“Something like that. It might be a paraphrase.”
“Wow.” Dani shakes her head. “I mean, I love Jake with my whole heart, but sometimes that part of him can really save the day, you know? It’s sort of a compliment.”
“We’re not at thetaking it like a complimentstage right now.” I roll my shoulders, trying to shake the tension there. “And the worst part is that he’s right. The first time he came over after we broke up, I basically demanded that we….” I lower my voice. “You know.”
She laughs gently. “Yes, I know. Do you know, Dr. Minelli?”
“I barely recognized myself.”
“So it was good sex?”
“It wasgreatsex. The best ever, and we’d always had good sex.”
“But then it got complicated.”
“Yeah. So he made a replica, and then….” I tell her the whole story. About buying a car that turned out to be crap, about Garrett coming to the rescue, and his ninety-minute limit, and how we blew that out of the water with a road trip, and we survived. But just barely. “And the worst part is that we’ve been so close the last two days. Like it’s been…” I shiver. “Really nice. Except the whole time, he had thisgift, and then… Now my entire family has an eggplant emoji vision of what his?—”
The curtain pulls back, and the rest of that sentence gets strangled in my throat.
“I’m Dr. Schmidt.” Under the embroidered name on his white coat it readsChief of Obstetrics, so either this guy is single and doesn’t care about Christmas, or his department is understaffed if he’s pulling holiday shifts himself. “I understand you’re thirteen weeks pregnant? And you woke up to significant, spontaneous bleeding?”
“That’s right.” Dani runs through her own vitals. “I’m a paramedic.”
“You’re being a better patient than most health workers,” Dr. Schmidt says. “I want to do an ultrasound to start.”
“This is my cousin.” Dani gestures to me.
“Rory Minelli,” I say, introducing myself. “I’m an OB/GYN PGY5 in Ottawa.”
“All right, then. Welcome to an impromptu ultrasound clinic, Dr. Minelli. Your cousin doesn’t mind including you in this?”
“No, I want her to be here,” Dani says.
“Of course. Let’s take a look and see if we can figure out what’s going on.” He adjusts the sheet covering her downto her hips, then folds up her hospital gown, revealing a slight swell.
Jake returns as Dr. Schmidt is spreading gel on Dani’s belly.
“He’s just taking a look,” she whispers.
They lock hands together, and I turn my attention to the ultrasound screen to give them some privacy in what has to be an agonizing moment.
The flicker of a fetus moving is immediately obvious. “There’s a strong heartbeat,” Dr. Schmidt says.
Jake and Dani exhale as one.
I grip the plastic footboard, because I know they aren’t out of the woods yet, but that’s phenomenal news.
He shifts his angle, getting us a different view of her uterus. “Do you have any pain, Dani?”
“No.”
“And no history of premature delivery in your other pregnancies?”
“None.”
He glances back at me, and I know that look. It’s a test, a consultant giving a resident a split second to read their mind.
“And you had vaginal deliveries with the other three kids?” I ask.
