they didn’t talk much. If they did, it was him grousing at her over some slight, real or fancied. They took separate cars to work every day, now. If she didn’t have a doctor’s appointment, he had a late appointment with a client. If it wasn’t that, she was going shopping for curtains or Q-tips or bottles or bibs. If it wasn’t that, he was meeting some writer for an interview. If it wasn’t that, she was getting together with her attorney or accountant to discuss the pending sale.

And did he ever resent her for selling the business to Gary! He persisted in behaving as if she were deliberately doing it just to spite him. “But who else is going to offer me that much money?” she said, trying to reason with him. “I need to make a fast exit. I don’t want to wait forever, looking for a buyer, then wind up with someone who’ll default on the payments. This is a cash sale. No notes. No monthly payments. One lump sum up front.”

“Gary must be doing very well since you left him.”

“Are you implying a cause-and-effect, there?”

“If the shoe fits . . . .”

Things hadn’t got so bad that Marie was living in a war zone, but there was certainly no warmth left in the relationship. She didn’t have a husband, a lover, even an ally. What she had was a roommate.

No, certainly not an ally. Where Cole had railed at the writers before, he now welcomed them. Where he had resented the various intrusions, he now appreciated them. As long as he was the beneficiary. As long as it contributed to his growing fame or to the growth of his business.

One morning, Marie got up at 4:30 after lying awake for a while. She had to pee; the baby was kicking; there was a lot on her mind; sleep seemed out of the question. She wandered out to the kitchen. Through the drawn verticals, she could see a flickering. Alarmed, she went to the window and peered out. Four local residents, true believers all, were keeping a candlelight vigil outside her house. “We’re the faith brigade,” they told her. “We’ll be here from now on—us or our replacements. Reverend Argyle worked out shifts.”

The next day, five more women had joined them. Catholics all, the five new additions stood there telling their beads, saying the rosary for the well-being of Marie and her son-to-be. The day after that, the mayor’s office called. Flamingo Cove wanted to discuss an honor with her, a ceremony at which she would be given a key to the town, in honor of her putting the town on the map. Unquestionably, she was the town’s most famous citizen.

She wished it were otherwise.

There were days when she wished she hadn’t gotten pregnant, times when she regretted her timing in having a baby right then. Had she had the baby six months earlier or later, and not right after those two kids saw that vision—had she not picked that particular eggplant to take to the Share the Harvest event—if only the confluence of events had been different. There was even one night, when she awakened at 2:00 to go to the bathroom and shuffled out to the kitchen for a drink of ice water, when she heard the faint murmurings of “Hail Mary, full of grace,” outside the front window and wished, momentarily, that she’d had an abortion.

No! She didn’t mean that!

But her life was becoming intolerable. If it wasn’t the reporters, it was the clergy; if it wasn’t the clergy, it was the faithful; and if it wasn’t the faithful, it was Cole.

Most of the time, it was all of them together.

Despite Cole’s attempt to intercept the press’s calls and in-person interviews, Marie still was on the receiving end of an awful lot of questions. She had told Sheila about Aaron’s suggestion that he set up a PR office at the church that would be her liaison with the press as well. That gave Sheila an idea. “Why don’t you hire a PR person to represent you?” she suggested. “They could field all the calls and questions, hand out daily statements—face it, kid, you’re an industry!—and take the heat off you.”

The trouble was, there was only one publicist in Flamingo Cove, and she was strongly on the side of the miracle-believers. Sheila started seeking a suitable person throughout the neighboring communities, but in the meanwhile, Marie had another idea.

She called a press conference. Naturally, the reporters showed up in droves. Marie had two experts on hand to give statements, in addition to which she had prepared a statement of her own. First to speak was a noted local horticulturist. This man explained that scarring such as had occurred on her eggplant was a natural phenomenon, that vegetables and fruits with scarring that formed a picture-like pattern were not unheard-of, that there had been previous incidents of faces appearing on veggies, and that none of these had portended a miraculous birth (or any other miracle).

A priest was present too. His assignment was to debunk the two alleged miracles—the premonitory apparition of Mary to the kids and the appearance of the scarring on the eggplant—and so-called modern miracles in general. He cited several examples of unusual phenomena that had had miraculous or other-worldly explanations attached to them but had ultimately been explainable by this-worldly occurrences.

Finally Marie herself stood up and explained the circumstances surrounding the baby’s conception . . . right down to the oral sex session in which she’d abruptly mounted Cole right before he erupted, in order to get herself impregnated. “Sneakiness, good timing, determination—but hardly a miracle,” she proclaimed. “The baby has a very earthly father, even if he was an unwilling participant. And remember, too, that Mary—the real Mary—was a virgin. With two marriages and a miscarriage in my history, you can see for yourselves I’m no virgin!”

There was much chuckling in the crowd, but after she’d finished telling the story, it seemed that Marie had failed to change anyone’s mind.

She had one more weapon in her verbal arsenal: logic. Before giving up, she attempted to explain away the interest in the baby’s origin as “a part of the Elvis Lives phenomenon.” She made a credible argument. “People today are willing to believe in lots of stuff,” she began. “They’ll believe in voodoo or witchcraft, in visits from extraterrestrials and Elvis sightings. It’s consistent that they’d believe in a miraculous birth, too.

“These are tough times. We have wars. We have natural disasters by the carload. And the headlines are full of people killing other people—with plenty of them doing it in the name of God. People are grasping for miracles. And they want to believe that if things this unbelievably bad can happen, well, at least that proves that things just as unbelievably good can happen. Maybe even something as unbelievably good as God sending us a Savior—whether we believe it’s his first visit here or his second.

“We’re at the beginning of a new millenium, too, a time that seems to have special, mystical properties.  Put that together with the rest, and people will grasp at straws. They want to believe we can be rescued from hate, from poverty, from war and violence, from the various evils of our times. They want to believe that now worse than ever, because it’s the start of a new millenium. They want to believe that something special, something magical, can come along and save us now.

“But look at the facts. Look at the year 1000, and the years that immediately surrounded it. It was just as ‘magical’ a time in being the turn of not only a century but a millenium. But did anything miraculous happen? Did the world come to an end? Did a Savior get himself born? Did anything really extraordinary happen then?

“No, and Elvis wasn’t really in the 7-Eleven yesterday. And I’m not bearing a miraculous baby, either.

“So please, everyone, leave me alone. I’m asking you nicely—for what I hope will be the last time: Get off the merry-go-round—and let me get off it too. Let me lead a normal life. Because I’m just a normal person. And this is just a normal baby. Elvis isn’t alive.  And the Second Coming isn’t happening now either. Thank you.”

From the back of the crowd, a voice called out, “No—the Second Coming isn’t happening. This baby is the Antichrist. We must save ourselves from this menace.”

The media dutifully carried the story . . . and just as dutifully returned the next day for the next installment. The prayer vigils continued. The crowds grew larger. And the press pressed on.

Cole, at least, was happy. Cole was in his element. He couldn’t resist the equivalent of an “I told you so” to Marie and Sheila—if they’d left it to him to handle the media, this never would have happened. No, they had to go and call a press conference on their own, and now look, the furor had increased.

But as he fielded phone calls, called conferences, and gave out daily bulletins, he didn’t seem too unhappy at the turn of events.

One day not long after that, Pastor Hemmings came to call. It wasn’t his first visit—in fact, he’d begun to assume the role of Marie’s counsellor. “I’m at my wit’s end,” she admitted to him. “I’ve had it up to here,” her hand was over her head, “with them,” she jerked her thumb toward the window outside which the faithful kept their vigil, “and with the press . . . and with my husband. Especially with my husband.”

“Are you sure you’re judging him fairly?” the minister asked. “He’s under a lot of stress. You’re under a lot of stress. Your hormones are influencing your reactions, too.”

