Finn gets up from his seat, his face set. He comes to the side of the table.
I won’t abandon you, Finn. I can taste the words now. Letting him be part of this moment feels like keeping that promise, even if I’m not obligated to keep it anymore.
Even if the tension between us is so thick I can hardly breathe.
I reach for his hand in the glow of the ultrasound machine and thread my fingers through his.
He holds on tight.
We’re both transfixed by the image on the screen. An oblong pool of black veers from side to side as the doctor moves the wand.
And there, near the edge—
“That’s the fetus. Let me check to make sure there are no roommates.”
Finn’s hand clamps down on mine. Twins were never included in my thoughts about the baby.
The wand moves. The doctor searches.
“One for the money,” she says with a low laugh, and I feel Finn’s breath go out of him. His grip on my hand relents. No twins. “But not two for the show. Now I need to get some measurements.”
The doctor taps at a keyboard below the monitor. The number of weeks and days of the baby’s life appears on the screen. Lines cross the tiny bean in the black space.
The doctor turns a switch on the keyboard, and the room is filled with the rapid whoosh-thud of a heartbeat. “The heart tones sound normal. Healthy. Everything looks good here. We’ve got a few weeks to go until the heart is finished developing.”
I can’t stop staring. The baby is barely baby-shaped yet. I can just make out the curl of a head. A printer whirrs. The lights go back up. Finn helps me sit. The nurse steps out, and the doctor rolls her stool to the counter and adds notes to my file.
She smiles at me again, her gaze assessing. “You’re about seven weeks along. We’ll want you back at ten weeks to check your progress. In the meantime…” A pamphlet appears, tugged out of a holder on the countertop. “Here’s a list of foods you’ll want to minimize from your diet, especially in the first trimester. Have you already started taking prenatal vitamins?”
“No. I’ll do that. Is there a brand you recommend?”
“Many of my patients have good luck with these.” The doctor adds a note to the pamphlet, then hands it to me along with the ultrasound pictures. I’m struck by the image of the baby all over again.
She outlines the appointment schedule. The twenty-four hour hotline. Writes her personal cell phone number on the pamphlet next to her recommendation for prenatal vitamins.
“We’ll be with you every step of the way. And you should know, Eva, that I base my practice on the most up-to-date best practices, but some of the more common pregnancy advice is a holdover from the nineteen-fifties. If you want clarification on anything, please ask.”
“That sounds good. I don’t really want pregnancy tips from the fifties.”
She laughs. “What else would you like to talk about today?”
“When can we find out the sex of the baby?”
The doctor nods. “Some couples choose to wait until the twenty-week anatomy scan, but—”
“It’s a boy.” Finn’s voice startles me. Both of his hands are shoved into his pockets. All his charm is hidden behind an angry scowl. A boy with the Hughes curse. He doesn’t say it out loud.
He doesn’t have to. I hear it loud and clear. “Finn.”
“At your next appointment, we can do a blood draw and run a genetic test. We need time for the concentration of fetal DNA to reach viable levels. So that’s…three or four weeks from now, plus a week for processing. That’s how soon you can find out the gender.”
“We already know it’s a boy. What more is the test going to tell us?” Finn’s sharp now.
“Genetic testing tells us whether the fetus has certain disorders.”
“Like what?”
She lists a bunch of things that sound terrifying. I don’t want my baby to have any of those things. Maybe I understand Finn better now that I feel this fear. Because this? This is only about the tiny possibility of disease. The potential. Finn believes the Hughes curse is a certainty.
“These things are unlikely,” she says. “But some parents like to know.”
“What does it mean if the test is positive?”
“It’s not a certainty. These are only genetic markers. But if the risks are elevated, we can decide to do a diagnostic screening. That can be slightly more invasive.”
He frowns. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“Finn.”
“I want to know what it means.”
“This is why I didn’t want to bring you.”
The doctor folds her hands in her lap. “For diagnostic screening, we’d need cells from the fetus or the placenta or both. The procedure is relatively low risk, but we still wait for something to appear on genetic testing before we do it.”
“And what would that change? If you found something, we wouldn’t be able to fix it, would we?”
“No, there are very few treatments we can begin while the fetus is in utero. The tests are an option if the two of you would like more information about the baby. They’re not mandatory. I want you to understand that. It’s your choice as parents to have these screenings done.”
“Great. Excellent. It’s all pointless, then.”
“Mr. Hughes.” Somehow, this woman has managed to soften even more. “I know this can be scary to think about. I don’t like to alarm parents, but I do like you to be informed.”
“I want to know,” I say, because it’s true.
Finn gives me a dark look that says, We already know the fate of this baby.
“Most likely the tests will come back negative. But if they don’t, they’ll allow you to research the possibility of the condition before he or she is born.”
“Or terminate the pregnancy.” Finn’s words echo in the small doctor’s office. The fluorescent lights suddenly feel too bright. The hum of the ultrasound machine feels like a roar. “That’s why people have those tests done, right? So they know whether to have an abortion?”
“Sometimes,” the doctor says. “Sometimes they do wish to terminate. It’s very unlikely that anything would show up. And again, we don’t have to do it.”
“Which way is better, doctor? Should we let someone suffer or pull the plug?”
I don’t know whether to rage at Finn or hug him. He’s being a complete asshole.
He’s spiraling, right in front of me.
The doctor doesn’t look fazed. I’m guessing Finn isn’t the first expectant father to have a meltdown at one of these appointments, but that doesn’t make it better. “That’s not an easy question. And it’s not mine to answer. At least not for this pregnancy. It’s about your personal beliefs. And your values.”
“You know what I value?” he says. “Ignorance. It’s bliss. That’s what they say, isn’t it? Information is overrated. Does anyone actually feel better seeing a positive result? That’s bullshit. They don’t. They always feel worse. The only reason to take the test is because you’re hoping it’s negative.”
I’m stricken, because he’s right. Sometimes information is overrated. Like the Hughes curse. It makes Finn sure of what will happen. Is it true? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, he’s refusing to live a normal life. If he didn’t know his destiny, if he was ignorant of the curse, he could love me. He could marry me. He could dream of a future. That’s a hard truth to face.