The biggest downside to having a large delivery scheduled somewhere as remote as Bluebell and Konohana, I discovered, was the lack of phone service. The only places that had phones at all were the two town halls and the clinic. And even then, the phone lines were often down due to storms or fallen trees. So when the day for my furniture delivery arrived, I had no way of knowing when they'd be there. They had the number for the Bluebell town hall in case they got lost along the way, but I had to sit around and wait all day for them to show up.

Finally, late in the afternoon, a large truck came rumbling down my long, winding driveway. It pulled up to my house, and two men stepped out. The driver, a muscular middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair, walked up to the porch, exclaiming with a low whistle, "Whew, lady! They weren't joshin' when they said you live in the boonies! How do you do it, driving on those goddess-awful roads?"

I laughed as I took the paperwork he handed to me. "Well, I don't. There's a couple of people around here who have trucks, but mostly we get around either on foot or horseback. And honestly, we just don't leave the mountain very often. Some folks have never left it. We're pretty self-sufficient here."

He just shook his head as I signed on the lines he pointed out. "Well, ma'am, I don't envy you. But I guess it takes all sorts, don't it? Now where do you want all this? Service includes delivery into the house and any assembly that's required."

"Why don't you go ahead and start unloading, and I'll show you where the pieces go as you bring them in?"

It took a while, as several items needed some assembly, but they had nearly finished putting everything together by the time Cam arrived. He stepped gingerly around where they were working, putting the shelves in the bookcase, and admired the new furnishings.

"Gotta hand it to ya," commented the second delivery guy, a slim young man of perhaps twenty years or so, as he looked up with a grin. "Your missus has good taste. Knows exactly what she wants, too."

"My...." he said, looking bewildered for a moment. "Oh! No, we're not... I mean, we're separated."

"Oh, yeah?" said the boy, looking me up and down with keen interest, in spite of my swelling belly. "Hey, you doing anything tonight? I'm off work as soon as we're done here. I know some real fun places we could go."

Cam looked furious but held his tongue. I choked slightly, trying not to laugh out loud. "No, sorry. I'm not available."

He looked confused. "But I thought he said you was..."

"Not. Available. Period." I said with a frown.

"Geez, okay, lady," he said, scowling as he turned back to his work.

"Back off, Romeo," his coworker said with amusement. "The lady's not interested. And you shouldn't be hitting on clients—remember the last time you did that? You know what the boss told you then."

The young man grimaced. "Yeah, yeah.... Hey, sorry lady. I... I was just kidding, ya know."

I shrugged. "Sure, whatever."

After they left, Cam helped me rearrange things until I was satisfied with their placement. I made up the bed with the linens I'd purchased—crisp, white cotton sheets and a white matelassé bedspread. Pretty, and not pink. Eileen had repainted the walls in that room a pretty blush, just the color of wild roses, with dark brown trim that nearly matched the dark-stained wood of the floors. The ceiling was painted a pale French blue, and the furniture was oak with a light golden-brown stain. Overall, with the addition of some pink accents and a few botanical prints on the walls, it looked feminine but not excessively girly.

That evening, as I sat knitting while Cam read, he suddenly set the book down on the coffee table and looked at me. "Alice?" he asked.

"Hmmm?" I said, not looking up from my knitting, as I was in the middle of a complicated row.

"What are you going to call her?"

Surprised, I set my knitting down on my lap and looked at him. "I haven't really decided. I was thinking of maybe naming her after one of my grandmothers... but to be honest, I'm not crazy about either name, Nellie or Katya. I don't want to name her for my mom—it would be a pain whenever we got together. So I was thinking of a nature name of some sort, since after all, I'm a farmer on a mountain."

"You mean... like a flower name?" he asked, his eyes lighting up.

"Well... yeah, maybe something like that. Rose is out—this is too small of a town for two Roses. So I was thinking of Lily or Violet or maybe Jasmine. I was also thinking of Serena or Faith, or maybe even Brooke or Summer. And I'm kind of torn between using my mom's name for her middle name, or Ruby—it depends on her first name."

"And... what will her last name be?" he asked, looking away.

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. "Oh! I... I hadn't thought about that. I... I suppose it depends on what my last name is when she's born."