“This isn’t my hormones, Pastor Hemmings. This is reality. It’s not my hormones that have been on the phone with the media, handing out bulletins. It’s not my hormones that have been all puffed up with self-importance. Sheesh, Cole has forgotten this isn’t about him! I might as well not be married . . . in fact, that’s a very tempting thought. I bet things would be a good deal calmer.”

“Don’t you need your husband to keep the press at bay?”

“Keep them at bay? Ha! I wish! Hell, he’s throwing bloody baitfish to the sharks and enticing them!”

“Well, don’t you need him to help you in general?”

“Well, sure I do, but he’s not doing it. He’s not helping one iota. And I have zero reason to think things’ll be any better after Josh is born.”

“Just what are you saying? Think it through carefully.”

“I’m saying I think I’d be better on my own—and I think I want a divorce.”

“I hear ‘I think.’ I don’t hear ‘I’m certain.’”

“I think I’m certain.”

Pastor Hemmings laughed. “I think that’s not good enough. In fact, I’m certain.” He turned serious. “I’m not disputing your difficulties—or even your husband’s part in them. All I’m saying is, Don’t make any rash moves. Don’t throw out the baby with the bath—figure of speech,” he quickly added in an aside to Marie’s belly. “Don’t jettison your marriage yet. Maybe things will calm down after the baby’s born. Remember, your husband is only a small part of your problem. Getting him out of your life won’t rid you of the reporters and all the others.” He gestured to the front window, where the low hum of the ever-praying faithful could be heard.

“I wish I could just disappear,” Marie groaned.

“Too bad you’re not a Catholic,” Pastor Hemmings said with a twinkle. “You’d have the nun option open to you.”

“But I’m not, so my options are . . . none,” Marie tried joking back. But she didn’t feel very humorous. “Marriage with Cole was never perfect,” she admitted to the minister, “but at least we used to be close. Sometimes he suffocated me, we were so close, but at least he made me feel I was important to him. Now? Now all that matters to him is his damn press conferences and his damn business and his damn, damn ego! I’m sorry,” she hastily apologized, unsure if it had been a breach of protocol to say “damn” in front of a minister.

Cole came home right after Pastor Hemmings left, and by then Marie had made her mind up. She gave him an ultimatum: Change or leave.

“But what have I done?” Cole protested.

“I honestly believe you don’t know,” Marie sighed, “and that’s even more of a pity.” She spelled it out for him, but she was trying to walk through a wall. The press conferences? He was trying to take the heat off her. Building up his business? He’d be one hundred percent responsible for her financially if she sold her business.

“No, you won’t. I’ll have money from Gary, and I can either live off that for a while or live off the little I have saved up and invest the sale money into another business—or some stocks or something. Of course I still expect you to pay your half of our living expenses, but I won’t be leaning on you for full support.”

“But you don’t want to leave him,” Elinor protested the next day. “Who’s going to help you with the baby when he’s born?”

“Not Cole, obviously.”

“Easy to say that now, but when push comes to shove . . . .”

“Whose side are you on?”

“Yours, obviously! I want what’s best for you. Living alone, managing on your own, getting to the hospital by yourself—it’s not going to be easy. At least wait it out till the baby’s born. After that, after the trip to the hospital, after the first few weeks, if he hasn’t changed, if nothing’s better, then you can always think of leaving him. Promise you’ll wait?”

“No,” she sighed wearily, “but I promise I’ll think about it some more before I kick him out.”

But the reporters had followed her to her mother’s house. There were four of them waiting on the lawn. Suddenly Marie knew how mega-celebrities and members of royalty must feel. You have no privacy. You have no life. You have no freedom. Then and there she vowed never to read another celebrity write-up again. It would be her contribution toward giving these people some peace.

The four reporters on her mother’s lawn were really no different from all the ones who’d hounded her during the last eight months. They asked no more questions, no worse or nosier questions than any other writers had done. But it was one straw too many. The camel’s back was broken.

Jumping into her car as speedily as her eight-month belly would let her, she did a quick U-turn and gunned the gas to escape the reporters. Without any clear plan, she headed for the nearest entrance to I-95. When she hit the Interstate, she chose the northbound on-ramp arbitrarily, with no specific destination in mind. Continually monitoring her rear view, she drove for half an hour. Finally she relaxed, content that she’d truly eluded the writers. And still she drove.

At length she pulled off the Interstate and found a motel. She lucked out. The desk clerk was reading a western, and she guessed perhaps he read those to the exclusion of all else—including the newspaper. Neither her name nor her face brought even a flicker of recognition. He must not watch the TV newscasts, either. To him, she was just another pregnant traveller, although one who was very pregnant indeed. His eyes dropped appraisingly to her belly, as if he were calculating the likelihood of her going into labor on the motel’s sheets. But when his eyes returned to her face, he still showed no recognition. All he said was, “Room 108. To your right. Here’s the key.”

Ensconced on the motel bed, she called her mother first. Then Sheila. And only then did she call Cole, telling him exactly where she was but begging him to keep it to himself. “Don’t tell the press. Don’t tell the prayer crowd. Don’t tell anyone. Don’t even tell Joanna—I’ll call her myself. I just need to chill out. I’m sure I’ll be home in a couple of days, but for now I need peace and privacy—two things I can’t get at home. Here’s the number in case you need me.” And she read it off the phone.

“What do you want me to tell the writers?” he asked.

“Tell them anything you want except where I am,” she answered.

“What about your checkup tomorrow?”

“I’ll call from here and reschedule. I’ll call you later. I’m going to take a nap now. Bye.”

“But . . . what . . . oh, okay, bye.” Not once had he said, “I’ll miss you,” or “I love you,” or even “Take care of yourself.” Not once had he offered to sneak out and join her.  And what he hadn’t said had spoken volumes.

“Maybe it is a special baby.” Cole had that earnest look on his face. He was trying really hard to convince Marie, but she wasn’t sure he was convinced himself. And he seemed too interested in persuading her—as if it was important to him, not just something he believed, but something he wanted her to believe . . . for a reason. “Maybe it is.”

“And maybe it’s good for your business when people think it is,” she essayed. “But if I sell the business, and I’m not around Office Central anymore, it won’t matter.”

“You wouldn’t!” His alarmed look convinced her she was right in her suspicions. He wasn’t dealing from truth; he was operating on what was best for his business.

“Cole, I can’t go on like this. I can’t go on facing down reporters day after day. I can’t go on being the freak of Flamingo Cove. I’m a damned sideshow. I’m not effective at work anymore. I can’t concentrate. Not that it’s any better away from work. I have no privacy. I have no private life. I have no comfort zone.”

“What are you going to do with the business?”

She knew what he was asking: “You wouldn’t sell it to Gary, would you?” The fact was, she would. She was thinking about it very seriously. She wanted an outright purchase. No deal with pay-outs over ten years.

Cole would have loved to run the business for her or even buy it outright—they had separate personal bank accounts as well as separate business accounts—but she knew he couldn’t run both his own consulting business and Office Central. And she knew he wasn’t about to give up his consulting. Moreover, he hadn’t enough money—or anything close to it—to make an outright purchase. If he ran the business into the ground, he’d never keep up with the monthly installments, yet she could hardly sue her own husband for nonpayment. Besides, she wanted the large cash infusion that an outright sale would bring.

The pregnancy accounted for both of the reasons she needed to sell. First was the uproar over the nature of her pregnancy. Besides that, how would she care for a baby and run a business? She didn’t see herself putting the baby in day care, nor did she see herself taking him to work every day. She didn’t see hiring someone else to run the place for her, either. If she had to pay a new employee to replace her, there wouldn’t be a hell of a lot of money left for her.

