Free Rescue by Anita Shreve Page A

she could borrow the mattress from the porch for two nights until Webster moved his own bed
     in the next day. The nurse had been annoyed at the abrupt notice but had said yes to the mattress. Webster hauled it up the
     outside stairs. “Let me sweep first,” Sheila said.
    Together they settled the mattress on the floor of the bedroom. After it was in place, Webster asked where the sheets were.
    “I don’t have any,” Sheila said.
    “You didn’t bring them?”
    “They weren’t mine.”
    “But…” Webster shook his head. “A towel?”
    “Nope.”
    “We’ll just have to be careful, then,” Webster said.
    “Careful with what?” Sheila asked.
    “We have to christen the place,” he said with a grin.
    “Your father’s going to recognize me,” Sheila said from the passenger seat of the cruiser.
    The hardware store.
    “You didn’t go wild in there, did you?” Webster asked.
    “No, I just bought a lot of cigarettes.”
    “Well, I wouldn’t light up during dinner.”
    “Jesus, Webster, give me some credit.”
    He was inclined to give her a lot of credit. When she’d emerged from the bedroom, she was wearing a loose light gray dress.
     Not a maternity dress, but one that could become one. She had put her hair up, which showed off her long white neck and the
     pearls at her ears. She had on stockings and a pair of white flat shoes. He whistled and made her turn around and told her
     she looked beautiful, which she did, though he hardly recognized her, and that threw him a little. It was as if she had on
     a costume for a theater production.
    “I’m not sure this is a good idea,” she said in the cruiser.
    “I can’t tell them no at this point. Besides, you’re pregnant with their first grandchild. We have to do this.”
    “Doesn’t it seem like everything is happening too fast?”
    It did. The pregnancy had put the normal timetable into overdrive. Then he wondered if there would have been a normal timetable
     at all. If Sheila hadn’t gotten pregnant, what would they be doing now? Taking drives? Still visiting B and Bs? All of that
     seemed another lifetime ago.
    He’d barely absorbed the news of the pregnancy himself. Now he had to help his parents comprehend what their son had done.
    Pregnant.
Hell of a word.
    Webster and Sheila arrived at his parents’ house at exactly 6:30. “Stay in the car,” Webster said. “I’m coming around to get
     you.”
    “You’ve got to be kidding.”
    When he opened her door, and she stepped out, Webster was proud of the way she looked. “I don’t want to sound like anasshole,” he said quietly, “but you might want to get rid of the gum. My mother hates girls who chew gum.”
    “You are an asshole,” Sheila said as she wrapped the gum in a tissue from her purse. “How long is this dinner going to last,
     anyway?”
    Webster sighed. “Can you hang in there for two hours?”
    “And I’m not a girl,” she said.
    Webster’s mother, who’d had her hair done for the occasion, declared straightaway that she was happy to meet Sheila. Sheila
     said, “Me, too,” while his mother’s eyes slipped to Sheila’s waist, not really visible beneath the gray dress.
    Webster’s father was cool. “I know you,” he said, not a trace of a smile on his face. “Toasted bagel, butter instead of cream
     cheese, a carton of Virginia Slims, coffee black. You used to stand outside the store, juggling the bagel, the coffee, the
     cigarette, and the carton. I wondered how you could do that.”
    “Held the carton between my knees,” she said, leaving the unfortunate image hanging in the air.
    “Haven’t seen you much lately, though,” Webster’s father said.
    Webster could only imagine how Sheila had looked in his father’s store. Bored? Sullen? Impatient?
    “I have a job now,” Sheila said, maybe as embarrassed as Webster was to have had that initial portrait laid bare.
    “Well, you have other things on your mind, don’t you, dear?” Webster’s mother