Shelby’s making a marinade for the steaks, Clementine sets the table, and Wyatt’s still not back from his FatherWise meetup, which is meant to bolster dads’ confidence and offer support during the pregnancy and beyond. He’s plenty confident about parenting—perhapseven more so than I am—but he’s enjoying meeting with neighborhood dads and finding new pickleball partners. Plus, Wyatt and Nick attend the meetups together, with Kat and me on the same schedule.
“Can you hear that?” I ask Shelby. She’s beside me in the kitchen whisking the marinade.
She pauses, tilts her head as she listens. “I don’t think so,” she replies, back to whisking. “What is it?”
“I’m not sure.” I look at Clementine. “Clem, did you leave your tablet on?”
“No, Momma.” She’s focused on folding a linen napkin into a sharp-peaked triangle, the tip of her tongue sticking out with the concentration.
“Can you still hear it?” Shelby casts me a sideways glance. I know what she’s thinking—that I’m having another auditory hallucination. Which might be true? But my forced rest week is up tomorrow morning, and I need to get back to work.
Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub…
“No, it’s gone now. Maybe it was the wind.” We’re having blustery weather this evening, and I hope Wyatt gets home before the rain starts. “Or maybe it’s Stanley. Where is he, by the way?”
I know where he is, but I need to distract Shelby so she stops looking at me like that. Stanley is asleep on Shelby’s bed. I saw him there when I set her freshly laundered towels in her bathroom about a half hour ago.
“Hmm. Good question.” She wipes her hands, calls for the dog. A moment later there’s a light thud from Shelby’s room, and Stanley comes trotting out. He stretches—downward, then upward—yawning. “Stan, were you sleeping? Sorry, honey. Didn’t mean to wake you.”
Stanley, realizing it’s not yet dinnertime, gives a grunt and jumps up on the couch, curling into a ball.
Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub…
“I’m going to run to the washroom before dinner.” I scrape thechopped cucumber and parsley into the salad bowl, rinsing both the knife and cutting board before setting them in the above-sink drying rack.
“Feel free to use mine,” Shelby says.
“That’s okay. I need to take my vitamins anyway.”
I pass my bedroom door and head up the next flight of stairs, moving slowly to avoid heavy footfalls.
Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub…
It’s louder up here. Undeniably a beating heart.
Pausing outside my studio door, I wait for my own heart rate to decelerate. It’s high, in part from climbing the stairs at eight months pregnant. I check my watch. Good, it’s coming down. Pressing an ear to my studio door, I listen.
Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub…
I pull back quickly. It’s coming from inside the studio. My mind races. The studio has been locked for a week. No one, and nothing, has gone in or out.
I glance over my shoulder to make sure no one’s followed me upstairs, my heart rate picking up again. So much faster than the slow and steady beat coming from inside the studio.
With shaking fingers, I press the code on the keypad. Three beeps followed by a click as the lock disengages. I’m not supposed to go in until tomorrow morning. But the heartbeat sound is agitating, and I have to know what it is. The compulsion to make it stop trumps my good sense.
I step inside, swiftly closing the door behind me.
My studio is dark, and I blink a few times to allow my eyes to adjust. I don’t want to turn on a light for fear Wyatt is coming up the street at precisely this moment and will see it, asking questions I’m not prepared to answer.
I tap my watch screen so it illuminates, then step closer to the canvas. The heartbeat sound speeds up, matching my own. As I near the painting, which remains under its cover, the beating intensifies. Thesound echoes through my tissues and bones. It’s not exactly painful, but almost.
There’s movement in the center of the cover. A sort of pulsing outward—a bubble forming in the material, then disappearing, then bulging out again.
It takes only a moment to see the in-and-out movement is timed to the heartbeat. The rhythm matches.
Every instinct tells me to get out of there. But I don’t, even as the sound threatens to overtake me. It’s now so loud I can barely keep myself from screaming,Shut up!
Asnap!sound echoes in the small room, as one of the corners of the cover comes off the painting. The other three corners follow suit, as though invisible hands are releasing the cover. I gasp, then grab onto the desk, my legs unwilling to hold me.
