The Northwoods Chronicles Read Online Free

the lower lid, skidded
down her cheek and fell on the back of his hand. “C’mon now,” he
said. “Let me cook a nice dinner for you and that baby in
there.”
    “Okay,” she said, and sniffed.
    “If you’re going to have a baby, you’ve got to
let me take care of you,” he said.
    “Okay,” she said.
    “I’ll take good care,” he said, and opened his
arms. She fell into them and began to sob all over again. He just
held her tight.
    “I want to be a good mom,” she choked out.
    “You will be,” Pearce said and rocked her back
and forth. “You will be.”
    ~~~
    The next day, when Pearce came home from his
daily search for people to minister to, he found the kitchen filled
with empty grocery bags, the hallway full of aluminum foil boxes
and the spare room covered in foil—walls, ceiling, windows. Regina
started when she heard him at the door, and looked up from where
she was affixing the last bit of foil to the wall with a strip of
duct tape and said, “What do we do about the floor?”
    “What are you doing?”
    “We’re going to sleep in here from now on. And
the baby will have to stay in here until he’s twelve.”
    Pearce looked at the room, which gave him a
headache, and his wife kneeling on the floor, which gave him
indigestion, and turned away. He went to the kitchen and began
folding up the paper sacks. They came, he noted, from all three of
the stores in White Pines Junction. She must have bought them all
out of foil.
    Bags stowed, he put water on to boil and began
to mix up a tuna casserole. Why couldn’t she fixate on prenatal
nutrition, or learning nursery rhymes, or finding the best school
in the neighborhood? Instead, she’ll be going to UFO conventions
before long. She’d be speaking at them. She’d dedicate their child
to them. She’d be marshalling the U.S. Army against them, for god’s
sake.
    The whole thing gave Pearce a headache. And a
heartache. And it made him nervous about his career. Eventually,
he’d like to settle down with a church and a congregation of his
own, live in the parsonage and raise a whole bagful of kids, but
how was that to be done if Regina wasn’t going to let their
firstborn out of his mirrored room until he was twelve?
    She was troubled, and it was becoming time for
him to take some action. They could move from Vargas County, but he
didn’t think that would solve the problem. It would take care of
the current paranoia, but something else would surface.
    No, it was up to Pearce to take the situation in
hand and deal with his wife. Firmly, but gently. The way Jesus
would.
    “Honey?” he called. “Do you want garlic
cheesebread with your tuna noodle casserole?”
    She was by his side in an instant. “Yes, yes,
yes,” she said.
    “Okay. I’ll slice the bread and you sprinkle the
cheese.”
    She got the canister down from the shelf and
stood next to him, waiting for him to make the first slice so she
could sprinkle.
    “Regina, have you taken a pregnancy test
yet?”
    “Why?”
    “I was just wondering. If we’re going to have a
baby, we ought to know when, so we can prepare.”
    “Nine months,” she said.
    “I think we should take a test.”
    “No tests. The aliens could go through the
garbage and see it. Then they’d know where to come.” She buttered
the bread, then sprinkled the garlic cheese, careful to get both
even, all the way to the edges. “Let’s name him Spartacus.”
    “Who?”
    “Our baby.”
    “What if it’s a girl?”
    Regina silently buttered and sprinkled. “Let’s
eat these now,” she said, and looked up at him with the trusting
eyes of a child. “And then let’s have ice cream.”
    Pearce looked into those eyes and remembered why
he’d married her. She had been so youthful, so fun, so sweet, and
she looked to be the model of a perfect clergy wife-in-making. But
this disease, or whatever it was that had sprouted in her mind, was
growing more prevalent and turning her maturity clock backwards. He
was afraid for