No, selling it was the way to go. And Gary was the most logical person to sell it to.  He had the desire to buy the business—he’d always been bitter over losing it to her in the divorce. He had the money, having done well with investments in the years since their divorce.  She could skip the agonizing months of listing the business with a broker, showing the books to potential buyer after potential buyer, going through the motions at work, wondering if she would ever get away from these awful reporters, and having to continue going in to work even after the baby was born if she still didn’t have a buyer. Gary was her salvation.

But Gary was anathema to Cole. Cole had a serious hate on for him. And he made no secret of how much he detested the prospect of having his wife’s ex-husband as his landlord. Well, he could damn well move his office, then. Office Central wasn’t the only place in town where a small office could be rented at a reasonable price.  Maybe there was noplace else where he could get quite as much for as little—the space, the amenities that went with it, at the price he paid—but if he refused to put up with Gary, he could find something almost as suitable. She’d let him out of his lease, of course.

“I have to sell the office,” she said. “I can’t take it any more.  And the baby’ll be along in less than three months.”

“You can’t do that to me.” He was whining. It was most unbecoming.

“I’m not doing it to you. I’m doing it for me. And for the baby—who is also your baby. You don’t seem to have any trouble remembering that for the reporters.” It came out nasty. She hadn’t meant to sound that cruel—although she couldn’t deny he had it coming.

“But if you’re not around the office—”

“The reporters won’t come around? And your business won’t remain at its current level? And you won’t have as much chance to play Mr. Bigshot? Sorry, hon, but I can’t run a business—or my life—predicated on satisfying your need to get your ego stroked. Not even on your need to increase your business. If I could help you without the personal sacrifice, it would be different, but I think it’s damned selfish of you to want me to mess up my whole life just to rev up your revenue.”

“If it’s good for me, it’s good for you.” He was whining again. And he was only partly right. Although they pooled a percentage of their incomes to cover their household expenses, anything beyond that remained in their respective individual bank accounts. Of course, if she were in trouble, he would come forward with money to help her . . . at least, she’d always thought so. The way he’d been acting lately, she wasn’t so sure anymore. He really seemed out for himself. He wasn’t the same Cole Erlig she’d married. Sometimes she wondered why she was still married to him.

They both spoke up at once, then, querulously sniping at each other. But in a classic case of “saved by the bell,” the doorbell interrupted their argument. It was Aaron, Adam’s right-hand man.

Though Adam was savvy and media-minded, Aaron was much more of a pragmatist. “May I sit down? And may I speak frankly?” he asked.

“Go ahead,” Marie said wonderingly. This didn’t sound like it was about to be more of the same old stuff. She gestured to the couch.

“I’m here to attempt to persuade you to join our congregation—for practical reasons. Please hear me out before you say No. First of all, I know you’re Jewish, Marie. And Cole, I don’t know what you are, but I don’t think you’re terribly religious. Fine. I’m not here to convert you.

“Although I think a few other people have tried something of that sort recently. Didn’t I see Reverend Argyle’s car here yesterday?”

“Were you spying on us?” Cole asked.

Aaron laughed. “No. I was driving over with the intent to have this talk we’re having now. But when I saw Reverend Argyle’s car, I kept on driving. And came back tonight. Am I right? Was he trying to get you to join his church?”

“Yes,” Marie admitted. “He thought I might like to become Christian in advance of possibly giving birth to the reincarnation of the Savior.”

“We’re asking no such thing. We welcome those of all faiths at Life Force Spiritual Path. We only ask you to live a good life—and I have no doubts you’re doing that now. In six months, you haven’t taken a shotgun to a single one of the reporters, preachers, and just plain gawkers who have rung your bell, asked you questions, and been everlasting pests on general principle. So I’m sure you’re what’s commonly called a ‘good Christian’—even if you are Jewish. Has anyone else—you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want—has anyone else tried to get you to join their church?”

Marie ticked off four other religious leaders who had made recent attempts besides Argyle and the LFSP: Another Flamingo Cove minister, a minister and a priest from neighboring communities, and a rabbi who thought it would be a fine thing for her to come home to the temple’s loving arms—especially now, since it might send a message to all the Second Coming believers.

A small part of Marie had been tempted by that, but that wasn’t really a good reason for joining a congregation. Besides, she didn’t think it would really discourage many of the people who were lately making her life so terrible. “And what are you offering me?” she asked pointedly.

“A trade,” he said forthrightly. “A spiritual entity has worldly needs too. For one thing, we need more members to expand our base. If you joined our congregation, not only would your joining draw in more members, it would give us more recognition, which in turn would draw in even more members.

“Now, on a spiritual level, a Savior has needs that dovetail with a church’s. We could be a good spiritual home for you and your baby. We’re not asking you to commit to coming to services every Sunday, or anything like it, though we certainly hope you’ll show up once in a while.” He smiled disarmingly. “On another level, we’re prepared to give you a limited but definite amount of financial help. On a more practical level, our members will get behind you and give you whatever help they can—from hand-me-down baby clothes to coming in and cooking and cleaning and such when you’re just out of the hospital.

“On still another level, we can help you with all these reporters. We’ve begun to realize that we need to name a public relations person—a member, not an outside consultant—to deal with the press. We can let our PR person be your PR spokesperson too. You can refer all reporters to our PR person. We’ll coordinate carefully with you. Our PR person won’t say anything as your authorized spokesperson that you’re not happy with. It would be a great relief to you.”

“Indeed it would!” Marie agreed. “But I just can’t go along with it. I’ll admit you’re tempting me, but getting out from under the press just isn’t a good reason to join a church.”

“Then I’m afraid you’re just going to continue to be pestered by a barrage of reporters,” Aaron said, scowling as he rose. “So be it.”

“So be it,” Marie echoed, “but I can’t join a church for any but religious reasons. I’d be a terrible hypocrite. And then I wouldn’t be the ‘good Christian’ you just described me as.”

Aaron sighed. “Call if you change your mind. I think you will.”

“I think I won’t.”

She was tempted—briefly—the next day. After the disastrous attempt at crib-shopping, she and Elinor hadn’t tried again. But time was growing shorter, and they’d decided to make another attempt, this time going to Boca Raton in search of a crib. Away from Flamingo Cove, in the more cosmopolitan environs of Boca, perhaps they’d be able to shop without gawkers and autograph hounds.

No such luck. She’d been dreaming if she thought her fame was that localized. The sales clerk didn’t seem to recognize her, but there must have been ten other people in the store who accosted her in one way or another. One was a Jewish woman who called her a traitor to her religion. “I haven’t done anything!” Marie protested. But this woman was no more willing to listen to reason than the messiah-believers were.

“Can I borrow your cellphone?” Marie wearily said to Elinor as they were leaving. “I left mine home. I don’t want to make this call from home in case Cole’s there when we get back. It’ll only start another scene. I’m calling Gary. I’m going to offer to sell him the business.”

Their exchange was interrupted by a woman who was pushing a wheelchair with a child in it. “Marie!” she said, recognizing her from her pictures in the paper. “Marie, Mother of God, please heal my child.”

“I’m not the Mother of God. I’m Marie, not Mary. And I can’t heal your child.”

“Yes you can. Just lay your hands on him. Oh, do it, please. Please just touch him.”

She was a fraud if she did it, a bitch if she refused. Finally she laid her hand on the boy’s shoulder, saying, “It’s really all in God’s hands.”

She got a chance to use the phone—finally. She called Gary. And she offered to sell him her business. “I’ll have my lawyer call yours,” Gary said at the end of the conversation. The wheels were in motion.

Marie arrived home tired but relieved. The phone call to Gary had made her feel inordinately better. Selling him the business wouldn’t solve all her problems. It wouldn’t get rid of the reporters. It wouldn’t convince anyone her child was just a normal baby. But it would take her out of one milieu where the reporters were a terrible hassle. It would free her up to be a full-time mother. And it would bring in a needed infusion of cash. It was a start. It was a help. It was a relief.

