I decided I didn’t want to know about these preparations. No two children had ever been better prepared for the birth of a sibling: Debbie and Henry had seen to that. So I told her I would call her when I got back and let her know what Betsy had to say.

There were still signs of Christmas everywhere, wreaths on doors, a few Santas still poised on roofs. Billboards still wished us HAPPY HOLIDAYS from banks or from the anchors of local TV stations, all smiles and red suits. In some homes, I knew, the trees would stay up, lighted. In February, they would be decorated with Easter eggs, biddies, and bunnies.

Christmas does not depart Birmingham quickly or for long. Maybe on the Fourth of July it takes a vacation long enough to watch the fireworks from Vulcan Park.

I went through downtown Birmingham, through Malfunction Junction where several interstates battle it out and where that day, miraculously, there wasn’t a wreck, past the airport exit and onto I-59 North. Traffic wasn’t heavy and, though clouds were coming in from the west, the sun was shining and the temperature was in the high fifties. It would rain later, turn cold the next day, and then warm up, the typical January weather pattern. It’s seldom that we have more than two nights consecutively when the temperature goes below freezing.

Midmorning, midweek, the interstates are a pleasure to drive, a pleasure that the citizens of Jefferson County and Birmingham didn’t have as soon as most large metropolitan areas. Jefferson County didn’t vote for George Wallace for governor; the interstates came to the county line and stopped. There’s a slight chance that it was a coincidence, but where the interstates suddenly became two-lane roads in congested areas, we had what became known as the George Corley Wallace Memorial Bottlenecks. Fred and I would take the kids to visit his parents in Montgomery, an hour-and-a-half drive, and sit at the bottleneck on Highway 31 for an hour trying to get back into Birmingham. Not conducive to family harmony.

That morning there was no bottleneck, though. Nothing but the rolling Appalachians and the deep cuts through the limestone that forms them. Some of the views were breathtaking, and I realized how seldom I noticed them. But, of course, I was usually with Mary Alice.

The Springville exit overlooks a large farm-pond. A sign at the top of the exit pointed right and declared, FISHING, $2 A DAY. So far no one had paid the two dollars; the pond, shimmering in the January sunlight, was deserted. Several cows were in the pasture, though, some of them grazing, some lying down, a sure sign of rain within a few hours.