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"Are you ready to go home?" he asked, looking up from the television he had been watching while working. "Just give me a moment. I'm almost done here."

Abby sat down in her father's favorite chair and wondered how she could tell Jake what her mother had advised her to say.

"Have you felt the baby, again?" wondered Jake, returning from Terry's room where he had deposited fresh laundry on the bed.

"Not yet," smiled Abby.

Jake retrieved his winter coat, and gave it to Abby.

"But, I'm already wearing your sweater!" she protested.

"I'll be all right," he insisted, offering her his arm before they stepped outside.

Jake carefully guided her into their house and quickly turned on the fireplace. Seeing that he was slightly chattering from the cold, Abby turned up the gas until the setting was as high as it would go.

"You're a fine one to lecture about going outside without a coat," she sighed.

"I'm not the one who's pregnant," said Jake, turning to warm his back.

"Do you have much work, today?" she ventured to ask.

"I think dinner is the only thing left for me to do," replied Jake. "Why do you want to know?"

"I was thinking," said Abby, "that maybe we could watch a movie and snuggle on the couch this evening-- that is, if you want to."

Abby figured she could gauge how Jake felt about her suggestion, by the way he responded. Out of the corner of her eye, Abby watched his face.

"I suppose I could deal with that," he grinned. "I can't believe you actually suggested it, though. Are you feeling all right?"

"The further I get into my second trimester," replied Abby, "the stranger I'm becoming about some things. You wouldn't understand what I'm talking about," she quickly added, trying to shrug off the topic. Besides, she reasoned, he probably didn't even know what she was talking about, anyway.

But instead of passing over her remark, Jake only stared at her. He was putting two and two together, and the answer bothered him.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he wondered, his face troubled into a frown.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"What do you think I'm talking about?" pressed Jake. "Abby, how long have you felt this way?"

"For a little while now," she confessed, "but how can you possibly know that what I'm talking about, is what you think I'm talking about?"

Jake looked at her rather quizzically and tilted his head to one side for a moment. After some reflection, mostly to puzzle out her last statement, Jake went to his room and returned with one of her mother's books. He opened the volume and flipped through several pages until he found what he was looking for. Then Jake handed the book to Abby, and returned to the fireplace to warm himself.

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