say.”
“Did she tell you why?”
Daniel rubbed the pencil between his fingers. “No.”
I watched him read the message again.
“Ask her.”
“I already did.”
“And?”
“She said Mom wants Karen nearby.”
“Nearby for what?”
Daniel looked at the calendar.
“I don’t know.”
The answer bothered me because he had begun with “I should have” so many times lately, and this time he did not.
He folded the calendar closed.
“I’ll ask Vivian.”
“Not tonight.”
He looked at me.
“Why not?”
“Because I want Karen to tell me what Vivian says when she thinks nobody is checking.”
Daniel opened his mouth, then shut it.
I gathered the calendars into one stack.
The delivery was Friday.
Karen was being placed somewhere at the hospital before that day arrived.
I still did not know what Vivian expected her to do there.
At 8:10, Daniel stood beside the Buick at the
end of the driveway, filling the tank while I checked the hospital bag against my list. The receipt from the grocery store was still tucked under the magnet on the refrigerator inside, the total visible through the kitchen window.
“Three shirts,” I said. “Two blankets. Toiletries.”
Daniel looked toward me.
“Car seats?”
“Still in the garage.”
“Good.”
My phone lit up in my hand.
Karen.
I opened the message.
I will be there if you need me.
I read it twice.
Daniel capped the gas nozzle.
“What did she say?”
I handed him the phone.
He read the message and gave it back.
“She knows where to wait,” he said.
I looked at him.
“How do you know that?”
He did not answer.
I put the phone into my coat pocket.
“Karen, what exactly did your mother ask you to do?”
Daniel looked toward the house.
“Call her.”
“I will.”
My phone was already in my hand when another message appeared.
Karen: She told me to wait.
I called her.
She answered before the second ring.
“Hi.”
“Where are you supposed to wait?”
“The hospital parking garage.”
“Which level?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Vivian give you a time?”
“No.”
“Did she tell you who you were waiting for?”
Karen hesitated.
Then she folded the parking receipt into a square.
“She told me to wait.”
Karen tucked the square of paper into her coat pocket and looked toward the hospital entrance.
“Did she tell you why she wanted you here?”
Karen shook her head. “No. She said she needed me close by.”
“Close by for what?”
She opened her mouth, then stopped when a hospital employee pushed through the garage door with a cart of folded blankets. Karen stepped aside. The employee nodded and kept going.
“She said we would talk
after the babies were born,” Karen said. “That was all.”
Daniel looked at me. “I’ll call her.”
I checked the time on my phone. “Not now.”
He frowned. “Why?”
“Because I want to hear what she says when she thinks she has time to prepare.”
Daniel slipped his phone back into his pocket, and Karen watched him do it. She looked younger than thirty six just then, standing beside a Buick with 190,000 miles on it, holding a parking receipt she had already folded into a neat square.
“I can stay,” Karen said. “If you want me to.”
“Go home if you want.”
She shook her head. “I think I should stay.”
The hospital doors opened again, and a nurse called for someone by the wrong first name. Karen smiled at the mistake, then looked back at us.
“Elena, if Mom asks me to do something strange, I’ll call
