Dr. Roemer smiled, then went to the counter to prepare the ultrasound wand. Poppy laid back on the table. She looked suddenly younger and smaller, her confidence evaporating as the moment closed in around her. AJ wanted so badly to wrap her up in his arms and promise her that nothing would ever hurt her, but unlike the house, where he knew the variables, Poppy’s life had too many unknown variables he had zero control over.
“You ready?” Dr. Roemer’s tone was gentle.
Poppy’s jaw tightened, but she nodded.
AJ watched as Steph applied the cold gel to Poppy’s stomach, then pressed the wand against the skin. The room fell quiet except for the faint hum of the machine. The monitor flickered to life, and for several seconds, all AJ saw was a field of grey static. Then a shape resolved, a tadpole silhouette, a flickering white line.
“That’s the baby,” Dr. Roemer said quietly, her voice gone reverent. “Right on track for development. See that?” She pointed at a pulsing blur, “That’s the heart. You want to hear it?”
Poppy made a noise, a cross between a gasp and a whimper. Dr. Roemer pressed a key, and the room filled with a sound AJ was not prepared for, a furious, galloping rhythm, like a hummingbird trapped in a jar. He felt Poppy’s hand clamp down even tighter on his, so tight he thought she might break a bone.
AJ stared at the monitor, trying to match the abstract shapes to the idea of a human life. A part of him wanted to ask what it meant, if the heart rate was normal, and if the strange ripples on the screen were something to be worried about. But another part—the part that would rather die than do anything to cause Poppy even a second of pain—kept his mouth shut.
His eyes dropped to Poppy. Tears streamed down her face, but she was smiling, eyes fixed on the screen. She looked radiant and terrified and, for the first time since she’d told him about the baby, like she actually believed this was all real. His thumb brushed over her wrist, and he felt her heart rate pulsing wildly.
He wondered if this was what love actually was, not the chest-thumping, limb-tingling adrenaline of romance and desire, but the terrifying quiet certainty of responsibility. Of witnessing a miracle and knowing you could not, ever, run from it. That you would be anything, do anything, sacrifice anything, for that heartbeat. That nothing in your life would ever be about you, because that heartbeat, those heartbeats, were the only thing that mattered.
The words didn’t register at first. It was as if Poppy’s brain began to buffer at “cleared for regular activity,” as if the sounds themselves were so foreign that her mind lagged, lagged, lagged, then finally caught up, opening a trapdoor that dumped her into a sudden wash of relief.
The baby was healthy. She was healthy. Her body was responding well to the pregnancy. The baby was growing. Heartbeat was strong. The placenta looked perfect. Measurements were on track. Everything was good. Better than good.
Was this what it felt like to win the lottery? She imagined this must be how the newly pardoned felt: uncertain, giddy, and wary that a man with a rubber stamp might suddenly barge in and revoke the whole thing.
Poppy couldn’t believe what she’d just heard, but then…
“Cautiously optimistic.”
Those two words repeated over and over as she looked out the window of AJ’s SUV and watched the pine trees flash by. Steph said she was cautiously optimistic.
Now what?
For weeks, she’d lived in this suspended animation, moving through hours and days as if the human growing inside of her was an abstract concept, because it was. But now, now she had to get it together.
She needed a job. A real job. Should she go back to Pine Ridge? Technically she was on a sabbatical. She could return after the new year and just pick up where she left off like nothing happened.
Who cares if it wasn’t her “dream job?” She had a baby to support, a family. She placed her hand over her belly.
It’s just you and me…
Fuck. She didn’t know what she was going to call the human inside of her. That was a huge responsibility. That one decision would affect this human’s life forever. Her name had not done her any favors.
The only thing she’d wanted all her life was to have a family and have babies. How had she never named her hypothetical children? Her friends in school did. They even went as far as to call dibs on names they liked. How had she let that detail slip through the cracks?
If she hadn’t even done that, what else was she going to mess up or forget?
Her chest began to tighten and her palms sweat as she stared out the passenger window. The world blurred. What if she couldn’t do this? What if she fucked it all up?
“What are you thinking about?” AJ’s tone, like the man, was steady and strong.
She’d looked up at him during the ultrasound, wanting a connection, wanting to feel a bond during that moment, and saw…nothing. No emotion. No joy. No tears. No fear. Nothing. It made her feel…alone. He was in the room, but it was just her experiencing the high, the joy, the fear, and the tears. She didn’t know if that was actually the reality. If his expression was blank because he didn’t have any emotions looking at the monitor and hearing the heartbeat or if he just wasn’t displaying them. If it were a topic that wasn’t a raw nerve ending to her, she’d have asked, but since it was, she figured, why poke the emotional bear inside of her?
“Names.” She could hear the jagged edges to her voice, part panic, part frustration. “I’m thinking about names.”
AJ remained quiet, and even though she knew it was irrational, his silence irritated the shit out of her.
“Cool, you just wanted that information, not to actually have a conversation?” she snapped at him.
“Do you want to talk?” His voice was comforting and soothing, yet had the exact opposite effect on her.
