“My father’s favorite price was free.”
“And?”
“That’s it. You asked for the short version.”
“Okay. I get it.” Liz wiped the sweat from her brow. “You’re trying to distract me from my impending doom.”
“Is it working?”
“Yes. Go on. Tell me the long story, or maybe the medium version.”
“Okay, but you need to promise me one thing first.”
“What?”
“You need to keep your baby inside you for a little longer, okay? I think this situation calls for a professional with a greater understanding of childbirth than someone who found Ina May’s dusty midwifery book in a box his father picked up from the side of a street.”
“Deal.”
—
Liz broke her promise.
Keishin clung to Ina May’s words as though they were the very cable that kept the elevator from crashing to the ground. Liz, he repeated to himself, was not a lemon, and with Ina May’s time-tested guidance, she was going to give birth as smoothly as any aardvark. “You’re doing great, Liz,” he said, looking over her bent legs. “Just give me one more big push, okay?”
Liz groaned, her brows meeting.
“We’re almost there. Deep breaths, Liz. This is it. I can see the head.” Keishin positioned his hands between Liz’s legs, cradling the baby as it emerged. “I got her!”
“Is…is she okay?” Liz sobbed.
Keishin gently ran his hand over the baby’s nose and mouthas Ina May had instructed, clearing them of fluid. A lusty cry escaped the baby’s lips. Keishin laid her in Liz’s arms.
“She’s beautiful.” Liz alternately laughed and cried. “Thank you.”
Keishin wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “Thank Ina May.”
The elevator doors slid open. A man in a dark blue-gray jumpsuit stood outside, his jaw on the floor. “Holy shit…are you guys okay?”
Keishin glanced back at Liz. Her smile seemed out of place in a steaming elevator reeking of blood, sweat, and birth fluids. It was a smile that could belong only to someone who was utterly content to be stranded where she was. This, Keishin thought, was what happiness looked like: an exhausted woman sitting in a puddle of amniotic goo and smashed jelly donuts, a crumpled Chinese take-out menu at her side. Liz’s eyes saw only her daughter, and no one and nothing else mattered beyond the bundle in her arms. Keishin wiped the blood from his hands on his pants and walked out of the elevator, wondering if he was ever going to be happy enough to sit perfectly and quietly still.
Chapter Thirty-one
The Message
Hana leaned against Keishin’s shoulder, hoping that if her eyes were closed, her last fifteen minutes inside a convenience store that wasn’t real would feel longer. She refused to spend any of it imagining what was going to happen when it was over. She needed every second of it to rewrite a memory of her own. Here, in the instant-noodle aisle of a store with too many colors and bright lights, was where she should have met Keishin for the first time, not in a pawnshop littered with broken glass. Here, they might have had the chance to be more than just two strangers clinging to each other for safety and warmth. It made her think of her father’s story about how the pawned birds could reset time if they escaped. This, she thought, would be the moment she would fly straight back to if, like the birds, she could break free.
Paper rustled by her ear. Hana jolted up, nearly knocking Keishin’s coffee cup from his hand.
“Whoa,” Keishin said. “Careful. This is hot. Even if it isn’t real.”
“Did you hear that?” Hana said.
“Hear what?”
The sound of rustling paper grew louder. Hana grabbed her bag and stuck her hand inside. She pulled out the piece of paperHaruto had given her. It wriggled in her hand. “It’s Haruto.” She set the paper on the floor. “He is sending us a message.”
Hana and Keishin watched the paper move in a flurry and crease on its own, folded by an expert invisible hand. When it reached its final, angular shape, it grew still.
