Why the Sky Is Blue by Susan Meissner Page B

would get the phone number from Becky and call them.
     
    *
     
    The last two weeks of February passed quietly and without incident. Katie was still moody and quiet, and I wasn’t sure how much of that was due to her own puberty and how much was due to my pregnancy.
    She was aloof around me, detached in a way that I recognized as a tool to protect herself from hurt. I imagine that watching my abdomen swell with a baby she would have loved to have welcomed home—but would not be able to—was hard on her. So she kept her distance. I let her and prayed to God that was the right thing to do.
    I saw Dr. Whitestone on the last day of February. The ultrasound revealed a growing baby and a placenta that had not budged up or down. It was still low, but not causing any trouble. I was beginning my seventh month; the last trimester.
    I knew that when I told Dan this, he would want to call Ed and Rosemary and begin making the legal arrangements. I hated making the call. Not because I didn’t think they would make great parents. For some reason I was sure they would. I just didn’t want to put the wheels in motion. I knew it was the beginning of saying goodbye, and I dreaded it.
    Rosemary Prentiss was kind and composed when I called her the next day. It was almost as if she knew I would call her, as if she had been expecting it. She told me she and Ed would love to drive down so we could meet them. She suggested the following Saturday. Dan and I decided to arrange for the kids to spend the day with his parents—they lived an hour away—so that we could talk openly with Ed and Rosemary. There was still plenty of snow on the ground, and we knew the kids loved riding with their grandpa on his snowmobile. An overnight trip to go snowmobiling would be a real treat for them. Spencer didn’t think twice about it, but Katie seemed suspicious that we were purposely getting them out of the house. I hoped she would forget about it. I found out later that she didn’t.
    We took them to Red Wing the night before and enjoyed a nice meal with Dan’s family. I couldn’t help but notice that Dan’s mother used her everyday stoneware, not the china she usually used when we were all together for a meal. And there was absolutely no sign of the gravy boat. I wondered what Dan had done with it.
    After supper, Katie and her eleven-year-old cousin, Allison— Karin and Kent’s oldest—disappeared into the TV room. Spencer and Jennifer, Allison’s younger sister, followed them, were chased out, and finally ended up with Dan’s dad at the kitchen table playing Chinese checkers.
    We said goodbye, and Nina, Dan’s mom, walked out to the van with us. Dan told her the little we knew about Ed and Rosemary.
    “They sound like nice people,” Nina said as we hugged goodbye. “I hope they’re the right family. I really do.”
    I could only nod and thank her for a wonderful evening.
    Dan had asked Ed and Rosemary to meet us at our house at eleven that Saturday, then he wanted us all to go to lunch. I just let him call all the shots. It was easier for me that way.
    Our doorbell rang at five to eleven, and I found myself strangely nervous, as if I were the one about to come under inspection. Dan welcomed Ed and Rosemary into the house and brought them into the living room, where I was waiting.
    My first impression was not what I had been expecting. They were such charming people, so relaxed and friendly. I guess I had expected them to be anxious and overly eager to please. But they were calm and collected, and it wasn’t but a few minutes that they felt like old friends.
    They both bore the marks of people who had spent years in the sun, though six months in Minnesota had caused their South American tans to fade a bit. Rosemary’s long brown hair was French braided at the back and fell past her waist. Strands of gray covered the crown of her head like a tiara. She had an easy smile, the bluest eyes I had ever seen, and delicate hands. She was slim, a