Chapter 20: Nine Pounds

"She's screaming for you," Courtney's mother said again on the speaker.

Elliot did not answer.

He looked at me, with his hand still warm against my back.

"Go," I said.

"I just kissed you."

"I know. I started it."

"I can't leave in the middle of..."

"Elliot, that is your daughter," I said. "She's coming tonight, whether you're ready or not."

He closed his eyes.

"I sold my car," he said. "I don't have a way to get there."

"I'll drive you," Dale said.

He had come up the walk without either of us noticing.

His jaw was tight, and he was looking at the grass.

"I'm not doing it for you, Rhodes," he said. "I'm doing it because you'd never forgive yourself if you missed it."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me. Get in the truck."

Elliot took one step and turned back.

"I'll be at that hospital all night," he said. "But I want to be here."

"You're allowed to be in two places in your heart," I said. "Be in the one where the baby is."

"And you?"

"I'll be right here. I'm not going anywhere."

He nodded, and he ran.

The truck's engine roared at the curb.

My cousin put an arm around my waist and walked me back inside.

"You kissed him in front of the whole block," she said.

"I did."

"Good for you. Your grandmother would have fainted."

Mom was waiting in the hallway with her phone in her hand.

She looked at my face and said nothing at all.

Then she put the phone on the kitchen table, turned the screen toward me, and said, "I'm recording again."

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