“See here,” she says, using her pen to point to a spot in the snow. “That’s one of your baby’s elbows. I can see feet and hands and even the beginnings of fingers.” Thin streaks of blue ink from a glob on the point of her pen drag across the photo as she points to different parts of my baby. “These are levels of development we can’t see until eight weeks. So we’re a bit off from Robert’s estimate.”
She gives me the picture. My hands shake.
“I didn’t put the fetal age on the picture,” she says, “because I want to let you have that discussion on your own terms.” She reaches out and puts her hand over my hand. “If there’s a discussion to be had.”
* * *
“Are you okay?” Robert asks when I get to the waiting room. “Is the baby okay?”
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s just overwhelming, you know? It’s just—it’s a lot.” The picture is folded up in my pocket. I don’t show him. He’d want to show Ethan and Ethan’s been reading about babies too much. He’d see the elbow. He’d know.
Robert holds my hand as we walk to the parking lot. His fingers are still tapping out the heartbeat.
— Chapter 56 —
I buy a book. One that tells you everything you’re supposed to know about having a baby. I sit at the kitchen table and read the whole thing while Ethan is at a meeting. I hope to find some kind of wisdom that will put everything right in my brain, but each chapter makes me feel worse. There’s all this stuff about what you should eat and what you shouldn’t and pain management and tearing in places you wouldn’t even think could tear. Then there’s the section on how to take care of the baby when it’s actually here. None of it tells me what I most need to know.
I don’t want to be growing a person in my body. Even if the baby was Robert’s, I think I would still feel like I am trapped inside myself and my skin is too small and I can’t breathe enough air into the deepest parts of my lungs. I press my forehead to the cold enamel tabletop, panting like a puppy on an August afternoon.
“What are you doing, Angel?” Ethan asks when he walks through the door. “Are you okay? Is the baby—”
“Ethan—” I try to catch my breath. “Ethan—” and for a moment I think I will tell him everything. Ask what I should do. But if he knows, this family we have won’t work the way we have it. Ethan could tell Robert. Or he could not tell Robert, and I don’t know which is worse. I don’t want him to have to carry my secret or exist in the middle. He was Robert’s friend first. “Ethan, there are bones in my stomach,” I say.
“Huh?”
“There are bones. Like actual baby bones growing in my stomach.”
“That’s kind of the point, right?” Ethan says, putting his bag down. “Babies are supposed to have bones. It’s a problem if they don’t.” He kisses the top of my head and gives my shoulders a squeeze. “What are you worried about, sweetheart?”
So I say the other things I’m thinking instead. “What if I can’t do it, Ethan? What if I can’t stay in the same place? If I’m like my mom and I just can’t handle it?” It’s not hard to push aside the Robert problem when these fears are also true. I can remember watching my mother pack a duffle bag with clothes. And I can so clearly imagine myself in her place, saying, It’s just for a day or two. To clear my head, baby. I’ll be back by the weekend. It’s not that far a leap.
“You aren’t going to wimp out on your kid,” Ethan says. “You’re the toughest person I know.” He fills two highball glasses with ice, pours us some sweet tea, and hands me a glass. Sits across from me, hands folded on the table, like we’re having a meeting and I have his full attention.
“I do feel it,” I confess, swirling my tea to hear the ice cubes clink. “That thing I think she felt. The only way I know to fix that kind of restless itch is to put miles between me and wherever I was.”
“You’re self-medicating with survival,” Ethan says, studying my face as if he knows there’s something there to find. “You’re addicted to drama.”
“Sure,” I say, pretending I know exactly what he means so maybe he’ll drop it. I worry whatever thread he’s tugging will lead to what I’m trying to hide.
“If you’re in survival mode you can keep problems buried, because the way you grew up, that wasn’t okay. When you upend your life, you don’t have to sit with how unfair it was. And whatever drama you come up with won’t be worse than the anger and hurt you’re carrying around, because that was the original hurt. That’s the deepest cut.”