Wish Upon a Star Read Online Free

sudden change, for such a complete transition in my life. But it was real. It was happening. And it made so much sense .
    Until I tried to figure out how to tell Sam. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I wasn’t actually pregnant. After all, it had only been six weeks. And I was on the pill. I should buy a test at the drugstore before I said anything.
    Sam greeted me at the door of our first-floor apartment. (Hmm, the first floor would make it easier to get the baby’s stroller out to the street.) He nuzzled my neck as he closed the door behind me. I could smell beer on his breath. “You’re home early.”
    I made some noncommittal noise as I let him lead me over to the living room couch. He’d been watching TV, a Yankees game. Two empty beer bottles sat on the coffee table, glinting next to a nearly full one. Sam nodded toward the collection. “Want a beer?”
    I shook my head and shrugged out of my coat. When I collapsed into a corner of the couch, Sam lunged toward the television, howling at the blind ump who wouldn’t know a high strike if it knocked him on his ass. I waited for the batter to hit into a double play before I asked, “Did the Lindstrom case settle?”
    He swore. “No. Bastard backed out at the last second. Said he couldn’t recommend settlement to his client without another ten mil to sweeten the pot.” He glanced at me, finally noticing the horror of my chartreuse-and-orange too-small T-shirt. He started to say something, but leered instead. “Well, at least Concerned has one thing going for it.”
    I crossed my arms over my chest. I should tell him that I’d been fired. Tell him that this was the last “costume” I’d ever have to suffer through.
    “What?” he asked, either because he realized I was upset, or because the baseball game had finally flickered to a commercial.
    “I think I’m pregnant,” I said.
    Wow. I really thought that I’d decided to wait. To have medical proof, something more than my wigged-out suspicion. Guess not.
    He pulled away as if I’d spilled a tray of melted Knickerbocker Glories in his lap. “You’re kidding, right?”
    I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I’m two weeks late.”
    “What the—” He jumped off the couch, eyeing me as if I had bubonic plague.
    “Come on,” I said. “It’s not contagious.”
    “What?” His eyes widened. “You think this is funny? Don’t you realize I’m up for partner this year? I don’t have time for this!”
    Time for this? Like I’d just invited him to a party he didn’t want to attend? I forced my voice to stay calm. “Of course I realize you’re up for partner. But it’s okay. I mean, this might all be happening a little sooner than we’d planned, but—”
    “A little sooner?” His voice was hoarse, as if I’d punched him in the gut. “How could you have been so irresponsible?”
    That lit a fire under me. I snapped, “Last time I checked, it took two people to make a baby.”
    “Are you sure it’s mine?”
    “Sam!” I was so shocked I could barely gasp his name. “I can’t believe you said that.”
    His gaze settled on my belly, on the tight stretch of chartreuse and orange. He could still make everything all right. He could still apologize. We could still talk this out. But then he said, “I can’t believe it, either. I can’t believe any of this.”
    He turned on his heel and strode out of the room. I heard him scramble in the foyer, grabbing for a jacket. I heard him turn the locks, fumbling them open as if his life depended on it. I heard him slam the door, as if he were fleeing a horde of raging demons.
    And then I heard nothing but perfect silence inside our perfect brownstone apartment on our perfect block of the perfect Upper East Side.
    I collapsed onto the couch and started to cry.

CHAPTER 2

    I KNEW I should be grateful. I should be lighting candles in some church, or writing checks to support orphans in a country I’d never heard of, or knitting bandages for lepers, or