“There’s your baby,” she said, adjusting the angle. “Let me just take some measurements.”
I stared at the screen, unable to look away. The last ultrasound had shown a blob, barely human-shaped, a grainy image that required imagination to interpret. This was different. This was a person. A tiny, perfect person with a nose and lips and a heartbeat I could see pulsing on the monitor. She was moving, stretching, living inside the woman I loved.
The doctor worked in silence for several minutes, clicking, measuring, and typing notes I couldn’t read. Each pause made my heart rate spike, but her expression remained calm, professional, and reassuring.
“Everything looks great,” she finally said. “Growth is right on track. Strong heartbeat. Good movement. Brain development is normal. The heart has four chambers, all functioning properly. Spine is intact. Kidneys, stomach, bladder—all present and accounted for.”
The relief that washed through me was physical, a loosening of tension I hadn’t realized I carried. Isabel let out a breath that sounded like she’d been holding it since we walked in.
“Do you want to know the sex?”
We’d discussed this. We’d said we wanted to know, wanted to be prepared, wanted to stop assuming we were having a girl and be sure. Maybe even start talking about names. But now that the moment was here, I felt my heart slam against my ribs.
Isabel looked at me. I nodded.
“Yes,” she said. “We want to know.”
The wand moved, and we studied the screen.
“It’s a girl.”
A chill went through me. I’d known—we’d both known—in that instinctive way that defied logic, but hearing it confirmed made it real. Our daughter. Our little girl. The baby who would sleep in that yellow nursery, who would grow up running through thevineyard rows, who would inherit Isabel’s dark eyes and—God willing—her strength.
My vision blurred. I blinked hard, but the tears came anyway.
“Rascon?” Isabel said softly.
I brought her hand to my lips and pressed a kiss against her knuckles. “I’m fine,” I managed. “I’m better than fine.”
In the car afterward, we sat in the parking lot without starting the engine. Isabel stared through the windshield, one hand resting on her belly.
“We’re having a girl,” she said.
“We knew.”
She turned to look at me. “We did.” Her smile was so broad that the sight of it cracked something open in my chest. I’d never imagined the happiness I felt existed.
I started the car and drove out of the parking lot. The ring was waiting at home, hidden in a drawer, patient as it had been for weeks.
But I was done waiting.
21
ISABEL
Agirl.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it as we drove back to Miremont. The image from the ultrasound was burned into my memory—that tiny profile, the curve of her nose, the way she’d stretched and kicked as if already impatient to meet the world.
Our daughter.
Kick’s hand found mine on the center console, and I laced my fingers through his. Neither of us spoke. We didn’t need to. The joy filling the car was tangible, warm, and enough.
When we arrived at the house, the last of the afternoon light was fading behind the hills. Home. It still gave me a small thrill to think of it that way—this place that had been abandoned and forgotten, now filled with life again. Our life.
Inside, Kick disappeared into the kitchen while I went upstairs and wandered into the sitting room. My grandmother’s portrait looked down from above thefireplace, her expression serene. Someone—probably Kick—had already laid fresh wood in the grate, ready to be lit.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” Kick called up to me.
