The Northwoods Chronicles Read Online Free Page A

her. “Okay,” he said, and put the bread in with the
casserole. When it came out, they sat down and ate all the toasted
bread and let the casserole bake. Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow
we’ll eat that casserole and then we’ll go to a doctor.
    But the next morning, she threw up. Pearce sat
on the floor and held her head while she puked into the toilet, and
his spirits took a serious tumble, along with the realization that
with the morning sickness would surely come a baby. She still
needed some kind of help, although Prozac or something of its ilk
was clearly out of the question now that she was carrying a
child.
    Regina grew ever more beautiful in the following
days, while Pearce’s sleep was disturbed by visions of
childproofing their home, and not only for the baby.
    He knew she was sick, and would need some type
of treatment, but, for the time being, he could handle it. He just
had to monitor her progress, make sure she ate properly, saw to her
personal hygiene, kept her safe and made certain that she wasn’t
left alone.
    As he was fairly new in the community, he wasn’t
much missed. He still found time to prepare sermons, and preached
them to a thin audience on Sunday mornings, Regina prettied up and
sitting in the front pew. Eventually, her condition became obvious,
and she was the first one to poke her belly around at people so
they’d notice. They began to get congratulatory handshakes and a
few invitations to dinner and such, which he discreetly
declined.
    Things work out somehow, he thought, and was
glad that they were new enough in the community to be fairly
invisible. They’d be moving on, according to the church, not long
after the baby was born, and that too, was good. They didn’t need
to make any lasting impressions or relationships here. The fewer
questions about the new pastor and his strange wife the better. One
day at a time, he coped increasingly competently as what amounted
to being the single parent of his pregnant wife.
    By the time Month Nine rolled around, Regina was
wearing aluminum foil helmets around the house and Pearce had to
keep her inside. She had her moments of lucidity, but they were
fleeting. He worried about the fact that he hadn’t taken her for
prenatal medical help, but she was young and healthy—in body if not
in mind—and he made sure she ate well and got enough sleep. But
what he really worried about was the genetic significance of what
was happening to her, and the chemical imbalance it surely caused
in her system and how it would affect the baby.
    Oh well. Nothing to be done about it yet.
    But when the pains of childbirth began, Regina
was not to be controlled.
    She had spent the day singing at the top of her
lungs, and marching around the house with a wooden spoon, the
tinfoil hat tattered and bent, but securely on her head, while
Pearce was trying his hardest to concentrate on the sermon he was
writing.
    “Ow,” Regina said.
    Pearce jumped up to see what she’d done to hurt
herself, but what he saw chilled him. She was standing in the
middle of the living room, wooden spoon at her feet, and she had
her hands around the swollen lump of a belly. Her time had come and
he was unprepared. In fact, he had worried over the course of
action, knowing that this day would come, but having never made a
decision about anything, he was totally and completely unprepared.
Now he had to consciously calm himself before he panicked and
scared Regina.
    “What’s happening, pumpkin?”
    “It hurts me.”
    “The baby’s coming,” he said, his mind racing.
If they got in the car right now, he could get her to a hospital in
the next town where nobody knew them. He could make up a doctor’s
name, and say they were just passing through, and the baby was
early. . . .
    “Ow!” She hit her stomach with her fists. “Make
it stop.”
    Oh man, Pearce thought, she hasn’t seen anything
yet. She’ll need drugs. “C’mon, let’s go to the hospital.”
    “Hospital?”
    “Yep.