Six Cribs in My Living Room

He and Lauren’s husband, Kyle, pushed the couch flat against the long wall and carried the television upstairs to our bedroom.

They rolled up the rug and took it to the basement. Kyle brought his shop vacuum and they went over every inch of that floor twice.

We had three portable cribs between us already. My cousin in Yeagertown lent us one. A woman from the next street over, who I had never spoken to before in my life, knocked on the door Saturday afternoon and said she heard what we were doing and handed us one still in the box.

Nate drove out to the Walmart and bought the sixth one for fifty-nine dollars. He came back with it on his shoulder and a box of crib sheets under his arm, and he set them down on the floor and said, “That’s six,” and went upstairs to sleep for four hours.

Sunday was church. I almost did not go. I did not want to sit in that sanctuary and look at the empty spot in the third pew where Pam and Dale always sat.

But I went, because I always go, and because Owen likes the music.

Their pew was empty. Nobody said anything about it during the service, and I was grateful. Church is not the place for that, and our pastor had the good sense to know it.

He prayed for every family going through a hard season, and he let it be.

That night, Sunday night, I worked. I had traded my Monday day shift for a Sunday night so I could be home Monday afternoon for the first full day.

Seven at night to seven in the morning, twelve hours, two admissions and a fall at three in the morning.

Around eleven o’clock, on my break, I looked at my phone. There was a text from a number I did not have saved.

It said: This is Kristy Kauffman. I heard about your living room from Amy. Is there room for one more. I understand if there isn’t.

I sat in the break room with my coffee going cold and read it four times. Kristy was Pam’s daughter. Thirty years old.

She worked at the insurance office in Lewistown. Her daughter, Mia, had been in Pam’s baby room since she was eight weeks old, right alongside Owen.

I had not thought about Kristy once in all of this. That is the honest truth. I had thought about Pam, and the money, and the waiting lists, and the cribs.

It had not crossed my mind that Pam’s own daughter was standing in that same parking lot with her own baby.

I typed back: Yes. Seven thirty. Bring her bag and a sheet with her schedule. Then I put the phone in my pocket and went back out on the floor, because Mrs. Shirk in room 412 needed her pain medicine and Mr. Shaffer was trying to climb out of bed again.

My shift ended at seven. I gave report, clocked out, and drove home in my navy scrubs with my dark hair still pinned up in the bun I wear for work.

It was snowing, the first real snow of the year, big soft flakes coming down slow over the whole town.

When I pulled onto our street, Lauren’s minivan was already parked out front and Stephanie’s car was behind it. The porch light was on.