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The second Abby heard the front door shut, she dropped her work and burst into tears. She had been brave all morning long, and was now free to let the tears come without anyone seeing. With heartrending sobs, Abby flung herself onto her bed and buried her face in the pillow.

Back home, John entered the master bedroom where Izumi was propped up with support pillows on the bed. He smiled sadly and crawled onto the mattress beside her. Then John told her the sad news about Jake.

"How's Abby taking all this?" wondered Izumi, as her husband tenderly put his arms around his very pregnant wife.

"Terry said she's working on some flies," replied John, thoughtfully.

"I don't want her to go through this alone," sighed Izumi, taking refuge in John's arms. "I think she should move back into her old room."

"I don't think she'll go for that," he hesitated. "You know our Abby, she's too independent to ask for help."

"That's why we should make her come," insisted the mother.

"'Make her'?" repeated John, with eyebrows raised. "Little Dove, Abby's a grown woman, and she's about to become a mother. I don't think we can make her do anything."

"But, she's our little girl," said Izumi, burying her face in John's comforting shoulder. "I don't want her to be alone right now."

"I'll see what I can do," agreed John.

Minute by minute, the day crept by, until everyone was beginning to think that Jake was unable to place any calls at all. In the early hours of the evening, the Johanneses' telephone finally rang.

"I'll get it!" shouted Terry, pouncing on the phone before John could reach it. The father waited to see who the caller was and quickly went to the kitchen phone when Terry excitedly announced, "It's Jake!"

"Is he all right?" was John's first question, when he picked up the receiver and heard nothing.

"I don't know," replied Terry, "I haven't talked to him yet. The operator just asked if I would accept a collect call from Jake Murphy, at the Watertown State Penitentiary, and I said 'yes.'"

Just then, John heard Jake's voice for the first time since he had been arrested the day before.

"Hello?" asked the young man.

"Hello, Jake?" said John. "It's me, Dad. Are you all right, Son?"

"Dad," began Jake, "I'm sorry for putting you through this."

"It's not your fault that the parole was revoked," replied John, waving frantically to Terry from the kitchen. Suddenly, Terry understood what John was trying to tell him, and ran out the front door to Abby's house.

"Jake's on the phone with your Dad, right now!" he gasped, bounding into Abby's bedroom without announcing himself.

Abby jumped up from her bed and raced back to her parents' house with Terry, snatching up the living room receiver. The uncle stood nearby, watching Abby and glancing every now and then to John, who was standing in the kitchen doorway with the extension.

"Please, don't tell Abby I called," she heard Jake say.

"Son," John was trying to reason, "she cares about you, and will want to know what's going on."

"Jake?" interrupted Abby, "it's me. Are you all right? Are you safe?"

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