Page 50

Mom drives past three open spots near the entrance and keeps rolling to the far corner, where a live oak throws shade across two spaces. She backs into one, which always makes me laugh. It's like she has to be ready for a fast getaway.

It occurs to me when we get out that she planned this one for me. She could've parked closer, which she normally would, but she picked this spot so the car won't be an oven when we come back out. Neither of us mentions it, though.

I reach into the back seat for the foil pan. My fingers land on the edge, and the pan lifts away before I can close my grip.

"I can carry a pan of lemon bars."

"You can carry two humans. I've got the pan." She's already turning toward the building, the foil catching the sun.

The heat comes up off the asphalt and through the soles of my sandals. These are the only pair that still fit without leaving a mark, and even in them my ankles have gone soft and round above the straps.

By the time we hit the halfway line, my shirt is stuck to the small of my back. I fan the fabric so I don't look like I jumped in the pool on the way in. The oak shade does nothing for me now.

The glass doors slide open, and the cold hits me at the threshold with that recycled hospital-clean smell underneath it. Mom sets the pan on the counter to sign us in. The chained pen skips on the first stroke, the same as always, and she scribbles a loop until the ink catches, then writes both our names in her tidy slant.

Manny comes around the end of the desk. He hugs me sideways, one arm, angling himself around the belly instead of squeezing me straight on. Everybody's learned to do that.

"Dolores has been asking about you. She wants somebody to lose to her."

"Tell her I'm a sure thing."

That gets a chuckle out of him. He knows my schedule now. Twice a week, give or take, I show up here and work a puzzle or sit with somebody whose chair by the window stays empty on weekends.

I can only work from Mom's condo for so many hours before I need somewhere else to be.

Nobody here asks how I'm feeling.

Out in the world, my stomach enters every room before I do. People look at it first, then me, and I get the same questions. When are you due? Are you feeling okay? Do you need to sit down? Here, Dolores needs a partner, the lady in 114 needs the edge pieces sorted, and somebody needs a person in the next chair for half an hour who isn't paid to be there.

Mom lifts the pan and heads for the staff kitchen. I head for the day room on my own.

The lighthouse puzzle takes up the whole corner table. The border's done, all four sides locked in, but the sky is still a heap of loose blue in the box lid. Earl's got a piece pinched between two fingers, turning it against the light. Sylvia sits across from him with her chin propped on her hand.

I pull out the chair and lower myself into it in two moves, down halfway with one hand flat on the table edge, then the rest of the way. The chair creaks, and I try not to take it personally.

Once I'm down, everything below my head redistributes, and my belly pushes the fabric to its limits. A knee or a heel pushes out under my ribs. The air conditioner blows cold across my damp shirt, and I shiver.

Sylvia sees it and laughs out loud. "Oh, look at that. Somebody's busy in there."

"Somebody's always busy. Neither one of them sleeps when I do." I reach for the box lid and slide it closer. "What are we looking at?"

"Sky," Earl says, grim about it.

He studies me across the table instead of the puzzle. His eyes drop to my middle and come back up.

"You're carrying low. That's a boy."

"It's one of each, Earl. I'm covered either way."

Sylvia snorts. Earl looks a little cheated, then sets his piece down and picks up another.

I find a piece with a thin gray line running through the blue and hand it across to Sylvia. "That's your cloud edge." I find another, gray on one side, and pass it to Earl. In five minutes I've turned up four of them, and every one goes across the table into somebody else's hand.

A piece slips off the edge and taps the tile by my foot.

I look down at it, figure the angle, the belly, the two stages back up if I go all the way down, and kick it with the toe of my sandal to move it from directly under me.

Earl's already off his chair, one knee to the floor, fishing it out from under the table leg. He sets it back in the box lid without a word and settles again.