11:1:2—Thursday, May 11, 2006, New York (Washington Heights)

Sarah Glass Camden stood her bedroom, the door closed, studying herself in the full-length mirror on the back of the door. She ran her hands over her midsection.

There would have been a bulge by now.

Six months….

Nearly seven.

At nearly seven months there would be no concealing it from anyone.

Sarah turned to the side, straining to see any trace of the pregnancy that should have been.

There was none.

She'd missed her first period in early December.

Two weeks later, she'd taken a home pregnancy test.

It was positive.

Elated, she'd taken a picture, intending to send it to Matt…. Then she chickened out. Changed her mind. She sent it to her mother instead.

And then she'd panicked because as soon as you shared news like that it was real. Like really real!

How was she ever going to handle her final semester of medical school while pregnant? How would she and Matt handle residency with a newborn? It was never going to work! This wasn't what they'd planned.

They'd had a plan!

It was a good plan.

Get through school. Get though their respective residencies (she wanted to stay at St. Vincent's; Matt hoped to get into the Long Island Jewish Medical Center. Simon had helped them come up with a budget that would let them save enough money to buy their own place in five years. They wanted something near a park. Near a synagogue.

Near a school.

Then they would havea baby. They would have a whole bunch of babies!

Mom had convinced her to stop freaking out (it took over two hours). She convinced Sarah to talk to Matt, to discuss their options, even though from where Mom was standing, there was only one option.

Have the baby and figure it out from there.

Nothing was insurmountable, not with a good husband, parents who loved her, a whole great big family full of people who cared. It wasn't just all of Sarah's aunts and uncles, her cousins and their families. The Camdens would all be there to support her. It had been rocky at first, Sarah being Jewish, Matt being raised Protestant—Matt deciding to convert. They'd had a few bumps in the road, but Mom was right. With a good husband and a supportive family, nothing was impossible.

Almost nothing….

"Sarah?" Matt hollered from the living room.

She wiped the tears from her cheeks. "I'm almost ready!" They were meeting Mary for brunch, before heading to the airport to meet her parents. Matt's grandparents were arriving by train later in the day, and the rest of the Camdens were flying in tomorrow morning. Everyone would be here for her and Matt's graduation ceremony on Saturday.

She should be excited.

She was excited.

But every time she looked at herself in the mirror, all she saw was what could have been. What should have been. What she wanted more than she wanted to be a doctor, more than she wanted anything. And the closer it got to what would have been her due date—or at least what Sarah imagined it would have been—the harder it got to keep her secret.

…

The rain had passed, and the morning was clear, if cool, with the distinct smell of the-city-after-a-spring-rainfall lingering in the air. Wet concrete. Wet trees, nearly all of them with little buds of green starting to sprout on their bare branches. Wet dirt and planter boxes filled with brightly colored tulips to break up the monotony of browns and greys of the rain-soaked pavement and brick. Sarah tried to smile as she and Matt ascended the subway station steps, hand in hand. She'd told him once that she loved this city and never wanted to leave. She still didn't, not really. It wasn't the city's fault she was questioning everything she'd ever wanted—everything she'd ever held to be true.

Matt held the bistro door open for her; it was a friendly little place within easy walking distance of Grossman, the medical college of NYU. Open 24/7, the place was never really not busy, but at10 am they were in between the breakfast and lunch rushes and Sarah spotted Mary easily at one of the back tables, against the inside wall. Like most restaurants—and pretty much everything else in the city—the dining room was long and skinny, because street frontage was at such a premium.

Mary stood as they approached—and Sarah's world bottomed out.

Next to her, Matt's grin mirrored Mary's.

For Sarah, the room started to tilt. To spin.

"Surprise!" Mary held out her arms. Her baby bulge was as big as Sarah's should be by now. She must have gotten pregnant at almost the same time Sarah had.

But she wasn't dragged onto some rooftop….

Matt engulfed his sister in a hug.

Darkness closed in….

The words they exchanged didn't fully penetrate the fog in Sarah's head. Congratulations….you look amazing….how far along….do Mom and Dad know yet….

Sarah's stomach lurched. Her vision was reduced to a single, narrow tunnel of light….the light was fading fast. The urge to fight or flee took over—but there was nothing to fight!

"Sarah? Sarah!"

Matt's voice. His hand on her back.

The cement a few feet from her nose was wet. She was standing in a puddle, doubled over, her heart racing, her breath coming fast and hard. She didn't even remember running outside. She was only barely aware that she was gulping in air too fast.

Hyperventilating some part of her brain supplied. The part that's an effing doctor!

Sarah had to bite back a scream because if she screamed, she would cause a scene—a bigger scene than she was already causing—and she didn't want to cause a scene. She just wanted….

She looked over to a very pregnant Mary, standing next to Matt.

Sarah couldn't choke back the sob.

She didn't want to be "Dr. Glass."

She wanted her baby!

…..

Matt closed the bedroom door and joined his sister in the living room. Sarah had insisted that he and Mary should stay at the restaurant, eat breakfast, not let her "stomach bug" stop them from catching up. It had been months since Matt had seen Mary, weeks since they'd talked on the phone. The final semester of med school had been intense—and it still wasn't over. They still had at least three years of residency ahead of them. Sarah was right; they needed to take advantage of time with their families when they could.

You never know what might happen tomorrow.

She wasn't talking about rigors of med-school or eighty-hour weeks as a resident when she said things like that. She was talking about what had happened to her last January. Kidnapped. Left for dead out on some rooftop.

Lethal dose….

According to that girl, the one who had found her somehow, Sarah had been given a lethal dose of morphine.

Just like Cathy had been given all those years ago.

Cathy had survived.

Sarah had survived.

But she wasn't the same.

"Is she okay?" Mary asked.

They hadn't stayed at the restaurant. Mary had hailed a cab while Matt took the glass of water kindly offered by one of the restaurant's servers. He'd bundled his wife into the back of the cab; they'd brought her home. He'd convinced her to lie down while Mary found some eggs to scramble in the kitchen.

He dropped down onto the sofa next to his sister and looked at the eggs sitting there on the coffee table. He wasn't hungry. It wasn't a reflection on Mary's cooking. "I'm sure she'll be fine," he lied. He didn't tell Mary how withdrawn Sarah had been lately. How unhappy. It wasn't like when they were having problems a couple of years ago, when they'd separated shortly after moving to New York. He'd never doubted that they would come back from that.

He didn't know if their marriage would survive this, whatever this really was.

He forced a smile and asked Mary to fill him in on everything that was going on and, more importantly, what did Mom and Dad think.

"I haven't told them yet. I haven't really told anyone outside Carlos's family."