Second Chance Pass Read Free Page A

that?”
    “Thanks,” Vanni said.
    A few minutes later Mel was back. “Your dad took the baby over to Jack’s for a cup of coffee. And some male bonding, I suppose.”
    Vanni had taken her place on the exam table, and Mel checked her heart, blood pressure, and got her in position for a pelvic. “Everything looks great. You had a wonderful delivery, Vanni—you’re in excellent shape. And boy, did you lose weight quickly. Isn’t breast-feeding a miracle?”
    “I’m not back in my old jeans yet.”
    “I bet you’re close. Go ahead, sit up,” Mel said, offering a hand. “Anything we should talk about?”
    “Lots of things. Can I ask you something personal?”
    “You can always ask,” Mel said while writing in the chart.
    “I know that before you married Jack, you were widowed…”
    Mel stopped writing. She closed the chart and looked at Vanni with a sympathetic smile. “I’ve been expecting this conversation,” she said.
    “How long was it?” Vanni asked, and Mel knew exactly what she was referring to.
    “I met Jack nine months after my husband’s death. I married him six months later. And if you confer with the town historian and gossips, you’ll learn that I was at least three months pregnant at the time. Closer to four.”
    “We have a town historian?”
    “About six hundred of them,” Mel said with a laugh. “If you have anything you’d like to keep secret, you should consider moving to another town.”
    “Matt’s only been dead a few months, but he’s been gone almost a year… Mel, he wasn’t on a business trip. He was in combat, out of touch. I talked to him a total of three times, saw his face once on live video cam. Theletters were short and sparse. It’s been a really long time since—”
    Mel touched Vanni’s knee. “There’s no rule of thumb on this, Vanessa. Everything I’ve read, and I’ve read a lot about widowhood, says that when people enter new relationships relatively soon after losing a spouse, it indicates they had happiness in their marriage. Being married was a good experience for them.” She smiled.
    “I didn’t even know for sure I was pregnant when Matt left for Iraq last May. I’m not thinking about another marriage, of course,” Vanni said. “But I am thinking about—Well, what I’m thinking is that I don’t want to be alone forever.”
    “Of course you shouldn’t be alone forever. You have a lot of life to live.”
    Vanni smiled. “Should I be thinking about birth control?”
    “We can talk about that. You wouldn’t want to be as unprepared as your midwife. Especially with having a baby to take care of. Believe me.” She took a breath and ran a hand over her big belly. “I wouldn’t let myself think ahead! I remember when my sister said, ‘I know widows who have remarried, and are happy.’ I almost took her head off. I was appalled. I wasn’t at all hopeful life could go on.”
    “It sure went on for you,” Vanni said.
    “Boy howdy. I came here absolutely determined to live out my days lonely and miserable, but that damn Jack—he ambushed me. I think I fell in love with him the minute I met him, but I fought it. As though I might somehow be unfaithful to my husband’s memory by moving on, which was absurd. I had the kind of husband who would have wanted me to have love in my life, and I bet you did, too.”
    “You don’t send a man off to war without talking a few things through—my parents taught me that. One of the first ways Tom and I figured out the general was headed for apossible deployment was when the paperwork came out. Wills, trusts, etcetera. Not just in case something happened to him, but what if he was away in some jungle or desert war zone and something happened to Mom?” She smiled a bit wistfully. “Matt didn’t dwell on the worst-case scenario, but he was quick and to the point. He said I wasn’t the type to wallow and he’d be disappointed in me if I did. He had a few requests—where he wanted to be buried,