Chapter 10
The waiting room was too cold. That was the first thing I noticed. They kept it at sixty-eight and the paper gown they gave me didn't do anything against it. I sat on the edge of the exam table with my hands folded over my belly and tried not to pull the gown tighter.
Daniel had come straight from work. He still had his navy suit jacket over his arm and his tie loosened. He hadn't said much in the car except to ask what time the appointment was and if I'd filled out the forms. Now he stood against the wall by the sink, checking his phone, then putting it away again.
“You didn't have to come,” I said.
“I wanted to,” he said. He didn't look at me when he said it. He looked at the poster of fetal development on the wall. “You said you wanted me here.”
I had. The night after he left his mother's table, I'd texted him the appointment reminder the clinic sent me. I didn't add anything else. He'd texted back: I'll be there.
The technician knocked once and came in. She was a woman in her forties with short gray hair and a soft voice. She introduced herself as Karen and washed her hands.
“How far along are we today?” she asked, smiling at me.
“Twenty-four weeks,” I said.
She dimmed the lights and squeezed the warm gel onto my stomach. It was cold anyway. I breathed in and held it.
Daniel moved closer. He didn't take my hand right away. He stood at the head of the table, near my shoulder, and watched the screen as it flickered gray and black.
Karen moved the wand slowly. Static filled the room, then a shape came into focus. A curve. A spine.
“There she is,” Karen said quietly. “There's your girl.”
I looked at Daniel. His mouth opened a little. He wasn't frowning anymore.
Karen pointed with her free hand. “That's the profile. See the nose, the lips, the chin? She's got her hand up by her face.”
She was. Her tiny hand was curled near her mouth, just like she was thinking. I felt tears start before I could stop them. I didn't wipe them away.
“Can you hear that?” Karen said, and she pressed a button. The room filled with a fast, thumping sound. Loud and strong and impossibly quick.
Daniel's hand found mine then. His grip was tight.
“That's her heartbeat,” Karen said. “One-fifty-two. Perfect.”
He didn't say anything at first. He just listened. His eyes were on the screen, on that profile, on that little hand. I watched his throat move when he swallowed.
“She's real,” he whispered. It wasn't to me or to Karen. It was just out loud.
Karen smiled and moved the wand again, measuring, clicking. “Everything looks great. Ten fingers, ten toes. Strong legs — she's kicking you, mama, can you feel that?”
I nodded. I could. A flutter that had become a definite push low on my right side.
Daniel laughed, a short, surprised sound. He looked down at me then, truly looked. “Does she do that a lot?”
“All afternoon,” I said.
He kept holding my hand while Karen wiped the gel away and turned the lights back up. She printed two long strips of images in black and white and handed them to me. One showed her face in profile. The other showed her whole body curled.
“Healthy girl,” Karen said. “Congratulations, you two.”
After she left, Daniel helped me sit up. He didn't let go of the pictures. He held them like they might smudge.
In the car, we sat in the parking lot with the engine running for the heat. He had the strip of images on the steering wheel and was tracing the outline of her head with his fingertip.
I said, “I won't raise her where someone tells her she doesn't belong.”
My voice was quiet. It wasn't a threat. It was just true.
He nodded slowly and kept looking at the picture.
“I know,” he said. “I heard her. I saw her. Emma, I—” He stopped and took a breath. “I kept thinking it was just an idea. A disappointment. My mom kept talking about a boy and I let it stay abstract. That's not an excuse. I just didn't see her as a person until right now.”
He set the pictures carefully on the dashboard and turned to me.
“Can I be the one to tell my mother?” he asked. “Her name. That we're going to celebrate her. I want to tell her myself. Not because you can't. Because I should.”
I looked at his face. His eyes were red at the edges. His hands were still cold from holding mine.
“What name?” I asked.
“We haven't chosen one,” he said. “But whatever we choose. I want to say it to my mother's face. That it's a girl. That she's healthy. That we're celebrating her and if she wants to be part of this family, she'll be there for that.”
I felt my own breath catch. This was the shift I'd been waiting for — not just leaving a table, but claiming space forward.
“Okay,” I said. “You can be the one to tell her. But I decide when and how we celebrate. That part stays with me.”
“Of course,” he said quickly. “Whatever you want. I just want to do this part right.”
He reached across the console and put his hand lightly on my belly, where she had just been kicking. She didn't kick again, but he kept his hand there anyway, waiting.
May you like
“Hi,” he whispered down there, awkward and soft. “It's your dad.”
I covered his hand with mine and we sat there in that cold parking lot with the pictures drying on the dashboard, and for the first time since the pavilion, I let myself believe he was actually seeing her.
