Henry slid down to the floor, kneeled at her feet. Pride boomed in his chest as he lifted his shirtfront and stacked the bands on top of her belly with the sort of hushed reverence that the pimply bank teller could never understand.

At first the tremors that rocked Michelle worried him, as if she were shivering with fever, but soon came a dreamy snicker. Past droopy lids she peered down at the flat bricks of cash. She took one, fanning the bills so they grazed the tip of her nose. A long sniff. An even longer sigh.

Still kneeling, he set his ear to her belly, listening for a heartbeat amid the gooey hum of incubation. His arms snaked around her. Again, she sniffed. He asked her what it smelled like.

“Like,” she whispered, “kind of …”

She was molasses. He was combustion. He was roiling, scalding, aching to hear her say the same words that were swimming through him. Words like freedom and power and love. How beautifully they would ring in her voice. He closed his eyes and amid the darkness came a thumping. Their daughter’s pulse. A slight pressure pawed into his cheek.

Al made a hog’s snort and his head ricocheted from the mirror’s surface. Plugging his nose, he forced a sneeze into a retch. “Probably smells like fucking money, dude, duh.”

“Yeah,” she said, her voice receding, a rowboat coasting into still, black waters. “Money.”

Eventually the Jack overpowered the lines and caught up with the pill that Al had popped. The three of them were slumped together on the couch, Henry in the middle, drunk but still drinking, since at this point there was no point in stopping till oblivion. The only light came from the muted TV, supported and encased by rows of book spines looking like some foreign, upright masonry. Thousands of pixels flashed in tandem to assemble a man in an all-white suit with skin the color of a football, flapping fistfuls of gold necklaces so frantically it looked like he was gearing up to take flight. The yellow cords transformed into a treasure chest overflowing with cash, a phone number flashing over it like a distress signal.

A flint scraped. An orange tulip appeared at the tip of Al’s cigarette.

Michelle was snoring lightly. Her geometry fit perfectly against all the happy slabs and hinges of Henry’s own body. Here in the warm confines of his home, with his best friend beside him, the nine bands of cash heaped on the coffee table, and the tenth tucked into his waistband for safekeeping, he was complete. He wanted nothing, absolutely nothing, and what a luxury that was. A blessing he couldn’t wait to share with the baby, whenever she decided to come join them. Should be any day now, really, and for the first time since learning Michelle was pregnant, he truly felt ready for their daughter’s arrival.