It had been a one-sided relationship in many ways, and I had been aware of that. I’d been comfortable with that.
Until I saw the quick pulse at the center of the creature on the screen.
“Heartbeat’s strong,” the tech had said. “Measuring at seven weeks, two days.”
I’d clutched Marion’s hand with mine, and without thinking about it, without imagining what our lives would be, I turned to her and said, “Marry me.”
And as she responded to everything I ever asked, she said, “Yes, sir.”
That had been a lifetime ago, and my current wife, whom I loved so intensely that the emotions I’d felt for Marion seemed as small and alien as that embryo on the screen in comparison, was not so agreeable.
I surveyed her now, her shirt pulled up to her tits, her swelling belly bared. While I’d known there was a baby growing inside her, it hadn’t been real for me until last night when I’d seen the protrusion of Celia’s belly up close. Her body was changing. It had changed. Her breasts were fuller, her nipples darker and more pronounced, and buried underneath her expanding skin, my child was growing.
I was going to be a father.
Again, and yet it felt like the first time in so many ways.
And I was terrified.
Celia was too, I realized. If she was all the time, she’d done a good job of hiding it from me, but here and now, whatever masks she might have worn had been dropped, and I could see the fear etched on her features, her brows knit tightly above concerned eyes as she chewed on her bottom lip, much the way I was worrying my own with my thumb.
I dropped my hand and wondered if I could do anything to put her at ease.
But the barricade between us was thick, and gestures that had once come as naturally as breathing now took great effort. I glanced at her hand, resting on the table at her side, the rings on her wedding finger a blatant show of our commitment to each other. It should be easy to reach out and take that hand, thread my fingers through hers. I could do that. I wanted to do that.
Instead, my hands sat in my lap, as the technician put on latex gloves and then reached for the transducer. With her free hand, she picked up a white bottle with a top that resembled a mustard dispenser and shook it before turning it upside down above Celia’s abdomen.
“This will be cold,” she said, squeezing until a tiny drop of jelly plopped out. The tech shook the bottle then squeezed again with similar results. After glancing around the room for another, she said, “I’m sorry. I have to get more gel. I’ll be right back.”
She hung the instrument in its place on the machine then slipped out into the hall, her footsteps on the hard floor diminishing until the only sound in the room was the gentle hum of the equipment.
Celia’s eyes darted to the blank screen where her name flashed at the top. Fasbender, C. She let out a heavy sigh.
And I reached out and took her hand.
She turned to me immediately, her usual hostility completely absent, and in its place, apprehension.
“What if she’s not okay?” she asked quietly, as if speaking the words any louder might make them come true.
“This is a routine checkup,” I assured her. “There’s no reason to believe that everything we see today won’t be perfectly normal.”
“But the last time…” She shook her head and swallowed. “If I’d set my ultrasound a week earlier, we would have seen that he was already gone.”
I was a bloody idiot. The miscarriage she’d had years before had happened right around this time in her pregnancy. That was why she’d insisted on making the appointment for her anatomy screening as early as possible, right at eighteen weeks. Of course she was worried about it.
I scooted to the edge of my chair and put my other palm over the hand that held hers, squeezing gently. “This isn’t last time, bird. This is this time, and you are strong and stubborn, and there is no way that our baby hasn’t inherited that from you.” I considered what I’d just said. “From both of us,” I corrected.
“Mostly you,” she said with a smile so bright it cut straight to my heart.
I held her gaze like that for several long beats, and when the door opened, and the technician drew my focus, my hands remained clutched to Celia’s.
“Let’s try this again,” the tech said. She squirted gel in zigzag lines across Celia’s skin, then spread it out with the transducer and settled it down on a spot near her navel.
I glanced at Celia’s face, her expression breaking into pure joy before I followed her eyes to the profile of a white figure filling the previously dark screen. Unlike the seahorse that had appeared that first time with Marion, this figure was recognizable as a baby. I could make out so much of it—the curve of the nose, the indent of the eyes, tiny limbs flapping near the head.
“I can make out the individual fingers,” I said, astonished. Ultrasound had come a long way in the last twenty-four years. The pictures hadn’t been nearly this clear.
“Ten total by my count.” The technician clicked a few things on her keyboard, drawing lines and inputting numbers. “Length is right on track for eighteen weeks.”
“She’s growing like she should?” Celia asked tentatively.
“So far so good. Still a lot to see.” The technician made a few more measurements, this time near the skull. “The head is the right size. Nothing concerning there.” She moved the transducer to the torso then tapped a key and a whoosh, whoosh, whoosh sound came over the speakers. “That’s the heartbeat. Sounds nice and strong.”
“Told you.” I squeezed her hand again. This time she squeezed back.
“What are we looking at now? Is that her foot?”
My throat felt tight. I’d never seen her so excited. I’d never seen her this aglow.
“Yep,” the tech affirmed. “And I count ten toes.”
As if on cue, one set of toes stretched wide. “It knows you’re watching,” I said, absolutely charmed by all of it.
“She’s moving so much.” Celia’s voice was thick with emotion. I didn’t have to look to know she was crying. “Is that what that flutter feeling is?”
The technician nodded. “Possibly. First-time mothers often don’t feel anything for another month or so, but it’s not uncommon to feel it by now.”
“And she’s okay? Everything looks okay?” Even though she could see that the baby was moving around, though she’d heard the heartbeat, Celia still needed reassurance.
“She looks great.” The tech met Celia’s eyes this time, briefly, before going back to her keyboard. “A few more things I need to see to be absolutely certain. You already know the gender?”
“No,” I said.
At the same time, Celia said sheepishly, “We think it’s a girl.”
I appreciated being included in that “we,” even though we’d never discussed it. It felt hopeful. Like proof that we still were a “we,” despite all that was going on between us.
I hadn’t realized until that moment how much I’d worried that we weren’t.
“Well, you’re right,” the tech said. She drew an arrow on the screen. “Right there. That’s the labia. She’s showing off for you. I don’t always get such a clear shot.”