“I think you would enjoy living in Chicago,” John said pleadingly. “And I miss you all terribly.”

Marilyn sighed. “We miss you, too,” she said. “But that’s not the point. If I give up my job the girls would have to go to an inner-city public school. There’s no way we could afford private school with your resident’s salary.”

The public-address system crackled to life and announced that all passengers holding tickets for Champaign had to be on board. It was last call.

“We’ve got to go,” Marilyn said. “We’ll miss the flight.”

John nodded and brushed away a tear. “I know,” he said. “But you will think about it?”

“Of course I’ll think about it,” Marilyn snapped. Then she caught herself. She sighed again. She didn’t mean to sound angry. “It’s all I’m thinking about,” she added softly.

Marilyn lifted her arms and embraced her husband. He hugged her back with ferocity.

“Careful,” she wheezed. “You’ll snap one of my ribs.”

“I love you,” John said in a muffled voice. He’d buried his face in the crook of her neck.

After echoing his sentiments, Marilyn broke away and gathered Lydia and Tamara. She gave the boarding passes to the ticket agent and herded the girls down the ramp. As she walked she glanced at John through the glass partition. As they turned into the jetway she gave a wave. It was to be her last.

“Are we going to have to move?” Lydia whined. She was ten and in the fifth grade.

“I’m not moving,” Tamara said. She was eleven and strong-willed. “I’ll move in with Connie. She said I could stay with her.”

“And I’m sure she discussed that with her mother,” Marilyn said sarcastically. She was fighting back tears she didn’t want the girls to see.

Marilyn allowed her daughters to precede her onto the small prop plane. She directed the girls to their assigned seats and then had to settle an argument about who was going to sit alone. The seating was two by two.

Marilyn answered her daughters’ impassioned entreaties about what the near future would bring with vague generalities. In truth, she didn’t know what was best for the family.

The plane’s engines started with a roar that made further conversation difficult. As the plane left the terminal and taxied out toward the runway, she put her nose to the window. She wondered how she would have the strength to make a decision.

A bolt of lightning to the southwest jolted Marilyn from her musing. It was an uncomfortable reminder of her disdain for commuter flights. She did not have the same confidence in small planes as she did in regular jets. Unconsciously she cinched her seat belt tighter and again checked her daughters’.

During the takeoff Marilyn gripped the armrests with a force that suggested she thought her effort helped the plane get aloft. It wasn’t until the ground had significantly receded that she realized she’d been holding her breath.

“How long is Daddy going to live in Chicago?” Lydia called across the aisle.

“Five years,” Marilyn answered. “Until he finishes his training.”

“I told you,” Lydia yelled to Tamara. “We’ll be old by then.”

A sudden bump made Marilyn reestablish her death grip on her armrests. She glanced around the cabin. The fact that no one was panicking gave her some solace. Looking out the window, she saw that they were entirely enveloped in clouds. A flash of lightning eerily lit up the sky.

As they flew south the turbulence increased, as did the frequency of the lightning. A terse announcement by the pilot that they would try to find smoother air at a different altitude did little to assuage Marilyn’s rising fears. She wanted the flight to be over.

The first sign of real disaster was a strange light that filled the plane, followed instantly by a tremendous bump and vibration. Several of the passengers let out half-suppressed screams that made Marilyn’s blood run cold. Instinctively she reached over and pulled Tamara closer to her.

The vibration increased in intensity as the plane began an agonizing roll to the right. At the same time the sound of the engines changed from a roar to an earsplitting whine. Sensing that she was being pressed into her seat and feeling disoriented in space, Marilyn looked out the window. At first she didn’t see anything but clouds. But then she looked ahead and her heart leaped into her throat. The earth was rushing up at them at breakneck speed! They were flying straight down…

10:40 P.M.

MANHATTAN GENERAL HOSPITAL,

NEW YORK CITY

Terese Hagen tried to swallow, but it was difficult; her mouth was bone dry. A few minutes later her eyes blinked open, and for a moment she was disoriented. When she realized she was in a surgical recovery room it all came back to her in a flash.

The problem had started without warning that evening just before she and Matthew were about to go out to dinner. There had been no pain. The first thing she was aware of was wetness, particularly on the inside of her thigh. Going into the bathroom, she was dismayed to find that she was bleeding. And it wasn’t just spotting. It was active hemorrhaging. Since she was five months pregnant, she was afraid it spelled trouble.

Events had unfolded rapidly from that point. She’d been able to reach her physician, Dr. Carol Glanz, who offered to meet her at the Manhattan General’s emergency room. Once there, Terese’s suspicions had been confirmed and surgery scheduled. The doctor had said that it appeared as if the embryo had implanted in one of her tubes instead of the uterus-an ectopic pregnancy.

Within minutes of her regaining consciousness, one of the recovery-room nurses was at her side, reassuring her that everything was fine.

“What about my baby?” Terese asked. She could feel a bulky dressing over her disturbingly flat abdomen.

“Your doctor knows more about that than I do,” the nurse said. “I’ll let her know you are awake. I know she wants to talk with you.”

Before the nurse left, Terese complained about her dry throat. The nurse gave her some ice chips, and the cool fluid was a godsend.

Terese closed her eyes. She guessed that she dozed off, because the next thing she knew was that Dr. Carol Glanz was calling her name.

“How do you feel?” Dr. Glanz asked.

Terese assured her she was fine thanks to the ice chips. She then asked about her baby.

Dr. Glanz took a deep breath and reached out and put her hand on Terese’s shoulder. “I’m afraid I have double bad news,” she said.

Terese could feel herself tense.

“It was ectopic,” Dr. Glanz said, falling back on doctor jargon to make a difficult job a bit easier. “We had to terminate the pregnancy and, of course, the child was not viable.”

Terese nodded, ostensibly without emotion. She had expected as much and had tried to prepare herself. What she wasn’t prepared for was what Dr. Glanz said next.

“Unfortunately the operation wasn’t easy. There were some complications, which was why you were bleeding so profusely when you came into the emergency room. We had to sacrifice your uterus. We had to do a hysterectomy.”

At first Terese’s brain was unable to comprehend what she’d been told. She nodded and looked expectantly at the doctor as if she anticipated more information.

“I’m sure this is very upsetting for you,” Dr. Glanz said. “I want you to understand that everything was done that could have been done to avoid this unfortunate outcome.”

Sudden comprehension of what she’d been told jolted Terese. Her silent voice broke free from its bounds and she cried: “No!”

Dr. Glanz squeezed her shoulder in sympathy. “Since this was to be your first child, I know what this means to you,” she said. “I’m terribly sorry.”

Terese groaned. It was such crushing news that for the moment she was beyond tears. She was numb. All her life she had assumed she would have children. It had been part of her identity. The idea that it was impossible was too difficult to grasp.