Lacey wanted to ask will he live? but she didn’t trust her voice—this good news brought her closer to tears than all the weeks of fear and doubt. He was the size of a Cornish game hen. Half his body was head. He turned his face, and Lacey saw his profile, his beautiful little nose, his short upper lip. Dr. Vlk took the picture and said, “We’re getting a good heartbeat and lots of kicking. You can start exercising a little, short walks, but still no heavy lifting.”
Lacey felt safe in Dr. Vlk’s hands. Will he live? A good heartbeat and lots of kicking: she’d take that. She even tried a little joke. “Dr. Vlk,” she said, “wouldn’t you like to buy a vowel?”
Dr. Vlk was not a woman for jokes, not with those pearls. She had the look of the veteran teacher who’d mentored Lacey through her first semester of practice teaching, a natural mind reader, terrifying but comforting too. Dr. Vlk looked into Lacey and through her, as Mrs. Ravenel used to look at students. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“If the baby’s fine, I’m fine.”
“We don’t have time for me to be your psychiatrist.”
Some bedside manner. “What happens if I start bleeding again?” Lacey asked.
Dr. Vlk’s eyes were a silvery blue, almost as light as her hair. This was a woman who could not lie. “He’s about viable,” she said. “The longer he cooks, the better he’s done. The outcome’s not what you’d want till you’re past thirty weeks. Thirty-five is better. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Lacey swung her feet off the examination table. “We’re fine,” she said. As a teacher, she’d known when students were in trouble, often before the students knew it themselves. More than once, she’d kept a child in before recess to ask what was wrong and received a wide-eyed Nothing in return, only to find the child in tears a week later: parents divorcing, big brother on drugs, Grandma terminally ill. If Lacey, with only three years in the classroom, could see this much, how much more could Dr. Vlk see, having given good news and bad for thirty years or more.
“You’re not fine. How does Dad feel about the baby?”
Lacey wanted to say Eric was thrilled, they were both so happy, and her own voice surprised her: “Scared. He’s got this new job, and we moved. It’s hard.”
Dr. Vlk handed her a box of tissues and said, “Have you talked with him?”
“Oh! Talked with him! I’d have to make an appointment. He’s working twelve hours a day, and I’m going to whine about some weird feeling? There are noises.”
“It’s an older house?”
“My grandpa had an old house. You could hear things, voices in the walls; it’s only noise, I know that.” Her mother had always said there were ghosts in Grandpa Merritt’s house, but not to be afraid of them, because they were peaceful spirits, interested only in each other, a family from long ago. “But there’s this feeling on the stairs. What’s wrong with me?”
What a relief to ask the question, to admit something might be wrong—a thing she could never say to her husband or mother. To Lacey’s surprise, Dr. Vlk took her seriously. “Pregnancy makes your body wise,” Dr. Vlk said. “Morning sickness keeps you from eating dangerous food. Fear keeps you from doing dangerous things. Fear is your friend. Trust yourself. Can you live downstairs?”
The idea was so startling, Lacey had to take a moment before she answered. “You mean, don’t go upstairs in the daytime at all?”
“Sleep downstairs, too. Your weight has changed, your ligaments are loose, you’re scared because you could fall. Pretend you live in a one-story house.”
“It’s that simple?”
“Most things are. Try it. Any bleeding, call me. If it’s more than a drop or two, call 911. Make an appointment on the way out. Two weeks.”
Lacey went home dazzled by the revolutionary simplicity of Dr. Vlk’s idea. She was afraid that Eric, who came home exhausted every day, might resent the work and trouble of moving her downstairs. But his reaction was like hers: Was it this easy, solve her problems by keeping her off the stairs? Perfect. He came home early and spent the afternoon organizing Lacey in the dining room. He ordered a twin mattress and a simple metal frame, paying extra for immediate delivery. They still had some old sheets from Lacey’s dorm days.
A twin bed. She wanted to ask why he didn’t order a double, or even a queen, so they could still sleep together, but since the thought had so clearly not entered his mind, she couldn’t quite find the words. She curled in the red armchair, watching him trot up and down the stairs, organizing her new life while her mother brought her a mug of jasmine tea and a plate of gingersnaps; jasmine for serenity, ginger for nausea. It was as if they were breaking up, as if he were moving her out of more than the bedroom. Out of his home, out of his heart. How careful he was to make sure she had everything she needed! He folded her maternity clothes into a couple of the big plastic tubs they’d used for moving; he brought all her things to the downstairs bathroom. He went upstairs again for her sketchbooks and magazines.