The Three of Us

51. The Night Before Leaving

When Gilbert heard Anne's stomach growling, he said, "I suppose I better get you home."

"I don't want to go home," Anne whispered.

"But-"

"I don't ever want to leave." She could not take her eyes off of Mr. Blythe's still figure.

Gilbert took her hand. "All right. At least let me make you something to eat."

Once Anne was sitting down at the kitchen table with meatloaf and mashed potatoes leftover from dinner, Gilbert said, "So tomorrow's the day, eh? How do you feel?"

"I wish I could stay here and have it," Anne said despondently. Her eyes fell to the newspaper on the kitchen table. "Oh no," she breathed.

"What?" Gilbert asked, alarmed.

Anne held up the paper in front of her, closing her eyes as if expecting something to bite her. Finally she opened them, and felt her heart drop to her feet as she read,

"Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Fletchley of 1647 East Price Hill, are delighted to announce the stork has blessed them with a visit this Friday past. A vision of heaven, the little tyke weighs in at nine lbs., 6 oz. and arrived with a mop of golden curls. The happy couple will have the baby christened 'Gregory' on July the 13."

Anne thought she might cry.

Gilbert knew the problem right away. "Darling, that's just a little local paper. They love printing things like that- that's all the news there is! Look, here, at this paper. Cities don't have the space- or the inclination- to print things like that. See-"

Anne tried to calm herself. She'd never get tired of hearing Gilbert calling her darling.

Gilbert opened the other paper there, and laid it flat in front of her. "Look," he said, running his finger down a long column of tiny print.

DAUGHTER, born to Mr. and Mrs. A.A. Shipley, 17 June.

SON, born to Mr. and Mrs. Edward L. Adams, 23 June.

SON, born to Mr. and Mrs. Ellison McHughes, 24 June.

DAUGHTER, born to Mr. and Mrs. R.K. Peters, June 24.

"It's tiny," Anne breathed, relieved. "All right, maybe it's good I'll have it in a far away city. No one will pay much notice to it, or that there's no Mr. listed in it."

Before Gilbert could respond, Anne blurted out, "But I don't want to go on the train because I don't want anyone to see me. This is just dreadfully humiliating! Gilbert, I tried to put my hair up and look older, but it didn't work! ...Everyone who sees me on the train- and, oh, no, at the hospital too!- they're all going to stare at me. Trains and hospitals are such busy places, all full of people..."

Gilbert put his arm around her. He rubbed her back for a second before saying, "In a hospital, things are busy. No one's going to pay that much attention to you. They'll be concerned with their own affairs. There will be lots of other patients. You said it yourself."

Anne sighed. She leaned on him for a moment and then said, "That's true. I suppose people will be busy. But...I stick out like a sore thumb. Once someone notices me, they'll probably point at me and whisper and then word will spread and everyone will be staring."

"The only thing that matters is safety," he told her. "Anne, if anyone looks at you, so what- you'll probably never see them again. Right? But you being safe- and the baby- that's the important thing."

Anne sighed. "I know. I guess." She rubbed her belly for a moment. The Thing just needs to come out, in one piece, and not kill me in the process. That's all that matters."

"The Thing," Gilbert repeated. "Don't let Miss Cuthbert hear you! I thought you were done with that."

"I am. I don't know why I said it," Anne told him. She rubbed her belly again. "I'm sorry," she told it, looking down at her belly. "You're not a Thing, and I really do want you, I want you a lot."

Gilbert looked surprised.

Anne mouthed to him, "I have to keep it on my good side."

He smiled, trying not to laugh, and squeezed her to him.

After he took Anne home, he spent the rest of the evening sitting in his father's bedroom, watching him breath.

Finally, he decided he needed to get up and move around, and get his mind on something. He could not stop thinking of Anne, and so he read perhaps the worst thing he could have read at a time like this- Maidenhood and Motherhood, the book by Dr. John D. West, which he'd ordered all those weeks ago.

He worried about Anne traveling tomorrow. Was there anything that could be done to make traveling safer? He searched until he found something about traveling:

"A peculiar condition of the nervous system is created by the vibratory motion of railway coaches or even on streetcars, which induces vomiting."

Gilbert thought to himself, The last thing Anne needs is to feel sick on the way there. ...She likely already will.

"This vomiting may rupture the very delicate membrane by which the foetus is attached to the inner surface of the womb. The result is inordinate flooding, followed by-"

Followed by what? Gilbert, with trepidation, turned the page:

"a miscarriage."

Gilbert stared at the book for a long moment. Then he stood up and went back into his dad's room, hoping that maybe he was awake.

But he wasn't.

His father had always been there, always listening, understanding- always knowing how to calm Gilbert's fears. Gilbert wished that he could talk to his father about this. Suddenly feeling so terribly alone, Gilbert climbed onto the bed and lay down next to his dad.

He stayed there for a long time.