I pull the brake and turn the key and climb out of the car. “Whatever. Lead the way.”
The hospital is as busy as it was yesterday. We go in through the main entrance, and people walk in every direction. The people in scrubs and white coats all walk a little bit faster. There’s a guy sleeping on one of the waiting room sofas, and a hugely pregnant woman leaning against the wall by the elevator. She’s swirling a drink in a plastic cup. That baby is giving her T-shirt a run for its money. A toddler is throwing a tantrum somewhere down the hallway. The shrieking echoes.
We move to the bank of elevators, too, and Melonhead isn’t one of those guys who insists on pressing a button that’s already lit. He smiles and says “Good afternoon” to the pregnant woman, but I can’t look away from her swollen belly.
My mother is going to look like that.
My mother is going to have a baby.
My brain still can’t process this.
Suddenly, the woman’s abdomen twitches and shifts. It’s startling, and my eyes flick up to find her face.
She laughs at my expression. “He’s trying to get comfortable.”
The elevator dings, and we all get on. Her stomach keeps moving.
I realize I’m being a freak, but it’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen. I can’t stop staring.
She laughs again, softly, then comes closer. “Here. You can feel it.”
“It’s okay,” I say quickly.
Melonhead chuckles, and I scowl.
“Not too many people get to touch a baby before it’s born,” she says, her voice still teasing. “You don’t want to be one of the chosen few?”
“I’m not used to random women asking me to touch them,” I say.
“This is number five,” she says. “I’m completely over random people touching me. Here.” She takes my wrist and puts my hand right over the twitching.
Her belly is firmer than I expect, and we’re close enough that I can look right down her shirt. I’m torn between wanting to pull my hand back and not wanting to be rude.
Then the baby moves under my hand, something firm pushing right against my fingers. I gasp without meaning to.
“He says hi,” the woman says.
I can’t stop thinking of my mother. I try to imagine her looking like this, and I fail.
I try to imagine her encouraging me to touch the baby, and I fail.
Four months.
The elevator dings.
“Come on, Murph,” says Melonhead.
I look at the pregnant lady. I have no idea what to say. Thanks?
“Be good,” she says, and takes a sip of her drink.
The elevator closes and she’s gone.
Melonhead is striding away, and I hustle to catch up to him. We’re on a patient floor now, and the walls are white and conversations are hushed. Monitors beep everywhere. I’m still in my school clothes, so I’m not too dirty, but he’s been at the cemetery all day, and I keep waiting for someone to shoo him out of here.
A slim, dark-haired doctor is tapping keys on a computer built into the wall, and Frank walks right up to her, turns her around, and doesn’t even wait for her to express surprise before planting a kiss right on her lips.
Clearly, it’s a day for people to make me uncomfortable in all kinds of ways.
I turn away, trying to find something else to look at. The nurses. The crayoned pictures taped up along the wall of the nurses’ station.
They’re speaking in Spanish now, and I glance over awkwardly. I imagine their conversation.
What are you doing here?
Nothing really. I was in the area.
Who’s the freak?
Just a murderer who hasn’t been caught yet.
My stomach balls up in knots again. I shouldn’t be here.
I just don’t know where else I should be.
“DECK-lin. This is Carmen.”
I snap back to reality and put a hand out, running on autopilot. “Hi,” I say.
“Hello, Declan.” She smiles at me. Her white coat reads Dr. Melendez over the right breast, but when she speaks English, her voice has no trace of an accent. “So you’re the boy Marisol keeps telling me she’s going to marry.”
I cough. “Well. You know. We’re taking it slow.”
Her smile makes her eyes twinkle. “Frank tells me you’re giving him a ride in the car you rebuilt? I’m impressed. I really thought that was a dying art.”
“Nah. I don’t think it’s going anywhere.”
“My neighbor said you picked out the problem with her husband’s car in less than thirty seconds. That’s quite a talent.”
I shrug, unsure what to say. “I guess I have an ear for it.”
A nurse walks by and puts a hand on Dr. Melendez’s shoulder. “Excuse me for interrupting,” she says quietly. “You asked me to let you know when the test results for two-twenty-one were in.”
Melonhead clears his throat. “We’ll let you go.”
“I’m glad you stopped by.” She gives him another kiss, less impassioned this time. “It was nice meeting you, Declan.”
“It was nice meeting you, too.”
And then we’re back in the elevator. Walking to the car. Pulling onto Jennifer Road.
“We went through all that for you to give her a kiss?” I say.
He shrugs. “What else do we have to do?”
Mow half the cemetery. But I don’t say that. I glance over. “We spent more time with the freaky pregnant chick.”
“Maybe one day you’ll love a woman enough that a kiss will be worth all that trouble.”
The thought draws me up short. I’m not sure why, but I’m caught between scowling and blushing. I expect him to tell me to head back to the cemetery, but neither of us says anything else.
I don’t know where else to go, but I do know I’m not ready to head back there, especially if Juliet hasn’t gone home. When I get to the stoplight by Route 50, Melonhead glances over. “Hungry?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? My treat.”
I look at him. “What is this? You give me hell if I check my phone when I’m supposed to be mowing, but now you want to stop for dinner?”
He shrugs. We drive.
“Who’s the girl?” he says eventually.
“What girl?”