But when her job description suddenly expanded to include dealing with a disabled husband as well as assuming many of his corporate responsibilities, the transition wasn’t quite so seamless. Up until that point in her life, she’d been resistant to delegating any responsibility. Now she had no choice. Minor and routine jobs that she had formerly insisted on doing herself, she began assigning to subordinates.

Even so, the largest share of the workload remained hers. Nor could the tasks she did for Foster be turned over to someone else. Only she could do them because Foster demanded they be done in a particular order and in a particular way, his particular way, which was a way far more meticulous than anyone else’s. His insistence on perfection put a strain on her time.

But no matter how difficult and demanding her schedule became, she refused to buckle under. Quitting, or even slacking off, wasn’t an option. She was doing what must be done, and she would continue to.

However, she had begun to fear the impact motherhood would have on the careful balance she was maintaining. How could she possibly be a full-time mother, which she wanted to be, without detracting from her duties as wife, department head, and stand-in CEO? The prospect of juggling that additional responsibility was daunting. But if-when-she was forced to confront it, she would.

At present there were other matters demanding her attention, such as this one involving baggage handling. “What kind of incident?” she asked that department head.

“The worst. Stolen bags.”

“You’re right. Foster isn’t going to like it. Details?”

The explanation was lengthy and involved, and generated discussion around the table. Laura tried to concentrate on what was being said, but her mind wandered. Her ability to focus simply wasn’t there. She’d left it behind in that small, tidy house on Windsor Street, along with her dignity.

Why, I asked myself, would you agree to making a baby this way?

“Laura?”

She yanked her mind back to the business at hand. Everyone was looking at her, and she wondered how many times she’d been addressed before she realized it. “I’m sorry. My mind drifted for a moment.”

The question was repeated. Laura answered. The meeting continued. While she wasn’t wholly attuned, she wasn’t caught again being inattentive. But as soon as there was a convenient point to adjourn, she did so. “We’ll pick up the rest at the next meeting, okay? I’ve got a killer schedule this afternoon.”

As the others filed out, no one seemed especially curious about her absentmindedness or abrupt adjournment. Joe McDonald did stop on his way to the door. “Hard day?”

“Harder than most.”

“Maybe this will cheer you up.” From behind his back, he produced a large white envelope and, with a flourish, laid it on the table in front of her. “Ta-da!”

“What’s this?”

“Your baby.”

“My what?”

“Uh…” Obviously taken aback by her stunned reaction, he said, “What I mean is, you’ve been waiting a long time for it. Check it out.”

Having recovered from his choice of words, she opened the envelope and slid the contents onto the table. It was an eleven-by-fourteen artist’s rendering of a SunSouth jet with a new and distinctive logo on the fuselage.

“Oh, my God!” Laura exclaimed. “This looks great, Joe! Truly great!”

He hooked his thumbs into his suspenders. “I thought you’d like it.”

“Like it?” she said, unable to contain her excitement. “I love it.” She ran her finger over the artwork as she read the words printed on the airplane. “SunSouth Select.”

Joe beamed. “As I said, your baby.”

CHAPTER 10

JOE LEFT HER, AND LAURA DECIDED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE solitude in the conference room. She remained seated in the tall leather chair at the head of the table-the one in which Foster had sat the first time she saw him-and looked again at the four-color rendering of the sleek jet.

SunSouth Select was a concept that she’d been working on for more than a year. It was a service-oriented innovation for the business traveler that she hoped to implement before SunSouth’s competitors did something similar. She wanted SunSouth to be the initiator, not an imitator.

Joe seemed surprised that Foster hadn’t yet seen the syllabus. Laura had worked on it for months, and once it was done, Joe had assumed she would take it straight to Foster. “No,” she told him. “I want SunSouth Select to be a surprise. I want to present it to him as a complete package.”

“You want to have all your ducks in a row.”

“Exactly. And I’m still waiting on some market analyses and cost projections. When they’re ready and I’ve had a chance to study them, I’ll lay out the entire plan for him.”

This was uncustomary. Always before, she and Foster had worked in tandem. One rarely made a move without the other knowing about it. While it was true that she wanted to surprise him with a kit-and-caboodle proposal, it was also true that, when she did, she wanted his undivided attention. She hadn’t had that in months. He’d been preoccupied with finding the right man to sire their child.

He thought of little else, talked of little else. Every conversation included at least one reference to a child and its conception. That was the prevailing issue of their lives now. If she became pregnant, she knew that Foster would become an expert on prenatal care, diet, exercise. He would spend hours researching and committing to memory every aspect of pregnancy. No doubt he would chart their child’s development on a daily basis.

He had once been quoted in Business Week as saying that his airline’s success was in large part due to his OCD-obsessive-compulsive disorder. The interviewer thought he was joking. He wasn’t.

He had been diagnosed as an adolescent, although he had exhibited the symptoms in early childhood. His parents had thought his compulsions went hand in glove with his brilliant mind and were nothing to worry about. But when those compulsions began to interfere with normal function and everyday life, his parents had sought psychiatric help.

Foster was put on medication to keep the disorder under control. He wasn’t “healed,” however, and so in a very real sense his obsessiveness was indeed responsible for his fanatic attention to detail, and therefore for SunSouth’s extraordinary success.

Unless the weather was prohibitive, late arrivals and departures were not tolerated at SunSouth Airlines.

Each packet of peanuts contained exactly the same number. One too few, the customer was cheated. One too many cost the airline money.

Flight attendants and pilots did not alter their uniforms, not even by wearing nonregulation cuff links or an unapproved shade of panty hose.

If he’d had less charisma, Foster’s obsessiveness would have incited mutiny by subordinates. But he was so personally disarming that it was indulged. Most regarded it with amusement instead of impatience. He was even teased about it. It was looked upon as an idiosyncrasy, an endearing one at that. And no one, not even his sternest critics, could argue with his success.

But Laura had a different perspective on Foster’s OCD because she lived with it. She covered for him to keep it less noticeable to colleagues. Only she knew how much it governed his life. Increasingly so, it seemed. His compulsions were an integral part of him. Because she loved him, she accepted and tolerated them. But doing so had once been easier. Before.

Laura got up and walked to the window, rubbing her arms to ward off the chill of the air-conditioning. She twirled the wand on the blinds and looked through the slats at the traffic speeding along the expressway. A SunSouth jet, only minutes into its flight, was banking toward the west. The 3:45 to Denver, she thought automatically.