Lymber craft's Arc

Chapter 49 of 70

Saturday morning Lymber woke up thinking about the empty room at the end of the hall. The closet box was done. She and Paul had gone through every folder until midnight and found nothing else. That left the twins' room, still stacked with moving boxes from when they took the house. Four months felt short when she counted it in weekends. She got out of bed and told Paul over coffee that they were finishing the nursery today. He said, Today. She said, Both cribs, both dressers, the wall. He set his cup down and went to the garage for the tools. Maggie came at nine with the kids' breakfast already planned. Lymber met her at the door and said she needed the day. Maggie looked past her at the boxes in the hall and said, Go. I have them. Violetta ran up in her pink dress and asked if she could help paint. Lymber said no paint today, only babies' beds. Violetta said, For Max and Missy. Lymber said, Yes. Maggie took Violetta's hand and walked her to the kitchen without another word. Jett was already in the high chair banging a spoon. Paul carried the flat boxes up one at a time. Lymber sat on the carpet and read the instructions out loud. He tightened the bolts. She held the panels straight. The first crib took an hour. The second one took forty minutes because they knew the pattern. Her back ached by the time they stood the second crib against the wall, and she sat on the floor with her hand on the bump. Paul said, Break. She said, Ten minutes. He brought her water and sat next to her. He said, Two of them. She said, Two. He said, We can do it. She said, I know. They finished the dressers before lunch. Paul mounted a shelf between the cribs and Lymber laid out the folded sleepers by size. She had bought them in packs of six, one pack blue, one pack pink, the rest white. She put the white ones in the middle drawer of each dresser. Paul hung a framed print of the twin ultrasound over the shelf. He stepped back and looked at the room. He said, It's a room now. She said, It is. Downstairs Maggie was singing something to Jett and Violetta was laughing. Lymber stood in the doorway and counted what was left. Car seats still in the garage. A second monitor to buy. Sheets to wash. But the cribs were up and the wall was set and the room had turned from storage into a place where two babies would sleep. She pulled the door most of the way closed and went down to eat lunch with her family. Sixteen weeks to fill the cribs.