“Sure is,” the tech said, with the fond air of someone who’d listened to many parents squeal over shit she saw for eight hours a day every day. “Oh, honey,” she said, reaching back to hand Kallum one of the tissues they kept for wiping the ultrasound gel off my stomach. “Here you are.”
He took the tissue but still wiped at his eyes with the sleeves of his Royals T-shirt. “Thank you. It’s my first time.”
The tech’s face stayed neutral—I was guessing she’d seen stranger antepartum relationship configurations in her time—but she did scoot her chair over a little so Kallum could see the screen better. And he leaned forward with unabashed tears running into his beard and stared at the screen like he was watching the most intense sports game in history.
For my part, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to look at more, our baby or Kallum looking at our baby, and I wished I had a photographic memory, so I could forever recall the way his eyes widened when the baby started sucking their thumb, or the way his mouth split into an infectious grin when the tech confirmed that the little twitches were baby hiccups.
The last ultrasound he’d seen via video call, and the signal had been so bad that I didn’t think he’d seen much of anything, and it was hard not to regret that. Not to regret that he’d already missed moments we’d never be able to get back.
And it had nothing to do with the baby, or maybe it had everything to do with the baby, but he was so tall and handsome sitting there in the chair, the tissue looking so small in those lumberjack-size hands, which could so easily hold a newborn or the handle of a car seat or assemble a crib, and then he’d look over at me with those shining eyes, his face open in wonder, and I would think about how easily he gave of himself, of his own feelings, his own vulnerability. How easy it was for him to be kind, to give me coats or custom pizzas or lap dances, to bestow those gifts of time or care or playfulness so freely, without ever expecting anything in return.
“Well, I’ll leave it up to the doctor to say for certain,” the tech said, pausing to capture some images, “but I think you might finally be in the clear, previa-wise.”
“Oh thank God,” I mumbled. This meant no more bed rest for real, and also a chance at a vaginal delivery.
“Good job, babe!” Kallum cheered, like the placenta clearing my cervix was a personal achievement of mine and not just uterine mechanics. It did feel good to be encouraged though, and I smiled back at him.
“Now, I saw in the notes that you haven’t learned the baby’s sex yet,” the tech said. “Do you want to keep it that way? I can mark in the file not to offer.”
I glanced at Kallum. “Actually, I do want to know,” I admitted. “But it didn’t feel right to learn it without you. If you want to learn the sex at all, that is.”
“I’m happy either way,” Kallum said and I knew he meant it.Whatever Kallum’s flaws and foibles, he always meant what he said. “I love the idea of learning it with you now, and I love the idea of waiting until the baby is born too.”
I chewed on my lip. “I want to know, but I don’t want it to change how we think about anything. Is that okay?”
Of course, the baby’s biological sex would never guarantee their gender. But girls had to bear the brunt of purity, shame, and perfection in the world I’d grown up in. The gravity of the way I was raised... A part of me would always be a little frightened of it. That it would pull me back in; that I’d find myself not only folding my own life into a rigid, shame-filled box, but also folding a child into it too.
That gravity had been even stronger since I’d posted the pregnancy announcement. My parents had stopped talking to me—again—but had sent me one short email, signed by both of them, saying that I could always come home when I was ready, and that they would be happy to be part of their grandchild’s life once I did come home. From the outside, it seemed like a nice enough email, but I could very easily read all the things they didn’t say—which was of course part of the gravity I was so afraid of. It could be so invisible, so subtle. Present in whatwasn’tsaid as much as what was said, and it could steal the air from your lungs if you weren’t careful.
The social media comments, magazine headlines, and gleefully scandalized Dominic Diamond articles—they were bad enough. But having people who were supposed to love you put conditions on that love...
Well, it wasn’t the kind of parent I wanted to be.
Kallum reached over and took my hand. “It’s more than okay. And my nursery is going to be pizza-themed anyway.”
I gave him a shy smile. “Thank you.”
“Ready?” the tech asked, bobbing her head from side to side, like she was excited too.
Kallum smiled back at me and squeezed my fingers. “Yes,” he told her, but he didn’t take his eyes from mine. “We’re ready.”
“Man, I can’t wait to meet the baby cousin,” Topher said a month later, inside the mostly renovated space that was the in-progress LA location of Slice, Slice, Baby. “That’s so rad. We have way too many boys in the family right now. Do you know about the triplets, Winnie? Has Kallum told you? They’re like the triplets fromBrave, except they’re always in their bear forms. It’s terrifying.”
I was sitting in a newly delivered vinyl booth—still wrapped in plastic—while Kallum supervised the installation of a new pizza oven in the back. He’d planned on dropping me by Addison’s after our latest baby appointment, but when he mentioned the installation, I’d offered to come to the new location with him so there wouldn’t be a chance of him being late.
And just now, he trotted back into what would be the dining area to check on me. “Do you need water or anything?” he asked, coming up to the booth.
“Yeah,” Topher said, “you peed so much when you got here. Like so much. I’m worried you’re going to look like the guy at the end ofLast Crusade, you know? The old guy who drinks from the fake Holy Grail and then looks like a mummy?”
“Sometimes,” said Kallum, who’d gone to get me a bottle ofwater from the refrigerated case behind the battered counter, “I wonder why you don’t have someone you’re dating. And then you open your mouth.”
“Like you’re so smooth,” Topher retorted. “Remember that time—”
“Kallum!” I broke in, waving him over. “She’s kicking! You should be able to feel it this time!”
It had only been in the last few weeks or so that I’d been pretty sure I could feel her kick from the outside, and Kallum still hadn’t had a chance to feel it. He rushed over, practically dropped the water bottle in the process, fell to his knees, and pressed both hands to my stomach.
“Down here,” I laughed, guiding his hands to a spot below my belly button. “Feel that?”
