"How did you find out?" Margaret asks placing her keys on the foyer table.
"Sam called me." Toby answers looking around the house.
"There's spare bedrooms upstairs, pick one." Margaret says trying to smile.
"Have you eaten?" Ginger asks and Margaret looks at the clock that says one am. She can hardly see the point.
"There's a salad and some cold cuts in the fridge I was going to serve tonight." Margaret says.
"Do you have bread?" Ginger asks.
"I think so."
"Sandwiches it is." Ginger says trying to sound up beat. "I'll be right back down."
For a minute or two Margaret wanders through the living room, touching things at random and trying to clear her cloudy head. All she feels like doing is climbing upstairs, crawling into bed and curling up for a month till it's over.
She passes Ginger and Toby unpacking the personal items they bought with them onto the bed. "We shouldn't have picked this room." Ginger's voice floats through as Margaret pulls out her maroon nightgown.
"Why not?" Toby replies gruffly.
"It's right next to Margaret and Leo's." Ginger states the obvious.
"So?" Toby questions getting annoyed.
"It's probably the room they're going to make the nursery." Ginger assumes.
"So, Margaret's not due for about four months." Toby reminds her.
"So." Ginger sighs. "I can't believe I have to say this, the last thing she needs is to listen to is you and I making love while her husband is tied down with tubes in hospital." Ginger explains.
"We're going to have sex in a bed my boss bought?" Toby questions and Margaret smiles, she's sure she heard Toby's voice go up an octave.
"Margaret said in her car on the way here it could be a month before Leo's discharged. Can you abstain for that long?" Ginger ask and Margaret can hear the smug in her voice.
"You're right." Toby concedes. "Do you think it's too late to move to the room at the end of the hall?"
"Never." Ginger replies followed by the muffled sounds of the two packing up again.
For a moment Margaret can smile about her friends but it fades as she looks over at the empty bed she'll be sleeping in tonight and the maroon nightgown that she bought for Leo. It pulls a little tighter over her bulge since the last time she had it on and she wonders in a month how many more things Leo will miss. Suddenly she feels all alone and useless.
Margaret turns looking left and right gathering a mental list of all the things Leo could need for an extended stay in hospital. She drops the razors and shaving cream on the bed with the shampoo and conditioner, she riffles through his underwear pulling out his clean changes. She grabs the book he's currently reading and his glasses, the photo of Mallory and their wedding day goes on top of clean pajamas. When she can think of no more Margaret stands in the middle of the room focused on each fixture in the room for something she might have forgotten. It only takes the slightest of flutters to take away her concentration.
Her hands slide quickly around her bulge willing the baby to move again as if the first time it was a dream. Sure enough the movements come again and for the first time in a long time Margaret smiles. Excited her feet carry her down the stairs to the living room. "Leo, you have to come and feel this our baby's..." Margaret calls out as she steps into the room to find Toby settled in front of the TV, "moving." Margaret finishes, the horrible reality of Leo being ill in hospital she'd been deceiving herself of in two minutes of joy come crashing back to her.
"Excuse me." Margaret says as Ginger comes in from the kitchen, she cries all the way up the stairs, as she crawls into bed and for the next few hours. The baby doesn't move again that night.
*
"How's Emma doing?" Margaret asks as she sits with CJ and Ginger waiting for her name to be called.
"The leukemic cells weren't being destroyed as fast as they'd like so they're continued the intensive first part of chemotherapy for another month." CJ explains.
"Simon?" Margaret questions.
"He's staying in the district." CJ nods. "How's Leo?"
Margaret swallows. "It's a long road, it's only been a week but I've been there everyday and the doctors are doing everything they can. Poor Mallory in one night she found out her father is sick and I'm pregnant."
"How are you coping?" CJ asks.
"I'm all right." Margaret smiles looking over at Ginger. What she can't bear to tell either of them is it's torn her up everyday this week to see Leo in the hospital bed and although Ginger and Toby have been a great help she would like nothing more than to have them banished from her house and out from under her feet.
*