Chapter 18: Thursday, Another Clinic

Lena's POV

Boone told me about the saddlebag in the truck on the way to Missoula.

He told it flat, in order, with both hands on the wheel.

I listened to the part about the torn flap, and the part where Rafe said the word keep.

"He caught himself," Boone said. "He said he meant if I was okay."

"If I was okay."

"If you were okay."

I looked out at the Clark Fork running brown beside the highway.

"Do you believe that?"

He was quiet for two miles.

"I believe he's my friend," he said at last. "I haven't decided about the rest."

I put my hand over his on the gearshift, and he turned his palm up and held it.

That was how we walked into the clinic, with the envelope back in my bag and his thumb moving across my knuckles.

The waiting room was full of women with their bellies out in front of them.

Boone sat down in a chair too small for him and read a pamphlet about folic acid upside down.

A nurse called my name at ten, and she looked at Boone and said, "Dad can come in too."

He stood up so fast the pamphlet fell.

In the exam room I lay back on the paper sheet, and the doctor squeezed cold gel onto my stomach.

She was the same quick woman from before, with gray in her bob and reading glasses on a chain like Birdie's.

"Eleven weeks and two days," she said. "Let's see who's in there."

She pressed the wand low, and the screen filled with gray static.