Chapter 9: Count the Months

Corrine's POV

Posy cried every night between midnight and three.

The nurse had said it was normal for a newborn, and I believed her, and it didn't help at all.

On Sunday night I walked the hall of the Marsh Street house with her against my shoulder, one slow lap after another.

My father snored on the couch downstairs with the lamp on.

At one in the morning, someone tapped the front window.

I looked through the curtain.

Ward stood on the porch in his salt-stained jacket with his hands in his pockets.

I opened the door a few inches with the chain on.

"I know what time it is," he said. "I couldn't sit in that room."

"What happened?"

"Summer came to the motel."

I let him in.

He stood in the entryway and looked at the crib my father had carried in, and he didn't touch it.

I put the kettle on, because it was something to do with my hands.

Posy screamed on in my arms.

"Can I?" Ward said.

I hesitated.

Then I handed her over, because my stitches burned and my arms were shaking.

He held her carefully, with both big hands.

He stood very still, and her crying dropped lower, and then it fell off into hiccups.

"Huh," he said.

"Don't get cocky."

"I'm not."

I sat down at the kitchen table.

"Summer won't take the test," he said. "She cried for ten minutes in the bathroom and wouldn't say why."

"Then she's afraid."

"I held the baby."

"I'm sorry."

"Corrine, he has my hair."

"Plenty of babies have black hair."

"He has my father's finger. The little one on the left hand, bent at the top."

He held up his own hand under the kitchen light.

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