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They laughed, Rose’s slightly demented sense of humor relaxing for Katrina. She was an old friend, someone whom Katrina had known since childhood. For the first time in a while, a picture of her parents drifted through her mind.
“I just thought of Mom and Dad,” she said during a lull in the conversation. “It’s so strange because I never really grieved their deaths. It was sudden, and I was so busy. The move here might have been grief driving me. But now, I’m in love with Dave and have a baby son on the way and they are missing out. It’s so sad.”
Numbness crept over her body, sealing off an emotional response so that she simply stated it as facts. Her parents would never meet Dave or see her baby. Rose reached out and grasped Katrina’s hand, squeezing it and Vic took the other.
“If it’s any consolation, you have me and Rosie,” Vic said. “I can’t wait to see the little guy.”
“Oh! Here’s the last ultrasound pictures,” Dave said, eager to move away from the sadness.
Vic and Rose looked over the grainy photos, laughing at the description Dave used, calling onealien baby, all the while watching her out of the corner of his eye.
He could see Katrina’s countenance morph from well-being to scary, her eyes glassy, the redhead flush over her chest, neck, and face. He would almost worry about her if he hadn’t seen it happen in the past. She was having a moment. It passed, and he saw that she settled into the corner of the overstuffed couch, nestling in the down-filled, white canvas-covered cushions, hugging a blue embroidered pillow to her body, laughing at a story Vic told about a goose riding on the back of a horse that morning.
“Justin has a video on his phone. Those kids will grow up with the farm and the clinic at their disposal. Justin has already said he’ll have both children with him in the clinic as soon as they can walk and talk. It will be a good environment for them.”
“What a nice idea,” Katrina said. “I think of baby David at Bayou Cottage in my arms, but not at the farm, not at the barn running around. You’re right; it will be good for him. Thank you for mentioning it.”
While they talked about the farm, Dave brought coffee to everyone, handing Katrina a cup. He offered Louisiana Crunch cake, cutting hunks of it and using big dinner plates to serve it, but Katrina didn’t care, it was so endearing seeing him host.
The hopeful story made a big difference in Katrina’s demeanor. Relieved, Dave would be forever grateful to his father and brother.
The company left in the early afternoon. The longed-for nap forgotten, Vic’s description of baby David on the farm running around with Maggie’s little girl reenergized Katrina and she resumed work with a vengeance. When Dave returned to work, he was confident she’d be okay.
Sitting at the computer took a toll on her back after a while. Periodically getting up to stretch, she drank another cup of coffee, determined to finish her current project. By four, not even coffee helped to keep Katrina’s eyes open. She saved her work and closed the lid on her laptop before heading to her bedroom. A good restorative nap before Dave got home might help her personality. The room was cool and dark. The sound of laughter from a canoe making its way down the creek amused her. She brushed her teeth and got into bed, the smooth, cool sheets caressing her body.
Dave was right; the day was stressful coming on top of the long weekend away, the awful,not-a-baby-shower partywith upper management in San Francisco eliminating every impulse to connect with her colleagues. Closing her eyes, she nestled into the soft pillow, and the last recollection was the sound of the ice maker out in the kitchen.
***
It wasn’t really a dream. As she woke up, a discombobulated sensation swept over her in between sleep and awareness. It was why she disliked napping. An event came to mind which relied on every sense. The memory was not that long ago, right after college graduation and she’d returned to Pensacola.
“Katrina, can you come here?”
The familiar sound of her mother’s voice just made it past the music going directly into her brain coming from the headphones she wore. Pulling the right earpiece away from her head, she yelled back.
“What do you want? I’m busy.” She was applying for jobs online and had been at it for hours.
“I need you to help me in the lanai. It’s too hard to explain.”
“Darn it,” Katrina grumbled, whipping off the phones and throwing them aside. With her computer she was a little gentler, closing the lid and placing it carefully on her bed.
Skipping down the stairs, her mother was probably doing something untoward with the pool filter instead of waiting for the pool boy, and needed Katrina to help her figure out how to fix it before Big Clark, her father, got home that night. He was on a work trip to Houston as part of his space program duties.
Katrina hated it when Clark was gone. Jessie Blanchard was an amazing, independent woman, one of the first female pediatric cardiologists to practice in the Florida Panhandle, making it possible for patients in the western part of the state to not have to drive to Gainesville or Tampa to be seen. But when Clark was away from home, she reverted to a seemingly scatterbrained, fragile facsimile of herself.
Katrina might have had an ulterior motive by going across country to attend Stanford; the fear of becoming her mother’s babysitter when Clark had to be in Houston or Cape Canaveral was a driving factor. For four years, she’d kept her distance, making excuses not to come home unless her friends had a reason for it—attending Maggie’s wedding to Russ, for instance.
Since Katrina had returned from Stanford, she’d reverted to her pre-college persona and Jessie had wholeheartedly embraced it, preparing Katrina’s favorite foods when she was home, doing her laundry, pampering her. The house was whole again with her daughter in residence. And Katrina resumed worrying about her mother when Clark was away.
The lanai was at the other end of the huge living spaces of the house, and the scent of mimosa came to her, as real as if she were back there in Pensacola. Force of habit, Katrina just glanced out the windows facing the front of the house and saw cars lined up on the usually empty street. Her heart thumped.
Thoughts of her father came to her immediately for some reason. But when she crossed the threshold into the lanai and every soul she knew jumped up into the air, screaming surprise, she finally got it. It was a surprise graduation party for her. And she was in a t-shirt, shorts, and had her hair in a messy bun with no makeup.
“I should kill you,” she whispered to Maggie who’d jumped on her, hugging her best friend. “It’s not too late.”
“Aw, it’s so sweet. Your ma’s been planning this since Christmas.”
Friends and family surrounded them; Annie Markley jumped and down, clapping her hands. “You never suspected a thing, did you?”
