“Yes, ma’am.” She got up and patted Ellie Mae on the shoulder. “Hope you find out that it’s what you want it to be.”

“Me, too. And thanks for keeping my secret.” Ellie Mae ducked her head as if she were embarrassed to even say that. “If you want to tell Jody and Mitzi, it’s okay. I trust them. And I’ll need the dress to expand.”

“Thank you.” Paula picked up her purse and waved over her shoulder.

“Right in here. You’ve already had this done once, so you know the drill,” the lady said. “Do you still want to know the gender?”

“Yes, I do.” Paula was so nervous that she didn’t recognize the woman until she was on the table and saw her name tag. “Hey, you did this last time, didn’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am, I did,” Rachel said. “And he or she was not very cooperative.”

Paula got onto the examination table and pulled her pants down below her belly and her shirt up to her breasts. Rachel tucked blue paper into the band of Paula’s pants and then squirted gel across her tummy. “Got a good strong heartbeat. Would you look at that?”

Paula turned her head to the monitor to find her baby lying in a position that left no doubt about the gender. Tears flooded her eyes. Finally, she was getting what she’d prayed for and wanted so badly.

“Well, there’s no doubt now, is there?” Rachel handed her a tissue. “Why are you crying? Are you disappointed? Looks like you’re going to have a healthy baby.”

“They’re tears of pure joy,” Paula said.

She was glad that Ellie Mae was gone from the waiting room when she left. As nosy as she was, Ellie Mae would have wanted to know the gender, and Paula wanted to hold that secret awhile longer. She craved a big waffle cone of soft ice cream, but butterflies were having a party in her stomach. Once she’d told her mother the news, she’d have something to eat.

She drove from Greenville to Celeste slowly. She’d gotten finished earlier than she’d thought she would, so the girls wouldn’t have had time to drive to her mother’s place just yet. To keep her mind off the fit Gladys was going to throw, she thought about the dilemma that Jody was in. Paula had never had to go through that time of wondering if she was pregnant or not. She’d never had regular periods and had taken the pill to regulate her cycle. Even that didn’t work most of the time, and she’d gotten the news sprung on her when she went in for her yearly physical.