Next Time Away novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: Next Time Away

The Tuesday before Christmas, I lay on the same table in the same room with the same cold gel on my stomach.

I was thirty-five weeks pregnant again.

The technician was the same woman, and she had recognized me at the door.

"Last year you came alone," she said, squinting at the screen.

"Last year I did."

"Fluid's good this time. Look at that."

A hand closed around mine.

Jonas sat in the plastic chair beside the table, in his work jacket, with his knees nearly at his chin.

He had not let go since the waiting room.

"Is that her foot?" he said.

"It's his," the technician said. "Or hers. We don't say until you ask."

"We're not asking," I said.

"We're a little bit asking," said Jonas.

I laughed, and the screen shook, and the technician laughed too.

On the monitor, a small shape turned over and put one fist up beside its head.

Jonas stared at it.

I watched his face.

"Greta did that," he said.

"She did."

"She did the exact same thing."

His thumb moved over my knuckles, back and forth, slowly.

My phone buzzed on the tray beside me.

I had the old reflex, the one I still had in the mornings, and I turned it over with my stomach tight.

It was only a message from Soren's mother.

She had written: Greta has eaten two cookies and pulled down one ornament. Elsie says hurry.

Under it was a picture of my daughter, almost a year old, in a red velvet dress.

She sat on my grandmother's rug with a gingerbread leg in each fist.

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