Page 59

Lis doesn't look up from her magazine. She's been taking me to all my appointments since I got here, so she's letting Carson have this one. I didn't ask her to do that, but she knows as well as I do that three of us in there would be tight.

Inside, the cuff goes tight around my arm and then lets go with a sigh. The nurse reads the number, writes it down. One thirty-six over eighty-six. She takes a cup off the shelf and hands it to me without a word.

Dr. Rao comes in already talking, snapping on gloves, turning the screen so we can both see. The gel is cold, and I flinch when it touches me. She pretends not to notice.

"Baby A is head down." She points. Two curled shapes, gray and grainy. "Baby B is doing whatever Baby B wants."

"That tracks."

She moves the wand and names things like she's reading off a grocery list. There are two stomachs, two bladders and four chambers here, four chambers there, each heart flickering fast. Both babies are measuring right on schedule.

"Dad, you seeing this?" She doesn't turn around.

Carson leans in and clears his throat. "Yes, ma'am."

That's the second time today somebody has called him Dad. Neither of us corrects them because it's technically correct.

Rao peels off her gloves and talks to both of us. Hours stay reduced, and I'm to lift nothing over ten pounds. She looks at Carson and tells him to make sure I have my feet up by midday.

"What do I watch for?" Carson asks.

"Headache that won't quit, spots, blurred vision, and any swelling in her face or hands. If she complains of any pain up under the right ribs, call my office." She holds his eye. "Day or night. I mean it."

"Yes, ma'am."

He pulls a flat carpenter's pencil out of his shirt pocket and turns the appointment card over and writes it down, all of it, in blocky letters, the lead scratching. I look at his hands doing it, and then I look at the ceiling tiles until I have myself back.

In the parking lot, Lis nods at the dash. "Pictures. Don't forget them." She gets behind the wheel.

Carson settles his hat back on. "I'll see you two tomorrow."

That's the first I've heard there's a tomorrow.

The car seat wall runs thirty feet if it runs an inch. Carson reads two boxes cover to back, every gray line of fine print, while I sit on the glider bench they put out for testing gliders.

We take two of the same seat, two more bases, two bassinets flat-packed. We both grab the same box corner and our hands land together. Neither of us pulls back until he insists on getting it by himself.

In the clothes aisle we buy going-home outfits in preemie and newborn both, because nobody will tell me how big two thirty-seven-week babies come out.

A clerk offers monogramming. I order a G on the boy's and nothing on the girl's.

"And the second one?" the clerk asks.

Carson's down the aisle, a bassinet box under each arm.

"Leave it blank for now."

"We can add it later, five dollars, if you’d like.”

"Perfect. Five dollars, later."

The blank isn't an accident. Graham has had his name since April. I've been holding the other one open for a man who left that part to me on that same phone call.

At the register, I reach for my card. Carson's is already on the counter.

"Put it on mine."

"We have a system."