Chapter 23
Catherine had a math problem—one of both arithmetic and geometry. Her baby was due in November, some six months after she readmitted her husband to her bed and her life. How was she going to pull that off? She had never been good at math, but she prided herself on her ability to spin. Now she was going to have weave like the absent Odysseus’ faithful wife Penelope, who kept the hope of his Trojan War return alive—and thus her overeager suitors at bay—by spinning during the day and unraveling what she had woven at night. Only when she was finished, she told them, might she re-wed.
Catherine knew she was going to need narrative skills of Homerian proportions to keep the press off the scent. Cleverly, she had established a demilitarized zone where baby questions were concerned. “
