Maximus is different.

It occurs to me, this change in him has very much to do with me. With changes in me, I mean.

But the difference between him then and him now, they are subtle. Perhaps only I can tell. I said something to him just this morning, joking with him, teasing him. Not only did he not agree but I do think he took some offense.

There seems about him an intensity, an edge ... not what I could describe as a distancing between us but more of a vigilance toward me. I cannot quite put my finger on it and when I tried to ask if there was something going on, before I could even really explain what I meant, he curtly asked why a wife would find it odd her husband was watching over her. He must have seen my face, the way it felt like I was being chastised, marginalized. Because he reached across for me, saying he didn't mean to be harsh but perhaps I should worry less and enjoy this life more.

Honestly? I don't feel worried. Not at all, really. But I feel off. And attentive to my own body. And to him and his reactions. In a way that makes me wonder if it's hormones or something else. My body no longer feels like it belongs to me. It is the oddest thing. Max doesn't seem concerned about this particular matter and why should he be? I'm sure it is just me being me.

Actually, I've read all about this phenomenon. I'm expecting it to pass momentarily.

The answer, so the books seem to agree, is to be active, eat right, take vitamins and just get on with it. So I've got to say, that's what I intend to do. Indeed.

Busy, busy bee, that's me. I have taken a renewed interest, a most vigorous interest if I do say so, in making the house truly ours. I have so many ideas. I sit in the middle of a room, give it some thought and then go look through all the idea books at the library ... and it will come to me. Sometimes in the middle of the night, I wake up with the idea fully formed and must go sketch it out. Max will find me hours later, hunched over the drawing table with charcoal staining my fingers, nose and neck. Who knows how the charcoal migrates from my fingers to my neck and nose but it seems to have such an affinity for those parts of my body.

At first, he would come in and stand there all sleepy and grumpy, listening as I raced through the sketches and pronounced the transformation of whatever room I wanted to do. But as it's gone on for over a month, now when it happens, he comes striding in, scoops me up and carries me blabbering away into the bedroom where he sets me in our bed before climbing in over me and shushing me until I give in to the comfort I find only in his arms.

When he is gone at work after I have decided what must be done and he has not too ardently objected to said ideas, I gather what I need and get to work on the room du jour. I can get so lost in what I'm doing that I am constantly getting shocked by him striding in after he returns home and I honestly would have sworn he'd left not five minutes earlier and it could be ten hours later.

I don't always know where I go when he's gone. Sometimes, not much is done in those hours. Other times, too much takes place. 

In the guest room I want to do in pale coppers and foam greens in some homage to the Tuscan spa where we stayed so long ago, I am to the place where I will need help erecting some of the shelving I want to put in. Max has "encouraged" me to hold off on that until he can help. Encouraged as in ... well, as in a particularly tetchy round with him last evening over just exactly how little I really needed him being my daddy.

This morning as I stood in that room and looked down at the oak tree I can see outside this window, it looked more barren than it had a right to. I have decided to change that. I know it's past time I did something to touch this spot on our land again.

Ralph watches from where he works near the stable this afternoon as I plant flowers over Neva's tomb. I have kept the more morbid of my thoughts locked inside me, unwilling to share them with anyone. One of them is this: should we have named the unborn colt who lies with her mother who was murdered before my eyes?

I have chosen zinnias. In the early spring, I will plant lilies of the valley. But for right now, I want color here in this place where we hide a secret from the world.

"Maybe you should get in out of the heat," Ralph says to me. I turn to shake my head at him. "It's better to do your planting in the morning. They'll get too stressed, the ground so hot."

"I'm going to paint the walls in that room," I say in reply, knowing he'll know exactly what room it is ... the artist's room.

"That's your choice."

"I cannot believe she'd want it to stay white anymore."

"You could be right."

"Do you want to help me pick out the color?"

"It's time to let her go."

"No, it's not. Ralph ... I want to use it for the baby's room but I want you to be okay with that."

"I'm okay with that."

"Are you sure?"

"Yellow."

"What?"

"Pale yellow. It'd be a nice color for a nursery, y'think? She'd like that you thought on it a bit. Color was always significant to her. Maybe it'd be her contribution. She had this shirt ... pale ochre yellow. Whenever I see that shade, I think of her."

He can be so deeply sweet to me without really meaning to be. I could hug him. I could. But if I did right now, then I would cry and he would be embarrassed that this meant this much to me. All things considered, perhaps I am dwelling too much on death when life is why we cheated death.

For five months, I have carried life inside my body. 

I had not even come to accept this new chapter in my life and all the fears it called up in me over whether or not I'd be a good mother ... when I almost lost it all. If Luke had succeeded in his plan, if Max had not chosen to stay with me ... I would have lost more than my memories of Max and loving him. If time had been rewritten, and Max had gone to his former life, we would have lost the life we'd only just found out was growing inside me.

I fought for this child's life then. I helped keep this life safe. It was Ralph and Hando who ended up having to take the lives of the men buried beneath Neva and her unnamed fetus. But I was a full participant in the decision to kill William.

