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.

“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.”

“Are we riding in together?” It wasn’t as if Cole didn’t see enough of his wife, and it wasn’t as if the drive to work was so long that taking two cars was a serious expenditure of gas. Yet any day that Marie took her own car to work was a Major Disappointment in Colton Erlig’s life. So it was a splash of icy water to him when Marie answered, “No, we need a few things. I think I’ll run over to the supermarket first and go in a little late.”

“Maybe I’ll hang back and go in with you—no, wait—I have a client coming in at 9:30. Unless you think you’ll be finished shopping in time—”

“Better not count on it. Besides, I don’t want to be under that kind of pressure. Go on ahead. I’ll see you at the office in a little while.”

“You could do your shopping after work,” Cole wheedled.

“You know how crowded it is then. I’d rather go now when it’s less busy. I get in and out faster. I have better things to do with my time than stand in a checkout line for twenty minutes.”

The length of the checkout line proved to be the least of Marie’s problems. She cringed when she got to the produce section, seeing the eggplants and remembering the genesis of all her problems, but things remained peaceful till she got to the checkout. That was where the first person recognized her from the news. “Excuse me—aren’t you the lady who . . . who’s carrying the . . . the lady who’s pregnant with . . . it’s you, isn’t it?” This from a middle-aged woman with sad eyes and stringy hair, standing in the line for the next register.

Marie said simply, “I’m pregnant. But that’s all. I’m nobody special.”

“Yes, you are!” insisted a dull-eyed woman, two in front of her in her line.  “You’re the woman who’s carrying the Baby Jesus.”

“I am not!” Marie protested at that.

“It’s not exactly Jesus—it’s the next messiah,” another woman joined in.

“No—this time we’re due for the Antichrist. It’s in the Bible,” an older man piped up.

“I’m just carrying a baby, for pity’s sake! An ordinary baby!”

“No, it’s not an ordinary baby. I saw the newscast. You’re famous!” This from the dull-eyed woman.

Marie looked around, poised to take flight. She was tempted to leave her basket and just flee the store. But could she make Cole do all the shopping for the next nine months? That was what it would take, if she were going to avoid this sort of scene. And even if she kept out of the supermarket for the duration, what would stop people from accosting her at the bank, the hairdresser’s, the gas station, the Post Office . . . .

“Bless me. Heal my arthritis,” an older woman with crippled fingers begged, touching her ten stiff, arthritic fingers to Marie’s belly.

“That’s it!” Marie exploded, yanking her cart backward to escape the line. But another cart was behind her, and another behind that one, and another behind that. As she jerked backward, she ran into the cart behind her, smacking her tush on the cart’s corner. She swore under her breath, wanting to rub her sore cheek yet hardly willing to do so in public. Looking behind her, she saw the line of carts blocking her escape and felt momentarily like a fox trapped in its den. There was nothing to do but cower and let the hunters get her.

At least, now she was next after the woman ahead of her. Gratefully she began unloading her cart. Angela, the cashier at the checkout, saw her and acknowledged her. “Hi, Marie. How are you?”

“Frazzled. Hassled,” Marie said with a grimace.

“Yeah, I saw the news reports. Whoever thought Flamingo Cove would have someone famous living here?”

“Whoever thought it would be me?” Marie echoed.

“The cashier called you Marie?” This from a girl who looked to still be in her teens, although she was holding a baby of her own.

Marie tilted her head by way of acknowledgment without answering the question aloud.

“That’s cool. You’ve got a name that’s a variation on Mary—and you’re carrying the Second Coming!”

“I’m not! I’m just carrying an ordinary baby. Look, I don’t want to be impolite or nasty or anything, but I wish everyone would just leave me alone!”

Ignoring her request, the onlookers clamored their feelings about her pregnancy and her name.

“Are you Catholic?” the teenager asked. Marie shook her head. “What are you, then?” Marie gave an exasperated look. “What church do you belong to?” Marie tried to ignore her, but it seemed there were quite a few people waiting to hear the answer.

“I don’t belong to any church,” she finally said.

“What church were you raised in?”

“I was raised Jewish.”

“Jewish—you can’t be carrying the messiah!” Marie could feel the resentment boiling outward from the woman who said that. It came surging out of her almost palpably, a tide of hard feelings at the usurper who was encroaching on Christian territory.

