It Happened One Night (3 page)

So other than God—who was keeping mum on the subject—who could help?

She took the book out of the shopping bag and held it in two hands. Though she could barely see the cover in the darkness,
it had been burned onto her retinas: It showed a woman meditating, surrounded by floating orbs of blue-green light. It was
little more than a glorified pamphlet, and in her misery and desperation, she’d read much of it by the light of a streetlamp
in the bookstore parking lot. The author believed that if a couple was having trouble conceiving, it was possible to talk
to the spirit of an unborn child—to reason with it and coax it into life.

The book also said that some babies wouldn’t come into a home that wasn’t in harmony. Karin had banged her fist on the dashboard
so hard that she’d almost made a dent. Wasn’t her house in harmony? How could she and Gene be more in harmony than they already
were? Hadn’t they shown that they were ready?

Now, sitting alone in the living room with the book, she wished she hadn’t bought it. She and her husband tried hard to be
good Christians. They weren’t perfect, but they went to church every Sunday, said grace before meals, and prayed at night.
They’d managed to abstain from sex until two months before their wedding (the priest had chuckled when Karin confessed). And
they’d never used condoms or birth control, only fertility awareness, which had been taught to them by a nun who called Gene’s
sperm “the swim team.”

She and Gene both believed that if God wanted them to have a baby, they would have one the natural way. No hormones, no injections,
no sperm banks, no surgeries, no adoption agencies. And
no
talking to spirit babies. She’d probably have to confess that too.

She heard the front door open. Quickly she bent and slipped both the book and the bag under the cushions of the sofa. At first
Gene didn’t see her. But she saw him, silhouetted in the light from the porch as he climbed the short flight of stairs to
the living room. Though he was ten years older than her at forty-three, he still had a very strong look about him. She loved
his thinning red-blond hair, his big shoulders and hefty build that she’d always believed were vestiges of Highland kings.

He saw her when he reached the top of the stairs. “The lights were all off. I was worried.”

“I just got in.”

He moved toward her through the shadows and sat beside her. He didn’t turn on the light. “How did it go at the doctor’s?”

“Not bad,” she said.

“What was the verdict?”

“It’s a hung jury. We need a retrial.”

She heard Gene’s sigh, saw his back—normally so straight and strong—slump into the slightest crescent.

“In some states, infertility is grounds for divorce,” she said.

“That’s not true. We’ll go to another doctor. Get another opinion.”

Karin tried to laugh, but it came out closer to a sob. “I’m tired of being poked and prodded and talked about as if my body
were somehow
different
than me.”

“I know,” Gene said. He reached over to rub her back.

She leaned against him, put her head on his shoulder. Outside, even under the cover of darkness, the Vermont countryside was
glorying in its own fertility: hepatica, bloodroot, trillium, columbine, and dandelions bloomed profusely, the mountains letting
loose in emerald, olive, and mint. And here was Karin. Fertile as a lump of coal.

Still, she couldn’t let this rule their lives. She hugged Gene tight, breathing in the spicy smell of his deodorant. “Let’s
go out. Let’s get burgers, go to a movie, and make out in the last row.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Let’s go on a date. Like two teenagers out on the town.”

“Do I have to have you home by ten?” he asked.

“Only if you promise to keep me awake ’til eleven.”

Gene laughed and helped her to her feet.

May 10

The next morning Lana stood in the Wildflower Barn and chatted with Mrs. Montaigne, one of the many regulars who made a point
of stopping by during Lana’s shift. The sun slanted hard and bright into the yellow room that had been built to house their
shop. Other parts of the Barn were utilitarian and somber, used for storage and mixing seeds. But this room was Lana’s favorite.
She’d hung wind chimes and stained glass in the small, high windows to catch the light. Her coffee cup steamed on the counter
in the cool air. And though she’d awoken this morning to find her bed empty, she refused to let Ron’s lack of bedside manners
ruin an otherwise good day.

“I just don’t know,” Mrs. Montaigne said, her Quebecois accent peeking through. “I’ve never liked these glaring colors. Orange,
red, yellow… Do you have something less bright?”