She was so relieved, she decided to tell Cole. He would have to be told anyhow, and maybe he would find it in him, somewhere, to be happy for her. After all, she was still his wife—though he hadn’t been acting like it lately, hadn’t seemed to be looking out for her best interests at all.

“I did something today while I was in Boca that made me feel much better,” she said. “I made a call while I was crib-shopping. I—”

“You called Aaron and told him you’d join his church.” It was the first time he’d tried to finish a sentence for her in a long time.

“Not even close,” she said.

A period of relative calm followed. The press kept it down to a minimum, and Cole kept his temper in check. Marie savored the peacefulness, hoping that things were actually settling down and her life might regain some semblance of normality. Unfortunately, that was just a foolish dream. It was the calm before the storm.

The first thing that precipitated that storm was the ultrasound. She had hopes that she might slip in, have the test, and come home without attracting media attention. No such luck. Someone—the nurse?—surely not the doctor!—tipped off the media about the test, and suddenly her doorbell was ringing again.

Yes, she had had an ultrasound test, she confirmed to the various reporters. Yes, the baby was healthy. No, there was no indication of anything unusual. Despite her earlier joke to that effect, did they really expect the baby to have a halo or something? Or perhaps be wearing a banner proclaiming, I AM THE MESSIAH? It was a baby, for pity’s sake. A normal baby. Normal in both senses of the word—normal in the sense that the ultrasound looked for—free of noticeable birth defects—and also normal in the sense that, for all appearances, it was an ordinary, run-of-the-mill infant.

And yes, it was a boy. She was able to confirm that now, too. She was kind of sorry. Sad though the thought might be, Marie didn’t think most of the world was ready yet to accept that the next incarnation of the messiah could be a woman.  Jesus had been a man, and whether he was born again as Jesus or in some other identity, the world expected the son of God to once again be a son of God, not a daughter. Mary and Mother Theresa notwithstanding, the world wasn’t ready for a female Savior.

Marie had hoped the ultrasound would deliver her from all this ballyhoo. If only it were a girl. Then there might have been some hope…. But the doctor showed her that the baby was indeed a boy. The media seized on that fact as, if not proof, at least further indication that it was possible—she was carrying a boy, not a girl. The Savior would be a boy. Though not proven, it was still possible that Marie was carrying the Savior.

But eventually the flurry of excitement after the ultrasound abated. With no new developments, the reporters again slacked off their incessant news quest. Marie and Cole once again attempted to live something that passed for a normal life. And then Connor was heard from again.

He called the media to a press conference and declared that he had determined, using numbers, that the child was indeed devil spawn. “Now, I’m not into numerology,” he explained, “but you can’t overlook the facts. I don’t do a lot of mumbo-jumbo with numbers, but some things are plain as the nose on your face. Marie was born on June 15, 1966.

“Are you with me so far? Do you see where I’m going with this? June is the sixth month. We’re talking about the 15th of the month—her birthday—right? Add the components of fifteen—the digits one and five—together, and what do you get? Six. So her birthdate converts to 6/6/66. And we all know that 666 is the mark of the devil—the number of the beast. There’s your proof—the baby is the child of the devil, the Antichrist.”

There was another “six” in the equation, too, though not one that showed up in Connor’s figuring. By now, Marie was almost six months pregnant. On top of all the problems engendered by her fame, she was having to deal with the usual problems of pregnancy. The morning sickness was gone, but she was front-heavy, ankle-swollen, and tired all the time. She was cross, and her hormones were all out of whack.

The reporters didn’t help any. To Marie’s consternation (though not to her surprise), Connor’s pronouncement stirred them up anew. Once again, they began swarming around her like sharks appearing from nowhere when blood appears in the water. It was both the local media and the national. The scope of national publications chasing the story was broad; it encompassed The New York Times and The National Enquirer, People and The Christian Science Monitor, not to mention any number of women’s magazines. Van Jordan was totally eclipsed.

At one point, driving past Marie’s house and seeing the flock of media cars parked there, Reverend Argyle stopped in and made an impromptu bid for her to join his church after all. “We welcome all people of good faith, whether or not their beliefs are in total accord with ours,” he proclaimed proudly. “Even Jews.” Marie cringed.

Adam was there too. He hadn’t been driving by just by chance; he had circled the block five times, waiting till there were enough reporters’ cars for his visit to make a real impact. Then he “dropped in,” explaining to Marie—in front of all the reporters—why she should be proud to bear such a special baby, why the world needed a Savior (as if that weren’t obvious enough on its own!), and how a Savior’s aims would be right in line with the aims and goals and beliefs of the Life Force Spiritual Path. The media listened politely, but he noticed that the reporters weren’t taking notes or taping, and none of the cameras was still running.

“There’s no ‘here’ here,” the reporter from the Miami Herald whispered snidely to the reporter from a weekly out of Boca Raton, stretching surreptitiously and then slouching just a little.

“Nope. No story,” the Boca reporter concurred.

Though Adam couldn’t hear the words, he could read their inattentiveness as easily as a four-word billboard.  Wisely giving up, he left.

Having had some sort of respite from the reporters, Marie was all the more unhappy at the renewed incursion into her privacy. Claudia happened to call that night. When Marie heard that it was someone other than a reporter on the phone, she broke down in sheer relief, her sobs as jerky as hiccups. When her voice had the upper hand again, and she could form words, she wailed to her sister, “I can’t take it!” Her voice rose shrilly as she bemoaned her fate.

“Have you—have you considered an abortion?” Claudia asked. “You’re just about starting your sixth month. You might still squeak in under the wire for a second-trimester procedure.”

“And be called ‘Christ-killer’? Our people have been through that once already. Not again! Anyhow, I couldn’t. That’s my baby!”

“Will it ever really be your baby? Maybe you need to find a cooperative doctor. Surely there’s one around somewhere. Someone who’ll quietly induce what will look like a miscarriage. If the doctor keeps his mouth shut, who’s to know? You’ve had one miscarriage already. In the light of that, it’d be all the more believable. Think about it, hon.”

“Oh, you’d like that!” Marie snapped. “Then I wouldn’t be one up on you, and you’d still be tops in the family.”

“Marie Levy Erlig! That’s got to be your raging hormones talking! Otherwise I don’t believe you’d say such a thing to me!”

“I’m sorry,” Marie gulped contritely. “I didn’t mean it.” Yes, I did, she thought. But it probably isn’t true.

As soon as they’d done talking, Claudia called Elinor. Elinor let nearly half an hour go by before dialling Marie. She didn’t want Marie to infer the cause-and-effect relationship inherent in her call. When Elinor finally got Marie on the phone, she suggested to her that they get together for lunch, keeping her voice casual. “We haven’t talked lately,” Elinor said, trying to make the date sound innocent, though Marie suspected she had some kind of agenda.

Although Marie and Elinor got on perfectly well, they weren’t especially close. All the years of resentment over Claudia’s favored treatment had distanced Marie from her mother. While Elinor was perfectly aware of her daughter’s current troubles, Marie had saved the bulk of her complaints for her friends, especially Sheila. So now, as Marie and Elinor sat at the table, and Elinor asked, “What’s new?” Marie blandly answered, “Same old same old.”

“Nothing interesting?” Elinor prodded.

Then a torrent gushed forth: “Well, I’m pregnant with this child that most of the world thinks is Jesus reincarnate or something, except for a few people who seem to be sure he’s the devil in disguise. I’m trying to lead a normal life, and I’m having anything but. This should be the happiest time of my life, and it’s sheer misery. All I want is to savor this pregnancy, and everyone’s making it out to be something it isn’t. Obviously this is just your basic garden-variety kid, but nobody except me and you seems to believe it.

