"Nanna Rose?"

Hallie's timid voice was as unsteady as her trembling body.

"Are you…here?"

A gentle breeze outside blew a few stray rose petals from a neighboring bush onto the windowpane, causing Hallie's heart to flip over in her chest. The action appeared to be the confirmation she was looking for.

Instantly, she thought of all the stories her mother's Nez Perce relatives had told her when she was a little girl. Stories of the guiding spirits of ancestors roaming the earth, visiting loved ones in need, and helping them in their life's journey.

She gasped.

Nanna Rose! It…it must be you!

Hallie was both frightened and deeply moved. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before.

Yet, despite the completely unbelievable nature of it all, she couldn't deny the fact that she was nearly suffocating from the presence of her late grandmother.

"Oh, Nanna. You were always there for me. You always had such wonderful advice. Show me what to do! I'm so confused!"

Hallie didn't care if talking to the air was crazy. She was sensing some much needed comfort in the essence surrounding her. Real or imaginary, she knew this would help her get her thoughts straight.

"I have to keep the promise I made to Dan," she continued to wail. "I have to! I'd…I'd rather die than ever betray him again. But…what if Bill is right? What if…we've already done what he wanted us to do…and…and we're free to... to… No! No, that wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be right for me to have Dan's child without him here. And…it wouldn't be fair to Bill for me to do that, either. We can't! We have to destroy the samples. It's the only way…right? Oh, please…please tell me that I'm right. Help me!"

As if in response to her plea, the air suddenly stirred around her, and Hallie felt the ground beneath her feet rumble for a few moments. The vibrations, which were obviously a result of horses running in the fields nearby, caused Bill's old stereo system to turn on by itself, as if done by invisible hands.

And, the song that filled the air made Hallie laugh and cry at the same time.

It was Bette Midler's "The Rose."

"Oh Nanna," Hallie breathed; her mind was flooded with memories of the old woman she had loved so dearly.

Rose Cloudtell had been her mother's mother. A descendent of the great Nez Perce leader Chief Joseph. She had passed away a few years before Dan, leaving Hallie with the first of several holes in her heart. For it had been Rose, alone, who had understood many of Hallie's personality quirks. For hours, Rose and Hallie would sit on the porch of the old woman's home, smelling her prize winning gardenias and telling "brothers tales;" each of them had been the only girl in a family of boys. Hallie recalled how her grandmother would brush her hair with a delicate silver brush her father had given her. It had been used so often, the coloration on the handle had long since tarnished, but the beautiful roses etched all over the object could still be clearly seen. Rose would tell Hallie that her father had named her for the special flowers on the brush because he believed she had bloomed from the thorns of his troubled past, setting him free forever.

Tears streamed down Hallie's face as the lyrics of the song suddenly spoke out in unison with the ideas racing through her mind.

"I say love… it is a flower
and you… its only seed"

"But, Nanna, it…it wouldn't be right," Hallie moaned. And the song gave back an answer.

"It's the heart afraid of breaking
that never learns to dance…
It's the dream afraid of waking …that never takes the chance
It's the one who won't be taken…
who cannot seem to give…
and the soul afraid of dying… that never learns to live."

"Oh Nanna, I know Dan has earned the right to his own little rose, but I don't deserve to be set free from these thorns. I betrayed him when I went with Luke that day. Don't you see?"

Undaunted, the song continued its message of comfort.

"When the night has been too lonely
and the road has been too long…
and you think that love is only
for the lucky… and the strong
Just remember …in the winter… far beneath the bitter snows…
lies the seed
that with the sun's love…
in the spring…
becomes the rose"

The words hit Hallie so hard, she stumbled back to land on the bed again, and her hand came to rest on the silver brush she had been using on her hair.

Nanna Rose's silver brush.

She didn't try to stop the sobs that were now racking her shoulders violently. The answer to her dilemma couldn't have been any clearer if Dan had been the one delivering it.

And, considering her new bond with Bill, she was actually grateful God had chosen her grandmother, instead of Dan, to be the one to tell her what she had already imagined to be possible in her heart.

She would give birth to Dan's child one day. It was meant to be. She knew it now.

But, she didn't know if anyone else could ever understand it.

Not even Bill.

"How do I…get him to understand?" Hallie choked out.

The sweet sound of the song that had been playing on the radio was now being replaced by soft static, and as abruptly as the fragrance signaling Rose's presence had come, it was gone again.

Hallie felt a great emptiness for a moment. Fearing that she might inadvertently hear "Love is the Answer" being played, she quickly crossed the room to turn off the stereo.

I just can't hear that song. Not now. Please, God. Not now.

She let out a sigh of relief when the radio did not come back on, and then she moved back to the bed to continue brushing her hair.

But, how do I tell Bill I've changed my mind? She pondered wearily. She wished Nanna Rose's presence had not left her so soon.

And ,once I get Bill to agree to this…what will the Bobwhites think of our idea? How will we tell them?

She was imagining what Dan would suggest, were he there to advise her, when the image of her cousin Mart suddenly popped into her mind.

Dan always went to Mart when he needed advice, Hallie thought.

She put her brush down, intending to pick up the phone and give Mart a call, but the sudden sound of the phone ringing stopped her mid-reach.

Okay, God, if that's Mart on the line, you're really cooking today.

But, it wasn't her jovial cousin's voice Hallie heard when she answered the telephone.

It was Jim Frayne's.

"Hallie? Oh, thank God you're home! It's time! I mean…I'm taking Trixie to the hospital, right now. She's…she's having the baby!"