At first there was no answer, and then there was a cheerful call from upstairs. "Come on up, Mary. I'm straightening up Alex's room." Mary mounted the stairs slowly and smiled when she found Bettina at the top. "I spend half my life doing that. Where's the prince?" "Today's his first day at school." And then she looked at Mary in embarrassment. "I don't know what to do with myself, so I thought I'd clean up his room." But Mary nodded in answer. "That does me in every time." "What do you do to combat it?" Bettina smiled at her and sat on the brightly covered bed. The room was done in reds, blues, and yellows, with toy soldiers marching everywhere. But Mary was suddenly laughing. "What do I do? I get pregnant." She was grinning broadly as Bettina looked at her. "Oh, no! Mary, not again?" "Yup." They had had their third child two years before, and now there would be a fourth. "I just got the call from the doctor's office.
