In the weeks following the doctor’s announcement that Lou was, indeed, pregnant, we managed to somehow fall into a routine of sorts.

Jenny’s parents, Angela and Giovanni, went on their business trip and returned happier than when they left. Jenny, their thirteen-year-old daughter, weathered their absence at my house, which was next-door to theirs, and only went over a couple of times for things she had somehow forgotten. I consider it to have been a boon in that I had enough bedrooms for her to have one to herself and to not have to sleep on the couch.

Actually, having Jenny there was a boon to us, too. Lou hadn’t quite gotten over her morning sickness, and Jenny was there to help her through the worst of it. One evening, Jenny confided in me that if pregnancy was all about being sick, she didn’t want any part of it. That was good news to my ears, and when I related that to Giovanni, he smiled, too, realizing that her staying with me and Lou might have put the kibosh on any boyfriends in the near-term. Nothing like helping a heaving woman through that to work as a natural contraceptive!

Jake, my dog, and Henry, Lou’s cat, were getting along just fine. There were a couple of hissy fits in the beginning, but with Lou being home all the time, they kind of settled just whose house they shared. With Lou and me as the dominant alphas, the two of them made peace. It probably didn’t hurt that Jenny was there, too, and I think they took their cues mostly from her. She took Jake for his walks, but made sure that Henry got some “lap-time” while she did her homework.

Yes, even middle school children received homework over Winter Break, especially if they were in accelerated classes, like Jenny. She was a contradiction at times: one minute, she’d be explaining some aspect of physics, and the next squealing like a schoolgirl about something a friend had told her. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised about the schoolgirl part. She was after all a schoolgirl going through puberty.

That going through puberty showed one day when Lou was working on a grocery list and asked Jenny about what feminine products she used. Jenny and Lou then spent at least a half-hour discussing the pros and cons of the various products. Jenny finally ended the discussion by saying, “I guess you won’t need anything like that for, what? Another six months?” and they both laughed. I wisely just listened and did not giggle at the comment, although I did chuckle to myself.

So, Jenny’s visit with us went without too many incidents, or at least none of which I related to her parents when they finally got home at the end of January.

February was what February usually was: cold! I think we broke some low-temperature records, and snow came seemingly every other day. Thankfully, I had a snowblower at home to keep the drive and sidewalk cleared. Whenever it snowed, I made sure to do the Ciccorelli’s drive and walks, along with a couple of elderly ladies’ driveways, too. The value of that was shown around Valentine’s when an ambulance had to pay a call on one of their homes. I was like anyone else, standing around, gawking, when I overheard one of the paramedics comment on how nice it was to visit a house and not have to trudge through shin-deep snow! Yeah, I felt pretty good about that. Edna had fallen and was shaken up, but not really injured. When she came home, she thanked me with some home-made cookies. Jennifer loved those!

March came in as it was supposed to, like a lion. However, that howling wind also brought with it warmer temperatures. For most of the month, the temperatures were up and down, like a roller-coaster, either too warm or too cold. Precipitation was like that, too: you couldn’t tell if one day you’d have snow or rain or sleet or freezing rain. We even had one afternoon where it was in the sixty-degree range and then a hail storm! After about three weeks of that, Lou said she needed to get out of the house, and was there somewhere we could go and look at something other than wet!

I knew just the place. There was an arboretum over in the next town and I had photographed a couple of weddings there. It was open year-round, with some of it environmentally controlled. Think hothouse, and you’ll know what I’m talking about. It was actually quite large and there was a pond and even an artificial stream with a waterfall running through it.

I suggested that to Lou and she was eager to see it. We didn’t take Jake because I knew that some of the ornamental plants didn’t take too kindly to dog urine, and that dog was forever marking his territory! We went on a Sunday morning, planning on making a day of it, just strolling through the gardens, and afterward finding somewhere to eat.

We arrived and I was surprised by the lack of people there. The large greenhouse was open, but the grounds outside where most of the plants would be in spring and summer were conspicuously bare of any vegetation, save the grass between the planters. There was just brown mud filling most of the planters. Luckily, the sun was trying desperately to dispel the clouds and the gravel paths that wandered around the grounds were drying out.

