Twelve Days by TERESA HILL Page A

anything that had happened to her in the last twelve years.
    Maybe Sam never really loved her at all.
    She might have stayed right there worrying, but she heard the baby fussing and before she could get up, Sam appeared in the doorway with a sniffling baby Grace in his arms.
    "I heard her crying," he said. "I assume she's hungry."
    Rachel glanced at the clock. It was six-ten. She had no idea when the baby normally woke up and ate, but it seemed reasonable that this was the time.
    "I made a couple of bottles last night and put them in the refrigerator." Rachel started to get up. "I just need to warm one up."
    "I'll get it. You stay here." Sam put the baby in the bed beside her. "It's still early. She might go back to sleep, once she's fed."
    "Thanks," she said.
    Grace settled in beside her, tucked into her side, and hiccupped and fussed a bit more and then just stared up at Rachel. It was nice, she decided, having a warm, soft baby in bed with her early in the morning.
    "You must have been so scared," Rachel crooned to her, the baby's eyes focusing in on her face, as if taking in everything Rachel had to say. "To wake up in a strange place, in that odd little crib. Not knowing where you are or where your mommy is.
    "But we're going to take good care of you. I promise. Sam's bringing your bottle, and then we'll give you a bath, and we'll find you something warm to wear. Today we're going shopping. We'll find you such gorgeous things. Something pink, I was thinking. Do you like pink, Grace? It'll be perfect against your little pink cheeks and your mouth."
    Grace purred up at her, still fascinated, blinking sleepily and stretching some more. This was the way Rachel had dreamed she'd spend her mornings, curled up in her bed in the first flush of dawn with a drowsy, hungry baby beside her, here in her house with her husband.
    But they'd never had that. Rachel still felt guilty about the baby she'd lost not long after she and Sam got married. There'd been complications and she'd hemorrhaged badly. In the heat of the moment, the doctors felt they had no alternative but a hysterectomy, which meant there would be no more children. Not from her body. She felt as if her body had betrayed her, as if she'd let Sam down and her life had taken a wrong turn way back then, and she'd never been able to get it back on track.
    Grace cooed up at her. The baby batted her hand against Rachel's, and Rachel fought back tears as she tried once again to soothe her.
    "You're so adorable. I just don't know how anybody could walk away from someone like you," she said.
    Rachel hadn't been able to walk away, not from the memory of her daughter or from Sam. Her father had wanted her to go to college in the fall, as she would have the year before if not for Sam and the baby. But Rachel couldn't. Her grandfather was getting weaker by then, and he needed Rachel. So did Sam. He worked like a demon at his job and on the house. Rachel helped him, took care of her grandfather, and told herself that someday there would be children. Except it had never worked out, and here she was thirty years old and childless, about to be husbandless. It seemed she would be starting all over again, just as her father had urged her to do, except she'd do it at thirty instead of eighteen.
    Rachel had no idea how to even begin.
    "I guess you're starting over, too," she told the baby, brushing her cheek against Grace's. "And we have things to do, you know. We have to decorate the house for Christmas, because Zach's worried that Santa isn't coming, although I'm sure he is. It's no telling what he'll bring you. I'm sure you've been such a good girl."
    Grace shoved the side of her fist into her mouth and started sucking furiously, but stayed quiet except for the noises she made trying to satisfy her hunger.
    "I know," Rachel sympathized. "I'm sure you're just about to starve. But Sam's coming. We'll get your tummy all nice and full and everything will look better then, I promise,