“Even Cole’s gone wacky on me. He seems to be welcoming the reporters at the office. As a side benefit to all this—the rainbow during the flood, I guess—Cole’s business has picked up. In his eyes, that makes it all worthwhile. The hassle, the intrusions in our lives, the total loss of privacy . . . God! I think three-quarters of the world knows when I last went to the bathroom.

“But as long as Cole’s business is growing, that’s the most important thing. Never mind the inconvenience to his wife, the disruption of his private and business life, the fact that we can hardly sit down to an uninterrupted meal anymore—oh, and did I tell you about the reporter I caught snooping through our garbage the other morning? From one of the tabloids, of course. But none of that bothers Cole. It’s good for business! I think you and I are the only two sane ones left. Well, maybe Sheila. Everyone else but us thinks this is some kind of miracle in my womb.”

There was a telling silence from Elinor. Finally she spoke up. “You know, honey,” she started, speaking slowly and choosing her words with evident care, “we Jews are waiting for the Messiah too. Meshiach. The Orthodox are waiting for an actual person. Our rabbi says we Reform Jews are really just waiting for a time of peace, rather than an actual human savior. But who knows? Do you know? I don’t.

“And even if we don’t think we’re waiting for an actual human savior, that could be what we get. God doesn’t always send us what we expect. Anyhow, my point is, without it being a reincarnation of Jesus, without the Virgin Mary having anything to do with it, you could still be carrying the Meshiach. Lord knows the world is in enough of a mess. If we ever needed a little extra help, we need it now.”

Marie sat there, stunned. Had her own mother turned against her?

“Of course,” Elinor went on, “the fact that this special birth was pinpointed by apparitions of Mary makes it seem less probable that this is our savior.” She sighed. “We’ve been waiting over five thousand years. We can wait a little longer, I guess.”

The waitress approached. They still didn’t even have menus, and Marie looked up expectantly, but instead of handing her a menu, the waitress handed her a scrap of paper. “Would you autograph this for me? I don’t normally collect celebrity autographs, but gee…the Mother of God…!”

Marie’s head filled with a buzzing sound and felt as if it were swelling and ready to burst. Her vision swam, and the world turned scarlet. She stood up suddenly, unsteadily, pushing her chair back so hard that it skreeeeeked across the restaurant’s wooden floor, then fell over. Marie started to bend over to pick the chair up but lost her balance and had to catch herself on the edge of the table. “Let’s go, Mom,” she said, in a voice that brooked no debate.

They could go to some other restaurant, but something similar was likely to occur, Marie knew. She decided she’d better add eating out to the growing list of pleasures and everyday activities that she’d had to abandon for the duration. She waited in the parked car, slinking as low in the seat as she could, to become as invisible as she could get, short of lying down. Meanwhile, Elinor ran into a deli and ordered two sandwiches to go. These they took back to Marie’s house. No reporters expected to find her there during work hours. At home, at that hour, they could eat their lunch in relative peace, disturbed by only their own thoughts.

But they had barely finished, still on the same subject between bites, when Marie was overcome and broke down sobbing. Elinor tried awkwardly to comfort her, but the last time she had had to comfort her daughter, it had been over a bruised knee or an adolescent love gone askew. Never in Marie’s adult life had she come to her mother for comfort—not even when her previous pregnancy had ended prematurely. Elinor found she was awkward at gathering her pregnant daughter in her arms for consolation—and it wasn’t just because of Marie’s swollen girth.

What should she say? What could she say? She was on unfamiliar ground, nor was this particular problem covered in any parenting handbook. Nowhere was there a chapter on Consoling Your Daughter When the World Thinks She’s About to Bear the Savior.

For a few minutes, Marie was the baby, not an about-to-be-mommy. For a few minutes, she was the child in her mother’s arms, weeping and sobbing, totally distraught, wordlessly pouring her heart out through her tears. And Elinor, stumped, was just as wordless in her comfort. What could she do but stroke and pat and hold and comfort and cuddle? What syllables could begin to help?

What on earth could she say that would give any real consolation? “It’ll be all right”? Bullshit! “Everything will be fine in a little while”? Marie knew better. “Cry it out and you’ll feel better”? Crying wasn’t going to help this dilemma.

“How . . . do . . . I . . . handle . . . this?” Marie finally managed to choke out between sobs. Then she repeated it, screaming, totally out of control: “How do I handle this?!! How do I have a normal life, a normal pregnancy? How do I raise a normal baby? What kind of a life will this child have?”

Elinor didn’t have an answer, though finally she essayed one: “Maybe it will all die down eventually. Especially after the baby is born. When they see it’s a normal child. When they see he’s nothing out of the ordinary . . . .”

“Jesus didn’t do miracles in his first year,” Marie said, hiccupping as she talked. “He was a normal-looking baby, and I guess he was a normal little kid, too. It was only when he got older . . . .  How old does my baby have to get before they leave us alone? How do I explain to him why the reporters won’t leave us alone and his kindergarten teacher kneels at his feet? How do I deal with it? I almost wish I would have another miscarriage.”

“Maybe you will,” Elinor soothed, while thinking it was an odd thing to say—surely not something a mother usually said to comfort her pregnant daughter!

When Marie next spoke to Ben, he was less sanguine about it. If Marie wasn’t as close to Elinor as she might have liked, she was even more distant from her father. In her childhood, he had left most of the parenting up to Elinor. Too, he’d often worked late, and he’d travelled with some frequency as well. Then there was the matter of them favoring Claudia over her—a sin of which Ben was equally as guilty as Elinor.

And later on, when he left Elinor, he’d incurred Marie’s disfavor. For all that Marie wasn’t especially close to Elinor, she still loved her, loved her more than she loved Ben. After Ben left Elinor, Marie had blamed her father for hurting her mother. So Marie didn’t call Ben often—or vice versa. But—perhaps because she was reaching out for the solace of family, or perhaps just because enough time had elapsed that she was due to talk to him—Marie called Ben that night.

Ben was eager to have a grandchild. And, in his eagerness, he wouldn’t countenance any talk of abortions or even of hoping for a miscarriage. “What are you going to name my grandson?” he asked.

Marie hadn’t settled on a name up till then, so she was surprised to hear herself say, “Well, I don’t know, but I was thinking of Joshua. Josh.”

“That’s a good strong, manly, Biblical name. Yet still used nowadays. I like it,” Ben approved resoundingly. “Josh Erlig. Good! Middle name?”

Marie sighed. “I’m sure Cole would like to name him after his own father. I don’t know that I have a preference personally. I have no problem with the Jewish tradition of naming after the dead, but do I call him Samuel after your dad, Arthur after Mom’s dad, or some male version of your mother’s name, or some male version of Mom’s mother’s name, or . . . ? It’s a problem.”

“Apparently that’s not your only problem,” Ben said.

Marie recounted the latest intrusions by reporters, along with the incident with the waitress. “Why don’t you move?” Ben suggested. “Pick up and start over somewhere else.”

“They’d know me anywhere,” Marie sighed. “This thing’s gotten way out of hand. These reporters aren’t just locals. I’d be recognized anywhere unless I went underground. I’d have to dye my hair, change my name—hell, I wish I’d seen someone committing a really big crime. Then I’d qualify for the federal Witness Relocation program.” She laughed bitterly.

“Well, just don’t move too far away. I’ve waited a long time for a grandchild. I don’t intend to be cheated out of the pleasure of watching him grow up.”

The next day, Marie had a pre-natal checkup scheduled, but as she got into her car, she saw the Channel 11 van pulling up, as well as an unmarked van that she didn’t recognize but that clearly contained members of the press—their camera equipment gave them away. She was grateful for the appointment that gave her a reason to escape.

