The Wife He Left Behind novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: The Crib

By the first week of February I was twenty-six weeks along and I couldn't see my own feet.

I was sitting on the floor of my spare room, holding a crib rail, while my mother and a ferry captain argued over a diagram.

"It says A goes into B," Stellan said.

"A is the long one."

"A is the one with the holes."

"Joan, I've run a ferry for twelve years."

"And you can't read a picture." She snatched the sheet out of his hand and held it at arm's length over her glasses. "That's an Allen key. You've been holding it upside down."

"It doesn't have a right way up."

"Everything has a right way up."

I put my forehead on the rail and laughed until I had to stop.

I'd gone back to the courthouse in January, on a lighter schedule.

The judge had looked at me over her bench and said, "Welcome back, Ms. Aldous," and nothing else.

I'd taken down four trials since, and nobody had made me say a word about Singapore.

It was the nicest silence I'd ever worked in.

The crib stood, finally, a pale square of wood under the window.

My mother patted the top rail.

"There," she said. "Now somebody has to sleep in it."

"Not for fourteen weeks."

"Then somebody should practice."

"I'll volunteer," said Stellan, and she threw a pillow at him.

The doorbell rang.

We all looked at the clock.

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