Chapter 3

The prenatal class was held in a bright room above a pharmacy, where folding chairs formed a circle around a plastic pelvis and a nurse named Beth spoke warmly about breathing through fear.

Nina sat with one hand pressed to the underside of her belly. She was tired, embarrassed by it, and grateful when Mara arrived with a thermos of tea. Mara loved her daughter fiercely. That was why the next part was difficult: love had too often been the reason Mara said yes before anyone finished asking.

After class, Nina leaned against Mara's car. "Can you come by tonight? Aaron's trying to fix the crib, and I don't want him pretending he knows how."

"I can bring soup," Mara said. "I can't stay."

Nina's face changed. "Are you sick?"

"No. I have plans."

It was not entirely true. Her plan was to sit at the arts center with a stack of unused sketch paper and remember what she had wanted before every spare hour had been promised away. But she said it anyway, and the sky did not split open.

At Nina's apartment, Daniel was already there, kneeling beside the half-built crib with a screwdriver in his hand. Mara had not expected him. He looked relieved when she entered, as though she had restored the natural order.

"Good," he said. "You can help Nina settle while I run out for the missing bolts."

"No," Mara said.

The room went still.

Daniel frowned. "It will take twenty minutes."

"Then you will be back in twenty minutes." She set the soup on the counter and kissed Nina's cheek. "Call me if you need me, but your father is here now."

Nina looked from one parent to the other, then slowly nodded. "Dad can finish it," she said. "I can tell him where the blankets go." It was an ordinary sentence, but Mara felt its permission settle gently between her ribs.

In the hallway, Daniel caught up with her. "What is this?"

"This is me leaving when I said I would."

"Because I helped Elise?"

"Because you chose to help Elise during the hours we protected for us, then expected me to cover everything else so nothing would change."

He lowered his voice. "She needs someone, Mara."

"So do I."

He looked briefly ashamed, then defensive. "You are punishing her for needing help."

Mara felt the old instinct rise -- to soften it, to explain that Elise was not the only problem, to make it easy for him to agree. She let the instinct pass.

"No," she said. "I am stopping you from calling my absence kindness."

Daniel stood in Nina's doorway with the screwdriver still in his hand. Mara walked down the stairs before he could turn her decision into another discussion.

In her car, before turning the key, Mara pulled the weekly notebook from her bag. She uncapped her pen and drew a single, clean black line through Stay after class. Settle Nina. Organize dinner.

She wrote nothing beside it. She capped the pen, put the notebook back in her purse, and drove into the quiet afternoon.