And it was Maximus who took away the seeds of my guilt over that ... he made me face that if we had not done what we did, I would have shared Neva's fate ... and my unborn child would have shared the fate of Neva's colt that had been growing inside her when she was shot to death.

My hands still over the little bundle of dirt I am massaging so its roots will be released to dive into the soil I am about to bury the plant in. My eyes unfocus and I am staring into some middle distance only I can ever see.

In this middle distance of living memories, I see Max's face the night about four months ago when he came home from work and I greeted him with a cigar. He had already loosened his tie and I nudged it further loose as I unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt. The vet was here today, I remember telling him. There is news ... great news, I said. I took his hand and led him out to the stable, where Ralph got to be the one to announce to Max that Neva was pregnant.

You should have seen Max's grin. And his deep chuckle as he gave Mercury the stallion a look of respect. Mercury tossed his head like he knew he was the king stud. I stood next to Ralph and got all choked up while Max was over with Neva, rubbing in over her nose and talking low and deep in her ear.

There is simply something about his manliness when he is so tender with a woman that gets to my core.

He said we should celebrate but then Ralph said he was meeting his brother Pete for dinner so he begged off. Max took my hand and we strolled back to the house. I listened to Max talk about his workday and how annoying someone had been that day ... and he said that coming home to this news erased everything bad that had happened that day.

Inside the kitchen, he rubbed his hands together as he looked at the wines he had in his stash, trying to pick one that would be fun to toast Neva's pregnancy with.

"She's not the only one with news," I said softly, suddenly unsure and shy ... who knows why I get that way with him at times that are important.

"Oh?" he said, half listening, pulling out a bottle of wine and then looking at me as I said nothing else. He was smiling, I remember that. I will always remember it.

"She's also not the only one who's found out today that she's pregnant," I remember saying to him.

He blinked. Once. Twice. His mouth opened to say something but then he didn't even make a noise. I waited on him because I needed him to say something.

Instead, he slowly shook his head. And I nodded my head, just as slowly. And then he nodded along with me. His mouth formed the question, "You?" as if he was afraid he'd misread me. I mouthed the word, "Yeah."

After his reaction to Neva's pregnancy, I thought he'd whoop and yell and laugh and grab me and swing me around in jubilation. This new life was what we both so wanted. I wanted this for him more than anything ... for him to be a father again ... to be the woman who gave him this child ... to know our future would bring him peace.

But instead of shouting for joy over this news of mine, he started crying. Tears welled up in his eyes as he walked toward me, the wine bottle now long forgotten on the sideboard. He slipped me into an embrace; our arms circled the other. He breathed the word, "cara" into my ear over and over as he rocked us together in that hug.

We sat up together the whole night and I cannot say I remember all that happened. We talked about things both unimportant and important. He told me a story about the first time he got to ride off with his father to visit the farm of a friend of his parents.

Perhaps that night, with this news that meant we were starting our own family, perhaps he talked of his own father because he was missing his family ... missing being able to share this news of the continuation of their line with them.

Family holds an importance to Maximus that I find quite endearing. He has embraced my mother in a way that is like he is thirsty for that connection to an older generation of relatives. The way he treats her has made she and I closer. I am grateful to Max for that. But I would imagine that at a time like that, when he had just learned he will be a father again, his thoughts drifted to his own ancestors and his own blood relatives.

For so long, we sat on the couch, staring out the glass doors to the deck and the sky beyond ... until he suddenly pulled me with him to the rug.

And there we stayed for so long. He gently scooted up the edge of my t-shirt and then nestled his face in against my tummy. I stared up at the ceiling, filled with the most amazing mixture of fear of failure and determination to see this through. And I trailed my fingers in his hair. And I wondered what I'd gotten myself into and I knew he was happy.

"My life is so full," he whispered at some point. I looked down into his eyes and his serious face. "You give me a gift from your body that I pledge to you I will cherish and care for all the days of my life. As I will cherish and care for you, cara."

"We'll care for each other ... and this baby," I remember saying to him. I hope I remember that correctly for it sounds like the right thing to have said. "Do you know how happy you make me, Maximus?"

He gave me the slowest smile and I felt one last tear drop onto my bared belly.

To think we came so close to losing even the memory of that moment. I have promised myself, over and over, that I will not forget, I will not let either time or a person like Lucius steal it from me. It is more precious than anything.

Every fear, every doubt, every hesitation over the wisdom of me actually becoming a mother ... they evaporated when Lucius threatened to erase my past, and with it my future ... and our child.

In the beginning, I was having this child for Max, for my lover. I always thought of it as his child. Not after that ... not when the chips were down and in my heart, it was my child I was saving. Now, I am already a mother. My own mother says I will be fine. I think I'll screw up a lot and there will be periods of blind fear, but I do think I am going to be fine.

Max says all this obsessive reading I am doing so I can learn everything I can about this process is ... er ... how's he put it? Oh yeah ... "modern arrogance." Heh. You gotta love him, don't you? He comes in, sees me buried in another book and tsks in that way of his. When I start on about something I've just read and cross-researched across other books on pregnancy and raising a child, he takes me in his arms, pries the book from my hand, tosses it across the room as he buries his face in my neck and strokes over my tummy. He whispers to me that when the time comes, my body will know what to do. And that I will be as all mothers before me ... I will know what to do for the baby.

