Remember Me by Mary Higgins Clark Page B

it were seven-thirty and he could call Menley. He would wait till then, since the baby was usually sleeping past seven now.
    A smile flickered on his lips as he thought of Menley and Hannah. His family. The miracle of Hannah’s birth three months ago. The grief of losing Bobby finally beginning to ease for both of them. A year ago at this time he’d been at the Cape alone and wouldn’t have bet a nickel that their marriage would survive. He’d spoken to a counselor about it and had been told that the death of a child frequently caused the end of the marriage. The counselor had said there was so much pain the parents sometimes couldn’t exist under the same roof.
    Adam had begun to think that maybe it would be better for both of them to start over separately. ThenMenley had phoned and Adam knew he desperately wanted their marriage to work.
    Menley’s pregnancy had been uneventful. He had been with her in the labor room. She’d been in a lot of pain but doing great. Then from down the hall they could hear a woman screaming. The change in Menley had been dramatic. Her face went ashen. Those enormous blue eyes grew even larger, then she had covered them with her hands. “No . . . no . . . help me, please,” she had cried, as she trembled and sobbed. The tension in her body dramatically increased the strength of the contractions, the difficulty of the birth.
    And when Hannah was finally born, and the doctor had laid her in Menley’s arms in the delivery room, incredibly she had pushed her away. “I want Bobby,” she had sobbed. “I want Bobby.”
    Adam had taken the baby and held her against his neck, whispering, “It’s all right, Hannah. We love you, Hannah,” as though he was afraid she could understand Menley’s words.
    Later Menley had told him, “At the moment they gave her to me, I was reliving holding Bobby after the accident. It was the first time I really knew what I’d felt at that moment.”
    That was the beginning of what the doctors called the post-traumatic stress disorder. The first month had been very difficult. Hannah had started out as a colicky infant who screamed for hours. They’d had a live-in nurse, but one afternoon when the nurse was on an errand, the baby had started shrieking. Adam came home to find Menley sitting on the floor by the crib, pale and trembling, her fingers in her ears. But miraculously a formula change turned Hannah into a sunny baby, and Menley’s anxiety attacks for the most part passed.
    I still shouldn’t have left her alone so soon, Adamthought. I should have insisted that at least the baby-sitter stay over.
    At seven o’clock he couldn’t wait any longer. He phoned the Cape.
    The sound of Menley’s voice brought a rush of relief. “Her nibs get you up early, honey?”
    â€œJust a bit. We like the morning.”
    There was something in Menley’s voice. Adam bit back the question that came too easily to his lips. You okay? Menley resented his hovering over her.
    â€œI’ll be up on the four o’clock flight. Want to get Amy to mind Hannah and we’ll go out to dinner?”
    Hesitation. What was wrong? But then Menley said, “That sounds great. Adam . . .”
    â€œWhat is it, honey?”
    â€œNothing. Just that we miss you.”
    When he hung up, Adam called the airline. “Is there any earlier flight I can get on?” he asked. He would be out of court by noon. There was a one-thirty flight he might be able to make.
    Something was wrong, and the worst part of it was that Menley wasn’t going to tell him what it was.

17
    E laine Atkins’ real estate office was on Main Street in Chatham. Location, location, location, she thought as a passerby stopped to look at the pictures that shehad taken of available homes. Since she’d moved to Main Street, the drop-in traffic had improved dramatically, and