Chapter 11
The county medical center smelled like coffee and floor wax. I sat in a plastic chair by the window in the OB waiting room and watched the parking lot fill up.
It was Tuesday morning, eight forty. Outside, a sheriff's cruiser pulled in slow and parked by the front doors, lights off. The deputy got out and held the door for an older woman with a walker. I watched him, then watched the clock, then watched the door.
He'd said he'd meet me inside. He didn't say he'd be late, and he wasn't. At eight forty-three the second set of doors hissed open and he came in wearing a dark gray henley and jeans instead of the black suit, hair still damp from a shower, and he looked instantly out of place among the pastel brochures and the fish tank.
"You good?" he asked, quiet.
I nodded. My hands were around the clipboard they'd given me. "They gave me paperwork."
He sat next to me, knee touching mine. He didn't take the clipboard. He just waited.
There were two scenes in that waiting room before they called my name, and both felt like a test I hadn't studied for.
The first was the forms. The nurse at intake slid the window open and said, "Anna? We need you to update a few things before the sonogram."
She handed me three sheets on a clipboard. Insurance information. Medical history. Emergency contact.
I stared at that last line. Emergency contact. Relationship.
I hadn't filled that out since I'd moved to the apartment. I wrote my mom's name last time and then crossed it out because she lived two hours away in Ohio and wouldn't answer unknown numbers.
I felt him lean in, not to read over my shoulder, just close enough that I could smell his soap.
"You want me down?" he asked.
I hesitated. The pen hovered.
"What do you want to put?" I said.
"Whatever you want me to be," he said. "But put someone who'd actually be here. I'm here."
I wrote his first name. I didn't write his last name because I realized I wasn't sure how he spelled it on official forms, and that felt like a stupid, awful thing not to know. I wrote his phone number from memory. Under relationship I wrote partner, then erased the tail of the r and made it partner still, because boyfriend felt too small and husband was a lie.
Under insurance I checked the box for self-pay plus secondary. The clerk looked at it and said, "You want to add his insurance as secondary? If you're listed as domestic partner you can, but we need his card."
He pulled his wallet out without a pause and handed her a blue card. No performance to it. Just laid it on the counter. She copied it and handed it back.
"You're all set, you two," she said, and treated us like we'd been doing this for years.
That was the second test, the way she said you two. Like it was settled. I felt my face get hot. He didn't correct her. He didn't claim it either. He just put his hand lightly on my back as we stood when the nurse called, "Anna?"
The sonogram room was dim and cold. The tech was a woman in her forties with short blonde hair and a badge that said CARLA, RDMS. She had me lie back on the table and pulled the gown up just enough, then squeezed warm gel on my stomach. I flinched anyway.
"How far along are we thinking?" she asked, looking at the screen, not at me.
"About eight weeks," I said. "Maybe nine."
She nodded and moved the wand. The screen was gray and noisy at first, snow and shadows. He stood at my shoulder, one hand on the rail of the table, not touching me but close enough I could feel the heat from his arm.
Then Carla stopped moving. She pressed a button.
"There," she said, and turned the screen a little toward us. "See that flicker?"
I saw it before I understood it. A small, bright pulse, fast, inside a darker oval. Like a tiny light blinking in water.
"That's the heartbeat," she said. She clicked again and the room filled with sound. A rapid, whooshing thump, thump, thump, so fast it didn't sound human at first.
My breath caught. I didn't mean to make a sound.
He made one too, low in his throat. His hand found mine on the table and held it. His fingers were cold.
"One thirty-six," Carla said, smiling now. She looked at us both. "Strong."
I turned my head to look at him. His eyes were fixed on the screen, not blinking, his mouth slightly open. The light from the monitor painted his face gray and white. I watched his throat move as he swallowed.
"Dad want a closer look?" Carla asked, gentle, assuming.
He didn't correct her either. He just nodded once and stepped closer, his grip tightening on my hand.
"That's your baby," she said to me, freezing the image. She measured with two small crosses on the screen. "Eight weeks, six days. Right on track."
She printed three small black strips with white images. One wide view, one close-up of the flicker, one with measurements typed along the side. She handed them to me, then, after a beat, handed a duplicate set to him.
"One for each of you," she said.
We sat in the parking lot afterward with the heat running. The sheriff's cruiser was still there, now with a second one beside it. Two deputies stood by the entrance drinking coffee. Ordinary Tuesday.
He held his strip of sonogram photos carefully by the edges, like they'd smudge. I held mine in my lap.
"You're on the paperwork now," I said. It came out quieter than I meant.
"I know," he said. He didn't look up from the image. "You want me to take that off if you want. Just tell me."
I shook my head. "No. Leave it."
He finally looked at me. His eyes were red at the rims. He hadn't cried in the room, but now he was close.
"Can I keep this?" he asked, meaning the photo.
"Yeah," I said. "It's yours too."
He folded the strip once and slid it into his wallet, behind his license, where I could see the edge stick out. He started the car, but didn't put it in drive right away. He just sat with his hands on the wheel, breathing.
"We heard it," he said.
May you like
"We did," I said.
He pulled out of the parking lot onto the county road, past the diner and the gas station, and I held my copy of the sonogram with both hands the whole way, not wanting to crease it.
