“I didn’t trick you!”
“So you’ve said. I’m still not sure I buy it.”
Candi sighs with disgust, as if she’s at the end of her patience with me, and turns away to stare out the window. I guess we’re not going to be reconciling any time soon.
Focusing on the paperwork in front of me is difficult, mostly because I don’t know if anyone in my family had any of this shit. My dad’s health couldn’t have been that great, considering the fact that he drank, smoked, ate a lot of red meat, and lived a contentious life, but I don’t know if he was ever officially diagnosed with anything…and unfortunately, I don’t see chronic asshole syndrome listed. I consider calling Dante, assuming he also had to fill this thing out, but don’t get the chance before a young woman in hot pink scrubs walks in.
“Mrs. Bellanti? I’m the ultrasound tech. If you’ll both come with me, please?”
She escorts us to another room. The lights are turned down, and there’s a soft humming sound coming from a cart stacked with machines. The technician gives Candi a gown to change into, and then leaves the room. Keeping her back to me, Candi undresses and puts on the gown, tying it in the front. I scroll through some emails on my phone, giving her some privacy.
Candi gets on the padded exam table and lies down. A few moments later, there’s a knock on the door, and then the tech comes back in. She has Candi open the gown and then squirts clear gel from a bottle onto Candi’s belly.
“Ah, that’s cold!” she yelps.
They share a small laugh, and then the tech picks up the long plastic wand, swirls it around in the gel, and begins to slowly move it side to side across Candi’s stomach. The whole time, the tech watches the screen on top of the nurse cart, searching the gray and black patches of the dark image for…something.
Suddenly, a whoosh, whoosh, whoosh sound comes through. My eyes are immediately drawn to a small, light colored, oblong shape that’s surrounded by a circle of black. Leaning over the technician’s shoulder, I peer closer at the screen as the images becomes clearer. A wave of light-headedness hits me as my brain comprehends what I’m seeing.
“Is that…?” I trail off. I can’t even say it.
“Yep. There’s your baby,” the tech says, pointing to the curved bean with a pounding little dot that I recognize as the heart, steadily beating.
“Wow,” Candi whispers.
“Wow,” I repeat.
Bracing myself on the exam table with one hand, I find that I can’t pull my eyes away. My chest aches as if I’ve been punched.
“Baby is measuring at just about seven and a half weeks,” the tech tells us. “The doctor will calculate your official due date when she comes in.”
Due date.My baby is going to have a due date. He or she will be coming into the world at a moment in time I can circle on my calendar. This is really happening.
I’m going to be a father.
I look over at Candi and her eyes flick briefly to meet mine. There’s the slightest hint of a smile on her face, as if she’s afraid to let it out. The dim light from the monitor casts over her face, giving her a kind of glow, and something warm sparks inside me.
I might die on this hill. There’s a very good chance of that happening. But I swear to God, I’m going to end this mob war for good.
For my family. For my wife. For my baby.
If it’s the last thing I do.
14
CANDI
The whole drivehome from the appointment with the OB-GYN I can’t stop looking at the ultrasound picture. Armani asked the technician to print out two, and he slipped a copy into his jacket pocket when he didn’t think I was looking.
Just that small gesture gave me hope. It’s not that I’m expecting some kind of fairy-tale ending, but knowing that he’s invested in our child—again, not in terms of money, but him having an interest in helping me raise our kid—would be a huge relief. Plenty of kids grow up perfectly well-adjusted in nontraditional families, either with parents who are divorced or with a single parent or a grandparent caring for them. Armani and I can find a way to make it work.
And if not, well, I’ll have to make up for it by loving this little bean as much as humanly possible.
Though I can’t deny the fact that deep down, I’m still hoping that Armani might come around. That there’s still a chance for us to make this marriage work. Thislifework. Because even though things between us have been rocky lately, when we’re good together, we’reso good.
We’ve seen each other at our worst, and we can handle each other’s darkness and light. We’re a solid team. We just…fit.
I think back to that day at the waterfall on our fake honeymoon, but the connection we’ve shared isn’t only about sex or physical attraction. There was that incredible day we helped harvest Bellanti grapes at the family vineyard, the day Frankie unexpectedly went into labor and we all had to pull together to make sure she got to the hospital in a hurry. Or even my and Armani’s first real date, on the yacht, where I think we both surprised each other with our combination of teasing, personal confessions, and verbal sparring. There is something very real that exists between me and my husband. I know I’m not imagining it.
