Here is a story based on that title.
The crib arrived on a Tuesday, flat-packed in a cardboard box that smelled of pine and possibility. I found my husband, Liam, in the guest room, Allen key in hand, wrestling with a set of wooden slats. The late afternoon sun slanted through the window, illuminating the dust motes dancing around him.
For a moment, my heart did a frantic, hopeful flutter. We hadn’t talked about this—not in years. Not since the two miscarriages and the subsequent, silent agreement to shelve the topic of children in the most fragile, cobwebbed corner of our marriage. Seeing that crib, half-assembled, felt like watching a ghost walk into the room.
“Liam? What’s this?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
He didn’t look up, just grunted as he tightened a screw. “Got a good deal on it. My cousin, Jenna—her baby shower is next month. Thought we’d build it for her, save her the trouble.”
The hope in my chest deflated, replaced by a familiar, dull ache. Of course. It wasn’t for us.
“Oh,” I said, trying to sound breezy. “That’s… thoughtful.”
“It’s just temporary,” he added, finally glancing at me. His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Just until the shower. It’s taking up too much space in the garage.”
This is just temporary. The words echoed in the quiet room for weeks. Every time I passed the guest room, the crib stood there like a monument to a life we weren’t living. It was a beautiful thing, pale oak with smooth, rounded edges. I’d run my hand over the top rail, imagining a tiny hand gripping my finger. It was a sweet kind of torture.
Liam grew distant. He explained it away as stress from work—late nights at the office, business dinners that stretched past midnight. He started guarding his phone like it was a state secret. When I’d try to broach the subject, to ask if he was okay, he’d just offer a tired smile and say, “Just a big project. It’s temporary.”
Everything, it seemed, was temporary.
The suspicion began as a slow, creeping ivy, winding its way around the foundations of our ten-year marriage. I started looking for things, though I wasn’t sure what I expected to find. An email? A text message? A credit card bill for a hotel I’d never seen?
I found it on a Sunday morning while Liam was out for a run. I was putting away laundry, and for some reason, I opened his nightstand drawer—a space I hadn’t invaded since we were first married. Tucked beneath a stack of old paperbacks was a small, white box. My breath caught in my throat. It was from a pharmacy down the street.
My hands trembled as I opened it. Inside, nestled in the plastic casing, was a digital pregnancy test. The little screen was still faintly lit, the battery clinging to its last breath. And on it, in stark, undeniable clarity, were the words:
Pregnant. 2-3 weeks.
For a split second, a wild, impossible joy surged through me. Could it be? Had he bought it for me, somehow knowing? Was this his way of reopening that fragile, closed-off part of our lives?
Then, the cold wave of reality crashed over me. I hadn’t taken a test. I knew my cycle better than I knew my own social security number. We hadn’t even been intimate in over a month.
This positive test wasn’t mine.
The pieces slammed into place with brutal force. The late nights. The guarded phone. The crib in the guest room. The phrase that had become his mantra.
This is just temporary.
He wasn’t talking about the crib’s presence in our house. He was talking about my presence in it. The guest room wasn’t a workshop for a gift; it was a nursery-in-waiting. He was building a future, just not with me.
When he came back, flushed from his run and smiling, I was sitting on the edge of our bed. I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I just held out the test.
“I found this in your drawer,” I said, my voice unnervingly calm. “And I have one question, Liam. Is it just temporary, too?”
The color drained from his face. The denial, the excuses, the lies all died on his lips before they could be born. In the crushing silence, I saw the truth. I saw the other woman’s face, the new apartment he was probably looking at, the whole secret life he had constructed while I was in the next room, mourning the family we’d never have.
He opened his mouth, and all that came out was a choked whisper. “Anna…”
I stood up and walked out of the bedroom. I passed the guest room on my way to the front door. The crib stood there, fully assembled now, a perfect, hollow promise. He was right about one thing. It was just temporary. All of it was. And its time was up.
