The Emerald Talisman by Brenda Pandos Page A

thing.
    “The baby is right there. See?” She pointed
to the dark blob in the photo. I squinted and it came into focus.
The larger part of the peanut shape suddenly looked like a head and
I could see where arms and legs were forming.
    “Wow. This is truly amazing.” Seeing the
picture brought it all to reality and I had tears in my eyes too.
“Have you thought of names yet?”
    “Well, a few but we want to wait until we
know if it’s a girl or a boy. That’ll make it easier.”
    I instinctively reached over and felt her
flat tummy.
    “I think I feel a bump already.”
    “No, that’s just the cookies from earlier.
I’ve had the worst sweet tooth. It’s horrible,” she complained, but
with a giggle. I saw a light in her eyes I’d never seen before.
    “Then it’s going to be a girl,” I joked, not
sure if that was how the saying went or not.
    “We’ll know soon enough.”

    After the fish pedicure, we decided to have
lunch at a little café in town. We had to fulfill the baby’s
craving for Chinese chicken salad and no other restaurants would
do. After lunch it started to rain again, so we rented a movie. It
seemed fitting for the afternoon. We contemplated going to a
theater, but Jo said the popcorn smell made her queasy and I didn’t
want to share that feeling with her, so I agreed (with much
enthusiasm) to watch a movie at home.
    I prayed secretly John would not come home
early so we could watch it in peace. The last time, he talked over
the entire movie and even ruined the ending by telling us ‘who done
it’.
    But John didn’t show up until closer to six
when Jo just about had dinner ready. They invited me to stay. To my
surprise, John and I got along better this time, making dinner an
enjoyable experience. However, after dinner, the lack of sleep
started to catch up to me and I just wanted to go home. I
congratulated them again on the great news of the new baby and then
drove home.
    When I walked into the house, I planned to
head straight for the stairs and my bed, but heard the TV going in
the living room. My guilt surfaced as I felt Luke’s dread. He had
no idea where my moodiness had come from earlier and it wasn’t fair
I’d taken my frustration out on him so I swallowed my pride and
stood in the doorway. Luke faked like he didn’t see me.
    “Hey,” I said.
    He flickered his eyes to me and then back to
the TV.
    “Hey.”
    I entered the room and sat down. I didn’t
know exactly what to say, so I waited for a minute before
speaking.
    “Sorry about earlier.”
    He hit mute on the remote.
    “It’s okay,” he said quietly, while studying
his fingernails. He acted tough, but I knew he was more upset than
he let on.
    “I’m just frustrated.”
    “About?”
    “You can’t tease me,” I said quickly.
    Luke put his hands up, as if an act of
surrender and I smiled. It was sweet he wanted to know.
    “I just don’t understand guys sometimes,” I
said while playing with the string on my sweatshirt.
    “Psscht… I could say the same about girls,”
he said, rolling his eyes, but then he smiled. He wasn’t being
rude. He was trying to sympathize. “So who’s the guy you don’t
understand?”
    I bit my lip and then let out a sigh still
afraid to share. Luke waited intently and raised his eyebrows,
encouraging me to continue.
    “It’s Nicholas. He said he’d come by a week
ago and he hasn’t and then I ran into him last night. He was kinda
rude and said ‘ I can’t talk now’ and rushed away. I didn’t
expect him to be like that, so I don’t get it.”
    “Really,” he said, surprised. “Wow. I thought
he was a cool guy. I wonder what happened.”
    “Me too.”
    “Well, it sounds like he’s blowing you
off.”
    “You think so?” I said disappointed.
    “I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. I wasn’t
there.”
    “Why do you think he did that?”
    “Heck if I know, but you can’t just sit
around here and hope he’s going to come and see you. You need to
move on, have