Marie remembered the interview with Van Jordan that had touched on that subject. She hoped no one else had seen it. Maybe this crowd would decide that, indeed, this was just a normal pregnancy and turn their attention elsewhere.

But one woman either had seen the interview or harbored similar opinions on her own. “The original Mother of God was Jewish too,” she declared loudly. And Marie was once again the center of attention, though at least she could feel the resentment of a moment ago evaporating. The fickle crowd turned once again adoring, gazing at Marie as if she were a treasure in their midst.

She got out of the supermarket finally, hurrying home with her groceries and putting them away, but before she could get out the door again, the phone rang. It was a reporter looking for a telephone interview. “I’m sorry. No interviews,” the beleaguered Marie pleaded.

“Just a few questions?”

“No! I’m sorry, but I have to get to work.”

“I’ll call later.”

Things weren’t much better at work. All through the day, people came in to see the woman who was supposedly pregnant with the Second Coming. Some of them stayed to make photocopies, to arrange for Amy to do some bookkeeping for them, to ask if there was any empty office space they could rent, to avail themselves of secretarial or other services that Office Central offered. More than a couple even drifted into Cole’s office and made appointments to return at a later date. He seemed amazed at this turn of events. But, even with this influx of business, Marie was not pleased with the way the day was going.

The days that followed brought more of the same. Business had never been better, yet Marie had never been less happy. “It’ll blow over,” Joanna consoled her. “We’ll lose this extra business we’re doing, but you’ll lose the invasion of your privacy. Something else will catch their fancy. There’ll be a new headline in the news, a new oddity to snag their attention, nothing interesting will happen over here, and gradually they’ll all stop coming around. You’ll see.”

Marie wanted to believe her, but as the days rolled on, it became clear that, as good an office assistant as Joanna was, she was no prophet. If anything, the steady stream of gawkers and questioners, reporters and just-plain-people, the curious and the worshipful and even a few of the resentful became larger, not smaller.

The weekends were no better; the faithful and the curious merely flocked to the house instead. The local reporters were slacking off, it was true; with nothing new to report, they were turning their attention to other stories. But for every local reporter from the daily paper, weekly papers, TV, and radio who stopped ringing the doorbell, it seemed there were two new ones from media farther away. Neighboring towns, then neighboring states, and finally national media were sending reporters to interview Marie. There were reporters from newspapers, from magazines, from networks. There were freelance writers. There was even a stringer from an Aussie newspaper!

One Monday morning, Marie, now two months pregnant, was walking out the door with Cole and found three reporters on her doorstep. “You’d better go in without me again,” she told her husband. “I’ll be along as soon as I can.”

Never happy to ride to work without his wife, Cole grumbled, then snapped at Marie. “I have no normal life anymore. I want you to stop this now!”

“How?!” Marie exploded. “How do I stop it? Have I sent out gilt-edged invitations to all these people? Did I rent a blimp to trail a streamer that says COME TO MARIE’S HOUSE FOR A JUICY INTERVIEW? Do you think I’m enjoying all these intrusions? Don’t you think I want a normal life too?” She burst into tears on her front stoop, while the reporters hastily scribbled notes. Marie ached for a comforting touch, and she looked at Cole beseechingly, but Cole only threw her a disgusted look and stormed off to his car.

“What’s your reaction to your wife’s unusual pregnancy?” one reporter asked him, cornering him at the door to his car.

“Go to fuckin’ hell!” Cole replied succinctly. Then he yanked at the door, deliberately slamming it into the reporter as it opened, and got into the car, angrily yanking the door shut again. He turned the key, levered into Drive, and gunned the gas with a defiant vrooooom. Cole was squealing out of the driveway, laying down rubber, before the reporter could assess his bruises.

Marie, still sobbing on the stoop, turned and hurried into the house, but one of the reporters followed her in. “Excuse me, but I’d really like to ask a few questions,” the young redhead said, almost apologetically, as more reporters eagerly trooped in behind her. “What are your own religious beliefs?”

Marie snuffled into a tissue, wiped her mascara-streaked wet cheeks, and sat down helplessly on the sofa. Defeated, she answered the questions one by one. Her religious upbringing. Her personal beliefs. Her feelings about the baby she was carrying.

