the timer said three minutes

The box said three minutes, so we set a timer like it was an exam, and then neither of us could stay in the bathroom or leave it. He kept picking things up and putting them down again. I watched the second hand do its slowest ever lap of the kitchen clock.

Two lines. He made a sound like a hiccup and sat down on the edge of the bath, and we told nobody for nine weeks and walked around the city like two people carrying a lantern. She is four months old now. The timer is still in my phone, three minutes, labelled nothing.