Page 155 of Roadrunner

That was all.

Just hugged me. Properly. Both arms.

Then she went back to whatever she’d been doing.

Arthur was at the kitchen table with his homework when I sat across from him.

He looked up.

“I need to tell you something,” I said.

He put his pencil down.

“You’re pregnant,” he said.

I stared at him.

He shrugged, like guessing this was no different than guessing what was for dinner. “Martina was humming. She only hums when something good happens.” He paused. “And you keep touching your stomach. You did it like four times just now.”

“I did not.”

“You did.” He picked his pencil back up, then pointed it at me, like he’d just remembered his best evidence. “And you bought ginger ale. You hate ginger ale.”

I pressed my lips together. “You’re eleven.”

“Almost twelve,” he said.

He looked at his homework. Then at me.

“A girl,” he said.

“We don’t know that yet.”

“It’ll be a girl,” he said with complete authority. He raised the end of the pencil to his mouth. “I’ve always wanted a sister.”

He went back to his homework.

I sat across from him and said nothing, because I was busy recognizing something I hadn’t let myself name before that moment.

He’d guessed the pregnancy off a hum, a few trips to touch my stomach, and a case of ginger ale I wouldn’t drink. He’d guess the sex off nothing at all except wanting it enough to say it out loud. Watching him bend back over his homework like he hadn’t just done anything remarkable, I thought of Della, the same habit of noticing small ordinary things and turning them into certainty before anyone else had caught up.

A girl.

I thought about that.

About a daughter. About what a daughter would mean. About every morning brushing her hair before school. Teaching her to put it up herself. Sitting in the front row at her recital with a sign. A ridiculous sign. Best one on the stage, whether she was the best one or not.

Watching her become, slowly and then all at once, someone I admired.

My own parents had missed every version of me.

I wasn’t going to miss a single version of her.

I looked at Arthur bent over his homework. I cleared my throat. “Arthur.”

He looked up.

“Thank you,” I said. “For all of it. For everything.”