Chapter 22: Ask Me Something Different

By the thirty-sixth week, I could rest a dinner plate on my stomach.

Gilbert sat in a county cell, waiting for a trial date.

Gretchen had pleaded guilty and given the court every file she owned.

My father had hung the Corr sign back over the doors on LaSalle Street.

He cried on the sidewalk while the workmen fitted the last letter.

Quentin rented a room above a hardware store and asked me his one question a week.

For twenty-six weeks it had been the same question.

How is she doing?

I had always said, fine.

That Friday, I opened my door to him at nine at night and said, "Come in. I need help with the crib."

He had a screwdriver in his coat pocket before I finished the sentence.

My apartment was small and yellow, with a rocking chair Rhiannon had found on a curb.

My father had bought a dozen boxes of baby clothes in a panic, and they covered the floor.

The crib lay in pieces across the nursery floor.

Quentin knelt in the middle of it with the instructions in his teeth.

I watched him from the doorway, in a robe, with one hand under my belly.

He had learned to hum when he worked.

I had never known that about him in six years.

He tightened the last bolt, set the screwdriver down, and shook the rail to test it.

It held.

"That's done," he said.

I did not say anything.

He looked up and saw my face.

"Claire?"

"I've been watching you for an hour," I said. "I think I'd like you to stay."

He rose to his feet very slowly.

"Stay to finish the shelf?"

"No," I said. "Stay for me."

He crossed the room in three steps and stopped in front of me, not touching, with his hands open.

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