Silly man.

You can tell he was away at war when his wife had their son, can't you?

That always earns me another tsk. 

Still ... I rather enjoy his casual acceptance of this new stage in our lives together. Even if I think it also has called up the overprotective side ... and maybe this is the real cause of his edge, his change?

I suppose I do believe the change in him is really because of this child I carry and how close he came to losing us both. And the active choice he had to make to stay with us. To love us so much he cast his lot in fully with us when he could have so easily gone to his first wife and son.

Now when Hando comes over for his training lessons with Max, there is difference in their relationship. They are more equals. Hando would die for Max. Max feels an equal measure of affection and respect for Hando. There are times when I watch them together and think of what it was like for Hando to know that Max was placing the lives of his wife and unborn child in his hands.

Not that Hando and I are ever going to be easy with each other. He called me Buddha once and I wasn't even really showing more than some little bump. I told him if he ever called me that again that I would castrate him. He found that hilarious but so far he hasn't so much as uttered that word in my presence.

It is Ralph who seems more lost. At times, I see him stand and stare at the base of the oak tree where Neva is buried ... and I know he sees her.

Not Neva.

No, it's not Neva he sees when he looks at the tree. It is another woman. Like Neva, she is dead now. That was her tree when she lived, this woman that Ralph thinks of when he stares at the oak tree. That tree was here long before first the stable was built and then, years later, the house where Max and I live. When she was a child, she used to climb and run among the oak's heavy branches. When she returned as an adult, she used to sit under its canopy on a low bench and sketch. It was where she liked to be taken as she grew weaker.

It is she who keeps Ralph here at the ranch.

I wonder sometimes if what we've done at the base of the oak has chased her ghost away for him. And if her ghost is gone ... will Ralph go as well?

It would break my heart now to lose Ralph from my life but if he goes, I know I must accept it for he is a man who must make his own way in life. I just refuse to let him be alone here ... to not realize that he is far more to us than the caretaker. He is our friend. He is trusted. He is family. He is a part of us.

Which reminds me ... my mother has told me that I cannot have more than two godparents ... one godfather, one godmother. I asked her where it was written. What we want is to have two godfathers. We want to bind two men we admire to this new life ... men we trust to be the ones who will care for our child if anything ever happens to us.

I also want to have one godmother. Someone who my child can turn to in life, whenever it seems at its bleakest or at its best ... so there is always a mother there to share and support. And who will remember us. And loved us both.

That makes three godparents.

Why should our child not have a trifecta? Don't you think any child of Max's deserves just a bit more than what every other child gets? No? Well, tough. I'm allowed to think that way ... it's my baby.

Dare I say he's going to need all the help he or she can get with me as the mom?

You know, when you roll your eyes like that, you look a lot like Max.

I'm going to ask the godmother-to-be last because once I tell her, this will stop being our private affair. I rather like how quiet we have been about it. The timing never seems right to broadcast the news and, besides, I am not the big public announcement person. Max is not either. We didn't say anything to anyone for the first three months ... except Ralph and Hando. Then we told my mother. She fainted, so unprepared was she to believe I would ever have children.

When she came to, Max said maybe we should figure out a way to tell other people that wouldn't make them pass out on us.

My mom has taken to this idea of being a grandma rather well, I think. She refuses to have the baby call her grandma, mind you. She is hunting around for names the baby can call her that won't denote that she's a grandmother. It makes her feel old, you see. Hando says, well, she is old. I slugged him on her behalf.

At first, she thought maybe Noonie. I nixed it. Then she said what about Shug as in sugar. I rolled my eyes and called her granny. She called a few weeks later and said she'd decided on Gram and I called her mawmaw. She shrieked. You see, that's a very sore subject to us. Mawmaws wear muumuus and say things like "daaaahlin! Come give mawmaw some sugar!" while they pinch your cheeks and they smell like talcum powder. I called her the next day and said I'd only been teasing ... that Gram sounded like a good name to me. When I mentioned it to Ralph, he said he was going to call her Graham Cracker instead.

She called two days ago and said she's now settled on having the child call her by her first name. Maximus said this would not do so she's back to Gram.

We've both become awfully obedient to Max, don't you think?

Like the bit about the paintball war.

It seemed like such a good idea at the time. I am not very good at sports since I have a tendency toward clumsiness and cannot aim to save my life. Max got rather dismissive when I said I was signing up for the big paintball war. And so I enlisted Hando to teach me how to shoot the paintball guns ... and to teach me battle tactics ... and to get me all primed to whup some ass out there.

I did it with Max in mind, y'see. I didn't want to embarrass him ... he was going to be one of the Captains, see. Bou was the other. I figured that if his own wife could not hit the side of a barn or shot herself a mortal wound, he'd never live it down.

But it turned out to be an incredibly stupid idea. I should have known you don't do things like that when you're pregnant but I was just still not so used to thinking of myself as being in the family way. I never thought about the fact I could get a shot to an area of my body that was pretty vulnerable at this point.

