Chapter 19: Past Eight Weeks

Emmett's POV

Hattie was the one who took the baby.

She came off a twelve-hour shift the next evening, looked at Alexis's face and then at mine, and held out her arms.

"I've got her," she said. "Haley's asleep on the couch. I'll sleep on the floor next to the pair of them."

"You don't have to," Alexis said.

"Lexi-Lexi. Go."

So I drove Alexis to West Street.

There is a small apartment behind the agency office, two rooms and a kitchen my mother lived in for her last ten years.

I had not brought anyone there in a long time.

Alexis stood in the doorway and looked at the narrow bed, the lamp, the shelf of nursing manuals.

"It's very neat," she said.

"I wasn't expecting company."

"You weren't expecting anything."

"No." I put my keys down. "That's the truth."

She crossed the room and stopped in front of me.

"I'm past eight weeks," she said. "The doctor said so on Thursday. I asked her twice."

I did not move.

"Alexis."

"I want to say it plainly, so you don't have to guess. I want you to stay until morning. I want all of it."

My control had held for three weeks, through every quiet look across Hattie's kitchen.

It went in one breath.

I kissed her hard, against the doorframe, and she kissed me back with her hands fisted in my shirt.