Chapter 10: Riverside

Corin stood up so fast his chair scraped back and hit the wall.

Nobody moved to fix it.

"Willa," he said. "What is that?"

Knox was holding the ultrasound photo by its edges, and he did not hide it.

He looked at me, and I nodded once.

He held it out to Corin.

Corin took it with both hands.

The woman with the stroller stopped rocking it.

The young man with the pamphlet put the pamphlet down.

"That's a heartbeat," Corin said, reading the little caption in the corner. "It says eight weeks. Willa."

"Eight weeks and two days," I said.

"Whose is it?"

I almost laughed.

"Yours."

His knees gave a little, and he sat back down in the chair with the photo in his lap.

"When did you know?"

"The morning before I found the note. A nurse here told me. I tore up the paper in our kitchen and sat on the couch and waited for you to come home."

"You were going to tell me that night."

"Over dinner."

He pressed his hand over his mouth.

I watched it hit him, all of it, in order.

The milk.

The midnight.

Then he stopped looking at the photo and looked at me, and the question he asked was not about her.

"Why didn't you say?" he whispered.

"Because I wanted to find out what you'd do when you didn't know."

"I would never have left if I had known."

"You left me on the couch at midnight, Corin. You didn't know, and you left."

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