Love is so strange, my dearest Joshua. It is a feeling I've not had nor scarce dreamed could exist in such intensity before you entered my life. Love is a craving hunger while it fills me to satiation like no mortal fare could ever satisfy. It pains and it heals, it wakens me while it lulls me to the most peaceful sleep imaginable. Just a touch, a smile from you can do so much to brighten my every day. I am miserable in your absence yet the simple memory of you is enough to sustain me during those interminably long intervals when we are apart. I know in my heart we can never truly be, and yet we are. Always. Verily this I know, with all my being. So in love says everyone....
Cynthia set down the page after reading the paragraph aloud to her husband. Fred was off to Miss. Worthington's so they were alone in the parlor. The fire ebbed to glowing coals in the silent old building and she snuggled against him.
"What a sad and tragic life poor Annie led."
"As intelligent as Annie Quincy was, I still have trouble rationalizing her exit. Suicide is cheating. It's a coward's way out. And she took an unborn child with her."
Cynthia didn't disagree as much as Dean expected. "She realized she had no future with the reverend. He was married-had children. She loved him too much to interfere in his life. The best she could hope for was a few hours in his arms. She had no self-image and was ashamed of being a prostitute." Cynthia turned and looked up at her husband. "Most of all, she feared for her baby."
"Are we going to have a baby?" he asked. They hadn't spoken of the possibility of Cynthia's pregnancy since the topic was first mentioned.
She shook her head. "I still don't know." "There's ways of finding that out, you know," he said, giving her a squeeze. She bit her lip. "I'm scared too. Like Annie, and Edith, if she really was pregnant. But I'm frightened for a far different reason."
He betrayed his surprise at her reply by his movement. He worded his response with caution. "It must make you concerned. Your age is pushing the envelope-"
"Careful...." she smiled.
He laughed. "Forty is beautiful! It's just that I'm concerned about your wellbeing. I can understand it must be scary to think of giving birth."
She pulled away and looked him in the eye. "I'm scared I might not be pregnant. I just want a little more time to bask in the beauty that perhaps I'm carrying a life. Your child. I know it's silly...."