Page 73 of Knocked Up

"Yeah," I said.

She stood there a while. "Give me the marker."

I gave her the marker. She took the cap off with her teeth and stood in front of that board for about eleven seconds not writing anything. Then she put T.R. next to my initials in that slanted hand. She capped it and handed it back.

"This does not mean anything," she said.

"No."

"It's a clarification. Fine," Tessa said. She drank her coffee. Neither of us moved out of that kitchen for a second. Then Plante started up down the hall.

The amendment worked constantly. The hallway is thirty-one inches and there is a crate on the left. In January I stopped taking the corner wide.

She came out of the bathroom on the 4th with her hair wet and I did not get out of the way. She stood with her hand flat on my chest where it goes, on the scar, and said, "You're in my hall." I said, "Yeah." It was nine minutes before either of us was anywhere else.

Wednesday it happened at the counter, with a syringe in her hand. Friday she came in while I was on the phone to the equipment guy. She took the phone out of my hand and put it face down on the counter with him still talking on it. She kissed me until Margaret knocked a jar off a shelf on purpose.

And every time, one of us said a version of the same sentence.

"That's covered."

"Amendment one."

We were both lying and we both knew it. I was better at it than she was. I would say the words and then go and hose a run and be fine. She would say the words and then get quiet.

On the 10th she got quiet for two days and I let her have them. On the 12th at eleven at night she came and stood in the doorway of a nine-by-eight room with her arms folded.

"I have a question. It's a medical question. Do you know what pelvic rest means?"

"I read the folder. There's a green folder. It's got twenty-two pages in it. Page nine."

Tessa put her forehead on the doorframe.

"Page nine says no intercourse and nothing internal until the placenta moves off the cervix. The rescan's at twenty-eight weeks. I've had the date on my phone since November." I sat up. "Is that the question or is that the preamble?"

"That's the preamble. The question is whether you understand what page nine does not say."

I did not say anything for a second.

"Say it out loud," I said.

"No."

"Tessa."

"I'm not going to stand in a doorway and…"

"Then it doesn't happen," I said.

She looked at me. "Why?"

"Because I'm not deciding anything for you. Not one thing, not ever again. If it happens it's because you said it in words in a room with the light on."

She stood there eleven seconds. I counted.

"Page nine," Tessa said, "does not say anything about your hands."

"No. It doesn't."