Lahat ng Kabanata ng His Wife On Paper : Kabanata 201 - Kabanata 210

Eliora's POV "You don't have to grip my hand that hard," Kian said. "I'm not going anywhere.""I know." I loosened my grip slightly. Then the sonographer moved the probe and I gripped it again. He didn't say anything about it. He just smiled and patted my hair.The room was small and dim the way these rooms always were, designed for the screen to be visible, everything else secondary. I was on the bed with the paper covering crinkling every time I breathed and the gel was cold even though the sonographer had warned me it would be cold and I had thought I was prepared for it and I was not. Kian was in the chair pulled up close beside me, our hands joined on the edge of the bed, his thumb moving in the slow steady circle it moved when he was keeping himself calm.I watched the screen.It was grainy and dark and for a moment I could not make out anything that resembled what I was looking for and then the sonographer adjusted the angle and said "there we go" in the quiet voice of someo

Eliora's POV "She used to kick right around this time," Lydia said, her hands moving carefully as she peeled the vegetables I had handed her. "Every evening. Like clockwork." A small pause. "You, I mean. When I was carrying you."I looked at the pot on the stove and said nothing. Not because I had nothing to say but because the image of it, my mother young and pregnant, feeling me move, landed somewhere I had not prepared for it to land."Seven in the evening without fail." Lydia's voice was soft. Just remembering the way people remembered things when they had forgotten to guard themselves first. "Your father used to put his hand on my stomach and wait for it." The faintest smile in her voice. "He never missed it."I kept stirring.The kitchen was warm. The garden outside the window was full of the low evening light and the distant sound of Ezra conducting important business with his stones. The vegetables Lydia was peeling made small sounds against the chopping board. Everything wa

Eliora's POV "He called?" Zoey's voice came through the phone while I stood at the bathroom mirror doing my mascara one handed. "Like actually called, not texted?""Texted," I said. "But a long one.""How long?""Two sentences."Zoey made a sound."It's fine," I said. "He's busy. It's the first week back.""It's the third week back."I put the mascara down. "Zoey.""I'm just saying." She was not just saying. She was doing the thing where she said the true thing and then let it sit there. I had known her long enough to recognise the technique. "How are you feeling? Actually feeling. Not the version you tell people."I looked at my reflection. At the bump that was properly visible now.At the shadows under my eyes that the concealer was doing its best with. At the face of a woman who had been getting herself and a four year old ready every morning for three weeks while her husband left before they woke up and came home after they were asleep."I'm fine," I said."Eliora.""I'm managin

Eliora's POV "You have the number for Dr. Patel?" Kian stood at the bedroom door with his bag already over his shoulder, scanning the room the way he scanned rooms when he was checking he had not forgotten anything. "If anything happens with the pregnancy—""I have the number." I sat on the edge of the bed watching him. "I have had the number since week eight.""And Mrs Halloway is coming Tuesday and Thursday—""Kian."He stopped."I have done this before," I said. Gently. Carefully. Making sure nothing sharp came through in it. "I know how to be in a house."He looked at me for a moment. Something moved through his face, not guilt exactly, more the specific discomfort of a man who knew he was leaving and could not find a way to leave that felt right. He crossed the room and crouched down in front of me so we were level and put both hands on either side of my face."Two days," he said. "Three at the absolute most.""Go." I put my hands over his. "Do the meeting. Come home."He kissed

Eliora's POV "Where are we going?"Kian glanced at me from the driver's seat with the expression he used when he had decided something and was not going to be talked out of it. "You'll see.""That is not an answer.""It's the only one you're getting."I looked out the window. We had been driving for fifteen minutes and I had tried three different approaches to extracting information and he had deflected all of them with the specific patience of a man who had made a plan and was enjoying the fact that I did not know what it was. Which was irritating and he knew it."Is it far?""No.""Is it loud? Because Noah does not appreciate loud anymore. Last week someone slammed a car door and he kicked me for twenty minutes straight."Something moved at the corner of his mouth. "It's not loud.""Is there food?"He looked at me fully for one second. "Eliora.""I'm pregnant," I said. "Food is a legitimate concern.""There is food," he said. "There is specifically the food you mentioned three week