Family Be Mine Read Online Free Page B

belly and told herself to quit being cranky. After all, it was all worth it, right? Still, just because she could accept the changes in her body didn’t mean she felt obliged to flaunt them. “Maybe I could wear a T-shirt over the bikini top?” she said.
    Wanda grabbed the combination lock from her tote bag and slammed the metal locker shut. “Nonsense, baby bumps are all the rage now, isn’t that right, Lena?” Wanda turned to her good friend. Lena was Wanda’s tennis partner as well as Katarina’s grandmother.
    Lena adjusted the strap of her bathing cap under her chin. “What’s that? Who’s right?” Lena patted Sarah protectively on her arm. “Never mind. You would look wonderful wearing a burlap bag. And in that suit—” she raised her arms, hands open “—you are the image of a Rubens beauty in all your womanly glory.”
    Sarah twisted her neck around. “Are you trying to tell me that my butt looks fat?” She gripped one cheek in an assessment.
    â€œNonsense, dear,” Wanda said. “You’re every woman’s dream—a long-stemmed American beauty, curvy like the legs of a Chippendale table, and with breasts the size of cantaloupes. That’s why we all agreed that the bikini was absolutely, positively the right choice.”
    Sarah shook her head. “Thanks, I think.” She was still trying to wrap her head around the image of Chippendale furniture and cantaloupes until she decided it was just another strange moment in an already eventful day.
    Because at the end of a full schedule of running multiple physical therapy sessions, three of Sarah’slate Wednesday afternoon clients had thrown her a surprise baby shower. They included Wanda, a retired high school math teacher, who was having treatments for the tendonitis in her tennis arm. “I know it would probably get better if I developed a two-handed backhand, but at my age…”
    Lena was there, too, a sturdy fireplug of a woman who when she spoke still had a hint of her native Czechoslovakia in her accent. Her arthritic knees had started to act up on her. Too many years of standing up at her hardware store and playing tennis. She’d had some arthroscopic surgery over the summer to clean up one knee, and was now diligently doing her rehab.
    Rounding out the group was Rufus Treadway. A mainstay of the local African-American community, Rufus had had a hip replacement about a year ago. Unfortunately, he was not yet tripping the light fantastic, which was a real shame, as far as Sarah was concerned. So she’d pulled some strings and got him an appointment with the hip specialist at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital.
    Anyhow, when the three of them had pulled out the streamers and party blowers, Sarah had been truly taken aback. Lena had made a plum tart. “Not to worry. It’s mostly fruit,” she had said.
    And butter and eggs, Sarah had thought.
    When they next produced several wrapped boxes, she was overwhelmed. “You shouldn’t have,” Sarah protested, expecting to get several hand-knitted baby sweaters and maybe a baby-size Grantham University baseball cap.
    â€œStart with the squishy one,” Wanda insisted.
    Sarah carefully removed the wrapping paper—nosense in wasting perfectly good paper when it could be reused—and found a Speedo bathing cap.
    â€œHow lovely. I don’t have one,” Sarah said, confused but careful to affix a smile.
    â€œNow the flat one.” Rufus pointed to an oblong wrapped box.
    That one yielded flip-flops. Another had a rolled up beach towel.
    Sarah laughed. “I think I see a theme here. I know I always tout the virtues of swimming as a low-impact exercise for you all, so I’m glad to see the message is getting across.”
    Then came the biggest box. It seemed to contain mostly tissue paper, but buried deep inside Sarah found a maternity bathing suit in electric