He kicks a box to the side and the door swings open. I enter and close it behind me. “Congratulations,” I say.
“Oh, yeah, thanks.” He’s stacking a garment bag on top of an Amazon delivery. He stops. He stands, tucks his hands into his pockets. “I know it’s pretty soon.”
“Bella has always been impatient,” I say. “So it doesn’t totally surprise me.”
He laughs, but it seems more for my benefit. “I just want you to know I really am happy. She’s the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
He looks right at me when he says it, the same way he did at the beach. I blink away.
“Good,” I say. “I’m glad.”
Just then Bella’s voice floats in from the other room. “Dannie? Are you here?”
Aaron smiles and steps to the side, holding his arm out for me to pass.
I follow the sound of her voice down the hallway, past the kitchen and her bedroom and into the guest room. The bed has been pushed to the side, the dresser placed into the center of the room, and Bella, in overalls and a head scarf, is painting white marshmallow clouds on the walls.
“Bells,” I say. “What’s going on?”
She looks at me. “Baby’s room,” she says. “What do you think?”
She stands back, putting her hands on her hips and surveying her work.
“I think you’re ahead of the curve for the first time in your life,” I say. “And it’s freaking me out. Isn’t the nursery usually a month seven project?”
She laughs, her back to me. “It’s fun,” she says. “I haven’t really painted in a long time.”
“I know.” I go to stand next to her and lob an arm over her shoulder. She leans into me. The clouds are off-white and the sky a pale salmon color with shades of baby blue and lavender. It’s a masterpiece.
“You really want this,” I say, but it’s not really to her. It’s to the wall. To whatever beyond has brought forth this reality. For a moment, I don’t remember the future I once saw. I am overcome by the one that is solidly, undeniably present here.
Chapter Eighteen
David and I are supposed to meet with the wedding planner next Saturday morning. It’s now mid-September, and I’ve been told, in no uncertain terms, that if I do not choose flowers now I will be using dead leaves as centerpieces.
The week is crazy at work — we get hit with a ton of due diligence on two time-sensitive cases Monday, and I barely make it home except to sleep all week. I take out my phone as I walk to the elevators the following Friday night to tell David we may need to push the meeting — I’m desperate for some sleep — when I see I have four missed calls from an unknown number.
Scam calls have been rampant lately, but they’re usually marked. I check my voicemail on my way downstairs, hanging up and re-trying when I get down to the lobby. I’m just passing through the glass doors when I hear the message.
“Dannie, it’s Aaron. We went to the doctor today, for the baby, and— Can you call me? I think you need to come down here.”
My heart plummets to my feet as I hit call back immediately with shaking hands. Something is wrong. Something is wrong with the baby. Bella had her doctor’s appointment today. They were going to hear the heartbeat for the first time. I should have protected her. I should have stopped her from buying all those clothes, making all those plans. It was too soon.
“Dannie?” Aaron’s voice is hoarse through the phone.
“Hey. Hi. Sorry. I was… where is she?”
“Here,” he says. “Dannie, it’s not good.”
“Is something wrong with the baby?”
Aaron pauses. When his voice comes through, it breaks at the onset. “There’s no baby.”
I toss my heels into my bag, pull on my slides, and get on the subway down to Tribeca. I always wondered how people who had just been delivered tragic news and had to fly on airplanes did it. Every plane must carry someone who is going to their dying mother’s bedside, their friend’s car accident, the sight of their burned home. Those minutes on the subway are the longest of my life.
Aaron answers the door. He’s wearing jeans and a button-down, half untucked. He looks stunned, his eyes red-rimmed. My heart sinks again. It’s through the floorboards, now.
“Where is she?” I ask him.
He doesn’t answer, just points. I follow his finger into the bedroom, to where Bella is crouched in the fetal position in bed, dwarfed by pillows, a hoodie up and sweatpants on. I snap my shoes off and go to her, getting right in around her.
“Bells,” I say. “Hey. I’m here.” I drop my lips down and kiss the top of her sweatshirt-covered head. She doesn’t move. I look at Aaron by the door. He stands there, his hands hanging helplessly at his sides.
“Bells,” I try again. I rub a hand down her back. “Come on. Sit up.”
She shifts. She looks up at me. She looks confused, frightened. She looks the way she did on my trundle bed decades ago when she’d wake up from a bad dream.
“Did he tell you?” she asks me.
I nod. “He said you lost the baby,” I say. I feel sick at the words. I think about her, just last week, painting, preparing. “Bells I’m so sorry. I—”
She sits up. She puts a hand over her mouth. I think she might be sick.
“No,” she says. “I was wrong. I wasn’t pregnant.”
I search her face. I look to Aaron, who is still in the doorway. “What are you talking about?”
“Dannie,” she says. She looks straight at me. Her eyes are wet, wide. I see something in them I’ve only ever seen once before, a long time ago at a door in Philadelphia. “They think I have ovarian cancer.”
Chapter Nineteen
She says a lot of things then. About how ovarian cancer, in very rare cases, can cause a false positive. About how the symptoms sometimes mimic pregnancy. Missed period, bloated abdomen, nausea, low energy. But all I hear is a humming, a buzz in my ears that gets louder and louder the more she talks until it’s impossible to hear her. Her mouth is opening and all that’s coming out are a thousand bees, zinging and stinging their way to my face until my eyes are swollen shut.
“Who told you this?”
“The doctor,” she says. “We went for a scan today.”
“They did a CT scan.” It’s Aaron, at the door. “And a blood test.”
“We need a second opinion,” I say.
“I said the same thing,” Aaron says. “There’s a great—”
I cut him off with my hand. “Where are your parents?”
Bella looks from Aaron to me. “My dad is in France, I think. Mom is home.”
“Did you call them?”
She shakes her head.
“Okay. I’m going to call Frederick and ask him for a roster of his friends at Sinai. He’s on the board of cardiac, right?”
Bella nods.
“Ok. We’ll make an appointment with the top oncologist.” I swallow the word down. It tastes like darkness.
But this is what I know how to do; this is what I’m good at. The more I talk, the more the buzzing dims. Facts. Documents. Who knows what crack-brained doctor they went to? An ob-gyn is not an oncologist. We don’t know anything yet. He’s probably mistaken. He must be.
“Bella,” I say. I take her hands in mine. “It’s going to be fine, okay? Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out. You’re going to be fine.”
On Monday morning, we’re at the office of Dr. Finky — the best oncologist in New York City. I meet Bella at the Ninety-Eighth Street entrance to Mount Sinai. She gets out of the car, and Aaron is with her. I’m surprised to see him. I didn’t think he was coming. Now that she’s not pregnant, now that we’re faced with this, the biggest of all news, I don’t know that I expected him to stick around. They’ve spent one summer together.