It was great fun, mind you, the lesson with Hando. Great fun. Hando was a fantastic and bloodthirsty teacher. But by the end of it, I'd taken quite a few close shots from some of the twerpy kids on our team. And had about three real doozy bruises ... including one just above my pelvic bone... a few inches over ... who knows, eh?

Max got one look at it, found out how I got it ... and Jesus, did he show me the man who must have made his troops tremble when they fucked up.

I haven't been yelled at like that in years. Actually, he didn't really raise his voice ... he doesn't have to. And the way he looked at me. You will not be involved in the paintball war, is what he basically said ... no discussion, no negotiation, just "no."

And ... "Do not cross me in this," he said. I had already realized the danger I'd put myself in and I was already realizing I should not join in the game ... but his reaction just blew me away. Stunned me for the force of it. And even though I knew he was reacting that way because I'd scared him ... and after all we'd been through, to think I'd do something so foolhardy with the health of our unborn child ... all I could do was say I'd do as he asked and then I hid in the pantry, crying like a fucking baby because he yelled at me.

It was insane. And it made him feel so bad to have made me cry because I don't think he's made me cry just from him being so angry with me.

Later, I was reading one of the books and realized ... it was probably my hormones that made me cry like that.

Sure.

But I've never forgotten that moment. 

Nor the one later when he said, "Anna...I wouldn't hurt you for the world...but...this was not one of your better ideas...I'm sorry I was so harsh...I can stand almost anything in life, save your tears...and the thought of any harm coming to you..."

The thought of any harm coming to me.

I am his Achilles heel. His ultimate vulnerability. Imagine how he will feel about this child? It will be all he feels for me and that much more.

My mother is the one who brought this issue of godparents. I am no longer practicing any religion but I was raised Catholic. Godparents are important roles in that upbringing. It is more than ceremonial or the person who dotes on your child with gifts. These are people you entrust to help you guide your child's moral compass in life. They are also the people you ask to raise your child should you die before they are adults.

Who to choose? There are so many fine candidates among our friends.

Maximus was not familiar with this concept as they had none really that similar in his culture. He said it was always expected that the larger family helped watch out for the children of the extended family, sharing customs and history. Some favored uncle or other male relative would take a male child in for education, perhaps.

We decided to join our various cultures in this regard - they were compatible goals. And family does not always mean you have the same blood.

There was only ever one choice for godmother. The godfather, though ... Max had one idea and I had another. We mulled this over for days, as if it was not really true we'd have to make a choice. Then one day, Max came up with the brilliant idea of just having both. Why not? Why must one be hidebound by tradition? My mother thought it was nuts.

Until I told her it was Max's idea and then she declared it the way we would go.

She patted his arm and said he knew best as this was his child. And I said, it's mine, too. She waved a hand in my direction and said, you know what I mean. I looked at Max as she wandered out of the room and said, I don't know what she means, do you? He changed the subject.

What do you suppose she meant by that?

This comment nags at me for some reason. As if my own mother dismisses my status. I was thinking about this the other day when I was out walking with Buck. Usually, I have a good idea where I am heading with him but this day, I was letting him lead. He would scamper off, running through underbrush and back toward the path, smelling everything as if it was his last chance on earth to be a dog.

I realized he was leading me down to the Little Tchefuncte, the small river that runs at the back property line. Buck loves going there. Truth be told, it is one of my favorite places as well. It is cool and secluded. It is tranquil. I can sit on large rocks that form a natural rise in one section and stare off one way then down the other ... and imagine myself in a canoe, paddling downstream toward downtown Covington, many miles away.

Buck had gotten far ahead of me but I could make out the rustling of where he was moving through the high grass near the river's shore. I heard him give a sharp yelp and called him to come back to me. It sounded like he'd discovered something and I pictured him advancing, growling and snarling, toward some defenseless box turtle or dangerous snake. You never know with a dog, do you?

He didn't come back right away, despite my calls. I picked up my pace and when I reached the slope down to the river's edge, I could see him, standing his ground along the sandy side, his hackles up, growling deep in his chest.

When I made it down, I saw no animal, no reptile ... I saw only an empty yellow kayak, the kind so common on this river, especially in the summer and late spring. This is a popular, pristine stream on which those who love outdoor recreation like to paddle.

Relieved that Buck was not cornering something that would hurt him, I hissed out to him to come to where I was. He trotted over. I was bending down to chastise him, when I saw him start to turn back again, toward the kayak. But I was able to reach out, grab his collar and force him to stay with me.

Looking around beyond Buck's struggling body, I saw nothing moving.

That's when it spooked me ... that there was a kayak here ... and it was empty ... and no one, not a soul, was anywhere around, from what I could tell.

Why then was Buck so on edge? Was the person from the kayak hiding somewhere in the thick underbrush near us?

"What is it, boy?" I whispered to him as my fingers gripped his collar. "Is someone around?"

