By the time her daughter was born on August fourteenth, Celia had apologized to Ruth, ordered Ruth out of the room, demanded Ruth come back and accused her of breathing too loudly.
Ruth had remained beside her through all of it, holding a plastic cup Celia no longer wanted and saying, “Yes, all right,” with a patience that would have astonished them both in any other room.
Then there was a baby against Celia’s chest.
For a moment she couldn’t understand the change. She was still herself, shaking and exhausted, her hair stuck to her forehead, her sister somewhere near her shoulder. The room still contained the same voices and lights. But there was a warm, astonishing weight on her, and a small face she could not stop trying to see.
“Hello,” she said.
Her voice sounded too ordinary. She tried again.
“Hello, Nell.”
Ruth made a noise Celia had never heard from her, half laugh, half sob. Celia looked up and saw tears running freely down her sister’s face.
“Don’t,” Celia said, and began crying herself.
Nothing in the little face resembled the serene babies on the packets in her bathroom. Nell looked offended by everything that had happened. Her mouth opened. A cry rose from her, fierce enough to make Celia laugh through the tears.
“I know,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I don’t know either.”
A woman beside the bed helped her settle the baby. Celia listened, nodded, forgot what had been said and asked again. Ruth handed over the cup when she wanted it, wiped her face with a cool cloth and looked as though she’d been surprised by the size of her own heart.
“You did it,” she said.
Celia shook her head slightly. “She’s here.”
That was the part she could grasp. There had been months of imagining, of folding little clothes and moving furniture, of people talking to her stomach in grocery lines. Now Nell was here, and Celia could feel a tiny foot moving against her.
She bent her head, breathing in the warm, unfamiliar smell.
Later, when the room had quieted and Ruth had gone to find food neither of them would remember eating, Celia took a photograph. It was poor. Her hand trembled, and Nell turned away just as she pressed the button. She took another, worse one, then a third in which one little fist had escaped the blanket.
She sent that one to Adrian.
Nell. Here at last. We’re both all right.
She’d called him when labor began. He’d been in Seattle, about to leave for a meeting. She had heard a chair scrape and known what he was going to offer before he’d offered it.
“Ruth’s coming with me,” she’d said. “I want it to be her.”
“Of course.” He’d sounded startled, then composed. “Call whenever you want. Or have her call.”
“You don’t need to wait by the phone.”
“I probably will.”
He had not arrived anyway. Her gratitude caught her unprepared. She would tell him when she could manage a conversation without forgetting the beginning of her sentence. Today had room for one enormous new feeling.
His reply came while she was still looking at the picture.
She’s extraordinary. You too. May I call?
Celia checked Nell, who appeared deeply unimpressed by having been photographed, and called him.
“Hello,” he said softly.
She smiled at his voice. “You don’t have to whisper. You’re not in the room.”
“Right. Sorry.” A pause. “How are you?”
She looked at the little head beneath her chin. “I don’t know. Tired. Happy. I keep thinking someone will come and tell me what happens next.”
“I was hoping you’d know.”
“I’ve been pretending for months.”
He laughed, then fell quiet while she told him what she could. Born this afternoon. Ruth had been wonderful. Nell had a remarkable set of lungs. There was no elegant version of it, and he didn’t seem to require one.
“Can I see you tomorrow?” he asked.
She looked toward the door. For weeks she’d imagined this moment with an ease she couldn’t recover now. Of course he’d visit. Of course she’d want him. But she was wearing a hospital gown, her body felt unfamiliar and sore, and she couldn’t imagine arranging her face to resemble the woman he’d kissed in a quiet corridor.
“I’ll let you know in the morning.”
“All right.”
He sounded disappointed. She nearly invited him at once to remove it.
Instead she said, “I do want to see you.”
“Then I’ll be ready when you do.”
After the call she put down the phone and closed her eyes. Nell made a small sound against her. Celia opened them again immediately, caught between wanting sleep and being afraid to miss anything.
Her phone calendar had a reminder from July second, postponed twice and no longer assigned a date. Tell Quentin.
She had moved into the apartment on July first. The cabinets were back on, the bathroom window opened, and Adrian had carried boxes under Ruth’s brisk direction without trying to buy new ones to avoid the lifting. That night she’d eaten noodles on her own couch and watched the dark outline of the trees through windows that were hers to leave uncovered.
The following morning she’d seen the reminder and opened Quentin’s contact. He’d sent a message two days earlier about a parcel delivered to the old apartment. Nothing personal. She could have replied with the truth then.
Instead she had called Ruth and said she’d wait until the baby was born.
“You said after you moved,” Ruth had replied.
“I know. I can’t have him coming into all this now. I’m nearly there.”
“You don’t know what he’d do.”
“No. I don’t.”
She had ended the conversation angry at being questioned and more angry because Ruth hadn’t invented the question.
Now the baby was born. Nell slept with her tiny mouth softened, one cheek flattened against Celia. Nothing about her seemed like information Celia ought to give a man who’d gone away. She was a person, warm and vulnerable and entirely dependent on the room being peaceful enough for them to learn each other.
Celia picked up her phone. Quentin’s number was still there. Ordinary access, ordinary time difference, no practical obstacle she could blame.
