“I’ve never gone through it myself,” she said, “so I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything from personal experience.”

Grace thought Nathan glanced at his wife when she said that, but she couldn’t be sure. His glasses were so thick it was hard to tell just what his eyes were doing.

“But every woman I’ve ever known has been just fine with it,” Nancy continued.

“Yes, they might scream, but in a couple of years they turn around and do it all over again. It’s worth it to them. Really, Grace, you don’t want to spend this whole last month of your pregnancy worrying about that.”

Grace let her head fall back against the chair, suddenly overwhelmed by everything she had to worry about.

“Worry is my middle name, lately,” she said.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. How do I tell my mother? Where will I live? I only have a little bit of money in my savings. At first, I can nurse the baby, right? I won’t have to pay for food?”

Nancy stared at her hard for a moment before answering.

“You’re not prepared for this,” she said, her voic now low and serious.

“You need to get help from ai agency. You’re in Charlottesville, you said? Write dowi your name and phone number for me and when I get bac’to Elizabeth City, I’ll do some research and find out where you can go to get help. Okay?”

“Thanks,” Grace said. She suddenly felt less alone Bonnie was a good friend and a loyal supporter, but she knew just as little about birth and babies as Grace did.

“And,” Nancy continued, “I think the first thing yoi:

need to do when you get back to Charlottesville is to tel. your mother what’s going on. “

She shook her head vigorously.

“You don’t know m mother,” she said.

“As a matter of fact, I don’t think ] can go back to the house at all.

I’m getting too big. She‘1 know. Bonnie and I have to figure out where I can lay low during the next month. “

Nancy sighed, and Grace read disapproval in her face “This is no way to live. Grace,” she said.

“I’ll get yoi that information on agencies that can help you, but I wani you to promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“That after this baby is born, you’ll go on the Pill. Yoi can’t let this happen again. This baby you’re carrying should never have been conceived.”

Grace wanted to say it wasn’t her fault. She wanted to pour out the story of what had happened in Hawaii. Bu she could have said no to Brad; she could have said no to Joey. No one had raped her. It was her fault.

“I know,” she said.

“Believe me, it won’t ever hap per again. Not this way, anyhow.”

There were brief intervals of sunshine over the next few days, enough to encourage Nancy and Nathan to remain in Kill Devil Hills for the rest of their vacation, and enough to keep Bonnie from complaining too much. The promised storm hit on Saturday. It was not a hurricane, although there had been talk of it becoming one. It was considered a tropical storm, and evacuation was not required, although most vacationers left the Outer Banks that Saturday morning, knowing what was coming. Grace and Bonnie did not leave, however. Their lease was up the following day; they were due to be out by one in the afternoon, but Grace was not ready to let go of her time away from home. She still didn’t know where she was going to go. She’d given Nancy her phone number so that the nurse could call her as soon as she had information about an agency that might be able to help her. She wished it were winter instead of summer, so she could cover her body more easily with heavy clothing. Maybe she could simply avoid her mother.

As darkness fell, the wind was wild and whistling, and the cottage shuddered violently, as though it might collapse around them. For the first time that week, Grace and Bonnie were glad they had not been able to afford a house on the ocean. Surely they would be washed away.

They had very little food left, and it was too nasty to go out for more, so for dinner, they made do with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The power went out shortly after dinner, taking their lights and their TV. There was one hurricane lantern in the cottage, and they lit it and set it on the coffee table. Sitting on the sofa, they watched the flame lick at the inside of the glass chimney. And that’s when Grace’s cramping started. “Can peanut butter and jelly go bad?” she asked Bonnie.

“I don’t think so. We just bought it a few days ago, anyway. Why?”

“I have a stomachache.”

“Oh,” teased Bonnie, “you’re probably going into labor

“Very funny,” Grace said. But she feared that Bonnie might be right.

This was not a typical stomachache. More like menstrual cramps that came and went. But they were mild, ignorable, certainly not like labor would be. And she was only eight months pregnant.

“We might as well go to bed,” Bonnie said.

“Oh, God, Bonnie.” Grace couldn’t bear the thought of going to bed.

When she woke up, she would only have a few hours left of her freedom.

She would finally have to face the uncertainty of her future, and that of her baby. “I don’t want to go home tomorrow.”

“I do,” Bonnie said.