He nodded as he flushed red and grabbed his book, opening it and looking at it intently—though I noticed he was holding it upside down. After a few minutes, he said softly, "It's... it's your choice, of course. I know I don't get a say—I'm not contesting that. But... but for what it's worth, I really like Lily." Then he jumped up and darted into his room, his cheeks still aflame, as I stared after him.

The day of the third counseling session arrived. I was a feeling anxious that day, as I hadn't felt the baby move at all that morning. So when we arrived, I anxiously told Dr. Ayame that I was worried by the lack of movement.

"She's probably just fine, Alice—it hasn't been long enough to be concerned yet. But to make sure and for your peace of mind, why don't we switch the appointments and do your exam first?"

I nodded in agreement and looked over at Cam, who was as worried as me. "You can come, too. If you want to, that is."

"I do. Thank you, Alice," he said, breathing a sigh of relief.

As before, she started with a weigh-in, noting with a pleased expression that I'd gained weight this time. "It looks like you've been eating better lately. I guess that's an added benefit of having a housemate—more regular eating habits."

Next she pulled out the Doppler. She had a much harder time finding the baby's heart rate this time—I couldn't direct her where to look, because there was no movement to indicate where to find her. The longer it took, the more anxious I became, and I saw my own anxiety reflected in Cam's eyes.

After quite some time—or what felt like a long time, anyway—she finally found a faint heart beat. "Ahh, here we go!" she exclaimed, turning towards the monitor. "See, her heart rate is at 118 bpm right now."

"But... that's so much lower than last time," Cam remarked, still looking concerned. "Is she okay?"

"She's fine, as far as I can tell. She's probably just asleep—which would also explain the lack of movement. As I said earlier, it hadn't been long enough to worry about. But I also knew that telling you so wasn't going to alleviate your concern, which is why I suggested switching the order of the appointments. Now that you've heard her heart beating, I bet both of you are feeling better, aren't you?"

I laughed, "Much better!" and Cam nodded agreement.

"Well, then let's finish up here, and get over to my office, shall we?"

She finished the routine exam, noting as she took measurements and vital signs that everything looked fine. My blood pressure was back up to a more normal level this time, too, which was a relief—I'd been afraid of blacking out in the barn or something while it had been low.

As I stood and rearranged my clothing after she'd finished her exam, she said, "Well, Alice, so far so good. Other than your accident and the recovery from that—and the bleeding that I think was the result of your accident—everything has progressed very much according to the book. Hopefully we can avoid any of the complications that sometimes accompany a first pregnancy. You're doing well, and you've only got a few more months to go now. I think we'll do a final ultrasound around the middle of summer, just to check in on her."

Then she stood and led the way back to her office, Cam and I falling in behind her.

Once there, we took our usual places. Leaning back in her chair and looking back and forth between us, Dr. Ayame spoke. "All right, kids. Last time we discussed Cam's infidelity and at least touched on what lay behind it. That's all well and good, and Alice, I'm very glad you spoke up, since I was unaware of it, and since it had been preying on both your minds, naturally enough.

"This week, though, I want to cover what I'd originally planned to discuss last week. Namely, I want to talk about you, Alice."

"Me?" I said, squeaking a little in surprise.

"Yep, you. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango. The failure or success of a marriage can only very, very rarely—if ever—be attributed solely to one party."

"But wh-what did I...?" I stammered, baffled. "Are you saying... are you saying that all this is my fault, too?"

She nodded. "I know you can't see that yet,but it's true nonetheless. Now tell me, Alice. When you are experiencing a crisis, how do you respond?"

I just stared at her blankly—I had no idea what she meant by that.

Seeing my bafflement, she sighed. "Okay, let's try again. Think back to a crisis or some very bad situation that you've been in. Tell me about it, and tell me what you did—what your response to the situation was."

I thought back. "I have a few I could pick from... I suppose the earliest one I can remember is when my best friend died." I felt my throat tighten as I remembered that day.

"What happened?" she asked, not unkindly.