He suddenly tensed and growled. I still saw no one and I saw no movement. But I felt like I was being watched. So I latched his leash to his collar and I yanked him away from the river. By the time we made the path, I was jogging. And it still felt like I was being watched. Even though I felt paranoid, before long, I was running back toward the stable.

When I reached sight of it, Buck and I were both panting. I could not speak when Ralph walked out a moment later, took one look at us, and said I looked like I needed to go lie down and get out of the sun. I couldn't tell him ... I started to, but I heard myself in my head and realized I'd been a complete, paranoid idiot and panicked over nothing.

What if he and Max got it into their heads that I was having some delayed paranoia over the business with Luke and his men? That was done and over, they would chide me. The last threats are buried ... and then I would see in their eyes, I know I would, the damage it had done to each of them to cause death just to protect our lives.

That is the thing ... I will not cause them pain. I refuse to.

By the time Max got home, I would have cut my tongue out before telling him I'd gotten scared because someone's kayak washed up on the riverbank near our property.

Instead, I sat with him on the back deck, as he sipped on a cool gimlet I made for him. In this late summer heat and languor, I have been making him cool meals for dinner. So dinner this evening ... a seared tuna and sesame salad over a bed of Mandarin oranges and wild rice ... was already waiting in the fridge. And it gave this time when I could snuggle next to him on the swing and he could tell me nothing about his day other than that he had to make an unexpected trip in the morning. So he was going to be gone all weekend, at least.

We were supposed to have been going with my mother to some festival near Gonzales. I didn't feel like I'd seen him at all that week. Even when he was home, his mind was not always right here with him. And then there was that edge about him that I was trying very hard to convince myself was just his way of being when before him, his wife grew ever larger with his child ... as if the more visible the evidence of his new vulnerability became, the more he called up within himself the man who needed to protect what he loved.

So I absorbed the news of this trip but not well. I rose and wandered over to the pool. Sat on the edge and dangled my feet in the cool water. He came near, stood behind me, then stooped down on his haunches. His hand was atop my head.

"We were supposed to work on the shelves in that room this weekend," I had said to him.

"There is next weekend, is there not?" he asked me, a strange tone in his voice.

"Next weekend, you said ... You told me that you'd had Ralph make appointments to go look at horses next weekend."

"Yes. We can surely do both?"

"I was going to invite Chili ... we can ask him and Ralph together. What do you think? Maybe have them come to dinner after seeing the horses?"

"Palmer would enjoy visiting the stud farms. I approve of this plan ... invite him to join us for the day. And dinner."

I leaned back, dislodging his hand as I looked up at him. "Max ... is everything all right?"

"Of course." He raised an eyebrow then sipped his drink. "I approve of dinner with Palmer. Invite Ralph as well. We can discuss the matter with both."

"Max ..." But truly, I was not in the mood to argue. And I reminded myself that if I kept pressing, he was too likely to turn it on me, to pry into my unease, to maneuver it out of me that I was still letting this matter of the ghost paddler in the kayak niggle at me. So I forced a smile at him and saw his stern look soften in response. "Hey, you know, I want you to be the one to ask them. I think, somehow, it will be more of an honor, knowing how you feel about them. Will you do that?"

"As you wish, cara. Always as you wish."

You know what? Max would have asked them ... of course he would have seen it as his role to be the one to ask. He'd already so much as told me so by telling me I could ask the godmother.

He is so funny that way. And I am even funnier because in order to play at my own autonomy, I give him permission to do the things I know he would assume are his duty ... and that way, it's not a war of nerves between us that I will end up losing anyway since I would give in to him eventually.

These are the kinds of things I'd give in to him on ... but there are others that we both know I'd win because I will not back down. We try very hard to stay away from those matters. Are all marriages built on such deliberate methods of compromise?

So he left over the weekend.

On Monday, he had not returned. And he had not called. I phoned his office, spoke to his secretary Rebecca to see if she knew what time his flight would be in ... she said something odd about her records indicating he was off on a personal day. She asked if there was a problem ... she must have wondered why I didn't know where he was. I mumbled something about just having forgotten where I'd put the flight information ... and then hung up.

I left a message on his voice mail. I asked Ralph if Max had mentioned where he was ... and Ralph kind of looked at me before saying, yeah, he had gone on some unannounced inspection at one of the other ports. Is that why his secretary doesn't know, I asked Ralph, seeking assurance even if I thought it was a lie. Sure, he said, Max wouldn't be able to allow any leaks among the staff.

Max called me about two hours later. Where was he? Just where Ralph said he was. Why did Rebecca not know? Just for the reason Ralph had said.

Okay, I thought to myself, you can either be a hag or you can remember this is Maximus, who does not lie to you.

He was home that evening. He took me out to dinner to Rosie's. We did not go to the Pub despite his wish to go after dinner. I wasn't ready, I told him. I want to keep this a secret ... just between us ... just our affair, I told him, my hand on my belly that was growing round enough now that you could tell I was pregnant if I wore the right clothes.

There was a moment there, when I said that, in which he looked at me with real indulgence. I'm still not used to a man indulging me and it made me feel ... like fucking him to death.

Whoa.

I have these raging attacks of hormones sometimes and all it takes is just the right look from Max and I am away. 

