14

“If it’s a boy,” Bitsy said, “I’d like to name him Sailor. And if it’s a girl, Lula. Only if it’s all right with you, of course.”

Pace said nothing. He was sitting at his desk and was actually in the middle of writing a sentence when Bitsy entered the cottage without knocking and told him this. Her announcement, Pace realized, was not totally unexpected by him. At least she had not suggested that the child, whether it was male or female, be named Pace.

Bitsy stood next to him, caressing her swollen belly with her right hand. The fingers of her left hand were entwined in her hair, which she had let grow long. Bitsy’s honey-colored hair was not only longer now but more lustrous. She had never looked better to Pace but for some reason he fought the feeling.

“Come on, Pace, tell me what you think. Even though I didn’t know your parents, I feel like I almost do through you. What you’ve told me and the way you are. Also, I love their names.”

Pace stared at Bitsy, looking her over up and down. Most women, he thought, became more beautiful when they were pregnant, even if they didn’t think so, and Bitsy was no exception. Her color was richer due to the twenty-five percent more blood in her body. She glowed. This was not the same woman with whom he had made love.

Finally, Pace said, “Have you asked Del what he thinks?”

Bitsy nodded. “I have. He’s happy leavin’ the namin’ to me.”

“It’s okay, I guess.”

Bitsy pushed herself up against Pace and kissed him on the top of his head.

“Thank you, darlin’,” she said. “It’ll mean a lot to me, just like you do.”

Pace placed his right hand over hers. She put it under her own, on her stomach.

“That’s little Lula or Sailor kickin’ in there, Pace. Ain’t it just thrillin’ knowin’ that?”

“It’s still a little hard to believe.”

“Not for me,” said Bitsy.

After she left, Pace looked at his interrupted sentence. “Men got a kind of automatic shutoff valve” Lula was telling Sailor. Pace wrote: “in their head? Like, you’re talkin’ to one and just gettin’ to the part where you’re gonna say what you really been wantin’ to say, and then you say it and you look at him and he ain’t even heard it. Not like it’s too complicated or somethin’, just he ain’t about to really listen.”

Pace stopped writing and looked out the window in front of his desk. A large crow landed in the yard and stared so hard and fixedly at him that Pace turned away. When he looked again, the crow had gone and a little rain was falling.