Excerpt from Drowning Ruth by Christina Schwarz, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I didn't know what to say to this. Mary Louise had been pregnant every one of the five years since she and George Lindgren had been married, and she had lost all five of those babies, each when it was several months along. A person ought to know when to give up, I thought; a person ought not to court disaster. At the very least, she should be wary. She should hold some of her feelings back. But Mary Louise was incapable of reticence, and she didn't have the advantage of scientific training, the way I did. She always acted as if nothing could possibly go wrong, as if this child's birth were written in the stars, and she need only wait for the blessed event. Only her hands hovering protectively over her belly betrayed the worry underneath. What she thought was growing could so easily amount to nothing at all.

"It feels different this time," she said defensively, although I hadn't expressed my concern.

"I hope so." Really, what else could I have said?

We agreed then that I should be on my way while there was still light. A few steps from the store, knowing she would be watching, I turned to look back. She held up her hand and, as I mirrored her, I thought of the time when we were just alike, Mary Louise and I, both happy to be finished with school for the day, running and sliding along this very road, scanning the tower of St. Michael's for the lantern light that we believed signaled the escape of a lunatic, talking about why Netty Klefstaad wasn't speaking to Ramona Mueller, and how we knew Bobby Weiss had cheated at spelling, and what to do with the penny after you'd rubbed it on a wart, and sometimes singing.

Excerpted from Drowning Ruth by Christina Shwarz. Copyright© 2000 by Christina, Schwarz. Excerpted by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.