15-05-2021-052358It-Ends-with-Us

times.”
He glances over his shoulder and I can see the concern in his
expression. He’s worried that I was here doing it all on my own. He
shouldn’t worry. I’ve got this.
When we make it to the nursery, he stops in the doorway. On the
opposite wall, I painted a garden. It’s complete with almost every fruit
and vegetable I could think of that grows in a garden. I’m not a
painter, but it’s amazing what you can do with a projector and
transparent paper.
“Wow,” Ryle says.
I grin, because I recognize the surprise in his voice and I know it’s
genuine. He walks into the room and looks around, shaking his head
the whole time. “Lily. It’s... wow.”
If he were Allysa, I’d clap and jump up and down. But he’s Ryle
and with the way things have been between us, that would be a little
awkward.
He walks over to the window where I set up a swing. He gives it a
little push and it begins moving from side to side.
“It also moves front to back,” I tell him. I don’t know if he even
knows anything about baby swings, but I was pretty impressed by that
feature.
He walks over to the changing table and pulls one of the diapers
out of the holder. He unfolds it and holds it up in front of him. “It’s
so tiny,” he says. “I don’t remember Rylee being this tiny.”
Hearing him mention Rylee makes me a little sad. We’ve been
living apart since the night she was born, so I’ve never been able to
see him interact with her.
Ryle folds up the diaper and puts it back in the holder. When he
turns to face me, he smiles, lifting his hands to motion around the
room. “It’s really great, Lily,” he says. “All of it. You’re really doing.. .”
His hands drop to his hips and his smile falters. “You’re doing really
well.”
A thickness seems to form in the air around me. It’s suddenly
difficult to take in a full breath because for whatever reason, I feel like
I need to cry. I just really like this moment and it saddens me that we
couldn’t spend the entire pregnancy full of moments like these. It