Lymber craft's Arc

Chapter 5 of 70

The side door slammed behind them and the noise of the gym cut down to a hum. Polly kept her grip on Lymber's elbow and walked her fast across the lot. Lymber's heels slid on the loose grit. The crown pinched at her scalp. Behind them a fire door banged open again and voices spilled out, phones raised, someone calling her name in a laugh. Polly did not turn around. She yanked open the passenger door of her sedan and pushed Lymber in by the shoulder. The test strip was still in Lymber's fist. Polly walked around the hood, got in, and started the engine before her own door was fully shut. Polly drove without speaking. She took the long way, past the closed diner and the dark rows of the old subdivision, and turned in at the wide drive of the six-bedroom house where Lymber had grown up. She pulled into the garage and dropped the door before either of them moved. Only then did she look at her daughter. "Inside," she said. Lymber followed her through the mudroom, past the kitchen, up the stairs, into Polly's own bedroom at the end of the hall. Polly shut the door and turned the lock. The house was quiet. The walls were thick. No neighbor would hear. No classmate would film. Lymber sat on the edge of the bed with the crown still on her head and the strip still in her hand and waited. Polly stood with her back against the door. Her voice came out low and even, which was worse than shouting. She asked Lymber if she understood what she had just done. Lymber said she did. Polly asked who the father was. Lymber said a name, quiet. Polly closed her eyes for a long second and opened them. She said Sunday was over. She said they would call the doctor in the morning, and the lawyer after that, and Lymber would not go back to school on Monday until Polly said so. Lymber nodded. She set the strip on the nightstand next to a lamp and lifted the crown off her hair and set it beside the strip. The two things sat there together under the light. Polly sat down on the bed next to her daughter and did not touch her. Outside, a phone somewhere in town was already sending the video to another phone. Inside this room, for tonight, no one could reach them.