I smiled at her thoughtfulness.“Sounds great.”
The driver opened the car door, and I helped her out, noting the slight curve to her belly.If I hadn’t known she was four-and-a-half months pregnant, I never would have guessed.I kept my hand clasped around her smaller one as I grabbed my backpack.
“Lead the way,” I said, still holding her hand.
She brought me in through an opulent lobby, dripping with chandeliers and polished marble floors.We took the elevator up to a seventh-floor condominium, which had a view of the ocean three blocks away.The water was a rich blue farther from the shoreline and a soft turquoise where it kissed the beige sand.
Her place was tidy.The darker wood floors popped against the white walls.The furniture was all new and had that soulless corporate ambiance that told me it had come standard with the place.Millie had added a couple of framed photos, one of her and Ida Jane and—I smiled, pleasure rippling through me—a candid shot of her and me together from the night we’d met.Well, that was a very good sign.Millie was infatuated with me, just as I was with her.She also had a large print of the periodic table above her couch…and that was the extent of her personalization.
Even my place, with its standard male furnishings, looked more lived in.
“You’ll have to use my bathroom,” she told me.“The powder room doesn’t have a shower.”
I nodded.“Think I can get some coffee?”
“I asked the concierge to send up a full breakfast,” Millie said.
Once I was showeredand caffeinated, Millie and I walked to her doctor’s office.Again I was assaulted by a jumble of sounds and smells that my mind struggled to assimilate.Columbo was fascinating—so different from any place I’d been before.When a man on a motorbike sped too close to her, I tucked Millie against my side, moving her over next to the buildings.Horns honked and the ocean breeze drifted through the acres of concrete, easing the worst of the mugginess.She glanced up at me as I looked down at her, the sunlight peeking through the tall buildings and limning her silhouette, making her appear Madonna-like.I squeezed her fingers, and she leaned into me.
“Had any food cravings?”I asked.
She laughed, and then I listened to her talk about her current fascination with fish sauce as I took in the bursts of color and harsh blares of horns and the soft sea breeze tinted with decaying seaweed and fish.
It was different from the oppressiveness of a Houston spring day, yet not.I wondered if Millie had chosen the location because of its similar climate.Something told me she had, though she’d shown no interest in returning to her hometown.As close as she and Ida Jane seemed to be, I couldn’t understand Millie’s desire to be so far away.
We entered the cool of the building, and once Millie gave her name, they ushered us into an exam room.
“They seem very efficient,” I offered.
“They are.Much more on top of their schedule than my gynecologist back in Houston ever was.”
I wanted to ask her again about returning, but I’d sensed her hesitation before naming the city and felt the slight tremor in her hand when she did.I remembered, clearly, Ida Jane’s comment about Millie being hurt.
A knock sounded, and the doctor poked her graying head into the room.She smiled at the both of us and began the exam.Millie beckoned me over right before the doctor set a device to her belly.
A strange, fastwhop-whop-whopfilled the air.
“That’s her heartbeat,” Millie whispered.
My gaze sought hers and held.
“Sounds great,” the doctor said.
Two important truths hit me then: there was an actual baby inside of Millie, and Millie expected that tiny life to be agirl.
I blinked back tears.I wanted to blame it on travel exhaustion, but I knew my reaction stemmed from my stunted childhood.Ineverwanted our baby to go days, let alone weeks, without seeing my face, feeling my hugs, and hearing me tell her I loved her.
I had no clue how I was going to swing day-to-day involvement if Millie insisted on living in Colombo, but I’d have to figure something out.
Soon.
Maybe I didn’t need to play hockey.
The idea choked me, and fear settled in my guts.
What else would I do?
What elsecouldI do?
