title: A Way of the Cross for Mothers
author:  J. Katherine Reilly 
description: J. Katherine Reilly, who has two teenage children, has taught religion literature, and history at Catholic elementary and secondary school. She lives in Bergen County, NJ.
zlib_text: Cross
  
  Cross
  Cross
  
  Cross
  
  Chapter  1
  “I'M PREGNANT, ALEX.”
  Everything about the night is so very clear to me. Still is, after all this time, all these years
  that have passed, everything that's happened, the horrible murderers, the homicides solved
  and sometimes not.
  I stood in the darkened bedroom with my arms lightly circling my wife Maria's waist, my
  chin resting on her shoulder. I was thirty-one then, and had never been happier at any time
  of my life.
  Nothing even came close to what we had together, Maria, Damon, Jannie, and me.
  It was the fall of 1993, a million years ago it seems to me now.
  It was also past two in the morning, and our baby Jannie had the croup something
  terrible. Poor sweet girl had been up for most of the night, most of the last few nights, most
  of her young life. Maria was gently rocking Jannie in her arms, humming “You Are So
  Beautiful,” and I had my arms around Maria, rocking her.
  I was the one who'd gotten up first, but I couldn't seem to get Jannie back to 