“I came close a couple of times,” Hannah said, sneaking a quick glance at Mike’s face. He didn’t look happy, but he was wise enough not to ask if there was any damage to his Hummer. Of course, he probably knew there wasn’t, because he’d sneaked a look before he came inside.

“Edna sent this,” Earl told her, pulling a giant metal thermos from the deep back pouch in his county issue parka. She said you shouldn’t be tortured with hospital coffee.”

“I’ll get the cups,” Norman said, dashing inside the expectant fathers waiting room and coming back with four Styrofoam cups.

When everyone had a good cup of coffee, Hannah raised hers high. “To Edna. She’s a lifesaver!”

“How’s your sister doing?” Earl asked once the cups were empty.

“Fine I guess, or we would have heard something. The nurse said Doc Knight will come out and tell us right after the baby’s born.”

Just talking about it made Hannah nervous, and she started to pace again. Mike quickly took one of her arms, and Norman took the other. Earl watched them for a moment, and then he took up a position by Mike’s side and started to pace with them.

It was a good thing it was a wide hallway, because Lisa appeared next. She rushed up to Hannah and asked, “Did she have the baby yet?”

“Not yet. How did you get here?”

“Herb borrowed the biggest truck in the lot and drove us. He’ll be here in a minute.”

“How’s Andrea doing?” Herb asked Hannah, rushing up to take Lisa’s arm.

“We don’t know,” Hannah said, wondering if she should borrow some crayons from the children’s waiting room and make a sign. “Everything must be okay, or we would have heard something. Doc Knight’s going to come out and tell us right after the baby’s born.”

Lisa and Herb watched them pace for a moment, and then they joined in. Herb took his place next to Norman and Lisa paced next to Herb.

Hannah had just passed the snowman in the red muffler for the three hundred-and-fourteenth time when she saw Bill rushing toward them from the end of the hallway. “Here comes Bill!”

“How’s Andrea?” Bill asked, panting a bit as he sprinted the last few yards.

Hannah smiled to set the expectant father at ease chastised herself mentally for not making that sign. “She must be okay, or we would have heard something. Doc Knight’s going to come out tell us right after the baby’s born.”

“Great. What are you doing?”

“Pacing. We couldn’t think of anything else to do.”

Sounds reasonable to me,” Bill said, linking arms with Lisa and taking up the outside position on the left. Let’s pick up the pace a little. I’m getting nervous.”

All they needed was music and the ability to kick in unison, and they could have tried out for a cabaret. The Todd party horizontal conga line was just rounding the corner for the forty-third time since Bill had joined them, when Doc Knight appeared at the end of the hallway.