He says he doesn�t have any connection to his child until he can put his hand on her flesh and feel the fetus kick. Until then, he tells me, it is just an idea. Something that could be or might never have existed. When that bump against his palm occurs he believes. That is why it is different for women, he says.
�They already know,� he says as he stares across the porch.
She has lost her baby. Two months in and it is no more. She is in the hospital having it removed and we are here, watching. It is not his baby nor mine so the loss is that further away from us.
Inside the phone rings. Through the windows held open with weathered, warped books I hear her aunt answer. The words are lost, mumbled, but the floorboards creak as she moves toward the front door.
�She�s resting,� Ms. Esther says.
That does not mean she is okay or good, just that a part is done with now and she is preparing for the next part. It would have been the first born. She had told me, one night, of being afraid she had forgotten all the nursery rhymes she had ever known. What kind of baby would it be if it had not heard Mary had a lamb.
Hardy leans back. He tilts toward the left as he lowers his glass of sweet ice tea to the ground. Esther stands at the door, her arms hanging at her sides.
�I�m going to go home now,� I say.
�It�s good you came,� he says.
There is nothing to say to that. I stand, walk off the porch, down the sidewalk. It is two miles to my house. The road is quiet but full of sun.


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