“Of course,” Lana said. “Follow me.”

She led the way to their newest display of seeds and picked up a packet of their cool-tones mix. Mrs. Montaigne took it, her
eyes brightening as she showed the packet to her granddaughter. “
Oui
. This is exactly what we came for. Isn’t it,
ma fille
?”

Jackie peered shyly from behind her grandmother’s floral skirt. She rarely talked, but Lana could see that she was always
deeply interested, listening, trying to figure things out. Lana had always liked talking to children. Watching them puzzle
through everyday life made her see the world a little differently, as if rediscovering it through their eyes. She looked forward
to the day she could rediscover it through her own as well.

Mrs. Montaigne handed the packet to Jackie for a closer look, and Lana couldn’t help but launch into detail about how optimum
mixes balanced beauty with durability and diversity. But Karin had cautioned her not to give away too many secrets. They guarded
their percentage allocations much like the makers of Pepsi and Coke guarded their recipes.

“Okay, okay, you’ve convinced me!” Mrs. Montaigne exclaimed, laughing. “To listen to you talk about flowers is like listening
to this little one talk about cartoons. There’s just no end!”

Jackie blushed shyly and Lana thought it would be fun to hear the little girl chatter for a while. But she remained silent
as they walked to the counter to check out.

“I saw your boyfriend last night,” Mrs. Montaigne said, giving a conspiratorial wink.

“Oh, did you? He took me out for my birthday. Did you know I turned twenty-nine? It was fantastic. Roses, candlelight, and
he even sang me a song in the middle of the restaurant. Everyone was looking. It was the funniest thing.”

“No, I don’t think so.” She frowned, lines etched deeply around her mouth. “I saw him in front of the college. He had a suitcase.
Like he was coming back from a trip.”

Lana laughed. “Oh, you mean
Eli
. He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Well, why ever not?”

Lana laughed again and couldn’t help but wonder if Mrs. Montaigne had set her up. The question had been posed to her a hundred
times—a thousand it seemed. And yet she’d never been able to articulate an answer that could make people understand. “Eli
and I are just friends.”

“But I see you flirting with him all the time.”

“Laughing with him. I’m laughing. There’s a difference.”

“But I see the way he looks at you. You cannot tell me that isn’t love.”

“It is love. It’s platonic love.”

“If you say so, dear.”

To change the subject, Lana bent down to talk to Jackie, asking what her doll’s name was and if she wanted to pick a flower
to take home. She loved talking to people—about flowers, about the store, about the Burlington area, about whatever was going
on in her customers’ lives. But Eli was off-limits—a pleasure so private she didn’t like to share.

“Say good-bye to Miss Lana, Jackie,” Mrs. Montaigne said, after she’d paid for her purchase.

Jackie took her fist out of her mouth and gave Lana a limp-fingered wave. Lana bent down to her level and smiled. “You know
what I think? I think you’ve got a hug for me today, don’t you, sweetheart?”

The girl grinned, instantly delighted—as if she’d been waiting for permission to throw her arms around Lana’s neck. Then Lana
straightened her knees, said good-bye to Mrs. Montaigne, and leaned on the counter, hard. She glanced at the clock, wondering
what she and Eli would do tonight—if they would eat dinner at their favorite hole-in-the-wall Mexican place, if they would
walk out by the lake.

At one point after he’d left last night, the meteorite necklace had become the only thing she was wearing on her body. Ron
had gripped it in tight fingers and pulled just enough to make her worry it would snap.

“Is he a lover?” he’d demanded. “Was he ever?”

Lana had told the truth. Then she took the necklace off and tried to put her best friend out of her mind. Unfortunately, knowing
that Eli was nearby but not being able to see him had made her distracted and anxious at entirely the wrong time. He was on
her mind a lot these days, so much it was almost bothersome. The solution was simple: She just needed to see him. That was
all.

She counted down the hours until her shift’s end, floating moment to moment. And the second the store was closed, she dialed
Eli’s cell phone, eager to hear his voice. She worried her new necklace between two fingers until he finally picked up.