Not this week, she decided. Not from this bed. She would go home, recover, learn what Nell needed. Then she would tell him.
She closed the calendar. She knew what she had done. For now she chose to look at her daughter instead.
Ruth came back with a sandwich and stopped in the doorway, seeing her face.
“You all right?”
“Yes.”
Her sister came closer. Celia looked up at her.
“I’m not calling him this week.”
Ruth’s gaze flickered toward Nell. She set the sandwich down. “I won’t argue with you today.”
“You can hold her.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I know.”
For a moment neither of them moved. Then Ruth washed her hands and came to the bed. Celia helped settle Nell into her arms, frightened by how far away she felt at a distance of two feet.
“Hello, small person,” Ruth said, looking down. “Your aunt has been very useful today. You should remember that.”
Celia laughed, and Ruth’s mouth softened. She sat in the chair with Nell against her, and for a little while they looked at the baby together without deciding anything else.
The next morning Celia washed her face, combed her hair and found herself absurdly grateful she’d packed her own nightshirt. It was blue, loose and unremarkable. She put on lip balm and then felt foolish for thinking about her mouth while a baby lay in the clear cot beside her.
Ruth, packing the remains of breakfast into the trash, noticed.
“You can like him and have a baby on the same day.”
“I know.”
“Your face says you’ve forgotten.”
Celia looked at Nell. “What if he hasn’t?”
“Hasn’t what?”
“Forgotten the baby. I mean—what if that’s all he can see now?”
Ruth stopped tidying. “You want me to tell you he’s coming to ravish you in a hospital room?”
“No.” Celia laughed unwillingly. “Please don’t ever say that again.”
“Then see what he does. I’m going to find decent coffee. Text if you need me.”
Celia’s phone lay on the bed. She sent Adrian the room number and told him he could come.
Twenty minutes later there was a knock. He waited for her answer before opening the door.
He wasn’t carrying a mountain of flowers. He had a small paper bag, which he set on the chair, and the expression of a man trying not to look alarmed by how small the person in the cot was.
“Hello,” he said.
“You’ve met me before.”
“I know.” He came to her first, bending to kiss her forehead. Then he seemed to reconsider the formality and kissed her mouth, softly, his hand at the side of her face.
She hadn’t known until that moment how much she’d wanted him to do it.
“Hello,” he said again, close to her.
“Better.”
He smiled. There were shadows beneath his eyes, as though he’d had a bad night too.
“Did you sleep?” she asked.
“Not especially.”
“You could have.”
“I tried. I’m bad at waiting.”
He looked toward the cot. Celia watched his face, unable to read all of it and relieved that he wasn’t trying to arrange it into something impressive.
“That’s Nell,” she said.
He bent over her, one hand on the edge of the cot. “She’s very small.”
“I noticed.”
“I meant—” He looked back, helplessly smiling. “I don’t know what I meant.”
“Would you like to hold her?”
“Yes. Possibly. Do you think I should?”
She laughed. “Sit down.”
He washed his hands first. Then she showed him how to settle Nell against his arm, talking with far more confidence than she felt. He sat rigidly, as though sudden movement might spill her.
“You can breathe,” Celia said.
“I am.”
“Not convincingly.”
He let out a long breath. Nell moved her mouth and settled, apparently unaware of the effort being made on her behalf.
Adrian looked down at her for a long time. Something in his face eased. He touched one little hand with a fingertip, and Celia felt tears rise without warning.
“Oh, don’t,” she said to herself.
He looked up immediately. “What?”
“Nothing. I keep doing it.” She wiped her cheek with the heel of her hand. “I’m very tired.”
“Do you want me to go?”
“No.” The answer came too quickly to be mistaken. “Not yet.”
He stayed. The paper bag contained the lemon cookies she’d liked at the waterfront cafe, chosen because they’d survive waiting if she didn’t want them now. She wanted one. He opened the bag with his free hand, nearly dropped it, then laughed when she rescued it.
For a while she ate a cookie and watched him hold her daughter. The tenderness in that wasn’t the same as wanting him, but both feelings were there, crossing and complicating each other. She didn’t need to make one replace the other.
Nell began to fret. Celia reached for her, and Adrian gave her back at once, standing to make the transfer easier. He turned toward the chair while Celia settled the baby, giving her a moment without asking whether she needed it.
“You can sit here,” she said.
He looked at the small clear space beside her on the bed. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He sat carefully. Their shoulders touched. She leaned against him, and he put his arm around her without tightening it too much. He smelled of clean cotton and outside air. She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the ordinary solidity of him beside her.
“I don’t look much like the woman at the jazz club,” she said.
“You look like yourself.”
She made a doubtful sound.
“A tired version,” he admitted. “Who may be about to tell me I’ve said the wrong thing.”
She laughed against his shoulder. His mouth brushed her hair.
“I liked the woman at the jazz club,” he said. “I like being here.”
Nell made a soft, indignant noise. Celia looked down and adjusted the blanket. Adrian stayed beside her, quiet now, while the room warmed around the three of them.
When Ruth returned with coffee, she stopped at the door just long enough to smile before coming in. Celia didn’t sit up or move away. She wanted him where he was.