It looked like it might be warm, but we were both bundled up, me in a heavy henley shirt and vest with a long scarf, and Lou in a sheepskin coat and knit hat. While the air may have been warm, the light breeze still informed us that it was not yet spring.

We went into the greenhouse at the center of the arboretum and wandered around. It was warm in there, and we unbuttoned our coats, flapping them to move the air. As we wandered, we marveled at the different plants and the green and the warmth. It was good for our souls to see the soothing colors of the plants and the riot of their flowers. There was even the buzz of bees to enhance the feeling of summer there inside the hothouse.

As I said, there was an artificial stream built into the floor of the space, with some koi swimming lazily in the current. At the end of the stream was a pond, and the stream and the pond had flagstones all around. I suddenly had an inspiration for some pictures and had Lou posing for me. I always carry a camera for just such an emergency!

I took her coat and hat, and as I did, Lou fluffed her hair. She was dressed in nearly sheer black leggings that only came up to her waist, just where her baby bump started. They rode low on her hips and highlighted the stretched skin of her pregnancy. She wore a simple patterned sweater that was stretched by her breasts, which had gotten noticeably larger as her pregnancy had progressed. The hem of sweater came down just below her breasts, leaving the entirety of her bump exposed. The material was light and nearly transparent, and her areolas showed as her nipples tented the cotton sweater.

Her bump was proudly on display, as evidenced by the clothing she wore that accentuated her condition rather than hid it. I was as proud as she was, and I was hoping that the pictures I was going to take would do her justice.

I had her lie on her hip parallel with the stream, her hand outstretched to support her upper body. I traipsed over to the other side of the stream and sighted her through the camera’s lens, giving her some little instructions. No matter what I told her to do, she did it right, but it didn’t look right. I knew how I wanted it to look, but...

It suddenly dawned on me what was wrong! Lou had clothes on and I was seeing her, in my mind’s eye at any rate, as nude. I stood up and looked around. Nobody in our section of the arboretum. In fact, I couldn’t see anyone at all, nor could I hear any voices, and voices tended to echo around that building.

“Lou,” I stage-whispered. “It isn’t looking right. No one’s around. Lose the top!”

She looked up at me coyly. “Are you sure?” she asked, and when I nodded, she unbuttoned the top two buttons and pulled the sweater over her head. Her breasts, in preparation for feeding our child, had gained at least one full cup size during her pregnancy; they hung there, heavily, swaying with gravity as she leaned back over the water’s edge. She trailed her fingers in the water, laying out even further than I had originally envisioned, her head cradled in the crook of her left arm.

Again, I looked through the viewfinder of the camera. Her leggings were not obtrusive, and her pregnancy flowed down onto the rocks beneath her, her breasts flattened by the weight of her body. She looked longingly into the water, the fingertips of her free hand dappling the water just below her cheek. I took several long, full-body photographs of her, then adjusted my stance and used the zoom on the lens to get her face in close focus. I was so close to the water myself that I almost fell in!

Her expression was perfect, a young woman looking at the slightly distorted reflection of herself in the water, water dripping from her fingertips as she brought the wet hand closer to her cheek. Once I had that shot, I called softly to her that I was finished.

She sat up, looking around. Seeing no one there, she only picked up the sweater, not bothering to put it on. “Jonny,” she said as I came up to her, “I have a thought for another picture, if you’re brave enough to do it.” She batted her eyelashes as she looked up at me. She’s not short, but I tower over her, and when she bats those eyelashes at me, I melt and do whatever she tells me to do. I always wonder, though, what price I’ll have to pay.

She led me to the end of the stream where the water pooled before being recirculated back up the little hill and down the waterfall and into the stream at the other end of the greenhouse. She kicked off her slippers and tossed her blouse on top of where they fell. She hooked her thumbs into the waistband of the leggings, and, in one swift and graceful motion, pulled them down below her knees. She put out an arm to me to steady herself and finished pulling off the dark, skin-hugging, hosiery. She then gracefully sank into a lotus position, gently bringing one foot up over her leg, then the other, and put herself into a meditation pose.