The Alabaster

on the pulse of love and whether or not it can be contained

“So this is the one you want?” He asks, slightly forlorn, but she has learned not to place credence on tones.

“I think so,” she says.

He smiles politely, begins wrapping the gift in the flesh of tissue. Pink, pale, nearly translucent.

“What were you hoping to gain when you came in here?”

She shrugs.

“Nothing really,” she answers. “We’re on our way back from the sea.”

“How was it?”

He looks at her with a glass eye and within its lens, she sees them frolicking along the shore. She feels the particles of sand underneath her fingers, the gentle hum of hermit crabs lingering in her palms.

“I guess I could have appreciated it more.”

He smiles, hands her the package in a crisp paper bag, and sends her on her way.

---

The air is thick. Not regret, but something like it. The clouds are curling in.

“Babe, it’s a storm.”

He glances over at her, notices the goosebumps on her thighs.

“You want to stay the night in a motel?”

She grins.

“I’d love nothing more than to spend a little more time with you.”

He resists creeping over the dashboard to sneak a kiss. Those racing days are over. They’ve got a kid in the backseat, another on the way.

There are moments when he’ll glance at her belly and marvel at the fact that she chose him to be the father of her children.

When he tries to say that, when he tries to flatter her, she makes a joke.

But her cheeks flush and he lives for the particular shade of pink.

---

They’re in the motel and the ice machine is out of order. She’s having hot flashes or something like it.

He pours cold water over all the cloths he can find. He walks them over to her, lays one across her forehead, the other across her neck.

She looks at him, not with yearning, but something close.

“Careful,” he grins, looking at her belly.

She glances out the window, notices how the crescent appears slightly pregnant too.

“Come close to me,” she says.

So he does. He creeps in close enough for her to feel the brush of his stubble against her cheeks and against. She embraces him, wraps her arms around his shoulders, rests a palm against his neck.

There is a pulse there.

He glances up and they grin at each other.

She has a tendency to smile from only one side of her mouth. He creeps up to kiss the part that doesn’t curve.

---

They are driving home and the sea is fading more and more as they move along. Soon enough, it’ll be an emblem.

“Stop,” she says.

So he does, safely, hazard lights blaring.

“You know that I love you, right?”

Their hands are fluttering, not quite meeting, but touching each other every now and then.

“Yeah, babe, you know I love you.”

His eyes are honest, kind, and bare.

They continue into the night.

The baby kicks.

His palm rests on her belly the entire way home.

---