Chapter 24: Thursday

I asked on Wednesday night, in the kitchen, in daylight, because the sun was still up.

"Lena, may I come with you tomorrow?"

She was drying a pan, and she did not turn around.

"Why?"

"Because it's your appointment and I should be in the room for it. And because I want to be."

"Eight-thirty," she said. "Wear a coat."

That was all, and I didn't sleep.

Lena's fertility clinic sits in a low brick building off Port Washington Road with a parking lot in front.

I knew the lot.

I had never been in it.

Lena parked in the third row from the door and turned off the engine, and neither of us got out.

She kept both hands on the wheel.

"This is where I sat," she said. "Most Thursdays."

I looked at the space around us.

It was an ordinary lot, with a cart return and a bare maple and a light pole with a faded number on it.

"That's the one I pulled the seat back in," she said, nodding at the next car over. "October."

"I'm sorry."

"You've said that."

"I'll say it until you tell me to stop."

"I'm not going to tell you to stop," she said. "I'm going to make you wait."

It was fair, and I took it.

The wind pushed a paper cup across the asphalt.

She reached up and checked her mirror, and then she put her hand back on the wheel.

I knew that gesture.

She makes it every Thursday morning before she asks the question.

I could see her draw the breath, and I saw her mouth begin to shape the first word.

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