When she returned, she half expected the reporters to be camped out and waiting for her. But the office was devoid of any inhabitants save its usual, and a couple of customers. “What did the doctor say?” Joanna asked interestedly.

Marie gave a short, sharp laugh. “He said it’s a normal pregnancy. Now that’s a laugh. He said I’m fine.  A lot he knows. What happened to the vultures? I thought they’d all be circling to hear the latest and pick apart the bones of my pregnancy.”

“Cole got rid of them.”

“He did? How?”

“He let them interview him. Gave them enough stuff to satisfy them.”

“You listened?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“What kind of ‘stuff’ did he give them?”

Joanna hesitated, then came out with it. “An earful. You’re not going to like it.“ She paused another beat, then reluctantly went on. “He told them some pretty intimate details about your marriage, your pregnancy, about your courtship, your likes and dislikes . . . he ran the gamut. Some stuff I never heard before. Some of it might have been . . . embellished a little, I suspect. But they ate it up. He seemed to get off on it too.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, they played up to his ego. You know, made him feel important for telling them so much. And the more they played up to him, the more he told them. I think he’s pretty proud of himself, Mr. Celebrity in there. They fussed over him and stroked his ego, and—well, he’s pretty full of himself right now.”

Marie knew Joanna longer than she knew Cole. Joanna had worked for her since shortly after she and Gary had started the business.  Still, it remained strictly a business relationship, and both women drew a line of propriety. Joanna had never spoken so frankly about Cole before. Under the circumstances, though, Marie appreciated it.

Sure enough, one interview was on CNN that night, giving prominent play to Cole, and another showed up in a local magazine not too long thereafter: FATHER OF MIRACLE BABY TELLS OF HIS PART, the headline read. Marie read the article in amazement; the man in the article bore little resemblance to the Cole she knew, and the role he’d ascribed to himself bore little similarity to the ways things had really happened.

She didn’t mention her feelings to him, though. In fact, these days they didn’t talk as much altogether as they had before. Cole’s needs had changed. His business had blossomed, and he often stayed late at the office, now, seeing clients right up till Joanna closed up at 5:30, and frequently taking them out to drinks to continue the conversation. And now the reporters began asking to meet with him too.

Marie was so grateful to have the reporters easing off her case that she put up with the distortions in the articles as well as the peacock pride with which Cole strutted around, both at work and at home. She bore up under his increasing absences by remembering all the annoyances he had inflicted on her and discovering how peaceful it was without them when he was out of the house. Like a lightning rod, he drew many of the reporters away from her; she was profoundly appreciative of that.

One Saturday morning a reporter showed up at the house insisting on seeing Marie. Cole, who was home, acted positively miffed. Why did this woman want to see Marie when he was there?! He could tell her anything she wanted to know.

No, she really wanted to talk to the mother-to-be, she insisted. Cole’s nose got pushed way out of joint, and he took it out on Marie. His voice a snarl, he instructed her, “Well, don’t forget you have laundry and grocery-shopping and housecleaning to do. Don’t let fame go to your head.”

“Totally uncalled-for!” Marie snarled at him, despite the fact that she hated to snap at him in front of the reporter. “That’s definitely the pot calling the kettle black.” She could see the headlines now: SAVIOR’S MOTHER NO SAINT!

Cole, humiliated, tried to joke his way out of it. “Don’t say ‘black’. Say ‘African-American’. The other isn’t very PC. The pot calls the kettle African-American.” His desperate stretch for humor fell awfully flat, making Cole look like an utter lamebrain. He slunk into the other room, realizing he’d skewered himself, leaving Marie to deal with the reporter.

It happened that this reporter had been there several months earlier, leaving a small notebook with Marie. When she left it, she’d said, “I want you to record your pregnancy. The events. Your thoughts. Your feelings and emotions. The big things. The little things. We’ll print it and call it A Diary of a Miraculous Pregnancy.” Now she wanted to know, “Have you been keeping the diary like I asked?”

“Sure,” Marie said sarcastically. “Want to hear an excerpt from a typical day in the first month? 9:10 – Threw up. 9:20 – Pesty reporters. 9:30 – Threw up. 9:40 – Pesty reporters. 9:50 – Threw up. 10:00 – Pesty reporters. The diary is full. Want to hear more? I had no time to write it. I was too busy throwing up and dealing with reporters.

“Want to hear a page from this month’s entries? 4:00 – Peed. 4:10 – Listened to my husband make an ass of himself with the reporters.” Why am I saying this? she asked herself. Yet she heard herself go on, unable to stanch the verbal bleeding even though she knew her words would only wound her more.

“OK, 4:20 – Peed. 4:30 – Listened to my husband make more of an ass of himself with more reporters. 5:00 – Ultrasound still can’t find either a halo or horns. 5:10 – Found someone in Outer Mongolia who still doesn’t know who I am.” Why am I doing this to myself?!

And still she went on till the reporter stopped her with a compassionate hand laid on Marie’s arm. “This hasn’t been easy on you, has it?” she asked. It was the first time in a long time that a reporter had shown that much understanding.

Just then, Cole came back out to the living room. “You won’t get anything done if you’re so busy being a celebrity.” When had he turned against her? The marriage had never been perfect, but his annoying traits had stemmed from his keeping too tight to her, not from his opposing her. Never had he been a deliberate antagonist. When had he changed?

The reporter’s consoling hand tightened on Marie’s arm at Cole’s barbs, and suddenly Marie was overcome with tears. The reporter put her arms around Marie and held her. As Marie sobbed her heart out, she thought, “This crying jag will probably be tomorrow morning’s headline.”

For a time, the media fed off Adam’s press conference and the one with Reverend Argyle that followed. Connor kept muttering in the background about the Antichrist, but nobody seemed to be paying him much mind, and he didn’t even appear to be trying to get publicity. After a while, things kind of died down. There just wasn’t much news to report.

Not that Marie finally got the peace and privacy she wanted. It was a matter of degree—things were less bad than before, but they hadn’t blown over. The out-of-town press was still very much in evidence, too. It seemed like once a week, on the average, some newspaper or another sent a writer to interview Marie.  She tried to ignore them, but it was pretty difficult to pretend they weren’t there, and Marie kept thinking that, after all, they were only trying to do their job.

Sometimes it was local writers who got assignments from media in other states. Then there were the writers who had actually flown or driven in from out of town. She found it even harder to be rude to these people. And occasionally a news crew would show up at her door, wanting anything from a sound bite to a lengthy interview for TV.

With all the hoo-ha centered around the pregnancy, Marie hadn’t felt much like working on the baby’s room. Today, though, in the wake of a pre-natal visit to the doctor, Marie’s spirits had revived somewhat. She arrived home in a better frame of mind about the pregnancy than she’d felt for quite a while. She was showing now and starting to wear maternity clothes in addition to her looser-fitting regular clothes.

She was nearly four months pregnant, with no complications, no problems. The morning sickness was gone, and the doctor said she was doing great. How could she not be in a good mood?

There was no one camped out on her doorstep when she got home from the doctor’s at 4:30, too late to make it worthwhile going back to the office yet earlier than her usual arrival at home. Marie decided to take advantage of the rare gift—extra time at home and none of the pernicious flock of journalistic vultures. She would whomp up a special dinner, something fancier than she usually had the time to throw together on a weeknight, and then, while it cooked, she would get into that room, maybe even start painting the walls.

As she browsed through fridge and cabinets, checking to see what she had on hand that she could turn into a luscious dinner, she waited for the proverbial second shoe to drop—or, more specifically, for the clamor of the doorbell or phone. But both were blessedly quiet. She concocted a chicken casserole, got it into the oven, loaded up her other casserole dish with scalloped potatoes and put that in the oven too, made a salad, and set the table before the phone ever rang.