“No offense. But I want to see Curt. And I bet the weather has been better in Charlottesville than it’s been here.”

“You don’t have to hide a bowling ball under your shirt when you go home, though,” Grace said. “My mother would have known a long time ago,” Bonnie said.

“She pays way too much attention to me.”

Grace glanced away from her friend. Bonnie’s words were spoken as a complaint, but she didn’t appreciate how good she had it. Grace shifted on the couch, trying to find a position that would make her stomach more comfortable. Maybe lying down would help.

“Okay,” she said, getting to her feet.

“Let’s go to bed.”

Her sleep was fitful. She’d closed her bedroom window against the rain, but the glass rattled in its frame, and de spite the storm raging outside, the room was hot, her sheets damp with perspiration.

Even while asleep, she was aware of the pain. She dreamed she was in the hospital room, having the baby, and she was screaming. She screamed herself awake, and knew at once that she was truly in labor. This pain was not a dream.

Bonnie rushed to her side.

“Grace? What’s the matter?”

The room was pitch-black. Bonnie’s voice cut through the darkness, but Grace had no idea which direction it had come from.

“I think the baby’s coming.” She managed to get the words out between explosions of pain. She let herself scream, throwing all of her breath and energy behind the sound, understanding now why women in labor felt that compulsion. No other sound would do.

“It can’t be coming,” Bonnie said, and Grace heard the panic in her voice.

Grace could not respond with words, only with gasping breaths and yet another howl of pain.

“I’ll get the lantern,” Bonnie said.

“Wait here.” Then she laughed.

“Like, where else would you go?”

In a moment, she returned to the room with the burning lantern, which she set on the old dresser, and Grace could see how frightened she was. She imagined her own face held that same look of terror.

“I don’t know what to do, Grace,” Bonnie said, waving her hands feebly in the air.

“Tell me what to do.”

Grace felt helpless. What was happening to her had a life of its own, and she was completely unable to stop it. She looked at Bonnie, wordlessly pleading with her to take over.

“The nurse!” Bonnie said suddenly.

“Nancy!” Bonnie ran out of the room, ignoring Grace’s plea not to leave her.

She screamed in Bonnie’s absence, screamed and screamed just to keep her mind off the raging pain in her body and the fact that she was alone. She was still screaming when Nancy and Bonnie rushed back into the room. i Nancy gave Bonnie instructions Grace could not make I out, and Bonnie left the room. Nancy uttered words of comfort as she moved around, as if nothing unusual were occurring, and Grace suddenly felt enveloped by the nurse’s calming presence. She was only vaguely aware of Nancy rearranging the bedclothes and holding the lantern between Grace’s legs as she examined her. Nancy’s movements her entire demeanor, were confident and unhurried.

Placing the lantern back on the dresser. Nancy sat down on the edge of the bed.

“I’m going to tell you how to breathe,” she said to Grace, her voice soft and even.

“It will help with the pain.” Grace was aware that Bonnie was in the room again, and she glanced at her friend’s face only long enough to know that she was crying. Fear always induced tears in Bonnie. Grace had seen it happen before.

She struggled to follow Nancy’s instructions to breathe, calmly and slowly one moment, panting the next.

“Squeeze my hand when you have to,” Nancy said, slipping her hand into Grace’s. Grace clutched at her fingers

“Now listen to me. Grace,” Nancy said, leaning close to her.

“Surely you now realize you can’t keep this baby. You know that, right? You’re simply too young to raise a baby by yourself, especially without the support of the baby’s father or your own mother. You don’t even know where you’re going to live. You’ll have to leave here to morrow morning with a newborn baby in your arms and no diapers, no clothing, no formula and no knowledge of how to take care of it. Be honest with me, can you take this baby home to your mother?”

Grace let out a wail at the thought.

“She can’t,” Bonnie agreed.

“You don’t know her mother.”

“I know you’ve had a fantasy of keeping this baby,” Nancy said.

“But it was a fantasy, just that. I can help you, though. Let me take the baby. Let me take it to the hospital where I work. I’ll get the baby checked out and make sure it’s healthy and then I’ll arrange to have it adopted by a good family. That way, no one, not even your mother, will ever have to know that you were pregnant. You, me, Bonnie and Nathan. We’re the only ones to know. And it can stay that way.”