Free A Necessary End by Holly Brown

eyes. Sometimes she really does just look like a kid. Does she look like our kid will?
    Now, that’s what freaks me out. All this shit Adrienne is dealing with, the petty jealousy—it’s nothing compared to the simple, insane reality that soon, we’ll be parents, fully responsible for the care and feeding of an actual human being. When my brother and I were kids, he noticed I couldn’t even keep Sea-Monkeys and Chia Pets alive. “You’ve got a black thumb,” he once said.
    â€œYou okay?” Leah asks. “You look a little—I don’t know, something.”
    My laugh comes out shaky. “I am something.”
    I’m surprised when she takes my hand in hers. Her eyes are intent on my face, as if she’s some kind of healer. The weird part is, I do feel steadier. She smiles. “Better?”
    â€œYou got special powers? Are you one of the X-Men?”
    She laughs. “I get scared out of the blue, too, sometimes. Comes with the territory.”
    â€œWhat territory is that?”
    â€œI’m about to be a mother, and you’re about to be a father.”
    I take my hand away and go to the produce section, which is full of vegetables I don’t recognize. The signs are lettered in a few different Asian languages, plus English. Leah follows me.
    â€œTaro root again,” she says. She picks it up and runs her fingers over it. It’s like a potato that mated with a coconut, the skin thick and dark and a little hairy. “Do you cook?”
    â€œNo, Adrienne does.” Though not like she cooked for Leah. I want to tell Leah not to expect that for the next year, unless Adrienne’s planning to keep up the act for that long. The truth is, I don’t know exactly what she’s planning.
    There it is, that feeling again. But I keep my back to Leah. It’s not right, her comforting me. Adrienne wouldn’t like it.
    Leah picks up another vegetable. “It says this is bitter melon. Looks more like a really wrinkled cucumber, like a little old man.”
    I laugh. “Me, in twenty years.”
    â€œDon’t be so hard on yourself. Twenty-five years.”
    â€œHa ha.”
    An Asian woman, stooped and foreshortened, elbows me out of the way. I thought she wanted to get at the Japanese eggplants, but no. She points at Leah’s belly. “When you due?”
    â€œSix weeks.” Leah glances at me. “Well, more like five.”
    Jesus. Why did she lie to Adrienne about the due date? Or did Adrienne lie to me? One of them was buying time.
    â€œYou tiny,” the woman says. She touches her own stomach. “Tiny, too. But baby big.” She spreads her arms, and Leah and I laugh.
    â€œMay I?” another woman asks shyly, indicating Leah’s belly. She’s white, fifty or so, with close-cropped dark hair. “Is the baby moving much?” I have the distinct impression from the quiet of her delivery, the sense of reverence in it, that she’s never had children of her own. The Asian woman begins examining the tubers.
    â€œHe’s not moving right now,” Leah says, but she pins her arms back, assenting to the woman’s request. Leah has caught Adrienne’s certainty about the sex, or she’s decided she might as well co-opt the syntax.
    The woman runs her hand gently over Leah’s stomach. There’s something sensual in the touch, and I find myself averting my eyes. But then the woman looks at me and says, “You must be thrilled.”
    I’m not sure how to respond. She looks so hopeful for us, for Leah and me. She must think that I’m the real father.
    â€œHe’s going to be a great dad,” Leah interjects. I wonder if she really believes that, and if so, what in me suggests it. It might just be what she needs to think. Or a favor she’s doing for this childless woman, who is hanging on the answer.
    Leah can be kind, I realize.
    â€œMy wife is really