And then, when it did, it was only Sheila calling to find out how the visit to the doctor had gone.

“Fine. No problems. Still a normal pregnancy,” Marie reported.

“He’s not concerned you’ll miscarry again?”

“No. And I’m almost as far along as when it happened last time.”

“When’s the ultrasound?”

“Next time.”

“You going to ask the baby’s sex?”

“Yeh. I wouldn’t mind knowing.”

“What’s your preference?”

“I guess a girl—if only because that might squelch some of this crazy talk. I think fewer people expect the messiah to be born a girl. Maybe if it’s a not a boy, they’ll leave us alone.”

“I wouldn’t bet money on it,” Sheila observed drily. “Maybe when the ultrasound doesn’t reveal a halo . . . .”

“Or horns,” Marie added. Connor had been on the radio the other night, harping away about the Antichrist again. “Well, I wanted to get into the baby’s room and get some painting done. If there’s nothing else new . . . ?”

“Just checking on you, hon. Talk to you tomorrow.” They both hung up.

Marie changed into a ratty old pair of stretchy pants and a shirt. The pants were snug on her now but not unbearable. Then she went into the laundry room, where she had stored the yellow paint she’d bought for the baby’s room, searched out the brushes, and carried everything into the room. Going back to the living room, she grabbed the features section of the morning paper. She’d already read it, and Cole almost never read the features. It would do as a dropcloth. She needed to protect that desk and dresser, as well as the carpet.

Cole came home early. “Honey, I’m home. Where are you?” he called to her.

“In the baby’s room,” Marie sang out, experiencing a very pleasant thrill at the sound of the words. In a few months, this wouldn’t be the future room of a theoretical baby, a not-yet-born baby-to-be. It would be the actual sleeping place of a very real, flesh-and-blood, here-and-theirs baby.

And not a future religious leader to be worshipped, she added as a mental postscript.

“What’re you doing back there?”

“Painting the room!” she announced happily.

“I came home early to be with you,” Cole said, a hint of pout in his voice.

“C’mon back and keep me company.”

“You know paint fumes bother me.”

“What fumes? It’s practically odorless. Hey, I’m not trying to get you to paint. Just sit and talk while I paint. What happened at the office this afternoon?”

Ignoring the question, Cole came and stood in the doorway. “You’ve got months yet. Leave the painting. Come spend some time with me. We used to cuddle on the sofa and watch the news together. Now I’ve lost you to the baby before he’s even born.”

Neither of them won the dispute—the doorbell rang, interrupting the verbal parrying, and Cole trotted down the hall to discover a hopeful reporter lurking on the front stoop. “No interviews!” he said gruffly, slamming the door in the woman’s face, but Marie heard him and lapsed into despair that they would never have a private life again. Her mood, so ebullient moments earlier, collapsed into despondency as quickly as a golf ball flies from the fairway into the rough.

Marie capped the paint can, pattered down the hall to the bathroom, and washed out the brush. Then she returned the brush to the lidded can, as a promise that she would get back in there soon.

But not tonight. For tonight, the mood was ruined.

She checked on dinner, decided it was nearly ready anyhow, set the table, and spent five minutes talking to Cole. Cole had the news on TV. Marie was glad to see they were talking about something other than her pregnancy for a change. Though, with a sigh, she realized the reprieve was merely temporary.

Indeed, at work the next day, Van Jordan showed up. “Hey, how are you today?” he called out with incredible cheerfulness. “Got time for an in-depth interview?” Then, before she could even answer, he and his cameraman began setting up for it.

One of Cole’s clients arrived just then, but he stood there observing the interview instead of entering Cole’s office. By the time Cole persuaded the client to come in and sit down, ten minutes had slipped away, and with another appointment scheduled close on the heels of this one, Cole felt rushed and pressured. “Your fame is interfering with your tenants’ rights,” he querulously complained as he and Marie sat eating lunch together. Lunch wasn’t usually on their schedule, but lately Cole felt he didn’t see nearly enough of Marie, not even with living and working under the same two roofs she did.

“Which of my tenants have been complaining?” she inquired archly.

“Oh, we all talk,” he evaded her airily. “The others won’t say anything to you, but . . . .”

“But you have that privilege as my husband? Or is it really as my husband, not my tenant, that you’re complaining? Two leases have come up in the last two weeks. Both tenants renewed without a quibble.” Her voice said she would brook no nonsense, and Cole was sensible enough to drop his complaint. Still, he was profoundly upset by the baby’s imposition on his life, and he couldn’t drop the subject altogether.

“I hope I still have some rights as your husband. I am your husband, not just your tenant . . . and the father of the baby. If I am the father, and it’s not some miracle baby after all.”

“Oh, don’t you start now.” Marie’s voice shrilled higher than she’d meant to let it. She pushed her chair back abruptly and stood. Lunch was over, though her soup and sandwich had barely been touched.

At 4:45, a reporter from one of the supermarket tabloids showed up. Marie never read those and had less than zero use for them, but she knew their reputations. She figured if she didn’t consent to an interview, the paper would make something up that would be worse than anything she could tell them. So she waved Cole on home, telling him, “I’ll catch a ride with Joanna. Will you get dinner started? It’s a roast beef. It’s right at the front of the second shelf. You can’t miss it. Just season it and throw it in the oven for me, with a baked potato for each of us, and I’ll make the salad when I get home. OK, hon?”

A scowl and the most perfunctory of kisses were Cole’s only answer as he headed out the door. Joanna, who normally stayed till 5:30 to close up, was puttering around the office. Marie, attempting to be gracious, showed the reporter to her private office and sat down with him.

His questions were mostly the usual ones. He started with lots of personal data, including her religious upbringing. Then he segued into the typical “Why do you think you were chosen to bear what may be a special baby?” and “What religion do you practice now, and do you plan to have the baby baptized?”

Marie bit back a smartass answer: “If he’s the Savior, he ought to be able to baptize himself, don’t you think?” and simply said, “I don’t believe the baby is anyone or anything special—except in the same way that every baby is very special to his or her own parents—and I don’t plan to raise him or her in any religion. I just want to bring him or her up to be a good person. The same as I try to be. Though it’s very difficult to remain mannerly with all you reporters barging in on me at all hours and leaving me no privacy at all.”

She finally got through the interview—somehow—and slid into Joanna’s car for the weary ride home. To her dismay, Cole was comfortably ensconced in his easy chair, reading the paper, with the roast still in the fridge and the potatoes not cooking either. Exasperated, Marie snapped, “What happened to dinner? What have you been doing since you got home?”  Though the answer to the second question, at least, was self-evident.

“Nothing to worry about,” Cole said airily, but with a nasty edge to his voice. “You can make miracles. Just wave your hand and make dinner appear. It shouldn’t be any difficult trick for you.”

Why couldn’t this Marie woman be a member of their church? It would have been so much better for the Life Force Spiritual Path if Marie had been a member, Adam thought. After all, LFSP believed in the Second Coming, believed Marie was probably bearing the next incarnation of the messiah. And if the public were more aware of LFSP, more people would surely join. If Marie were an LFSP member, some of the publicity she was getting would slop over onto the church.

Maybe, Adam thought, he needed to make some overtures to her. Adam knew Marie wasn’t religious; her views had been publicized enough that a person would have to live in Outer Mongolia not to know quite a bit about Marie Erlig. She’d been in the paper, in magazines, on the radio, and on TV. She’d been featured in local media, media from nearby areas of Florida, and increasingly in national media as well. True, she hadn’t been on Oprah yet, but Adam supposed that was merely a matter of time. And the church was missing out on collecting fringe benefits from her fame. Thinking about it, Adam sighed loudly. If he couldn’t get Marie to join LFSP, maybe he could at least forge some sort of alliance.

