After ending the call, I drop the phone in my lap and clutch the steering wheel, stunned. His number’s disconnected? It never once crossed my mind that his number would change, that I wouldn’t be able to reach him.

I have to be able to reach him.

He’s the father of my baby.

Heart pounding, I pick up the phone again. I call information, get the phone number for Outrigger Reef on the Beach, and ask for the hotel’s beach activities desk.

An English accent answers. Tommy, I think. It’s Tommy from Leeds.

“Is Kai working on the beach today?” I ask, heart pounding, stomach cramping. I’m afraid. Nervous. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know why I’m calling. But suddenly I must talk to Kai, must hear his voice, must connect.

“No, he’s not. He was here earlier, though. Is this Desiree?”

Desiree. Is that the new girl? The new flavor of the week? I exhale. “No.”

“Do you want me to take a message, love?”

“No. That’s okay.” I hang up, roll down my window, blink away tears.

We can always call him later, I say to the baby. We’ve still got time.

The nurse at my next monthly checkup reminds me it’s time to sign up for Lamaze classes, and I do, not that I think I need them. But this is what expectant mothers do, and I did it for the other two, so I resign myself to doing it again.

Anne agrees to be my birthing partner, and I’m just glad December is still a ways off. I can’t imagine actually giving birth with Anne at my side. She’d be way too hard-core. She’d tell me to go all natural. No drugs. She’d be kicking my butt until the baby was out.

In the evenings, I sort through the maternity clothes, pulling out skirts for later this summer and then trousers and suits for the fall.

Dutifully I write in the baby’s diary. I haven’t decided if I’ll do the amnio or not, and I think I don’t want to know what sex the baby is, either. Boy or girl, I don’t care. I already have one of each. I just want the baby healthy.

I have the kids for Fourth of July this year, and Kristine invites us all over for a barbecue and the big fireworks show you can see from her house high on Queen Anne.

Kristine has a killer view of the Space Needle and the Sound, and the kids sit with bowls of homemade peach and strawberry ice cream as the night explodes in green and blue and white. Nic and her husband stand together, his arm wrapped around her, while Kris chases her wild boys around the yard, one boy terrorizing the other with sparklers.