Heartwood by Belva Plain Read Free Book Online Page B

not let the boy she loved die.
    She didn’t want to be a pregnant bride, she was her mother’s daughter and Nana’s granddaughter after all. But after the wedding, without really admitting what they were doing, she and Robby started taking chances. Laura had never gone on the pill like some girls, Robby had always been the one who took “the precautions,” as he called it. But now he was less careful than he had been. And she didn’t stop him. That was all it took. One month after they’d moved out to the archaeological dig in New Mexico, Laura and Robby knew that he wouldn’t be going into the army after all. There was a baby on the way.

Chapter Five

    L aura got up, and carried the overnight bag full of cooking utensils, along with the bulky springform pan, into the kitchen. She was going to have to repack the bag, and find a way to fit in the pan, or she’d have to leave something else home—maybe her whisks or her copper bowl—even though she knew her mother didn’t have either. As she dumped everything out onto the countertop she went back to her thoughts.
    If Theo and Iris had suspected that Robby’s draft status had anything to do with Laura’s “accidental” pregnancy they’d kept it to themselves. They had simply sent a loving note of congratulations to the young couple in New Mexico, and renewed their offer of financial assistance—and Laura had rejected it again. But Robby’s father had come to his own conclusions and he sent his son a four-page letter in which he called Robby a gutless traitor, half a man and a coward hiding behind a woman’s skirts. To Laura’s amazement the vitriol from his father devastatedRobby. She couldn’t believe the man had that much influence over her husband. But when she looked back on it later she would realize that letter had seriously damaged Robby’s spirit. It had torn at his self-esteem. Maybe it was because Robby feared his father was right. Or maybe it was just that children are never immune to attacks from their parents.
    Laura had tried to comfort her husband as much as she could, but the truth was, she was struggling too. In all of her charmed, happy-go-lucky life she had never been as miserable as she was during that summer in New Mexico.
    She and Robby had rented an ancient trailer near the dig where Robby would be working. They would live in the desert for three months, as would Professor Hawkins and the rest of his students and volunteers. Robby would be the professor’s right-hand man, and Laura had signed on as a volunteer. At the end of the summer, the dig would close down until the following year, and the professor and his students would return to the San Fernando Valley and the small but prestigious school—Custis University—which sponsored the dig. This was where Hawkins taught and Robby would begin studying for his PhD.
    When Robby and Laura had first made all these plans for the summer, it was right after their wedding, and Robby, who had volunteered on digs before, had warned Laura that conditions could get primitive.
    “You know this is my first time working with Hawkins,” he’d said. “But I’ve been told by some of the other guys that it’s no picnic. Deserts always get boiling hot during the day and freezing cold at night, and this site is smack in the heart of the desert. There will be bugs and snakes and some really nasty critters.”
    “Critters?” she’d mimicked him. “Did you actually say ‘critters’?”
    “Wise guy! But you get the picture. And the trailer isn’t going to be a luxury hotel.”
    “I can take it, don’t worry about me.”
    But Laura had said that before she became pregnant. Before the morning sickness that lasted all day. Before her energy seemed to drain out of her, leaving her continually exhausted. She hadn’t expected to feel like that. Her mother had always had an easy time with her pregnancies; she’d been one of those women who actually did glow. And even now, after all these years,