She’d been vague about where she was staying, but she promised to meet me in the cafeteria again the following Wednesday. Meanwhile, I braced myself for the possibility that she wouldn’t be back. I couldn’t stop thinking about the baby. I fantasized about holding it, rocking it to sleep, feeding it bottles, carrying it through the city in a sling, its warm body snug against me. It was a leap, I knew, one that assumed so many things: that Heather would decide to have the baby, that she would remain nearby, and that she would allow me to be involved. So when I walked into the VA cafeteria on the scheduled day and saw her sitting there, fifteen minutes early, I sighed with relief. I slid into the booth across from her. “Since when are you a morning person?” She folded up her paper. “There’s a lot you wouldn’t recognize about me. On the forward operating base in Kandahar, we had to be up at five. It’s amazing what you can accomplish in a day if you get up with the sunrise.”