"We were riding horses in the mountains where I grew up. They were different than the mountains here—steep, rugged mountains covered in thick stands of deciduous forest, so the hills were often covered with a slippery layer of rain-soaked dead leaves. She... she had a new horse, her first real horse—not a pony. She was a bit of a show-off, and she was keen to show me how well she could handle him. She wanted to race me, but I refused—the slopes were too dangerous for racing up and down like that. But she wouldn't listen to me, and after some arguing, she took off at a full gallop. She... her gelding lost his footing and they skidded down a steep slope, out of control, and crashed into some big boulders near the bottom. He landed on her—breaking his back and her neck. Both of them died."

I was in tears by the end, and Cam scooted his chair closer and put an arm around me, drawing me closer so that I could cry into his shoulder. Dr. Ayame slid the box of tissues on her desk towards me, and waited for my tears to subside.

"That's a terrible tragedy, sweetie, and I'm sorry it happened. But now I want you to think back—not about what happened to your friend, but how you handled the situation. What was your response when she first proposed the race?"

I sniffled and blew my nose as I thought. "I... I guess I just said no. I mean... what else...?"

"What I want you to see, kiddo, is that you just reacted passively to the situation, not actively."

"But what could I...?"

"What if, say, instead of just saying no while still following along, you'd turned around and gone back home?"

I stared at her. "You... you mean... if I'd just left her? But then, no one would have been there when she...."

"Alice, think about it. You say she was a show-off, right? Well, if she'd been deprived of her audience, she wouldn't have had any motivation to go galloping recklessly over hill and dale. If anything, your refusal on the very sensible grounds that it was too dangerous merely added fuel to her desire to prove herself. If you'd responded actively—turning around and going home, that is—instead of just passively saying no and taking no action... your friend likely would have given up and followed you back."

I felt the blood drain from my face and saw spots whirling around in my vision for a moment. "You... you mean... it's my fault that Ruby died? That I...."

Cam angrily turned to face her, putting his arms around me as if to shelter me from her words. "Hey, now, that's going too far! How can you possibly blame Alice for her friend's death? That... that's just messed up! She didn't make her friend go tearing across the countryside—she tried to stop her! The only one to blame is Ruby, not Alice!"

"Calm yourself, Cam. I did not say it was Alice's fault. I'm truly sorry it's such a painful subject for her, but after all, she picked the example, not me. I'm trying to point out to her that her passivity can have negative consequences of which she almost certainly isn't aware, and not only for her.

"Let's move on to a more current example: that day when you learned you were pregnant. We've already covered Cam's response, so let's look at yours. When Cam attacked you, what did you do?"

"I... I was in shock...."

"I'm sure you were, but nevertheless, what was your reaction?"

"I... slapped him, and I... I left."

"Not just left, kiddo. You legged it—I saw you go, remember? You could have won a race that morning. Again, running away from a situation is a passive response—you're ignoring the problem instead of dealing with it. So think back at how you might have responded differently—an active response."

I thought, or tried to—I felt a little put upon, and I couldn't quite keep the tears from spilling out of the corners of my eyes. After a few minutes, I said, "I... well, I could have stayed, for one. But... what he said hurt so much, I just couldn't...."

"Alice, let me use a relevant analogy here. Soon the time will come for your baby to arrive, right?" I nodded, confused. "And just how do you think your baby will be arriving? You're a farmer—surely you've seen animals give birth."

"I... I...." I stammered, still baffled.

"My point is that childbirth hurts. It hurts a lot. In fact, it will likely be some of the worst pain you'll ever feel in your whole life. But... despite the pain, women all over the world willingly and happily have children, and frequently more than one. Why do you think that is? It's because they know that although it's tremendously painful at the time, it's so very worth it in the end. Many things in life are like that, kiddo. Time after time, you'll find that something hurts terribly while you're going through it, but that in the end, it was worth the pain."

I thought about her words, glancing at Cam, who looked lost in a brown study as he sat watching me. "I... then suppose I could have stayed. I guess when I slapped him and yelled, that probably just made him even angrier, and maybe even played into his insecurities—though I didn't know all about those at the time. Maybe... maybe if I'd just waited until he calmed down... we could have talked it over? Maybe if we'd stopped shouting and just listened to each other...."

