Until the End of Time by Danielle Steel Page B

clinging to him, and he put his arms around her, and she lay there and cried. And Bill was crying too, as much for the wife he loved so much as for their lost infant son.
    “I kept thinking of that family we saw in the graveyard in Maine this summer.… I don’t want us to die.… I want us to live forever. I don’t want to leave you, ever,” she said sadly, and he smiled.
    “You won’t. And you’ll never get rid of me,” he promised. “I’m in forever. So you’ll just have to get well and put up with me.” She smiled and closed her eyes, still weak from the acute blood loss, and she was having severe cramping, and pain on one side from the tube and ovary they’d removed. They gave her something for the pain a little while later, and another transfusion that night. Her blood count was still too low, and she was deathly pale. Bill sat in the chair next to her all night, and in the morning she looked better, although her eyes were sad. She told him then that she had had no warning signs, no pain from the baby growing in her tube instead of her womb. She had thought everything was fine, and so did her doctor. She had an appointment to see her that week for her three-month visit, which was irrelevant now.
    Her own doctor came to see her that morning, distressed for her about what had happened. The doctor reiterated everything the surgeons had told them and assured them both that in the best case, she would conceive again and carry the next baby to term, even with one ovary and one tube. But it had taken her two years to get pregnant, and Bill was worried that it might take even longer next time, particularly with the insane work life she led. And her doctor said that it might make things a little easier if she reduced her workload. Jenny nodded and said nothing. She was too weak to argue, and Bill knew that this wasn’t the time to discuss it.
    Jenny stayed in the hospital for five days, until her blood count improved slightly. They were still concerned about another hemorrhage and urged her to take things easy for the next two weeks, but she didn’t feel up to running around anyway. As soon as she got back to the apartment, she had Azaya bring her some work, and her assistant was shocked at the condition she found Jenny in. She was rail thin and so pale she was almost gray. And Jenny had no choice but to tell her what had happened.
    “I’m so sorry, Jenny,” her assistant said, feeling terrible for her. “I had no idea you were pregnant.”
    “I didn’t want to tell anyone till later,” Jenny said sadly.
    But in spite of how weak she still felt and how upset about the baby, she started working from home right away, and talking to her clients on the phone. She was relieved that it had happened right after Fashion Week and not before. And she told none of her clients that she’d been sick, just that she was working from home, and none of them suspected that anything was wrong.
    She was opening their mail one morning after Azaya dropped offmore work for her, and fabric samples her clients wanted her to look over. The designers had already started their research for the next season. Most of them started the day after their shows. And as she went through the stack of letters, she saw another one addressed to Bill, from the church in Wyoming. Feeling guilty, she opened it.
    They were begging him again to come. They still hadn’t hired a minister and were hoping he would reconsider and take the job. Jenny felt her heart sink as she read it. It was a very nice letter, and Bill hadn’t found a church yet, and was getting seriously discouraged that he ever would. He had even talked about going back to the law firm. He said he couldn’t stay out of work forever, and it was beginning to look like that could happen. There were just no churches that needed a minister anywhere within a reasonable radius of New York, so Jenny could continue to work.
    She put the letter on his desk, and it haunted her all day. Part of