When Robert comes back in, it’s awkward. He holds my hand and makes a very concentrated effort to look at my face and not at the paper I’m wrapped in like a cut of beef from the meat market.
“So,” Dr. Katim says, looking at her clipboard when she walks into the room, “April and Robert. Looks like we’re having a baby!”
She’s young. Like medical student young. She has perfect straight hair and black-framed glasses that I think maybe she’s only wearing to make her look smart. Women like her are too perfect for glasses.
I don’t like the way she says we. We’re having a baby. There are already enough people on this baby’s team. And it’s not like she’ll be changing diapers.
“Have you confirmed that you’re pregnant?” she asks, flipping through my forms.
“Yeah,” I say, and Robert smiles. Ethan bought every kind of pee stick the drugstore had. He and Robert stood outside the bathroom cheering every time I slipped another positive one through the huge gap under the door. They were all positive.
She pulls my gown up and the drape down. “So, how far along are we?”
“About a month?” I say.
She grabs a calendar off the desk and shows it to us. Robert points to the day. The bar. Our first time. “I think it had to be then,” he says.
“When was your last period?” she asks, and I turn beet red.
I never keep track. “I don’t know,” I say, and feel like an idiot. I look far off and pretend I’m counting out days, but I can’t remember anything. I shake my head.
“Okay,” she says, “well, we’ll take a look and see what your baby can tell us today.” She grabs a bottle that looks like the kind you put ketchup or mustard in, but it’s white, not red or yellow. She holds it over my belly, smacks the bottom of it, and squirts cold blue jelly all over. It’s gross. I don’t like the way that being pregnant seems to make everything about you fair game—your pee, your belly, your period.
“It might be too early for a heartbeat. Don’t worry if we don’t hear one,” she says.
She holds this flat wand thing against my stomach. It doesn’t hurt, but when she presses harder and pushes it around, it makes me queasy.
Then we hear it. The heartbeat. Loud, thumping static. Alien communications. Like our baby is saying hello to us. And then I’m crying. Robert is too. Like that thumping is the most beautiful sound we’ve ever heard.
We look at the screen, where she’s pointing, “See, that’s your baby!” she says, but it looks like TV reception in a snowstorm. So we focus on the sound. Robert’s hand squeezes mine ever so slightly in time with the beat. I don’t even think he knows he’s doing it. I don’t want it to stop, but then Dr. Katim takes the wand off my stomach and says, “Alright, Daddy, I’m going to have you step out to the waiting room now, while Mom and I do some girl stuff.”
Robert looks panicked. And it takes me longer than it should to realize that I’m the mom. I don’t want him to leave, but Dr. Katim says, “Nothing to worry about.” She grabs a tissue and wipes my belly. She doesn’t get all the goo. There’s a clump of it right by my belly button that she can’t seem to see. She pushes some buttons on the machine. “Just a few simple tests, but it’s all a little unflattering. We’ll try to keep some sense of mystery in your relationship, right?”
She looks down at her clipboard and makes notes while Robert gets up and kisses me goodbye. He walks slow and rubs his forehead as he leaves, like he can’t quite believe the static he saw. I wipe my belly with the palm of my hand and wipe my hand on the corner of my paper gown.
As soon as the door closes, Dr. Katim looks up from her clipboard, like she was only pretending to read it. “April,” she says, and kicks her legs to wheel her chair closer to me, “I wanted us to have some privacy, because I don’t know what the situation between you and Robert is.”
“He’s the father,” I say. “He’s my—” I can’t think of the right word, because he’s more than my boyfriend the way Matty was my boyfriend, but we’re not married. I get a sinking feeling that’s just drowning without the happy. “Is my baby okay?” I ask, even though I think I know what she’s going to tell me.
“Your baby looks perfectly healthy, has a strong heartbeat, and has to be at least eight weeks old.”
She grabs a printout from the machine and shows it to me. It’s a photo of the static, but when I look closer, I can see shapes. I think maybe even a face.