Reaching for him, I beat back the pang of hurt. “Danny, I—”
“Bed, Rose,” he grates, stepping away, his jaw tight as he considers me. My hand drops heavily. “Get on the fucking bed before I put you there myself.”
Desperate for contact, no matter how that comes, I goad him. “Fuck off, you bastard.”
I don’t get what I expect. A slap. Bastard. It’s a trigger word for my husband, a guarantee to break his impassiveness. Not today, though, and I’m thrown. I get a dark smile. “I’m not touching you,” he whispers.
“Why?” He’s punishing me, and it hurts like hell.
“Get on the bed.”
“No.”
He moves so fast, I don’t have a moment to back up. His hand clenching my jaw, he pushes his face close to mine, his nostrils flaring dangerously. “It’s bad enough you expose yourself to your fucked-up need to prove some kind of fucked-up point. But my child?”
Finally, he’s snapped, and it’s a fucking relief.
“Bed,” he hisses.
Yes, it’s a relief, but I won’t push him. I wrench my face from his hold, backing up to the bed, and I lie down as the door knocks.
“Mr. Black?” Doc calls.
“Come in,” Danny all but grunts, ignoring my inquisitive face.
Venturing inside, Doc motions to someone behind him. “Bring it in.”
On a frown, I push myself up to my elbows, waiting to see who appears. “Tank?” I say, as he backs his way in, pulling some kind of cart. He won’t look at me, and that speaks so very loudly.
“Over by the bed,” Doc orders, dropping his medical bag on the chair in the corner of our room as I sit like a mute fool. “Thank you.”
“What’s going on?” I ask. “And what is that?”
“An ultrasound machine,” Danny says. His face. It’s a mirror image of the expression he wore the night I met him. Unmoving. Emotionless. Determined. It’s a look to suggest that any challenges will be met with fatal force. Unlucky for him, I’m immune to his deadliness.
“Don’t you think this is something we should be discussing and arranging together?” I stand, needing a presence, and Doc falters in his motions, looking between us. He didn’t know that I didn’t know.
“There are many things we should be discussing, and we will when you’re being reasonable,” Danny replies, his stance wide. One eye falls into a slit. “Lie down.”
Probably surprising him, I do as I’m told, but not because he’s demanded it. I’m pregnant. I’m fucking pregnant. Pregnant. Reality and reasonability has suddenly found me, and so has more shame. What was I doing? What was I thinking? I need to know it’s going to be okay, and now not even my disdain for my jerk of a husband or my deep ache to defy him out of spite will make me put up a fight.
I open my robe and inhale when Doc squeezes some gel onto my stomach. “Ready?” he asks, arming himself with the probe and looking over his glasses at me. I nod and rest my head back, closing my eyes. Whooshes and beeps fill the room, drowning out the lingering screaming of Danny’s foul mood, as Doc glides across my stomach, pushing in here and there. The stretched time of him not speaking, not telling me the baby is fine, begins to panic me. I open my eyes and turn my face toward the monitor just as the sound of a consistent, loud thrumming begins. I swallow, my stare rooted to the blob dominating the screen.
“Your baby,” Doc says quietly, tapping at buttons and rolling a dial.
I remain mute and still, transfixed, my teeth sunken into my bottom lip. And the shame that found me multiplies one thousand percent. Because now it’s real. Now it’s not an idea, a notion, but something growing inside of me that I can see as clearly as I’ve ever seen anything.
“How many periods have you missed, Rose?” Doc asks, looking at me.
I’m quickly tense. “Why? Is there something wrong?”
Danny comes to life and makes his way to the bed, but his attention remains on the screen. On our baby.
“Everything is fine,” he answers quickly, putting my mind at rest, smiling mildly. “I would estimate you’re around twelve weeks, which is why I asked.”
My mouth falls open. “Twelve?”
“Possibly nearer thirteen.”
I blink rapidly, going back through the past few months, trying to recall my last period. I can’t. They’ve always been quite erratic, and I always put that down to the brutality I was subjected to when I was just a girl.
I suddenly feel the heat of Danny’s skin on mine, and I look down to see he’s holding my hand. “And everything’s okay?” he asks quietly, as transfixed as I was on the screen. I’m mesmerized by his face. It’s softened, his lush lips slightly parted, his blue eyes shining with life rather than death. There’s the man I fell in love with.
“The wall of the uterus looks okay.”
“Just okay?” Danny asks.
“Okay is better than poor,” Doc says, hitting a few buttons. “It’s not plump or juicy, but it’s okay. There doesn’t appear to be any paper in the machine so I can’t print a photograph.”
Danny releases my hand and rounds the bed to the other side, pulling out his phone. He aims it at the screen and captures a picture. The first photograph of our baby. And he stares down at it for an age, his eyes taking in every tiny piece. Emotion creeps up on me, my eyes clouding.
“I’ll give you some privacy.” Doc wipes the probe and slips it into the holder on the machine before claiming his medical bag. Then he leaves, closing the door quietly behind him. The sound seems to knock Danny from his paralyzed state, and he looks up at me, staring for what feels like years, the hollows of his cheeks pulsing.
“I’m going to be a daddy, Rose.”
Everything expands—my chest from my exhale, the welling of my eyes, the lump in my throat. I can’t speak, can’t find my voice or the words, so I shake my head and close my eyes, allowing the tears to roll down my cheeks.
His body is blanketing mine in a second, every hard, hot inch of him coating me, his face nestled deep in my neck. My sobs are quiet but so fucking loud, as I cling to him, holding him to me, beating myself up over and over, apologizing non-stop in my head.
On a long, heavy sigh, he eventually shifts, settling next to me. He wipes my eyes. Traces the contours of my face. Then he settles his hand on my tummy. “Feel that?” he whispers, never taking his eyes from mine. “That’s everything you’ve ever wanted but never dared imagine could be. That’s everything good about you mixed with what goodness there is in me.” He strokes across my stomach, and I find his hand, holding it to me. “Don’t be careless with your body, don’t be careless with our baby, and don’t be careless with my emotions.” He dips and kisses the edge of my mouth. “I won’t hold back, Rose. With the exception of my wife and her boy, there is nothing in this world that I’ll guard more violently. Nothing I’ll kill harder for. Nothing that could turn me psycho quicker than the risk of it being hurt. You’re carrying my flesh and blood. You’re bringing more hope into my world. I don’t want to hate, baby. I want to love and be loved. Treasure and be treasured. I want life, I want you, I want Daniel, and I want our baby.”