But he didn’t doubt Christine. This child was obviously some kind of throwback, in their combined gene pool, but she certainly didn’t look like she was theirs. The nurses had been saying that she was very cute, but Jim wasn’t convinced. And it was several hours before they brought her to Christine, who gazed at her in wonder as she held her and touched her little hands. She was tightly swaddled in a pink blanket. Christine had just been given a shot to keep her milk from coming in, since she had decided not to nurse. Jim didn’t want her to, and she had no desire to either. She wanted to get her figure back as quickly as possible, since Jim had always liked her petite, lithe shape and didn’t find her attractive while she was pregnant. She had been careful with her weight during the pregnancy. Like Jim, she found it hard to believe that this chubby white blond baby was theirs. She had long, straight sturdy legs like Jim’s. But her features didn’t look even remotely familiar to either of them. And Mother Dawson was quick to agree with Jim when she saw her, and said she looked like Jim’s paternal grandmother, and said she hoped she didn’t look like her later. She had been a round, heavyset woman for her entire life, who had been best known for her cooking and sewing skills and not her looks.

By the day after her birth, the shock of her being a female had worn off a little, although Jim’s friends at the office had teased him that he would have to try again for a son. And Christine was worried that he was angry at her about it, but he very sweetly reassured her that he was glad that she and the baby were healthy, and they’d make the best of it. The way he said it made Christine feel as though she had come in second best, and Mother Dawson endorsed that idea. It was no secret that Jim had wanted a son and not a daughter, almost as confirmation of his manhood and ability to father a son. And since it had never dawned on either of them that they might produce a daughter, they had no girls’ names ready for the chubby blond baby that lay in Christine’s arms.