“What are you doing right now?” she asked. He was unusually quiet.

“Why?”

Why?
Eli didn’t ask
why.
A pang of worry made her grip the phone hard. “I just wanted to know if you felt like doing something with me.”

“Oh.” Again, another long, terrible pause. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

“No?”

“I have plans.”

She answered as quickly as she could, desperate to hide her disappointment. “Okay. No big deal. I’ll catch up with you some
other time.”

When she put down the phone, her heart was beating frantically as if squeezed into too tight a space. She’d planned her whole
week around Eli’s homecoming. She even would have cut short her date last night had she known he was arriving early. She’d
expected Eli would have done the same if their roles were reversed. But now she worried that something had changed, that maybe
their friendship had weakened somehow in the months he’d been away.

She put on her jacket, picked up her purse, and told herself to cheer up. She was being ridiculous, completely overreacting.
She would see Eli sooner or later. And when she did, they would pick up where they had left off. Things would return to normal.
She just had to give it time.

Lady’s slipper:
This wild orchid requires unusual help to reproduce. The soil must be pH-perfect and must contain a unique microfungus that
dissolves the seedlings’ hard outer cells. It can take up to four years for a lady’s slipper to fully recover from producing
a single flower.

June 5

S
omeone in the science museum had turned the air conditioner to cryogenic. Eli was comfortable in his khakis and navy polo
shirt, but his date, Kelly, had wrapped her little pink sweater so tight across her chest it stretched like shrink-wrap, and
she was furiously rubbing her upper arms to stay warm. In every sense she had overdressed by being underdressed; her knees
were exposed by her short black skirt, her small toes peeked out of high strappy heels, and her walnut-colored hair was twirled
up in some kind of knot that exposed the goose bumps on her neck. Obviously she’d dressed for a different kind of date than
a science museum—a date that didn’t include roomfuls of children with light-up sneakers and jelly-smeared grins. But when
Eli had picked her up and told her what he’d planned, she said she’d be happy to go. Now it was clear she’d said it just to
be nice.

He tried to make the most of the afternoon by telling her interesting facts about the universe. The professor in him hoped
to spark her interest.

“And this,” he said, standing beside a colorful picture on the wall, “is an image from the Hubble. It’s called the Keyhole
Nebula.” He looked at her, watching for her reaction as she looked at the swirls of red, blue, and green. Her face remained
dull, as if she were a student sitting in an Intro to Astronomy class. He tried to connect with her another way. “What do
you see?”

She frowned.

He tried again. “What does it look like to you?”

“It looks like…” She leaned closer, squinting. “Like a nebula.”

He laughed. He and Lana had played this game a hundred times, like kids picking shapes out of clouds. But he and Lana weren’t
entirely
normal
, and so he gave Kelly a break. “Well, somebody saw this.” He ran his finger over the image. “God’s birdie.”

“Why do they call it that?”

“Because it’s a cloud shaped like God’s middle finger.”

“If you say so,” she said.

Eli rubbed nervously at the back of his neck. Picking up women had always been easy enough. He had a good face—not rugged,
but friendly, handsome, with a high forehead and a good solid jaw. The day after Lana’s birthday—the most horrible night he’d
had in years—he’d successfully scored Kelly’s number at a downtown bar. But three dates later, the usual problems had begun.

For him, being romantic required too much showmanship—grandiose gestures, overwrought love poetry, power ballads, and heavy
cologne. He preferred the “just be yourself” technique. But that was probably why he was single—and on the wrong side of Lana’s
“let’s just be friends.”

Kelly had wandered a few feet away from him, standing so that a six-foot-wide picture of Mars dwarfed her from head to toe.
He caught up with her silently. She was rubbing her near-naked legs together, a pathetic attempt to keep warm.

He sighed. “Look. Do you want to get out of here?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’d like that a lot.”

Later, after a big steak dinner, they were standing at the back door of her apartment, far away from the stylish brick buildings
of downtown. He could hear someone’s television blasting commercials from a nearby living room, but otherwise the street was
quiet and dark.

“I had a nice time,” Kelly said.