第27章 The Countdown

November slipped past in a blur of nesting and nerves and the strange, wonderful countdown that happens in the final weeks before a baby arrives. Maya finished her last wedding of the year on a Saturday afternoon, a small ceremony in a community garden that reminded her, in the best way, of her own. The couple was young and nervous and madly in love, and the bride's father cried through the entire ceremony, and Maya found herself photographing him as much as the bride, drawn to the quiet, unguarded truth of his grief and joy tangled together. Afterward, the bride pulled her aside and said, You captured everything. How do you always know where to look? Maya lowered her camera and smiled. I look for the moments nobody plans, she said. The ones that just happen. The father who cries. The grandmother who dances. The way you looked at him when you thought nobody was watching. Those are the ones that last. The bride hugged her, and Maya packed her equipment into the car, her hand resting on her belly, and felt a strange and sudden certainty that this had been her last shoot for a while. It was a good one to end on. It was a good one to begin on. Julian, meanwhile, had entered what Priya had begun calling his Overpreparation Era. He had read every parenting book on the market, alphabetized them by author, and was currently working his way through a binder of notes that he carried with him everywhere, annotated in three different colors of ink. On a Thursday evening, Maya came home to find him on the floor of the nursery, surrounded by the disassembled pieces of a crib, a screwdriver in one hand and an instruction manual in the other, his expression the focused, slightly desperate look of a man who had read the manual twice and was now negotiating directly with the wood. Julian, she said. Are you okay? I am fine, he said. I am simply assembling furniture. It is going extremely well. Maya looked at the pile of wooden slats. There are seven pieces left over. Those are spares, Julian said firmly. Every piece of furniture has spares. Like buttons on a coat. Maya sat down beside him, careful and slow, and picked up one of the spare pieces. Julian, she said gently. This is a drawer. Julian stared at the piece for a long moment. Then he looked at the crib, then back at the drawer, and said, in the voice of a man accepting defeat, I am going to need the internet. They spent the next two hours rebuilding the crib together, Julian following a video tutorial on his phone while Maya handed him pieces and laughed until her stomach ached, and when the crib finally stood upright, sturdy and complete and perfect, they sat back and admired it in the warm light of the nursery. We built a crib, Julian said. We did. Maya leaned her head on his shoulder. You know what this means? What? We are going to be parents. Julian swallowed. Yes. We are. They sat there in silence for a moment, the crib standing before them like a promise, and then Julian said, softly, I am terrified. Maya turned to look at him. Me too. But I am also, for the first time in my life, completely certain. Of what? That this is exactly where I am supposed to be. Julian took her hand and pressed it to his lips. Then we will be terrified together, he said. And certain together. And everything else together. --- The nursery came together piece by piece, painted a soft yellow over Julian's weekend-long objection to what he called a perfectly reasonable gray, and filled with the avalanche of gifts from the shower and the smaller, dearer things that Maya had collected herself. The vintage camera she had inherited from her grandmother, Lily's namesake, sat on the shelf above the changing table. The first print she had ever sold, a moody shot of the Bay Bridge in fog, hung beside the window. And on the wall above the crib, in a simple white frame, hung the photograph Julian had taken at the vineyard on the night everything became real, the two of them laughing, Maya's head thrown back, his hand on her waist, the golden light of the lanterns painting them both in warmth. It was the first photograph anyone had ever taken of her and actually captured who she was. It was the photograph that had made her believe, truly believe, that she was allowed to be happy. And now it would be the first thing her daughter saw every morning. You are sentimental, Julian said, finding her standing in front of it one evening. I am a photographer, Maya said. Sentiment is the job. Julian wrapped his arms around her from behind, his hands resting on the swell of her belly, and Lily kicked, a hard, insistent little push against his palm. She does that, he said, wonder in his voice. She always does that when you are close. She knows her father. Julian pressed his lips to her hair. I cannot wait to meet her, he whispered. Neither can I. Maya closed her eyes and leaned back against him, feeling the small, insistent life moving inside her, and thought about all the things she had once been afraid of — the empty calendar, the cancelled bookings, the belief that she was not enough — and how far she had come from the woman who had answered the Hendersons' email with her heart in her throat. That woman was still in there somewhere. But she was different now. She was braver. She was loved. And she was, at last, exactly where she was supposed to be. The false alarm came on a rainy Tuesday night, two weeks before her due date. Maya woke at two in the morning with a pain that gripped her low and tight, and she lay still in the dark, counting the seconds, willing it to pass. It passed. And then it came again. Julian, she said, her voice careful and calm. Julian surfaced from sleep in a single motion, his hand already reaching for hers. What is it? What is happening? I think. Maya took a breath. I think we should go to the hospital. Julian went very still. Then he was out of bed and across the room in two strides, pulling on jeans, grabbing the hospital bag she had packed a month ago, tripping over the dog bed that belonged to no dog they owned, and apologizing to it. Maya stood up slowly, one hand on the wall, and watched him panic with a love so fierce it ached. The car ride was a blur of streetlights and Julian's white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and the gentle, reassuring voice on the radio that was absolutely not going to be listened to. At the hospital, the nurses were kind and unhurried, and the doctor examined Maya with a calm professionalism that made Julian want to hug him. Braxton Hicks, the doctor said. False labor. It happens. You are not dilated. You are not in labor. You are simply practicing. Maya laughed, half from relief and half from exhaustion. The baby is practicing? The baby is practicing, the doctor confirmed. She is very good at it. She is a Thorne, Maya said, and Julian, who had not breathed for what felt like an hour, finally exhaled, and they drove home at three in the morning, hand in hand, laughing at nothing and everything. In the nursery, Julian paused by the crib and looked at Maya, his gray eyes soft in the dim light. Any day now, he said. Any day now, she agreed. And they stood there together, two people about to become three, and waited. ---