The temperature of his palm at her face.
She put her hands on his thighs.
The automatic, steadying-herself quality of it — the grip not aroused-grip, the practical grip of a woman using available surfaces to come vertical. Her palms against the outside of his thighs, the pressure of pushing up.
He helped.
The other hand finding her arm — the crook of her elbow, the steady, upward guidance of someone matching her momentum. The careful quality of helping a pregnant woman rise from the floor — the attention to her center of gravity, to the forward weight of the belly, the adjustment.
She came up.
The slow, joint-by-joint, five-months-pregnant quality of rising from a kneeling position. Her knees straightening. Her back. The intake of breath as vertical returned and her lungs found the full, uncompressed volume of a standing body.
She stood.
