38. Avery #2
I stand from the rocking chair and walk around it, running my fingers along each joint.
The finish is smooth. Every bolt sits straight.
The mattress frame does not shift when I push it.
Declan remains beside the window, waiting for inspection like a man who understands praise is the only thing he may receive here.
“It’s good,” I say, pressing the rail once more even though I already know it will hold. “You built it right.”
“I wanted to.” His eyes move toward my stomach when the baby pushes hard against the front of my dress, and that is as far as any part of him travels. “You should sit. That looked uncomfortable.”
“It’s a foot. Or an elbow. Possibly a weapon.
” I press my hand over the hard place, and the baby answers with another kick that makes me suck in air.
Declan takes one step before stopping himself.
The restraint is so quick I might have missed it if I had not spent years knowing how he moves when I hurt.
He stares at the spot beneath my hand. His face changes before he can hide it, wonder breaking through all the careful control he brought into this house.
He has heard the heartbeat twice. He owns one photograph.
He has watched the monitor from a chair I chose, but he has never felt our child move, and although wanting shows in every part of his face, he leaves the asking to me.
That matters. It matters enough that I cross the space between us.
“Your hand,” I say, holding mine between us before I can take the offer back.
Declan’s breath catches and the rest of him holds still. “Avery.”
“Give me your hand before the baby moves.” I hold the offer at the length of my own arm, so the distance he crosses is the one I named.
He lifts it and stops halfway between us, leaving the last distance to me.
I wrap my fingers around his wrist and place his hand over the curve where the heel or elbow waits beneath my skin.
His touch is warm and familiar, broad enough to cover the place completely, and every memory of it arrives at once: his fingers spread over my stomach when we tried for this baby, his hand on my hip while he came home from Sasha, his touch turning my body into a place where I could no longer know what I had consented to.
I nearly pull away, but the baby kicks him before fear can end the moment.
Declan’s face crumples. His eyes close, his mouth opens, and tears run down his face before he can wipe them away.
The child moves again beneath both our hands.
He makes a broken sound that belongs to the man who missed the first heartbeat, lost the announcement, and knows this moment came because I offered it, not because fatherhood entitled him to it.
“Hi,” he whispers, looking down at the place where the baby keeps pushing. “I’m here.”
My throat closes around every answer I cannot give him. I let him feel one more kick, then lift my hand from his wrist. Declan removes his at once, one clean movement with nothing taken on the way out. His arm falls to his side while he wipes his face with the back of his other hand.
“That belonged to the baby,” I tell him, forcing the boundary through the tenderness before either of us can turn it into a promise. “I wanted you to feel your child. It wasn’t forgiveness, and it doesn’t give you permission to touch me again without asking.”
Declan swallows and keeps his eyes on the crib rail while he answers. “I know. Thank you for giving me that one.”
He picks up the empty hardware bags and puts every tool away.
His face stays level and his hands stay busy, and he keeps working without asking me to deal with whatever he feels.
He checks the floor for loose screws, carries the cardboard to the recycling bin after asking where it belongs, and comes back as far as the nursery doorway, where he stops at the frame.
“I’m leaving,” he says. “The crib needs the mattress before the baby uses it. The guide says not to add a bumper or loose blanket.”
“I read that part too.” I follow him toward the front door while thunder shakes the glass hard enough to rattle the frame. “I wasn’t planning to bury the baby beneath decorative pillows.”
“I know. I’m repeating the only instruction on the page I am qualified to lecture you about.”
The rain has turned the yard beyond the porch into moving water.
Declan puts on his boots, opens the weather alert on his phone, and frowns at the red line crossing the county road.
A notification appears on mine a second later: flash flooding, road closed near the creek, do not drive through standing water.
“I can take the northern road,” he says, though we both know it dips lower than the creek route.
I look through the window at his truck beyond the gate.
Keeping him here feels more dangerous than letting him test the water, which is why I cannot make the choice based on fear of what one night beneath my roof might mean.
He obeyed every limit in the nursery. He removed his hand when I removed mine.
I can trust what he has shown me even when trusting it makes tonight harder.
“You’re not driving through floodwater to protect me from having you in the guest room.
” I wrap my arms beneath my stomach before courage can leave with the thunder.
“You may stay until the road opens. The guest room only. You don’t enter my office, my bedroom, or the nursery unless you ask.
Staying does not extend today’s invitation, and morning does not turn into breakfast unless I offer it. ”
Declan holds my gaze instead of hiding how much the offer costs him. “Guest room. Closed doors stay closed. I leave when the road opens or when you ask, whichever comes first.”
“Yes.” I leave the answer between us and wait to learn whether one room will be enough house for him tonight.
He takes his boots off again and sets them on the mat, toes squared to the wall, the way he used to line them up beside mine.
I lead the man who used to sleep beside me down the hall to a room at the other end of my house, and the rain comes off the roof loud enough that neither of us hears the guest-room door when it closes.