“It sounds awfully fast. Is that normal?” My own heart starts to race as I worry there’s something wrong.
“Aye. Perfectly normal. A baby’s heart beats much faster than ours.” She’s pressing hard and moving the wand around. An image starts to take shape. At first, all I see is a cashew with arms and legs, but as she clicks on the keyboard and adjusts the wand on my belly, I begin to see little dots that might be fingers, and a nose.
“Oh, hen, look. A beautiful little bairn.” Tears are leaking from Dad’s eyes.
A wave of love so physical it leaves me speechless rolls over me. Suddenly, this is all real. The tiny life that has derailed my own is not just an idea anymore. And I’m more in love than I could ever have imagined. Fear of getting too close, of leaving myself open to hurt, isn’t even a consideration.
“Well, based on these measurements, you are eleven weeks and five days along, Lulu, which is what you estimated. You’re certainly big for those dates, but everyone’s different. I canna see anything out of the ordinary. Baby looks perfect.” Perfect. The one word I needed to hear.
I do the maths in my head as the technician wipes the gel off my belly. Yep. As I suspected, I got pregnant on the first night with Nick. Rosanna is going to laugh her head off.
It’s not twins, but now, seeing the little life growing inside me, twins don’t seem the worst thing in the world like they did yesterday. More of this overwhelming feeling of love could never be a bad thing.
But I do have one worry.
“Are you sure the baby is perfect? Because I didn’t know I was pregnant. And I did have a few glasses of wine before I knew.” Another thing I’ve been torturing myself about. At least my aversion to wine kicked in pretty early, so maybe it’ll be okay.
The technician takes another, closer look at the images she recorded while she asks how much and how often I had drunk.
“Well, it’s not ideal, but I don’t see any cause for concern at this stage. We’ll keep an eye on things though, and let you know.”
That puts my mind somewhat at ease. All I want is a healthy baby.
Dad and I are both quiet on the way home, me clutching the printouts the technician gave us, unable to look away from the image of the tiny body. She has emailed me a video of the ultrasound, but the internet being what it is in the Highlands, I’ll have to wait until we get home to watch it.
It’s after seven before we get home, and Morag has left us a big pot of chicken and leek soup for dinner, along with a loaf of crusty bread she baked this morning. Dad heats the soup while I slice the bread, and we eat at the kitchen table, loving the warmth of the Aga and the delicious smells of the kitchen.
“That ultrasound was amazing, wasn’t it?” Dad sops up the last dribbles of his soup with a chunk of bread. “When your mum was pregnant with you, they weren’t nearly as detailed. It all just looked like a grey blur, but now. Now you can see everything.” He pulls the printed shot towards him, tracing the shape of the head with a shaking finger.
This is my opportunity. I don’t know whether it’s the exhaustion, the emotion, or the comfort of a warm stove and full belly, but the words seem to fall out of my mouth. “Was I planned, Da? Was Mum excited to be having me?”
“Planned? Well, no, not planned as such. But excited? Oh, hen. She was beside herself. We both were.” He doesn’t look up from the photo.
“My memories of her are so patchy. Sometimes more like feelings than memories. And you never talk about her.”
Dad looks up from the ultrasound, eyes watery, sad, and a little reddened. “I’m sorry. So sorry, hen. I should have kept her memory alive for you. But I couldn’t …” His voice breaks.
“It’s okay Da.”
“No, no, it isn’t. I lost the love of my life, and I still grieve. But you lost your mother, and I should’ve been able to put my pain aside for you.”
“Could you … do you think you could talk about her now?” I whisper, scared to push too hard, but desperate to know—anything. Anything at all.
It takes Dad a moment to answer. “Of course. Yes. What would you like to know?”
I mirror my thoughts of a moment ago. “Anything. Everything.”
His eyes are full of pain as he nods. “Well, where to start? Of course, she was incredibly beautiful. You look so much like her. You have her colouring—from her Danish family, I expect, although you got my mad curly hair.” He chuckles and rubs a hand over my head. “We had both travelled to Australia for an adventure. It was the thing to do in those days. Finish university and backpack around Australia, picking fruit and working in bars. Although your mother wasn’t picking fruit. She was modelling. I was working in a bar in Bondi, and she came in one night with a group of friends. I took one look at her, and that was it. I just knew, and she always said the same, despite my wild red hair.”
He runs his hand through his still thick thatch of fiery hair, softened now by a little silver, but only a little.
“We were inseparable from the start. We fell in love with each other and with Australia. Neither of us had any plans to go home. Then we discovered we were pregnant. It wasn’t planned. We weren’t the planning types. But we were overjoyed. Of course, your grandfather was apoplectic. I was supposed to come home and help rebuild the family heritage, take up my rightful place—especially later, after your Uncle Robbie died. But I was so happy in Australia with your mum and then with you.” Dad reaches over and squeezes my hand, holding it in both of his big, work-roughened, paint-stained ones.
“We were so blissfully happy, hen. Vibeke loved you with everything she was. She was so proud of every little thing you did. We both were. It was like living in a little bubble of sunshine. For years. Until it wasn’t.” His face clouds and he’s silent for a long time.
“What happened? When she got sick?” I ask.
“At first, well, at first we both believed, assumed, I guess, she would get better. The survival rate for breast cancer is so good. Was even then. But she had what they call triple negative cancer, which is more aggressive. We did everything. Traditional treatment, natural therapies. We even went to a shaman.” His voice breaks, along with the tears he’s been holding in. “But nothing worked. Thirteen months and six days after she was diagnosed, she was gone.”
