Lymber craft's Arc

Chapter 37 of 70

Friday came and Polly drove. Lymber sat in the passenger seat with her hand pressed flat under her ribs, waiting for the pull that had been there all week. She did not feel it on the drive. She did not feel it in the parking lot. Inside the clinic, the nurse weighed her and took her blood pressure and led her to the exam room with the paper crinkling under her back. The doctor pressed the wand across her stomach and watched the screen. He looked at the incision. He pressed along the scar with two fingers and asked if it hurt. Lymber said no. He said the inflammation was gone. He said the tissue looked clean. He lifted the lifting restriction and the stairs restriction and told her to come back in a month for a routine check. Lymber sat up on the table and felt her shoulders drop for the first time since the wedding. In the car Polly asked what he said. Lymber said, I can pick up my own kids. Polly nodded once and started the engine. At the house Lymber walked up her own front steps without counting them. Paul was on the rug with Jett on his chest and Violetta feeding the puppy a piece of cracker. Lymber bent down and lifted Violetta onto her hip. Violetta laughed. Paul looked up and did not say anything, but his face changed. Lymber told Polly she could take her mornings back. Polly said she would come Monday anyway, then Wednesday, then taper. Lymber did not fight her. She carried Violetta to the kitchen and started a grocery list on the back of an envelope. She wrote milk and diapers and shampoo. She wrote a hair appointment for next week and underlined it twice. The roots had grown out three quarters of an inch. She had let it go. She would not let it go any longer.