She reaches over and clicks off the lamp. The room leans into blue, and I shift closer, sliding one arm under her head and the other across her middle. Her body fits against mine like she’s always belonged there. I can feel her heartbeat slowing under my hand, steady and sure.
Family isn’t a verdict, I think. It’s a door you keep walking through.
When she falls asleep, her breath evens against my chest. I stare at the ceiling for a long time, trying to memorize the sound of it—the soft, stubborn proof that I stayed.
24
WILLOW
Charlestonin late summer is a wet blanket that learned how to smother. The heat doesn’t sit on you so much as lean—cheek to cheek, breath to mouth, sticky and insistent. By the time I waddle out of MUSC’s maternal-fetal clinic after my NST, my dress is pasted to my spine and my sandals make small, tragic sounds.
Non-stress test, take three this week. Two wide elastic belts, cool gel, clicky buttons. Thirty minutes ofare you moving?andplease move, of tracing paper curling off the machine like a ribbon. Two babies cooperated. The third, as usual, treated the test like a dare and napped through most of it, forcing me into the chair-dance of belly wiggles and apple juice. When the line finally spiked the way it was supposed to, the nurse patted my hand and said, “Good babies,” like they’d done me a favor.
The doors whoosh. Outside, the asphalt breathes heat. I blink, adjusting, and see that Sean Byrne is already there, leaning against a column like he’s part of the scenery. He’s part of the scenery of my life lately, at least.
Sunglasses are hooked in his shirt, his wheat-colored hair is a little wild from the humidity, and his grin is at half-mast. My heart does a loop-de-loop when I see that grin, those shining teeth settled in his thick lips that I’ve kissed a few times. I don’t know if I ever will again. It seems like we had that one conversation and then all ran scared back to our corners.
In his hand is a plastic cup crowned with whipped cream, my name scrawled on the lid like a charm.
“Now, care to explain,” he says, lifting the cup, “why I’m holding the world’s most perfect milkshake and you’re not?”
I don’t even pretend to be cool. “If that’s vanilla with extra malt, I might cry on you.”
“Vanilla, extra malt,” he says solemnly, because of course it is. “Doctor’s orders.”
“You are not my doctor.” I take the straw anyway. The first sip is almost indecent, cold and sweet enough to make my eyes close. I moan. I can’t even be embarrassed about it.
“Jaysus,” he says, delighted, “if that sound had a Yelp page, I’d give it five stars.”
“Don’t be gross,” I manage, and then I take another unapologetic pull. The babies rouse under my hand like they can smell the sugar. “Where’d you come from?”
“Top-secret mission,” he says, falling into step beside me. “I texted Cheyenne your ETA. She texted back, quote,Bring her something cold that won’t give her heartburn.And you know how I like a direct order.”
“Yes, you’re a very good boy,” I tell him, staring into his hazel eyes and giving the smallest smile.
“You’re both terrifying.” He angles me toward a patch of shade like he’s issuing a redirect to an airplane. “Benches this way, Miss Abel.”
“Where’s Cheyenne?” I ask, but I let him herd me because resistance is futile and also because my ankles have turned into decorative gourds. The shade under the live oaks is its own kind of weather—green and buzzing. Cicadas drone, relentless. Spanish moss sways, the only thing in Charleston with any chill.
“She’s on her way. You’re in good hands, Willow.”
“I know, I know,” I mumble, even as he pulls my heels onto his knees. He pulls a fan from seemingly out of nowhere and starts to fan me like an enthusiastic handmaiden in a period drama. He does it so matter-of-factly my eyes sting. “Well, two were cooperative, one took a union break. We made quota in the last five minutes.”
“Any decelerations?” His tone goes deceptively light, a doctor’s ear hiding behind a boyfriend’s joke. He’s not my doctor and not my boyfriend. He’s Sean.
“None,” I say. “Spirited little baseline, some nice accelerations. Dr. Patel said ‘good.’ She also said to keep doing kick counts, keep hydrating, keep not murdering anyone.” I lift the milkshake. “Hydrating. Check.”
He gives a satisfied little “Hah.”
For a minute we watch a pair of med students walk by holding iced coffees and anxiety. I study Sean’s profile, strong and a little smug, like a man who knows he can talk any room into liking him and also knows I see through it.
He points to my belly. “Alright, roll call. Which one was the strike organizer today?”
“Baby C,” I say. “The troublemaker.”
“That tracks,” he says. “They say the third child is the comedian.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
