Lymber craft's Arc

Chapter 15 of 70

Sunday morning Lymber woke to an empty bed and a house that felt too quiet. She had gone to sleep with Paul on the floor beside her, sorting receipts from the shower into a shoebox. Now the shoebox sat closed on the rug and his side of the hall was dark. She sat up and the baby kicked hard under her ribs. Then it stopped. She waited. She pressed her palm flat and pushed and got nothing back. She counted to sixty. Still nothing. She swung her legs off the bed and called Paul's name once, sharp. He came out of the nursery in yesterday's shirt with a screwdriver in his hand. She told him the baby had stopped moving. His face went white in a way she had never seen. He dropped the screwdriver on the carpet and got her shoes. Polly drove them to the clinic without changing out of her robe. In the exam room the nurse squeezed cold gel on Lymber's stomach and moved the wand around and the room was silent for four seconds. Then the heartbeat came through the speaker, fast and steady, and the nurse smiled and said the baby was fine, probably sleeping through a growth spurt, and that Lymber had done the right thing by coming in. Lymber started to cry and could not stop. Paul sat in the plastic chair by the table and put his forehead down on the edge of the paper sheet next to her hip. He did not lift his head for a long time. When he did his eyes were wet and he said, I can't do this without you. He said it flat, without moving his hand from her wrist. He said, I didn't know until right now. Lymber looked at him and understood something she had been carrying loose for months click into place. She had thought he was staying because Polly made him. She had thought he was staying because the town was watching. He was staying because he loved her. She reached for his hand and held it against her stomach and the baby kicked once, hard, under both their palms. Polly stood in the doorway and did not say anything. In the car on the way home Paul kept his hand on Lymber's knee and did not let go, and Lymber knew the shape of the next ten weeks had changed, and the shape of what came after.