CHAPTER 149: Slow

POV: Selene Castellano

The first morning she left at noon felt wrong.

She sat in the car outside the foundation for five minutes before driving, watching the building like it might do something different without her in it.

It didn’t, obviously.

She drove home.

The apartment at noon on a Wednesday was a different place than the apartment at seven in the evening.

Light is different. Sounds different. It’s literally space that was used to being empty at this hour and wasn’t sure what to do with her presence.

She made tea, sat on the couch and opened her laptop.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

Closed it and then put it on the coffee table.

She looked at the small framed print on the study shelf through the open door.

Robert. Elena. Lorraine.

Maya arrived at 2pm.

She came as  promised, she came in with food and sat on the other end of the couch and didn’t ask how Selene was feeling.

Just: “What are you watching?”

“Nothing yet,” Selene said.

“Put something on,” Maya said. “Something we’ve both seen before so we don’t have to pay attention.”

Selene found something. Old but comfortable. The kind of film that existed as background to other things.

They watched it without watching it.

Ate the food Maya had brought.

They didn’t talk much, It was exactly right.

By Thursday she’d stopped fighting the mornings.

Got up and got to the foundation at 8am. Home at noon. Rest.

She discovered that rest, actual rest, produced things she hadn’t expected.

She read for the first time in months. Not reports. Not governance frameworks. An actual novel, the kind that existed purely to be read, that asked nothing of her except to be present in someone else’s story for a while.

She finished it in three days and started another.

She called Dr. Ruth on Friday.

Just to talk, which surprised her slightly, the impulse arrived before she’d thought it through.

Dr. Ruth answered on the second ring.

“How are you?” Selene asked.

“Busy,” Dr. Ruth said. “The oversight committee is excellent. How are you?”

“Slowing down,” Selene said. “Medically required.”

A pause.

“The baby?” Dr. Ruth asked.

“A small complication, we are being monitored and we are okay.”

“Good,” Dr. Ruth said. Simply. 

“I wanted to ask you something,” Selene said.

“Ask.”

“When you held Elena,” she said. “The four minutes. What did you think about.”

Silence on the line.

“I thought about whether she knew she was held,” Dr. Ruth said finally. “I don’t know the answer to that. Scientifically I can tell you the likelihood. But what I thought in that room was — I want her to know. I want whatever is happening for her to include the knowledge of being held.”

Selene said nothing for a moment.

“Thank you,” she said.

“How is the pregnancy?” Dr. Ruth asked. “Really?”

“Scary and real,” Selene said. 

“Yes,” Dr. Ruth said. “That sounds right.”

Avalon noticed the novels on the coffee table on Saturday.

Two of them, one finished, one half done.

He picked up the finished one. Read the back.

“Any good,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “I forgot what it felt like.”

“Reading?”

“Doing something that asked nothing of me,” she said. “Just existing in it.”

He set it down and sat beside her.

“You’ve been running since before I met you,” he said.

“I know.”

“The foundation, Maya’s cancer, the depositions, everything.”

“I know.”

“Maybe the slowing down isn’t just medical,” he said.

She looked at him.

“Maybe your body decided that this was the moment.” He said

She thought about that.

“That’s very philosophical for a Saturday afternoon,” she said.

“February,” he said. “Still doing things to me.”

She almost smiled.

The two week check with Dr. Okafor was on a Monday.

Selene sat on the examination table and didn’t look at Avalon in the corner because looking at him would make her more nervous and she was already nervous enough.

Dr. Okafor was thorough and quiet and then:

“It’s resolved,” she said. “The hematoma is gone. Everything looks exactly right.”

Selene closed her eyes for one second.

“The baby?” she said.

“Strong heartbeat,” Dr. Okafor said. “Good development, it’s actually better than good.” She turned the screen. “Look.”

Selene looked.

Bigger than last time.

She heard Avalon make a sound from the corner.

The sound of someone seeing something that undid them slightly.

Outside, walking to the car, he stopped on the pavement.

She stopped beside him.

“Okay?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I just need a second.”

She waited.

He looked at the sky briefly.

Then at her.

“Better than good,” he said.

He put his arm around her as they walked.

She went back to the foundation full days on Wednesday.

The office looked the same.

The whiteboard. The desks. The window facing another building.

Amara looked up when she walked in.

“Better?” she asked.

“Better,” Selene replied.

“Good.” Amara turned back to her screen. “The land trust has its first property in contract. Kevin Walsh wants a meeting Thursday. Grace Kim sent seventeen pages I need you to read.”

Selene sat at her desk.

Opened her laptop.