They didn't talk much. Susan couldn't bear to speculate on what it meant for Sunny and Pam to be sitting this out, she was tired of thinking about the Gazette, and when Kate asked if she had talked with her mother since returning, she just shook her head.

They did discuss wool. That was acceptable.

Babies were not. But two little grandbabies must have been with them in spirit, because the colorway Susan and Kate worked up first was Robin At Dawn, which contained reds, browns, pinks, and blues-far more of the last two than Susan had expected, though hers was the hand that poured the dye. And even then, when Kate made a comment about Monday being the big day, Susan didn't follow.

"Lily's sonogram," Kate prompted. "Mary Kate and Jess are all fired up about it. They're still betting it's a girl. What do you think?"

"I think," Susan began but faltered. She had so much else on her mind besides a baby. "I think I'm still not ready. Are you?"

"No. I'm glad Lily's first."

They worked on a bit before, anguished, Susan stopped. "I used to fantasize about inviting my parents to Lily's wedding. She'd be marrying a great guy; they'd be an absolutely beautiful couple. And then when kids came, and I could tell my parents that they were going to be great-grandparents-wow, that would have been something. Now Dad's gone, Mom's not talking to me, Lily is doing exactly what they wouldn't want, and my job is on the line. How awful is that?"

Chapter 20

Susan began Monday with mixed feelings. On one hand, she was not looking forward to the sonogram. Sonograms made babies real. She wanted Lily's to stay abstract for a while longer, at least until she got the rest of her own life straightened out.

But she loved Lily, and since Lily was beside herself with excitement, Susan couldn't help but catch some of her mood. In Lily's mind, it was like the first day of kindergarten or the night before Christmas. The hospital where she had her appointment was a thirty-minute drive from Zaganack, and she chatted the whole way.

"They take pictures during the sonogram, did you know that, Mom? We get to take them home-and I know she'll look Martian, but she's four and a half inches long now. I'm going to frame the pictures. I mean, I am going to take pictures constantly once this baby's born, but these will be the very first. You waited to learn the sex."

"Lots of parents still choose to wait."

"Not me. I want to know for sure. Actually, they may not be able to tell me today. It depends on the baby's position. Thank goodness I'm this far along." She crinkled her nose. "I wouldn't like having the sonogram done transvaginally-I mean, I'd be okay with it, but transabdominal is more comfortable, and I think they can see more this way because they can move the probe more to get a better view. Doesn't that make sense, Mom? I mean, it'll be so much easier when the baby gets bigger. Mary Kate wanted to come, but I told her no. This time's just for you and me. That's how it should be, don't you think?"

You should be twenty-five and married, and your husband should be the one driving you, Susan thought. But she was coming to accept that these things weren't to be. The baby was something else. Bracing for the reality of it, she was feeling flutters in her own stomach when the sonogram began. Lily lay on a table with the small swell of her abdomen exposed. The technician squirted a gel, spread it with the transducer, and images soon appeared on the screen. Reaching for Susan's hand, Lily drew her close to the head of the table, but the images were hard to decipher. The technician was patient, explaining what she saw, and suddenly Lily gasped.

"Omigod. Look, Mom!"

Susan felt the same amazement. Even in a grainy image, the blotch on the screen had become a baby. Moving her probe, the tech was able to show them its profile-eyes, nose, mouth-primitive but distinct-and familiar, though Susan would have been hard-pressed to say which one feature was Lily's. The tech took a picture, adjusted her equipment, and pointed out arms and legs. But the second Susan knew she was lost was when she saw the pulsing point of a beating heart.

This was why she hadn't wanted to hear the heartbeat before; a heartbeat meant life. She remembered the first time she'd heard it when she was carrying Lily. It had been the moment Susan truly realized she was a mother.

And now? In an instant, Susan's perspective changed. It was no longer about her teenage daughter being pregnant. Now it was about her daughter's child-her own grandchild-a very real human being. Susan felt pure awe.

The technician fiddled with the transducer, moved it higher, then to the left. She made a puzzled sound, to which Lily asked a worried, "Can you not see the sex?"

The woman repositioned the transducer. Susan kept her eyes on the monitor but saw nothing recognizable.

"You sure you want to know?" the woman asked, and when Lily cried an excited yes, she said, "See this?" She pointed to the screen. Susan squinted. "If I were to guess, I'd say you have a little boy in here."

A little boy. Not what Lily wanted. Susan looked at her daughter, and yes, those were tears in the girl's eyes, a brief "Oh" of disappointment-then a brilliant smile.

"A boy," she said, testing the word. "That's okay, that's okay. Mary Kate will die. She wanted a boy until Jess and I bugged her so much she changed her mind. So much for having another generation of girls."

If the remarks registered with the technician, she didn't comment. She was moving the transducer again, first one way, pressing a little, then another, and all the while her eyes were on the screen. She was looking for something.

"What do you see?" Susan finally asked.

"I'm not sure."

Lily picked up on Susan's concern. "Is something wrong?"

"I'm just trying to get another view," the tech said, but her voice was hesitant.

"You're not sure it's a boy?"

Susan didn't think it was that. Her gut told her that the tech saw something else. "What is it?" she asked.

Setting the transducer aside, the woman gave them a quick smile. "It's likely just me. My eye isn't trained well enough. Let me get the radiologist. He'll know."

As soon as the woman was gone, Lily turned large eyes on Susan. "She's worried, but how can something be wrong? I mean, I'm young, I'm healthy, I feel great."

Susan held her hand. "Everything's probably fine, but the reason they do these sonograms is to detect even the smallest little thing."

"Like what?"

"You'd know that more than me, sweetie. You're the one who's done all this research."

"Down syndrome. But there are serious calculations involved, and she wasn't doing any, so maybe she saw something structural, but everything that was supposed to be there was there, wasn't it?"

"Absolutely," Susan said. "I'm sure it's nothing."

"What if it isn't?"

"If it isn't, we'll deal."

The technician returned with the radiologist, who introduced himself, then said calmly, "Let's take a look," and picked up the transducer. Susan studied the monitor, trying to decipher something, but all she could identify was that little heart beating what she thought was a totally normal beat.

Finally, the radiologist pointed at the screen. "This is the baby's chest. I see the intestines," he moved the tip of a pencil, "and the kidneys, but they look to be outside the abdominal cavity."

Lily's hand started to tremble. Holding it tighter, Susan asked, "What does that mean?"

He moved the transducer again, but Susan couldn't see anything this time either. When he paused, he didn't look relieved. "This isn't uncommon. It happens once in about every twenty-five hundred births. We call it a congenital diaphragmatic hernia."

"Please explain," Susan said, knowing Lily would ask if she'd been able to speak.

"The diaphragm is a muscle between the abdominal cavity and the chest. It forms at the eight-week point, but occasionally it has a hole. When that happens, organs that would normally be in the abdominal cavity are not."

"His organs are outside his body?" Lily wailed.

"No. They're inside. They're just in the chest cavity, not the abdomen."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that there's less room for the lungs to form, so one or both may not fully develop."

"My baby will die?"

"No. There are different severities of CDH, and even for the most severe, the survival rate is continually getting better. But I don't know for sure that this is CDH. We'll know more in a few weeks."

"Weeks?" If there was a problem, Susan wanted to act.

The doctor remained calm. "The baby's in no immediate danger. Right now, it breathes through the placenta. Typically, we monitor the fetus to confirm its condition and see if it worsens."