Whew.

The books say this is normal at this stage. When I said that to Max that night as I shoved his pants down, I could tell he was amused ... and turned the hell on.

Though, I must be honest. He is very careful with me when we make love. He has gotten a bit freer, the longer I am pregnant but still ... still, there is always a moment before and after in which he cups my belly in one or both hands ... and I know that I am no longer just his lover but also now becoming his child's mother.

I want to push him ... hard. I want to be wild and I want him to come after me with that raw, unburdened passion of our courtship days. I am not wanting to be his Madonna. I am only me.

The zinnias.

Color.

Life.

Memory.

Art.

A statement.

A refusal to be buried along with them.

This is what this all means to me. 

I swat my gloves together inside the stable. They are leather, light brown, supple. They fit my hands so tight and yet give easily to my every movement. They add a layer of strength to the fingers and palms of my hands, which are small enough to be of fascination to both Max and I when his hands encase them, swallow them up.

Specks of damp earth are shook loose from my gloves as I swat them together.

Ralph has a thing about keeping my gloves and my tools clean after use. He finds this important. I know he's right but when I am done with a chore, I am one of those people who just wants to walk away. I hate the clean up. The follow up. The final steps after the glory of the work is done.

So for his sake, I try really hard and usually succeed in cleaning my gloves and getting the tools I use clean of mud before I put them away in the workspace of the stable.

He is outside, calling in Mercury. I glance over my shoulder at Ralph's workbench. He is building another bookcase. Leaning against the wall are the shelves he made that Max says he will help me install. What Max means is that he will install them while I watch and keep him company. If Ralph were doing that project with me, he'd let me be part of it all and he'd point out little tips along the way so the next time I would do a project like that, I would know more.

"Did I ever show you the bookcase that Tulip painted on for me?" Ralph asks me, coming in without me knowing.

He has caught me running a finger over the rough cut of his newest project.

"She painted a bookcase?"

"When she was here, staying over. Before the boyfriend came to reclaim her."

I tsk at him. "He did not reclaim her. He won her back."

"Anyway, she's an artist. Did you know that?"

"Yes. You liked her, eh?"

"A lot, yeah." But I know this much about Ralph ... he didn't like her in 'that way.' That way that might have meant he was interested in her romantically but realized her heart was otherwise engaged. It is a high compliment he gives Tulip and I wonder if she knows it. "She helped me build a bookcase for my living room. I asked her to paint camellias on them, as details."

"Are they nice?"

"Very. Wanna see?"

Ralph is one of those men who can see a woman and engage her as a friend. It does not always have to be about attraction or sex or romance. In fact, I have asked Max ... is Ralph involved with anyone? Anyone at all? I worry, you see, that he will never move beyond the woman who used to sit under the oak, who used to live in our house. I suppose I also worry that he may someday need the kind of love that I think he does not seek anymore ... and I hate to think of him not finding it when he does finally decide he needs it again.

Max suspects that I am edging around the subject of setting Ralph up with a woman. I am not. I don't do things like that.

Upstairs, Ralph shows me his new bookcase. Deep rose pink camellias, one on each upper corner, lend a fresh and personal look to it. 

"Why camellias?" I ask him, my finger running over the line of books along the shelf near my waist.

"Did you know there used to be an old growth camellia stand down near the river? Where the pines are thinned out?"

"No ... or did I? I don't remember you saying ..."

"I doubt I did. But that is why there are camellias on here."

His face is turned up, gazing at the camellias. I put a hand on his arm when I suddenly feel dizzy. "I need to sit ... just a moment."

"Here ... here ... there we go ..."

I sink into his couch. My hand goes to my forehead. I feel warm and clammy at the same time. I should have worn a hat today. That's not like me.

Ralph fetches me water from his fridge. I am drinking so much water lately on the theory that it is so healthy for me in this climate. I didn't realize how thirsty I was until I am glugging the water down from the bottle.

Minutes pass. I feel steady. Refreshed. "This baby ... sometimes, it gives me energy and other times it robs me of energy. I can't always tell."

"I'll walk you back to the house ..."

"I can walk just fine. I'm fine, Ralph, so don't hover."

He still walks me to the house. In the kitchen, I ponder what I shall do about dinner ... but when Ralph leaves, I go upstairs and run cool water in the tub. There was something I read in one of the books about how the baby can be like some kind of heat machine, an engine burning you up from inside out at times. That is what is happening now. So I sink in the tub and feel the heat in my body roll away.

My head falls back on the tub's curved edge and I drift away with this feeling of cool water over too warm skin and bones. In my drifting mind, I chase after a kayak that floats ever out of reach. I am holding an oar. It is wooden ... and that is wrong because kayakers use the two-bladed oars of manmade material, not wood. There are footprints in the sand. They lead away from the water. They lead in the direction of the stable. But they disappear when river sand turns to firm earth. My finger touches the last indentation, tracing it.

When my eyes open, I shudder. I am so cold.