That one , at least, brought the spark back to her voice. “It’s a baby. It’s an ordinary, normal baby. Nothing mystic. Nothing mysterious. Nothing religious, spiritual, special, or . . . jeez, it’s a normal kid, if you’ll just let me have a normal pregnancy. Why won’t anyone accept that? Look, if—just say if, for the moment—God were really going to send us a Savior—Second Coming, first time around, whatever—don’t you think He’d have the mother be someone special? I mean, sheesh, I’m an ordinary woman, not your biggest sinner—I’m no Mary Magdalene—but I’m damn well no saint. I’m an ordinary person, no better or worse a person than the next, and I’m certainly nobody God would pick to bear His son. Doesn’t that say something to you?”

But it merely raised a fresh round of questions: What was the worst thing Marie had ever done in her life? Which of the Commandments had she ever broken? Did she consider herself a sinner? Why didn’t she belong to a temple? What did she have against organized religion? Did she think it was a sin that she wasn’t affiliated? Was it true that her husband was Christian? What religion were they going to raise the baby in? What special religious instruction would they offer the baby? How and when would they tell him (or her) of the special circumstances surrounding his (or her) birth? Did Marie think a girl could be the Savior? Did she have any feeling, any intuition, about the sex of the child she was carrying? Did she have a preference for having a boy or a girl? Did her husband? Did they have a name picked out? They would choose a Biblical name, wouldn’t they? Were they planning to name the baby Jesus?

By now it was nearly ten o’clock. “I have to get to work, folks,” Marie insisted desperately. But that only raised a fresh round of questions: Tell us about the people at work. Do they all believe you’re carrying a miracle baby? Do you plan to continue working after the baby is born? Why do you think you were chosen?

There were six reporters in her living room. Marie finally stood up, faced them all down, and said, “I am leaving. I am going to work. And I am not leaving any of you here when I go. So I want you all to leave. Now! I’m not answering any more questions today, and that’s that.” Then, when no one made a move to leave, she said, “If I have to, so help me I’ll take a broom to anyone who isn’t out of here in five seconds.”

They scattered when Marie got up and moved toward the kitchen. After that, though, she didn’t much feel like going to work.

The tension had blown over by the next day.  Marie got up feeling mildly queasy but decided it was merely a nervous reaction to the previous day’s unpleasantness, not morning sickness. And in fact, she easily wolfed down a cup of coffee, four crisp strips of bacon, two fried eggs, and an English muffin laden with marmalade glowing like jellied sunshine. She consumed it all with no repercussions.

She made pancakes, too, especially for Cole. She didn’t care for them herself, but he loved them, and she thought a treat might spark an improved mood in him.

As they divided up the weighty Sunday paper between them, an item on the front page of the local news section flashed past Marie’s eyes. It was about Share the Harvest, which reminded her that she’d wanted to check her garden to see what she could share. Keeping aside the business, local, arts, comics, and features sections for herself, Marie let Cole have first crack at everything else.

He doggedly plowed through the main news section, saving the sports to savor at his leisure later. Marie curled up in her easy chair, reflecting on the fact that this position would be increasingly less feasible through the oncoming months. As she laughed her way through the comics, she paid particular attention to the ones revolving around families, feeling a special kinship with those parents that she’d never felt before.

The knowledge of her pregnancy colored everything she read that morning. She found herself reacting to everything differently. There were two items having to do with the local schools, and she read those with particular interest—in more or less six years, she’d have a child entering the school system. That thought sent chills of delight and excitement racing through her.

“I think I’ll start fixing up the guest room for the baby today—or would you rather I clear out the junk room?” she said. And then as soon as she said it, she regretted it. Would her mentioning the baby set off another round of negative comments?

But Cole seemed to be trying hard to curb his reactions and present a positive face. “I’ll get into the junk room and see what I can get rid of,” he offered. “I’ll do it early. I suppose you want to make that your afternoon’s project, so I’ll finish as quickly as I can. What I can’t get rid of, I’ll try to store elsewhere. Maybe I can get some plywood to put across the attic rafters, so we can store some stuff up there. Give me a couple of hours. Then you can spend all afternoon getting your stuff out of there and starting to fix the place up, okay?”

“Actually I’d planned to go to that Share the Harvest thing over at Flamingo Cove Lutheran. It might just be a matter of picking vegetables, dropping them off at the church, and coming right home again. Or something might be going on over there. I don’t know if they’re providing refreshments or entertainment, or if everyone’s stopping to socialize, or if there’s nothing happening. But I can’t see it taking the whole afternoon, in any event.”

