Chapter 9: Three

Nolan took my wrist, not hard, and walked me out of the fourth floor and into the stairwell.

The door shut behind us with a hollow bang, and his hand stayed flat on his chest.

"Say it," he said.

"I don't know what you mean."

"Hattie."

"I have a spreadsheet to finish," I said, and I tried to step around him.

He did not block me.

He just stood in my way with that terrible white face.

"My father felt me," Nolan said.

"I was told this when I was a boy.

"He was across a restaurant, and my mother was seven weeks along.

"He stood up in the middle of his dinner and said, 'There's someone in me.'

"Every man in my family has done it.

"A second pulse, in the chest, from the first weeks.

"It's the only thing about us that doesn't make sense."

I stared at him.

"You're telling me you can feel a baby," I said.

"I'm telling you I've felt nothing for thirty-three years," he said.

"Then I walked past your desk, and my heart went wrong."

He pressed his palm harder against his shirt.

"It's not one," he said.

"It's three."

My legs gave way.

I sat down on the concrete step, and the printout in my bag crackled against my hip.

"You said you couldn't," I whispered.

"I was told I couldn't."

"By who?"

"A specialist, at twenty-four," he said.

"After I was sick.

"I believed him.

"I stopped looking at anyone for years, because there was nothing to find."

He sat down on the step below mine, with his back to the wall, and he looked up at me.

"Please tell me I'm not wrong," he said.

I took out the printout.

My hands were shaking so hard it rustled.

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