Lymber craft's Arc

Chapter 17 of 70

The bag had been by the door for a week. Lymber packed it the morning after the countdown post hit five figures. Diapers, two sleepers, the knit hat with the bow, a nightgown that buttoned down the front. She set it in the hall and told Paul it was for five weeks from Tuesday. He nodded and moved it against the wall so no one tripped on it. Every morning since, she checked the zipper and counted the days on her phone before she posted the new number. On Thursday she came down late and found Paul at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal he hadn't touched. She sat across from him and put her hands flat on the wood. She said she had something to tell him. He set the spoon down. She said the doctor scheduled a c-section for four weeks, not five. She had signed the paper on Monday at the appointment he missed for the pharmacy run. She said she kept the countdown at five weeks anyway because the whole town was watching that number, and if she moved it up by a week people would start asking why. Paul was quiet for a long time. He asked if the baby was okay. She said yes, it was a scheduling thing, the doctor's calendar and her placenta sitting low. He asked why she didn't tell him Monday. She said because he would have told her mother, and her mother would have made her post the change. He pushed the bowl away and put both hands over his face. Then he dropped them and said, four weeks. She said, four. He said, okay. He said, I would have kept it too. He got up and went to the hall and looked at the bag and came back and sat down. Her mother came in from the yard with dirt on her knees and a bundle of green onions in her fist. She looked at the two of them and set the onions in the sink. She said, what. Lymber told her flat, the way Paul had heard it. Polly rinsed her hands and dried them on a towel. She said, four weeks is fine. She said, the countdown stays. She said, you tell no one else, not the nurse's daughter, not the girl on council. Lymber said she wouldn't. Polly said, move the bag into the nursery. Sitting in the hall makes it a prop. Lymber and Paul carried it upstairs together and set it on the floor by the crib. Lymber sat in the rocker and put her hand on her stomach. Four weeks. The number on her phone still said five. She would post five again tomorrow, and the next day four, and the town would count down to the wrong day while she counted down to the right one.