Staying with him의 모든 챕터: 챕터 121 - 챕터 123

Priya came over on a Saturday in July when Olivia wasfive months pregnant and visibly so, the composedprofessional exterior having given way, over thepreceding weeks, to something that could not becomposed or managed or maintained at a carefulremove because it was a physical fact and the bodyhad made its decision about the fact withoutconsulting the person who lived in it.She had been watching Priya navigate the flat in thethree months since Olivia's pregnancy became visible,the specific quality of Priya's attention, which was thesame as it had always been — full, direct, present —but had acquired a new texture, the texture of awoman who had been watching her best friend fortwelve years and was now watching her best friend inthe condition she had wondered about for most ofthose twelve years.Whether Olivia Reyes would have a baby.She had not said this out loud. Priya was the onlyperson who would not have said it out loud, the onlyperson who had been watching long en

cleared the second bedroom on a Saturday inSeptember when she was seven months pregnant andthe clearing could no longer be postponed by thepretence that they had more time.She had been aware of this for several weeks — thepostponing and the pretence — and she had allowed itbecause she understood that the clearing was notjust the clearing. The clearing was the finalacknowledgement that the thing was coming, thephysical making-room, and you did not make room forsomething until you were ready to let it arrive. Theyhad been ready for months. They had not been readyto clear the room until now.The room had contained, over five years of the flatbeing theirs: the books that had been read and notrehomed, which had accumulated in a specific cornerand had now been relocated to shelves in the livingroom and the hallway; the suitcases they used twice ayear, which went under the bed in the main bedroomand would stay there indefinitely; the Christmasdecorations in the well-organ