Chapter 7: Zero

Porter turned around slowly.

"Daisy," he said. "I told you to wait at home."

"I couldn't," Daisy said. Her voice trembled. "I had to see her."

She walked up the pavement in her pale blue coat.

She stopped beside him, holding the second cake in both arms.

She did not look at me. She looked at his sleeve.

"You said it was over," I said to Porter.

"It is."

"Then she's carrying your cake."

"Cora, that isn't what it looks like."

"Porter," Daisy said softly. "Tell her. Please."

He stared at her.

"Tell her what?"

Daisy took a breath and smiled through her tears.

"I'm pregnant," she said. "I found out this morning. Six weeks."

The pavement went very quiet.

Porter's mouth opened and nothing came out of it.

I watched his face. He was not happy and he was not horrified. He was doing arithmetic.

"Six weeks," he said slowly.

"That would be in time," he said, to himself.

"In time for what?" Daisy asked.

"Nothing."

He had said it too fast, and she heard it.

For half a second her smile slipped.

Then she put her hand on his arm and brought it back.

"I wanted you to hear it first," she said. "But Cora should know too. We're going to have a baby."

I looked at her hand on his sleeve.

I looked at the cake in her other arm.

Daisy had set this up. She had come here knowing I would hear it, with a box in her hands and a tear on her cheek.

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