The day has arrived. It does not arrive exactly as I'd thought it would but it is here. I am nervous. Max wakes slowly next to me. I am watching him intently as his eyelids flutter. He must register, somewhere in his rousing state of awareness, that I am not snuggled up to his chest nor am I cuddled up under his arm. He shifts, turns to his side. His arm moves lazily; his hand reaches for me; his fingertips graze my hip. I am on my side, propped on my elbow, just watching him.

His hand smoothes over my lower back, down to my derriere. He pulls me in, firmly. And now his thigh goes over my hip. His face seeks the solace of my neck and he burrows into me.

My own fingers reach and stroke his shoulder. And then his neck. Finally, his hair. And earlobe. I lean in over him and kiss the side of his head, the only place available to me.

His eyes open as he pulls away from where his face has been buried in the side of my neck. They are focused the moment they open. 

"Is everything all right, cara?" he asks me.

"I think so," I say back to him. His brows furrow. "As long as everything is okay with you, my love."

"Why would it not be so?" he asks, his voice soft. 

I think to myself ... is that deception? Would that be what it sounds like if he was practicing it on me?

"Sometimes, I think you shoulder too much ... if there was ever anything ... you would let me know, right?"

"What possibly could there be? You worry when there is no need. It is not good for you in your condition."

"If you're sure ... are you? Nothing I should know?"

"Only this ..." he says, rolling further atop me, kissing me, his hand between my thighs.

I barely have time to shove toast at Max ... toss a mug of coffee at him ... I had thought I'd have all the time in the world this morning. But he was tired and I let him sleep in. Now I rush around, making lemonade, chilling beer just in case, marinating shrimp for tonight.

He wanders back inside the kitchen, an empty mug in his hand. As he pours himself another cup, he chides me after I engage in harmless musing about our new guest for this day. No matchmaking, he says to me, sternly.

Oh, piffle.

I am not matchmaking. It was Ralph who asked me to invite Astrid. Surely I am allowed to conjecture about this? After all, she is the first woman I've seen him show interest in. Max reminds me that I am not always with Ralph. I ask if he has a honey in town that Max knows about. He rolls his eyes.

We met Astrid at the paintball war. Ralph and I were waiting on Max to get cleaned up. I was being careful to stick close to Ralph, not wanting him to feel alone since he knew so few people there.

Astrid is ... striking. She is like Michelle in a way ... voluptuous and leaking sensuality. Self possessed. Aware of the impact her appearance makes on both men and women. Confident. Just shy of a swagger when in the presence of a man. But Astrid lacks Michelle's reserve with others.

There is about her more of an openness, I suppose. She treats me more as an equal.

She wandered across our path that day. Ralph was at attention from the moment he saw her. I realized he'd been looking for her, in his own unobtrusive manner. It was later that I realized this ... when I thought about the encounter and wondered if there had been some sort of instant attraction and maybe Ralph was not dead from the waist down, so to speak. That was when I realized that he'd have seen her out on the paintball field. And that maybe whatever it was that had aroused his attention had been something he'd seen in that game of daring.

He was fun to watch when Astrid joined us. She had noticed him looking at her. He is not a man who looks with a prurient gaze. Just a frank one. She could see he was interested in being around her.

At first, I admit, I stuck with them because I was rather nonplussed to just suddenly find out Ralph could make a move on a woman, just talk with her if he wanted to. He wasn't shy but he wasn't aggressive. I would say he was simply following up on his curiosity to be near her, talk with her, gauge her.

But eventually, I got to wondering why Max had not joined us so I went off looking for him. I brought a plate of food with me, figuring he'd be hungry. He was. I found him in the men's locker room. Alone. Just finished with his shower. He scarfed the food. I left him to get dressed by himself when he made it plain he was not about ready to fool around with me there.

I suppose he just felt inhibited ... I put it down to the Madonna thing again ... he might have risked it, enjoyed risking it, when it was just the two of us ... but now that I was pregnant, no more adventures. Eh?

Though, okay, I admit, he made it up to me that night. More than. Well, after all, I got to teasing him about him turning into a big prude ... So he did what he could to disavow me of that opinion.

On the drive home from the paintball war and subsequent feast, Ralph sat in the back seat, Buck at his side. They looked out their respective windows. I asked after Astrid. Max gave me a look. Ralph said she wanted to come with us to look at horses. I turned around and gave him wide eyes. He said it was nothing but that he'd promised I'd call her when we set the date so she could come along if she wanted.

And this is that day.

She arrives as a passenger in Chili's car. I am overjoyed to see Chili. I cannot wait for the evening as much as I know I'm going to enjoy the day. But it's in the evening when we will ask Chili and Ralph to be godfathers to our child. It is so exciting.

And, oh yeah, we are looking at horses. 

Max and Ralph assure me this is not about replacing Neva. It is, they both firmly tell me, about Max investing in stock that will be his mark on the stable. We are going to three stud farms today. Each within this local area as Max would like to deal with people Ralph knows breed sturdy, fine stock.

Inside the kitchen, I pour lemonade and put out some cool fruit. I drink water, stoking up for the day, intent on not overheating. I am wearing a loose cotton shirt. I feel huge and ungainly but Max keeps saying I am nothing short of amazing for how my body looks when it is full of him. I just roll my eyes at him.