Cole was trying very hard. “Why don’t I make a run to the store for the plywood now? I can clean my stuff out of the junk room as soon as I get back. I’ll throw out everything I don’t really need and stow the rest away. Whatever won’t fit anywhere else goes up in the attic. That way we still have the guest room for visitors. Sound okay to you?”

“More than,” Marie answered with a grateful smile.

“You read awhile longer, then go pick your veggies for this harvest thing.”

“Are you going to it with me?”

“I’ll stay and read my paper. You won’t be gone that long, I’m sure. You’ll be eager to get into the junk room—I mean, the baby’s room. And if I spend most of the morning in the junk room, I’ll still have the paper to read, so I’d better stay home this afternoon and get through it.” Cole put the paper down and grunted up from the chair to go clear out a room for the baby. Marie stayed put, reading. She was restless, wanting to get up and get busy, but the thing she most wanted to get busy with was the room, and Cole hadn’t cleared it out yet.

But she found she couldn’t concentrate on the paper; every muscle in her body wanted to get out of that chair and start fixing up that room. So she finally put down the paper. There was no reason she and Cole couldn’t clear their junk out simultaneously.

Cole had already made a noticeable dent in the clutter, having trashed an old chair and a pile of papers. He’d consigned two stacks of magazines to the recycle bin, as well, and was looking through the contents of a box of clothes. “I don’t think these will ever fit me again,” he concluded ruefully.

“Some of them will be out of style even if they do,” Marie agreed.

For nearly an hour, they dug through the piles and boxes and stacks together. “We can refinish this desk and this dresser and leave them in here,” Marie said. “And why didn’t we ever hang this picture? It would go nicely in the hallway.” Finally Cole said he needed to go get the plywood; he had trashed everything he could, not to mention the huge carton of clothes he’d accumulated for the local charity bin. What was left would have to be relegated to the attic.

Marie was sorry to see him leave. She’d relished the peace and harmony in which they’d been working. What a turnaround from the night before! But the change was short-lived. When Cole returned, he seemed in a less positive frame of mind, and when, at length, he came back down from the attic, and Marie commented on the noise he’d made hammering plywood, he said, “You’d better get used to noise if we’re going to have a little rugrat running around the place.” Those same words could have been said in a light, funny, teasing tone. But they hadn’t been. They’d been said with an edge. And the edge cut Marie.

She tried not to let Cole’s changed mood alter her own. She was cleaning out a room for the baby. The baby—their baby—her baby. The baby she had wanted for so long. This time she wouldn’t miscarry. This baby would be born, would be healthy, would be fine.

By the time Marie had done all she could in the nursery-to-be, Cole was comfortably ensconced in his chair, done with the main news and settled in for a long read with the sports. Marie consulted her watch, decided she had time to read a little, and picked up the main news section. She suddenly realized she hadn’t even checked the lottery numbers—she might be a millionaire and not even know it yet! Eagerly, she turned to the lottery numbers and checked them against her ticket. Not even close. Well, never mind—she felt like a winner this week, even if not a one of her numbers matched.

It was getting late. She still had to pick the veggies she needed to take with her to Share the Harvest. She got up, stopped in the laundry room to grab a couple of shopping bags, and drifted out to the garden dreamily. There, with her mind on baby clothes and baby names, she picked vegetables without much thought, taking more to share than she should have. She picked the garden half bare, harvesting carrots, cucumbers, eggplants, and green peppers. Only when she had both bags filled to the point that she feared they would break under the weight did she stop her mindless picking and filling.

She was kissing Cole goodbye when the phone rang. She hesitated, wondering if she should let Cole get it and just head out the door. Then, deciding it might be important, she reached past him to the phone and answered. It was Sheila. “You going to that Harvest thing?” Sheila asked.

“Mm-hmm. I was just on my way out.”

“Want to stop and get me? I’ll go with you.”

“Sure. I don’t know how long I’m staying, though. Is there anything, you know, happening there, or is it just dump-the-food-and-leave?”

“I don’t know, but I’m flexible. We can play it by ear.”

“’K. I’ll pick you up in a few minutes.”

As they drove to the event, Sheila asked, “So—did you tell him?”

“Yeh.”

“And—?”

“Well, he wasn’t what I’d call thrilled, but I guess it could’ve been worse. He sorta came around today. He was a little testy later on, but . . . I think it’ll be okay.”

