“Oh, right.” She grinned and charged back to the strip mall, leaving him helpless against the automatic mental calculations of the groceries’ total price. Even swollen with their daughter, she still marched with her shoulders curled back and mighty, ready to plow through crowds using her stomach like a cowcatcher, one hand resting on top of her belly while the other swayed behind her like a rudder. She disappeared into a tobacco shop, and after she reemerged, whatever she’d bought was kept stuffed in her hoodie’s front pocket. When he asked, all she said was, “Something for Daddy.”

“You mean Pa.”

“Tomato, to-mah-to, motherfucker.”

Henry wrangled all the grocery bags and clamped the case of beer under one arm to haul her entire score inside with a single trip. When he set everything onto the kitchen floor, Michelle went straight for the apple pie and a sweating tub of Cool Whip. She warmed a quarter of the pie in the microwave and plopped on a hearty dollop of cream, which immediately started melting down to a creamy puddle. Leaning over the sink, she attacked the pie with a tablespoon, nodding in approval. She rubbed her tummy, as if asking the baby inside if she were enjoying it, too. Watching her eat with such gusto made him feel as if things were just right. It was a feeling that, when he did encounter it, he wanted to last forever.

Seeing that Michelle had recovered from the illness that had brought them together in the first place, he wondered if she felt something similar whenever he passed on an offered drink or hit or line. Then again, those offers didn’t come too often anymore. The two of them didn’t go out a whole lot these days.