Remember that tingly feeling I had before Peaches’ first phone call? The one that told me something was going to happen? Well, I felt it again, as I walked up the steps to my house. Only this time it didn’t feel so good.

“Hey! Where is everybody?” I called as I opened the front door. The Volvo wasn’t in the driveway. Both cars were gone from the garage, and there were hardly any lights on in the house. “Peaches? Mom? Anybody?” I shouted.

I heard a loud sniff from the kitchen, so I headed that way. The tiny light shone from above the stove. A figure was sitting in the half darkness with her hand on the phone.

“Janine?” A knot had formed in my stomach and it was getting tighter by the second. “Is something wrong?”

Janine raised her head to look at me. I could see a tear stain on her cheek. “Oh, Claudia! It’s so sad.”

“What?” I practically shouted. “Tell me. What’s sad?”

“Peaches lost the baby.”

“Oh, no!” I gasped. “When did it happen? How?”

“Peaches was all by herself this afternoon when she started to feel bad. She knew something was wrong, so she called Russ. He got here at the same time that I did and rushed Peaches to the hospital.”

“Do Mom and Dad know?”

Janine nodded. “They’d gone out to lunch but I phoned them at the restaurant and they hurried over to meet Peaches and Russ at the hospital.” She gestured to the phone and added, “Mom just called and told me the news.”

“Poor Peaches.” My eyes started to burn with tears. “And poor Russ.”

“They wanted this baby so badly,” Janine said, almost to herself. “I don’t know what went wrong.”

Suddenly I had this really terrible thought. I had been rotten to Peaches, and she had been seriously upset with me. What if all of that emotional turmoil had made her have a miscarriage? Then it would be my fault. I slumped down in a chair and put my head in my hands. “Oh, no. Oh, this is just too awful.”

Janine and I sat in the darkness for at least an hour. Mostly we were quiet. Now and then we talked a little, about how unfair life could be. My insides ached. I wanted to tell Janine my fear — that I might have been responsible for the miscarriage — but the thought was too awful to even say out loud.

Finally Mom and Dad came home. When Janine and I heard their car turn into the driveway, we hurried to the front door. “Is Peaches all right?” I asked, fearing the worst.

Mom nodded grimly. “She’s out of danger, but the doctors decided to keep her at the hospital overnight for observation. Russ feels certain that she’ll be able to come home tomorrow.”

“How’s he handling this?” Janine asked.

“Russ is coping,” Dad replied. “Of course, he’s sad about the baby, but mostly he’s worried about Peaches. So he’s staying with her until visiting hours are over.”

“Do they know why this happened?” I asked in a tiny voice.

Mom shook her head. “We’ll know more later.”

I wanted to confess to Mom that I knew what had happened, but I didn’t have the courage. Instead I sat in the living room with everyone else. The silence was horrible. No one knew what to do or say. Mom and Dad didn’t even take off their coats but just sat there, thinking. Every now and then Mom would murmur, “I suppose I should make some dinner.” Then Dad or Janine would say, “I’m really not very hungry.” And no one would move.

Finally Russ came home, looking pretty tired. His eyes were red and puffy, which meant he had probably been crying. When he saw us sitting there, he said, “I think you could use some good news.”

“Do you have any?” I managed to ask.

Russ took off his coat and held it in his lap as he sat on the arm of the couch. “The doctors say that Peaches is absolutely fine, and that this … this was just one of those things. They feel certain that we can try again.” Russ stared at his coat. “Though I think we may wait quite awhile.”

Mom and Dad looked at him and murmured, “We understand.”

I still had that knot in my stomach. I knew it wouldn’t go away until I talked to Peaches. The night was long and bleak. Russ was too restless to sleep. Somewhere around eleven o’clock he put his coat on and drove back to the hospital. “I just want to be there if Peaches wakes up,” I heard him explain to Mom.

I tried to sleep, but tossed and turned all night. The awful things I’d said to Peaches echoed over and over again in my head. And I couldn’t stop thinking about the baby.

Late Sunday morning Russ brought Peaches back from the hospital. Mom met her at the front door. They didn’t say much, but held each other tight. Dad told Peaches how sorry we all were, and she nodded that she understood. Janine and I stood in the background waiting for a chance to say something.

“I think you ought to rest now,” Russ said to Peaches, ushering her toward the den.

“Yes, of course,” Mom said. “We’ll get out of your way.”

“If you need anything,” Dad said, “just —”

“I know,” Peaches cut in. She looked at us and smiled weakly. “Thanks, everybody. Don’t worry, I’m all right.”

And then they went into the den.

We all went through the motions of acting like everything was normal but, of course, it wasn’t. Mom and Janine went into the kitchen to make lunch, and Dad took Russ to the drugstore to have a prescription filled. I knew Peaches was resting and I shouldn’t disturb her, but I didn’t know when I’d have another chance to talk to her alone. I tiptoed toward the den and peered inside.

Peaches was lying on her side on the couch, hugging a pillow in her arms. Russ had tucked a blue-and-green afghan around her legs. I saw that her eyes were closed and I started to move away, but I must have made a noise because she opened them and smiled.

“Hi, Claud,” she said.

“Hi.”

My voice cracked and Peaches sat up gingerly. “Claudia, are you okay?”

I couldn’t hold it in any longer. The words tumbled out of my mouth in a rush.

“Oh, Peaches, I am so sorry! It was all my fault.”

“What are you talking about?”

“If I hadn’t been so selfish and terrible, you never would have gotten upset.” I threw myself into Peaches’ arms and sobbed. “I know I made you lose the baby. I’d do anything to take it all back.”

Peaches wrapped her arms around me and held me tight. For a long time we just cried about the lost baby. About our friendship. About everything.

“Oh, Claudia, my Claudia,” Peaches murmured as she stroked my hair. I closed my eyes. She sounded and felt like Mimi. Sweet, comforting Mimi. “You must understand. This wasn’t your fault. It was nobody’s fault.”

“It wasn’t?” I asked, still holding tight.

“No. It was nature’s way of saying that something was wrong. Even though it doesn’t seem that way now, it was probably for the best.”

Her voice caught a little when she said those words, and I realized that Peaches was trying to convince herself that they were true.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. “Before all of this happened, I was going to apologize to you —”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Peaches cut in.

“Yes, I do,” I said, firmly. “You see, I realized how important your friendship was to me and that I hadn’t been acting like a very good friend. In fact, you were right when you called me a sulky teenager.”

“Oh, Claudia, I only said that in anger.”

“I know, but you were right to be angry. Wait here.”

I gestured for Peaches to stay seated on the couch. I ran to my room, taking the stairs two at a time. I opened the door to my closet. There in the corner was the baby blanket.

“See?” I said, bursting back into the den a minute later. I held up the knitting needles, with the two inches of lavender blanket still attached. “I was knitting this for the baby. I worked on it even after our fight, so how angry could I have been?”

“Let me see that,” Peaches said softly.

I handed Peaches my knitting project. It hardly looked like a blanket. More like a skinny scarf.

“Mary Anne has been teaching me,” I explained. “And … well … Mimi taught Mary Anne.”

Peaches took the needles and yarn and hugged them gently to her chest. Then she looked at me with moist eyes. “Mimi would be very proud of you.”

I nodded, feeling a giant lump forming in my throat. “I’m going to keep working on this blanket. When it’s finished, it will be for the next baby.”

When I said “next baby,” Peaches wrapped her arms around me again. “Thank you, Claudia,” she said, barely choking out the words. “I hope there will be another baby.”

“There will,” I said through my tears. “I just know it.”