They pulled up in front of Flamingo Cove Lutheran. The parking lot had a goodly number of cars in it, but Marie turned in, navigated the lot, and found an empty space not too far from the entrance. Sheila helped her, carrying one of Marie’s two shopping bags as well as her own single, not-too-full bag. Marie protested at this. “Hey, if I’m eating for two now, I should have the strength of two, too,” she teased.

“The strength of too-too—you’re telling me you’re a twain?” Sheila teased back.

Marie laughed. “Man, that babytalk’s going to come naturally to me soon enough; I’d better stop laughing at it,” she grinned. And then she insisted on carrying both of her own bags.

They got inside and were met at the door by a greeter, who said, “Thank you for sharing,” as he took the bags from the two women. He passed the bags to another volunteer, who immediately began breaking down the contents, sorting carrots from cukes from eggplants from peppers. Suddenly he stopped short.

“Holy—” he started to swear, then lamely finished, “Holy cow!” His voice was loud, commanding attention despite the mildness of the epithet.

“Did I give you a wormy pepper?” Sheila apologized.

“Was it me?” Marie worried.

“Whose bag was this?” the volunteer asked, holding up a large brown paper shopping bag with a colorful green design.

“Mine,” Marie answered meekly, expecting a reprimand. She felt all the worse because a few people had gathered around and were watching and listening intently. “What’s wrong? Is it moldy? Wormy? Dirty? I wasn’t paying attention when I was picking them. I was distracted.”

“Yes—she was thinking about her baby. You can all congratulate her. She’s pregnant.”

“Bigmouth!” Marie hissed at her friend.

“Go on! It’s something to crow about. Tell the world! You know you want to.”

“Yes,” Marie admitted with a guilty grin. Then she remembered the man with the veggies, and a worried frown eclipsed the grin. “But what’s the problem?” she asked him. “I’m terribly sorry, whatever it is.”

“It’s not a problem . . . .” The man’s brow was furrowed, and his eyes glinted with a strangely excited light. Then he held up an eggplant. As he did, he asked carefully, “You said you’re pregnant?” Marie nodded her head. “This is your eggplant?” Marie nodded again, wide-eyed, wondering what on earth was going on. “Look. Everyone—look!” He held the eggplant up, letting the growing group that was gathering around them see for themselves.

Marie and Sheila saw it too. It was hard to miss. The eggplant had brown scarring running across the surface. Marie had seen that before. Nothing unusual there. But she had never before seen scarring that formed an almost perfect picture of the Virgin Mary!

“It’s a sign,” one woman in the crowd proclaimed.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” another woman exclaimed, crossing herself repeatedly. “Wait till I tell Father O’Rourke!”

“You’re pregnant—and this is your eggplant?” another woman asked. “It’s a miracle baby. It’s a sign. This baby is destined for great things.”

The one remaining woman stepped closer and touched Marie’s stomach as if touching a holy relic. With the exception of that woman, the rest of the crowd, which was still increasing, took one step backward as if to accord Marie respect.

“What’s your name, hon?” a motherly woman asked.

“Marie. Marie Erlig,” Marie answered.

“Marie. That’s a variant of Mary. It’s a sign for sure.”

“Do you think—do you suppose—do you think she’s carrying a holy baby?”

“You mean—the Second Coming?”

“Oh, my God!”

“Don’t jump to conclusions.”

“But it has to be! Her name—the eggplant—and she’s pregnant. It has to be.”

“I’m calling the newspaper. And the TV stations.”

“No, please don’t!” Marie begged. She might as well have been trying to stop a tidal wave with her bare hands.

“Let’s get out of here,” Sheila said. Taking charge, she clasped her hand around Marie’s and pulled the pregnant woman behind her. The crowd blocked them, forming a human obstacle. “She doesn’t feel well,” Sheila called out in clarion tones. “Let us through.” And, obedient to the time-honored dictate, the crowd broke apart to make way for the pregnant woman.

They drove home, hoping they’d heard the last of it, yet knowing they hadn’t. And sure enough, not half an hour after Marie had dropped Sheila off and gone on home, the doorbell rang.

Marie hadn’t said anything to Cole about the eggplant. His reaction to the pregnancy had been problematic enough. She feared what his reaction would be now if she told him a group of churchfolk were aghast at an eggplant she’d brought to share with the needy, an eggplant that bore (she could hardly deny it herself) the image of the Virgin Mary. Not to mention that more than a few seemed convinced it was a Sign—perhaps a Sign that she was bearing a holy child in her womb.

