"Well, on a lighter note of my own, Dr. Wadley's invited us to his home for dinner tonight. I told him I'd have to ask you. What do you think?"
"Do you want to go?" David asked.
"I know we have a lot to do at home, but I think we should go. He's being so thoughtful and generous. I don't want to appear ungrateful."
"What about Nikki?" David asked.
"That's another piece of good news," Angela said. "I found out from one of the lab technicians that Barton Sherwood has a daughter in high school who does a lot of sitting. They are our closest neighbors. I called and she's eager to come over."
"Think Nikki will mind?" David asked.
"I already asked her," Angela said. "She said she didn't care and that she's looking forward to meeting Karen Sherwood. She's one of the cheerleaders."
"Then let's go," David said.
Just before seven Karen Sherwood arrived. David let her in. He wouldn't have guessed she was a cheerleader. She was a thin, quiet young woman who unfortunately looked a lot like her father. Yet she was pleasant and intuitive. When she was introduced to Nikki she was smart enough to say she loved dogs, especially puppies.
While David drove Angela finished putting on her makeup. David could tell she was tense, and he tried to reassure her that everything would be fine and that she looked terrific. When they pulled up to the Wadley home, both were impressed. The house wasn't as grand as theirs, but it was in far better condition and the grounds were immaculate.
"Welcome," Wadley said as he threw open his front door to greet the Wilsons.
The inside of the house was even more impressive than the outside. Every detail had been attended to. Antique furniture stood on thick oriental carpets. Pastoral nineteenth-century paintings adorned the walls.
Gertrude Wadley and her courtly husband were significantly different people, lending credence to the saying "opposites attract." She was a retiring, mousy woman who had little to say. It was as if she'd been submerged by her husband's personality.
Their teenage daughter, Cassandra, seemed more like her mother initially, but as the evening progressed, she became more like her outgoing father.
But it was Wadley who dominated the evening. He pontificated on a number of subjects. And he clearly doted on Angela. At one point he looked skyward and thanked the fates that he had been rewarded with such a competent team now that Angela had arrived.
"One thing is for sure," David said as they drove home, "Dr. Wadley is thrilled with you. Of course, I can't blame him."
Angela snuggled up to her husband.
Arriving home, David accompanied Karen across the fields to her home, even though she insisted she'd be fine. When David got back, Angela met him at the door in lingerie she hadn't worn since their honeymoon.
"It looks better now when I'm not pregnant," Angela said. "Don't you agree?"
"It looked great then and it looks great now."
Stealing into the semi-dark living room, they lowered themselves onto the couch. Slowly and tenderly they made love again. Without the frenzy of the previous evening, it was even more satisfying and fulfilling.
Once they were through, they held each other and listened to the symphony of chirping crickets and croaking frogs.
"We've made love more here in the last two days than in the previous two months in Boston," Angela said with a sigh.
"We've been under a lot of stress."
"It makes me wonder about another child," Angela said.
David moved so that he could make out Angela's profile in the darkness. "Really?" he asked.
"With a house this size, we could have a litter," Angela said with a little laugh.
"We'd want to know if the child had cystic fibrosis. I suppose we could always rely on amniocentesis."
"I suppose," Angela said without enthusiasm. "But what would we do if it were positive?"
"I don't know," David said. "It's scary. It's hard to know what the right thing to do is."
"Well, like Scarlett O'Hara said, let's think about it tomorrow."
8
Days melted into weeks and weeks into months as summer advanced. The sweet white corn grew chest-high across the road from the Wilsons' house and could be heard rustling in the evening breeze from the front porch. Plump tomatoes ripened to a deep red in the garden by the terrace. Crab apples the size of golf balls began to drop from the tree next to the barn. Cicadas buzzed incessantly in the midmorning August heat.
David and Angela's work continued to be stimulating and rewarding as they settled into their jobs. Each day brought some new experience that they enthusiastically shared with each other as they lingered over quiet suppers.
Rusty's appetite remained undiminished and a source of wonder as he grew quickly and with great exuberance, catching up to the size of his feet. Yet despite his growth he maintained the same adorable quality he'd had as a tiny puppy. Everyone found it impossible to pass him without offering a pat on the head or a scratch behind a golden ear.
Nikki flourished in the new environment. Her respiratory status remained normal and her lungs stayed clear. She also made new friends. She was closest to Caroline Helmsford by far; Caroline was a petite child a year older than Nikki who also suffered from cystic fibrosis. Having had so many unique experiences in common, the girls formed a particularly strong bond.
They had met quite by accident. Although the Wilsons had been told about Caroline on their first visit to Bartlet, they'd made no attempt to contact her. The two girls had bumped into each other in the local grocery' store which Caroline's parents owned and ran.
Nikki also befriended the Yansen boy, Arni, who happened to be exactly Nikki's age. Their birthdays were only a week apart. Arni was like his father: short, squarely built, and aggressive. He and Nikki hit it off and spent hours in and out of the barn, never at a loss for things to do.
As much as they loved their work, the Wilsons delighted in their weekends. Saturday mornings David rose with the sun to make hospital rounds, then played three-on-three basketball in the high school gym with a group of physicians.
Saturday and Sunday afternoons David and Angela devoted to work on the house. While Angela worked on the interior, busying herself with curtains and stripping old furniture, David tackled outdoor projects like fixing the porch or replacing the drainpipes. David proved even less handy than Angela had feared. He was forever running off to Staley's Hardware Store for more advice. Fortunately, Mr. Staley took pity on David and gave him many lectures on fixing broken screens, leaky faucets, and burned-out electrical switches.
On Saturday, the twenty-first of August, David got up early as usual, made himself coffee, and left for the hospital. Rounds went quickly since he only had to see one patient, John Tarlow, the leukemia victim. Like David's other oncology patients, John had to be hospitalized frequently for a variety of problems. This latest hospitalization resulted from an abscess on his neck. Fortunately, he was doing fine. David anticipated discharging him in the next few days.
After completing his rounds, David biked over to the high school for basketball. Entering the gym he discovered that there were more people than usual waiting to play. When David finally got into the game he noticed that the competition was fiercer than usual. The reason was that no one wanted to lose because the losers had to sit out.
David responded to the heightened competition by playing more vigorously himself. Coming down from a rebound, his elbow collided solidly with Kevin Yansen's nose.
David stopped mid-stride, turning in time to see Kevin cradling his nose in both hands. Blood was dripping between his fingers.
"Kevin," David called in alarm. "Are you all right?"
"Chrissake," Kevin snarled through his cupped hands. "You ass!"
"I'm sorry," David said. He felt embarrassed at his own aggressiveness. "Let me see." David reached out and tried to ease Kevin's hands away from his face.