"That's a lot of maybes, but at least you're thinking of better ways to handle the situation." She sighed and tapped the tip of her pen on her desk a few times as she thought. "I'm not trying to assign blame to you, Alice, but neither am I assigning it to Cam. Hopefully by now you two are beginning to realize some of the biggest obstacles you face—not just in your marriage, but in your lives overall. Cam, yours is your insecurity—it seems to me that lies at the root of many of your problems. And Alice, yours is your passivity. You can't just sit around waiting for things to happen, and then when something unpleasant happens, act surprised and feel victimized by it. No one can walk all over you unless you lie down on the ground and let them.

"Cam, I'd like to see you schedule some counseling to help you deal with your fears and insecurities. I think that may be more than you can handle on your own. I'm not a psychologist, but I can get you a referral to someone in Rosedale. I know it won't be easy to get there for regular appointments, but I think you'll find it worth the effort.

"Alice, I'd like to see you just... stand up for yourself. Don't just wait around, accepting whatever life drops in your lap. Take the bull by the horns—decide what you want, and then make it happen. You're a bright, clever, and interesting young woman. So reach for those stars, kiddo. Don't be afraid of failure—everyone fails sometimes, but we can learn from our mistakes. And if you never risk failure, you'll never achieve success. But first you need to know what it is that you want."

"What... what I want?" I said.

"Yes, what you want—it's wonderful to try to please others, and of course no one likes someone who thinks only of themselves. But you could stand to think of yourself a little more often. So what do you want, Alice?"

I stared at her, then at Cam, trying to absorb everything she'd said. Both of them looked at me encouragingly, waiting patiently for me to speak up.

After a few minutes, Dr. Ayame sighed. "Well, think it over, kiddo. Our time's up, so let's go schedule your next appointment, okay? Just one more to go, and you're through."

She and Cam stood up, but I remained seated. "Wait," I said, and they both turned to look at me in surprise.

"I... let's not schedule that appointment just yet." Cam looked startled, but the doctor gave me an long, appraising look. I flushed and stood, turning to face Cam as I took a deep breath.

"What... what I want... is.... I want you back. I want to try to make things work. Even if things never quite go back to how they were before, I don't want to just give you up."

Cam stared at me, dumbfounded. "Are you... but why? Why would you want me back, after everything I said and did to you? Why would you want me back when you've got Mikhail?"

I gave him a faint smile. "That's your insecurity talking. I want you back, because you're my husband. And even though you did hurt me terribly, I... I know I could have handled things better, too. Instead of making them worse, which I see now is just what I did. But I picked you over Mikhail, and I'll still pick you. It's not that I don't love him, too—I really do. But... not like I love you.

"I'll be frank—maybe more frank than you want, even, but I've always been truthful with you. Mikhail is wonderful in many ways. I am happy when I'm with him—he's caring and considerate, he's fun to be around, and he's... well, honestly, he's a very good lover. But... no matter how much he loves me, music is too much a part of his life to leave much room for me in it. Even if he could put me before his music, his violin would always be like a mistress that he could never relinquish. And I wouldn't want him to, anyway.

"As to you... I can't really explain why I love you. There are a lot of things about you that I love, but I think they're more the result of how I feel about you, rather than the cause. I just know that I do—and that life without you feels more empty and... and alone than I ever imagined possible. It's funny," I said with a hiccup of laughter as I began to cry, "I can list all kinds of pros and cons for Mikhail, but not for you. I think maybe my love for you is just too intrinsic for explanation, that you're just too much a part of me.

"What I want... or rather, what I don't want is to just walk away, or to just stand by and let you go. So... if you're willing... I want to try again."

"If... if I'm willing?" Cam asked, incredulously. He stared at me for a minute, tears filling his eyes, too, then he caught me up in his arms. "I... I feel like I'm on cloud nine. I've never wanted anything so much in all my life as to have another chance with you, Alice."

Dr. Ayame watched us, plainly delighted by our sudden reconciliation. "So... you won't be wanting that last appointment anytime soon, I take it?"

We both just laughed even as we cried. "No... I don't think that will be necessary," I replied, and I pulled Cam out the door. "Come on, let's go home now, Cam."

As we walked back towards Bluebell, he reached for my hand. I looked up at him and smiled, then I squeezed his hand and leaned lightly against him as we walked. As we reached the front door, I pulled him down a little towards me and whispered, "I like Lily the best, too."