Chapter 10: Two Lines

Lu Chen had read four hundred pages of contract law in his life and had never once been unable to read a single sentence.

The doctor's sentence was short.

"Mr. Su is about eight weeks pregnant," she said. "Congratulations to you both."

Su Yu, sitting on the examination bed with his shoes off, lit up all over.

"A baby?"

"A baby."

"In me?"

"That is where they usually are," the doctor said.

"Can it nap?" Su Yu asked. "Does it nap? Is it like me?"

Lu Chen heard himself say, "Excuse me."

He walked out of the room and down the corridor and stopped at a window.

His hands were shaking.

He looked at them, and put them in his pockets, and then took one out again to feel for the notebook.

Eight weeks.

That meant the night of the heat.

That meant a child who would be born before the contract's year was up.

He had written the end date himself.

He had written it very carefully, in smaller print than the rest.

He had wanted it to look like a lawyer's habit.

A voice came behind him, soft and unhurried.

"Chen."

Su Yu had put his shoes on the wrong feet, and was holding a paper form against his chest.

"You walked out."

"I needed air."

"Say the real thing."

Lu Chen turned.

The corridor was empty, and there was no one to perform for.

"I am afraid," he said.

It was the first time he had said it to anyone aloud.

"I have never had anything I was supposed to keep," he said.

"A child is a very long time. I do not know how to do it."

Su Yu looked at him for a moment, and Lu Chen waited for the joke.