Nurse Trent's Children (24 page)

She nodded, not speaking.

“I was sad, of course, because of Susan. I was discouraged because I had learned indisputably I was a Wednesday’s child. Then Rita and Andrew, Wednesdays as I was, were lost and I found them, and with them in their faith I found my own faith and new resolve. I knew that Wednesday’s child or not I was going to marry you,
that Wednesday’s child or not you were going to be proud to have me for your mate.”

The gas flickered and made a little hissing sound. She remembered it was wasting outrageously, the gelatin beginning to crust the saucepan.

Then she forgot the gas and the gelatin. She forgot everything. There was no empty hearth in which a fire could leap, there were no waiting chairs. There was only the white flame between them, between her and Jeremy; there were only waiting arms. In a little while she would go to those arms. She would dissolve the sadness. He would hold her to him as she had never been held. She would feel his aching hunger for her in his kisses, his months of needing her. He would feel her own response to him, and somewhere in her tenderness he would recognize it—the deep roots at last, the personal belonging, the beginning of that structure called family. He would be Wednesday’s child no more.