So, still in the dark about the eggplant, Cole was totally baffled when the reporter from the Flamingo Cove Courier showed up at the door. “Is this the home of Marie Erlig? I’m with the Courier. We want to do a story on this eggplant and the possible tie-in with her pregnancy.”

“Huh? I mean, sorry, yes, this is Marie’s home, but—what eggplant? What are you talking about?”

“Are you Mr. Erlig?”

“Yes. Colton Erlig. Call me Cole.”

“Yes, well . . . did you see the eggplant, Cole?”

Cole was getting very annoyed. “What eggplant?” he asked.

“Your wife grew an eggplant with brown scarring that gives the appearance of—well, it resembles the image of the Virgin Mary. I’ve just come from Flamingo Cove Lutheran.  I saw it myself. It doesn’t look like . . . well, like she altered it in any way.  I’d really like to talk to your wife. Is she in?”

Cole scowled. He viewed the caller as an intrusion and his news as foreboding—it held the promise of future intrusions. Lots of them. Surely if one newsperson was here, others wouldn’t be far behind.

But before he could ask him to leave—which was certainly Cole’s intention—Marie came to the door, wondering who had rung the bell. “Are you Marie Erlig?” the reporter asked her, explaining again who he was and why he was there.

Oh, hell . . . I wish there’d been no one there who knew who I was. They would go and tell him my name and address!

The rest of the afternoon and evening seemed to be a parade of reporters. There were two local TV stations, Channel 3 and Channel 11, and both of them sent reporters. Two stations from cities within reasonable driving distance sent reporters as well. Even one of the local radio stations sent a newswoman. And a nearby town’s newspaper sent a reporter as well.

Van Jordan got word of the furor over the eggplant and hopped right into the Channel 11 newsvan, calling his wife on his cell phone on the way over. “This story has all the scent of the Big Time,” he eagerly told her. “I bet this is the story that puts me into a big city. We’re on our way to the network, babe.. My name will be known after this. And to think I was bitching about having to work on the weekend! This is our big break.”

Marie had been much more willing than Cole to be nice to the reporters—at first. While Cole was all for slamming the door in their faces, Marie recognized that they were just trying to do their jobs. But after the sixth reporter interrupted their attempts to assemble something resembling a meal—their intended dinner having long been abandoned in favor of something they could throw together quickly and gulp down informally—Marie, too, ran out of patience.

Unfortunately for her, it was then that Van Jordan showed up. He was suavely pushy and took command right away.

Marie had just eased the most recent reporter, from a small local weekly, out the door. “I’m sorry, but we really want our privacy at this point. There’s no story here. I’m not carrying anything but a normal baby. My name is Marie, not Mary. I certainly couldn’t be carrying the Second Coming of the Messiah—I’m not even Christian; I’m Jewish.”

“So was Mary,” Van said, coming up behind the weekly’s reporter on the front stoop. As the other reporter, under Marie’s insistence, reluctantly returned down the walk, Van brashly pushed his way inside the house, a cameraman in tow. “Marie Erlig, would you call yourself a religious woman?”

“In my own way, yes, but I’m not a practitioner of any organized religion.”

“You were born Jewish— is that right?”

“Apparently you’ve done some research on me. You tell me!” Marie snapped. Then, immediately, she was contrite. “I’m sorry! It’s just—everyone’s been here, everyone’s been asking questions. I’m not even used to the idea of being pregnant yet, and all of a sudden everyone’s trying to make this pregnancy out to be something it’s not. Some miracle birth.  Some Big Event. And all because of a silly little eggplant. I didn’t do anything to that eggplant. I had nothing to do with the way it looks. And I certainly don’t believe a vegetable can predict a supposedly miraculous event.

“It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever—well, how would you and your wife like it if it was your life being turned upside-down like this? My husband’s angry, we’re both tired, we’re feeling very imposed on, and although I’ve been trying to keep my patience, I’ve really about run out.”

The camera kept rolling. Van Jordan kept the microphone near Marie’s mouth. Viewers of the eleven o’clock news were going to get an earful.

“We had to grab a makeshift dinner ’cause nobody even gave me a chance to cook, and then nobody gave us a chance to eat. Yeesh—what are you going to do for the next nine months?”

And then a shudder went through Marie as she thought about it. What were they going to do for the next nine months?!

