Chapter 20: Birth Class

Anders's POV

Kristin's door was open when I got to the top of the stairs.

There were boxes in the hall, half taped, and a lamp wrapped in a towel.

She sat on the living room floor with her back against the sofa.

She wore the gray sweater from July.

She had not put on any makeup.

The oak crib stood in the corner exactly where it had stood two weeks ago, with the white sheet tucked tight.

"I'd have shut the door behind me," she said, "but I wanted to see you decide whether to."

I left it open.

I sat down in the armchair, not near her.

"My landlady gave me till the end of the month," she said.

"Birgit's called forty times. Nils sent a text that said only my name."

"It's the cruelest thing anyone has done to me, and I earned it."

"What do you want, Kristin?"

"I don't know."

She laughed, badly.

"I wanted a father for the baby. I wanted a family that looked like the one in my head."

"I picked the wrong brother, and then the wrong way, and I'd have kept doing it."

"You didn't tell me."

"You didn't call."

"No."

"We're even at that," she said. "We're nowhere near even at the rest."

I had come ready to be angry.

I had been ready all the way up the stairs, and it wasn't there.

She was thirty-four and fifteen weeks along, sitting on a floor.

"I'll sign anything," she said. "Custody, name, whatever you need. If you want to take him from me, I won't fight."

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