Lymber craft's Arc

Chapter 12 of 70

The next morning Lymber woke to the post at nine hundred likes and a text from her mother waiting on the nightstand. Polly wanted her downstairs before the coffee went cold. Lymber pulled on a sweatshirt and found Polly at the kitchen table with a notepad and a pen. Polly said the shower was six weeks out. Polly said six weeks was nothing. Polly said if they waited on other people to buy the crib and the bottles and the onesies, they would be driving to the store at midnight in labor. Lymber sat down. Paul came in with wet hair and stood at the counter. Polly slid the notepad across and told them to start a list. Lymber wrote crib at the top. Then bottles. Then diapers. Her hand stopped. She did not know what came after diapers. Paul pulled a chair around and looked at the paper. He said a car seat. He said they could not leave the hospital without one. Lymber wrote it down. Polly named the rest without looking up. A bassinet. A changing pad. Sleepers in three sizes. Burp cloths. A thermometer. Wipes by the case. Lymber's pen moved and did not stop. The list ran down the page and onto the back. They took Polly's car to the big store on the edge of town. Lymber pushed the cart. Paul walked behind her with the list. She picked a white crib because it matched nothing and would match everything. She picked a car seat in the middle of the price range because the cheapest one had a bad review and the top one cost more than her gown. In the clothing aisle she held up a sleeper the size of a loaf of bread and could not speak. Paul took it from her and put it in the cart. He said sorry it took him so long to buy her anything. He said it to the sleeper, not to Lymber. Lymber turned to the next rack and picked out five more in the same size and three in the next size up. The cart filled. Polly met them at the register with a package of bottles and a case of wipes and did not ask what anything cost. They brought the bags into the house and stacked them in the guest room across from Lymber's. Paul cleared his desk to the wall to make space for the crib box. Lymber sat on the floor and lined the sleepers up on the carpet by size. Polly stood in the doorway and said now the shower could be extras. Lymber nodded. The room smelled like new cotton. Her name and Paul's name were on the receipt in the kitchen, together, the first time they had bought anything as parents. She folded the smallest sleeper and set it on top of the pile.