The rainbow’s curve nearly kissed the ceiling. The vibrantly hued arc swooped eagerly up from its starting point, where the baseboards of the converted storefront didn’t quite jibe with the scrubbed but worn floorboards. From there, the painted rainbow aimed gracefully toward heaven, though it stopped at the ceiling. It curved downward again from there, covering most of the wall in the course of its Technicolor trajectory.

Newcomers to the storefront church usually noticed the rainbow first. Their eyes, drawn to the vivid, hopeful colors, were distracted from the ricketyness of the collapsible chairs, which looked as if they planned to collapse before they were intended to. Visitors focusing on the rainbow also might miss noting the rough-hewn condition of the altar, which had been constructed completely of cast-off lumber and plywood rejects.

But even when they finally noted the church’s patched-together appearance, few first-timers were put off. After all, they knew they were coming to a storefront church. They hardly could expect stained glass windows or staid elegance. They knew, too, that this was the Life Force Spiritual Path—not a name that conjures up the image of a grandiose cathedral or even the steeple-crowned, matronly edifice of a mainstream Protestant denomination.

California has no copyright on fringe religious groups. Though that state may have more of them per square mile, may have churches whose beliefs or practices are more esoteric, they don’t have a monopoly. The Life Force Spiritual Path made its home in a different warm state—specifically, south Florida, and more specifically, the town of Flamingo Cove.

Adam watched the worshippers arrive for the Sunday service. Their garb ran the gamut from traditional church dress-up, through business clothes, down to jeans that looked like their occupants had slouched into them one last time before cutting them up to use for car-waxing cloths. It was in every respect a mixed congregation, but they all were open to Adam’s admixture of religion and philosophy, spiced with learn-or-burn prophecy, and leavened with ecological teachings.

He’d been preaching his beliefs for nearly a year, now. Born Roy Schimmel, he’d been a landscaper before becoming a preacher, but when he founded this church he so passionately believed in, he’d taken the name Adam Josephson. Adam after the first man, “Because, as of today, we are starting over—and this time we’d better get it right.” Josephson as homage to the Virgin Mother’s husband, whom Adam viewed as the most under-appreciated and under-reported figure in the Bible. “If Jesus were born today, you can bet Joseph’s role in raising him wouldn’t go so unnoticed,” the new Adam often opined.

Now, watching the worshippers file in, Adam saw that the chairs were nearly filled. “Do we have a few more chairs in the back room?” he asked his assistant, Aaron. (Aaron’s name wasn’t adopted; he’d been named that from birth. Adam viewed it as perhaps prophetic, saying, “You were born to be my right-hand man.”)

Aaron strode into the back, returning a couple of minutes later with four folding chairs under each arm. “These seem to be in the best shape of what we’ve got,” he reported to Adam. “But there’s a good twenty or more chairs still back there if we need them.”

A pleased smile crept across Adam’s face at the prospect of his flock growing large enough to need those twenty chairs. His hand clamped to the circular pendant around his neck, the symbol of the Life Force Spiritual Path. He clutched it tightly, as if by holding it he could transfer his strength, his will, to this church he had founded. His eyes glazed, seeing not the blue-gray walls before him but a sea of faces occupying every chair in LFSP’s possession and a good number more besides, which he mentally conjured up for the occasion.

Aaron saw the enraptured look take hold of Adam’s face. The corners of Adam’s mouth migrated slowly toward his ears. That familiar glow, brighter than the light that burned over the altar, lit up his eyes till it blazed as fiercely as the end-world fire with which Adam threatened his congregants. Aaron knew what Adam was seeing: a sea of faces joined in solemn prayer and in righteous determination. A sea of believers come to worship at LFSP. A sea of followers who believed as Adam did and were ready to join with him to change the world . . . before it grew too late.
“Pretty picture?” Aaron gently teased Adam. “When I see that look on your face, I know what’s on your mind.”

“I was picturing a swarm of new worshipers, a tide of people pouring in the door. A crowd so large they wouldn’t even fit in the storefront. We’d have to get a bigger church. Oak Street Baptist is building a new church . . . we could buy their old building.”

“Whoa!” Aaron laughed. “You sound ready to run out and sign a contract. Hadn’t you better wait till the crowds show up first?”

“What did that movie say? ‘Build it and they will come’?” Adam countered, caught up still in his dream.

Aaron looked at the glowing face of his leader and hero. “It’s going to take a miracle,” he warned.

Read the next installment.