Yes—that was the ticket. An alliance, a beneficial alliance. LFSP would take some sort of a stand in Marie’s favor, thus helping her while bringing their church to prominence at the same time. Now, what did Marie most need?

Of course the media had been having a field day—the reportage had run the gamut of viewpoints. Most of the stories had been pretty straight-ahead, reporting exactly what had happened, giving opinions both in support of and against believing that Marie was pregnant with someone or something out of the ordinary, quoting Marie, her neighbors, church leaders, and others. Adam had been quoted a few times, but most of the reporters preferred to seek their quotes from the leaders of mainstream churches. (Reverend Argyle had certainly gotten his name in the papers enough lately, Adam had noticed. Argyle seemed to be taking full advantage of Marie’s situation—and she wasn’t a member of his church, either.)

Some of the writers, less objective, had fawned over Marie and the impending birth. Still others, also lacking objectivity, had gone to the other extreme. They’d debunked the whole thing so vigorously that they completely ignored any facts that supported belief. One writer had even suggested Marie wasn’t pregnant at all. Was it an “honest” hysterical pregnancy, he wondered in print, imagined but truly believed in by Marie, or was she perpetrating a gigantic and cruel hoax on the miracle-hungry faithful?

Adam decided the best place to start was to go to Marie’s house and see how his church could help her. So one Tuesday at 5:30, Adam rang Marie’s doorbell. He had already been to the Courier’s offices, declaiming to a reporter that LFSP stood foursquare on the side of the believers, that this was indeed a miraculous pregnancy. “And I’m meeting with Marie this afternoon for a coordinating session. I want to see what kind of practical help the Life Force Spritual Path can best provide for her, what we can do that will be most useful,” he added, making it sound like the meeting was already set up.

But when he rang her bell at 5:30 and posed his question, he was dismayed at her answer: “The best thing you can do for me is leave me alone. If you could figure out a way to keep everyone away, that would be even better, but you’d have to work a few real miracles to accomplish that.”

Chagrined, Adam agreed, but he persisted in asking what he could do to be of more concrete service. “Just go home, so I can start dinner. I just got home from work. I’m tired. It’s getting late. My husband’s in the shower. When he gets out and doesn’t smell dinner cooking, he’s not going to be a happy camper.”

Husband? If Marie wasn’t being helpful, maybe her husband would be.

“Maybe I’ll wait a couple of minutes, if I may, so I can talk to your husband when he’s out of the shower. You go ahead and cook and ignore me.”

“I wish you wouldn’t wait. You asked what you could do for me. I told you—leave me alone. Now do it!”

“Maybe we can help organize a drive to collect baby clothes for you,” Adam offered, backing slowly toward the door.

“We don’t need charity. And I’ve got most of the clothes already. They’re all put away in the baby’s room. Mostly yellow outfits that will suit either a boy or a girl.”

“Then you don’t know yet if it’s a boy or a girl?”

“If I did, you would know too. Nothing happens about the baby that doesn’t get reported in newspapers coast to coast and CNN’s headlines. If I sneeze, everyone in the nation hollers ‘Gesundheit’. If I knew what sex the baby was, you would have read about it. The latest baby news is probably today’s headline banner on that building in Times Square. Now please go!”

That hadn’t gone very well, Adam thought as he left Marie’s house. But he was determined to help her anyhow. There had to be something he could do for her, something she would appreciate, something that would inextricably link LFSP with Marie, so they would get the publicity they needed . . . deserved.

“We’re organizing a prayer vigil,” he announced to local reporters at a press conference he called. “We’re praying for the safety of the baby and of Marie. In these troubled times, there are unstable elements who have to be dealt with, whom it’s necessary to be concerned about. God is good, but man can make evil beyond what God can control. Witness the wars that mankind has waged on other fellow-inhabitants of our poor suffering planet. Witness the eons of unrest in the Middle East. And now there are elements muttering about the baby being devil spawn, or the Antichrist. Not to mention all the people who simply doubt the baby’s identity as the Second Coming of the messiah.

“It is the Life Force Spiritual Path’s position that the truth will be known in time, and that in the meanwhile we need to protect Marie and her unborn child. Whoever and whatever the baby is or isn’t, he is a new life in the making, and he and his mother should be accorded the respect due any new life and the mother bearing it.

“Additionally, we feel that in all probability we will see it proven, in time to come, that this child is indeed the Second Coming. Meanwhile, we will pray for his safety, and the safety of his mother. And if she wants, we are prepared to post a guard of volunteers on twenty-four-hour alert at her home.”

She didn’t want. She didn’t want any such thing at all, of course. Yet the threat of which Adam spoke was not a figment of his hunger for publicity. Connor had been mumbling louder, of late, about the Antichrist, and deception, and the need to not fall for a false messiah.

That it was Connor only made the confrontation that much more enjoyable for Adam; after all, there had been bad blood between the two factions ever since the Church of Repentance had split off from the Life Force Spiritual Path. But even if it had been the Pope himself proclaiming the baby the Antichrist in no uncertain terms, Adam would have taken a stand in support of the baby’s being the Second Coming.

The media flocked to Adam’s press conference. His statement garnered a flurry of publicity. There hadn’t been any real news about the pregnancy lately, and at this point anything connected with Marie and the baby was worth reporting. Marie, seeing that night’s sound bites on TV and reading the accounts in the paper the next morning, sighed aloud and wondered, would they ever leave her alone?

No, they wouldn’t. She tried to go shopping for a crib, the following week. In an attempt to keep it low-key, she went alone, hoping to slip in and out unnoticed. She had as much chance of that as the chances of Secretariat entering a mule derby unnoticed. The salesclerks fawned over her, the shoppers mobbed her, and everyone seemed to want something.

Some just wanted to touch her. Some wanted to talk. Some wanted her autograph. There was an awkward moment when Marie said, “I’m just an ordinary woman. I’m no celebrity. Who do you think I am—Madonna?!” As soon as she said it, she realized any other celebrity’s name would have been a better choice.

A few of the shoppers were not among the awed. “For shame—saying you’re carrying God’s child!” one religious older woman chided her.

“But I never said any such thing!” Marie protested. “I’m not carrying God’s child. It’s my husband’s child. Colton Erlig. Very human. Very earthly. And there’s nothing special or mysterious about my baby. The only mystery is why nobody will believe that. Now will you please leave me alone?” But they wouldn’t, and she ultimately walked out without the crib, leaving it for another day.

Reverend Argyle finally came out in support of Marie. He’d dithered over his church’s appropriate posture, giving statements to reporters when asked for a quote, yet feeling he was missing a larger opportunity for publicity to accrue to his church. While he publicly decried the clergy who were getting involved for less-than-religious reasons, he privately envied the exposure they were gleaning. Surely the ranks of their membership were swelling in response to their being in the public eye.

As he lifted weights early one morning, working out and building up better muscles than are found on most forty-five-year-old clergy, he exercised his brain simultaneously. What was the best approach to take as far as Marie was concerned? He finally hit on what he thought was the best response: He would proclaim that Marie was a beleaguered woman who had made no claims, yet who might be carrying a miracle baby—or not. However, as a pregnant woman, she deserved respect and consideration.  And as a local resident, she deserved the church’s help even though she wasn’t a member.

(Too bad, Reverend Argyle thought. If she were a member, think of all the reflected glory that would fall upon the church. But, since she’s Jewish, there isn’t much chance of getting her to join. Why did God let a Jewish woman become pregnant with the Savior?!)

Yes, as a local woman, she deserved every kind of help the church could give her. Who were those upstart LFSP people anyhow, offering her help? They were taking glory away from a serious church.

What Marie really wanted, of course, was to be left alone. To be ignored, to be left in peace, to have no more press conferences, no more speculation, no more hoopla. But that was a wish that there was no chance of anyone fulfilling.