Chili sits at the table with Astrid at his side. Max hovers over them, pointing out the places we'll go today on a map. The talk is of what he is seeking. He will know it when he sees it. He hopes to find two or three horses. Colts, I think he says, actually.

Astrid sneaks a look at Ralph. He is hanging back, as always content to observe and bide his time until he feels he can contribute. When it is time to go, I figure we'll all go in one car but Max insists on taking Chili in ours; letting Ralph drive Astrid. He says he has business to discuss with Chili. I think to myself, who's matchmaking now? But Max mutters to me that he is not doing anything underhanded.

It is on the drive to the first farm that Max does it. I cannot believe it. He just beats totally around a forest of bushes ... gets Chili to thinking we are perverts ... and then finally says he's trying to ask him to be a godfather.

Chili's reaction is so ... so ... cool. He is thrilled, elated, nonplussed. He has had no idea of the pregnancy but when I smooth my shirt down, he sees the roundness. Yes, yes! He wants to do it. It is an honor, he says. He does us the honor, Max says.

The trip to the various farms is long and, for me, tedious. It is also another world. I am not sure it is one I don't find faintly ridiculous but it seems to lure Max. At one of the farms, Max finds just what he wants. The owner sniffs. No way will he sell the horse to Max as it is a promising polo pony.

Say what?

Max will not be put off. The owner will not budge. Max is insulted, I can tell. There is a test of wills and testosterone. Finally, the owner invites him to an upcoming polo match as both a consolation for not getting the pony and a challenge to see why he's not getting the pony. I think, oh great, just what we need ... polo is a rich man's sport and I am so not into it. But Max smiles when he accepts the invitation. I know that look. There will be no talking him out of this. He is set now. He wants that pony and he knows this is the route.

That evening, at home, we are relaxing after dinner. Max clears his throat. He asks if we can share good news with all gathered and proceeds to announce Chili has agreed to be a godfather to our baby. We toast Chili.

And then Max looks down the table at Ralph. Something happens, a glance it seems, nothing more. But silence descends. 

We have a request of you, Max says to Ralph. Ralph looks at Max, then me. Then Astrid. And I know, right then, that Ralph really is interested in her. There is just something in the way he regards her.

In the wake of Max asking Ralph to be a godfather alongside Chili, there is silence. And then I hear cicadas in the distance, the chirp of crickets, the bark of tree frogs closer in. Somewhere out there, at the edge of our property, the Little Tchefuncte burbles and rambles on its way, but I cannot hear it from here.

Ralph says nothing. He simply rises from his seat, goes to Max, shakes his hand. I am on my feet a second later, opening my arms, taking Ralph in, hugging on to him, on my toes, crying.

This is the day then.

The day we are open and share our secret. I knew it was coming. Max kept saying it would be here, that I was showing and I needed to not be so greedy with this secret. Besides, he whispered to me that night, he is proud of this. He wants the world to know he has created a baby with me.

Okay then.

Hours later, I wake in the dark. I sit up in bed and watch him sleep. He is more precious to me than anything I've ever known. I would give everything I own and am if it keeps him safe. I hope whatever I'm noticing lingering on the edges of his smiles is nothing but my hormones making me wacky.

It is past midnight. I rise from our bed and wander into the room that used to be an artist's studio. I sit in the middle of the room and picture different shades of ochre yellow on the walls, in different designs.

And then I call Australia to talk to Uma.

She sounds ... harried. I've caught her on her way out and I picture her rushing about to get ready to go work in their restaurant. I tell her there is news from here. Good news.

And then I tell her about the baby.

She says nothing for so long that I wonder if I've made yet another woman faint at the news that me, of all people, is pregnant. But then I hear her voice, hesitant, saying she is happy for me. That she can hear how I feel about this. That Max must be over the moon.

One thing I know she won't say and she won't have to. I know she still wonders about whether or not she and Andy will have children. It is something I think concerns her more than she'd ever let people know.

But this is me and her.

So I know that what I am about to ask of her will require her to be the friend I need right now. And I know she will be.

Max and I want you to be the godmother, I tell her softly. We want this so much. If not for you, this would not be happening to us, I tell her. And you are someone we can trust and know you will never fail us, I say to her.

What lies beyond this moment ... as we walk all together into this unknown future that is only possible because of unexplained things that happened to bring us all together? No one can say, of course.

When Max finds me, I am standing on the deck, waiting for the sun to rise.

Someday, I tell him, we will owe our child an explanation for how this came about. Will we know what to say? How can we tell him the biggest secrets of our life together? Won't it scare him? What if he feels the ground shift beneath his feet to learn of it all?

Our child will never stand on shifting ground, he tells me, his arms going around me. He will stand on the firmest footing ... the unblinking, uncompromising love of his family, Max says.

All else is shadows and dust, I think to myself, and see new meaning bloom over this oft-heard catechism from his time.

And ... always ... I feel safe in his arms. No harm can come to me as long as Maximus holds me like this. Who would ever have thought I'd ever find the one man who could make me feel this way?