Chapter 13: Say It Here

Clayton did not say anything for a long time.

The tea on the step went cold.

Behind me, a patient in the queue coughed, and somebody hushed him.

"Ten weeks," Clayton said finally.

"Yes."

"Pregnant. With..." He looked at his hands. "With mine."

"Yours," I said. "I'd bought a pair of blue socks on my lunch break. I was going to give them to you at breakfast."

He made a noise I had never heard from him.

I told him the rest the way I had told it to Alec, only shorter, because he did not need the bathroom tiles or the towel on the car seat.

I told him about the doctor, and the three in the morning, and the couch.

"You covered me with a blanket," I said. "I remember the blanket."

"I thought you were tired."

"I was."

"I went to work." His voice shook. "I went to work, Romy. I put the coffee on the table and I went to work."

"Yes."

"Why didn't you wake me?"

"Because at two that morning you'd gone out the door for her," I said, "and I didn't think you would hear me."

That was the sentence I had carried for three years.

I watched it land.

Clayton put both hands over his face and folded forward until his forehead touched his knees.

Wanjiru came out of the doorway, walked down the steps, and put one hand flat on his back without a word.

I hadn't expected that from her.

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