On the nights I stay at Ethan’s, I think about calling Justin. I listen to Ethan brushing his teeth in the bathroom. I hear him spit, swish, spit again. Pee, flush, walk into the hallway. I’ve memorized his patterns like a song. Two steps, creak. One step, creak. Five steps, big creak.

“Night, Angel,” he yells.

“Night, E.T.,” I yell back. “Bite the bedbugs.” I hear his bare feet on the stairs, and then I hear the bedroom door close and pop open and close harder. I imagine little white paint chips falling to the floor.

I think about leaving and driving to Binghamton to tell Justin. I remember running my finger along the dent in his chin and the spikes of his new haircut.

Justin’s shirt doesn’t smell like him anymore. It smells like a rabbit cage from the funny little cedar cubes Ethan puts everywhere.

Ethan thinks the baby is a girl. He says I’m “carrying high.” I’m sure it’s a boy. I don’t know why. I just am. I want to name him Max. Robert likes Rierden. It was his mother’s maiden name. Ethan likes Ethan. We never discuss what his last name will be. I’m going to give him Justin’s shirt someday. Maybe when he leaves for college. It will be cool and retro by then, like bellbottoms or a Stones t-shirt. I won’t tell him where it came from.

— Chapter 58 —

I go to Dr. Katim in secret, alone. Twenty-dollar bills counted out in my purse ahead of time. I still don’t have insurance. Robert keeps saying we need to fix that. I worry about the paper trail. Somewhere on something it will say how old the baby really is.

“Does Robert know?” she asks.

“I can’t,” I say. I cover my face with my hands and sob. Dr. Katim hugs me, awkwardly, around my arms. She smells like Listerine.

It is a boy, just like I knew. She gives me another picture. When I get home, I peel back the lining of my guitar case and hide it with the first one.

The next morning, Ethan leaves early, before breakfast. Robert cooks eggs over easy. There are flowers on the table. He doesn’t talk while we eat. I don’t talk either. I’m afraid of what I might say. I drop my fork by accident, or maybe just to hear a noise, to have something happen. He goes to pick it up and then he’s kneeling. There’s a ring in a box and he’s shaking. “I should have asked you a long time ago,” he says. “I just—I was scared. Don’t say no. Please don’t say no. I want us to be a family.”

Of course, I say yes. I can’t say anything else.