“Yes, pregnant. We created life. That’s nuts,” Josh said, in awe.
“Not as nuts as it will be trying to raise a child. Most of the time I still feel like one myself.”
Josh smiled and nuzzled my neck as I stared up at the ceiling, fantasizing about our baby.
The ultrasound tech ran the transducer over the slimy gel she’d slathered on my barely protruding belly moments before, and smiled. The room was dim, but I could still see the brown curls that formed a bushy helmet around her head. “Do you have any names picked out, yet?”
“Yes,” I said, resting my arm behind my head. I leaned toward Josh, trying to get a better look. “Joshua Todd if it’s a boy.” I smiled at Josh. “We’ll call him Todd, after my dad.”
“Can you see, Avery?” Josh asked, engrossed with the black and gray images on the screen.
The tech pressed a few buttons on her keyboard, and then smiled. “And if it’s a girl?”
“Penelope Anne,” Josh said. “We’ll call her Penny.” He watched the screen, running his fingers through my hair.
The tech touched her finger to the screen. “Well, there she is … your lucky Penny.” She smiled at us, and Josh laughed out loud.
“A girl?” he asked, grabbing my hand. “You can already tell?”
“Definitely a girl,” the tech said. She turned to freeze the image, then typed BABY GIRL PENNY in big white letters next to what looked like girl parts.
“Is that …?” I asked.
“Looks like a hot dog … or a hamburger, depending on the direction,” the tech teased.
Josh used his thumb and index finger to quickly wipe his eyes.
“Aw, baby,” I said, squeezing his hand.
He lifted my fingers to his mouth and pressed his lips against my skin.
“This is so surreal,” I said. “Did you see that?” I squinted my eyes toward the tiny black and white image as I watched our daughter kick and twist.
“What is it?” Josh looked back at the screen, worry marring his handsome face.
The technician laughed, waving her hand. “These things are like a moving Rorschach test. Your daughter looks great.”
I smiled back at her. “I’m just so tired. I think it’s getting to me.” I yawned, but Josh still looked concerned.
“Any morning sickness?” the tech asked.
I shook my head. “Nothing. I feel perfectly fine.”
“Lucky you,” she said while she worked, finishing the exam.
I looked up at Josh, his face partially shadowed in the small, dark room. He was watching the screen so intently, I hated to interrupt.
“The other nurses keep telling me it’s odd,” I said. “I’m getting a complex.”
The tech shook her head. “It’s uncommon, but count yourself lucky. Once in a while, I get a mama in here that has energy, never experiences the morning sickness, and you’d never know she was pregnant until she started to show.”
I looked down at my stomach. “I just have a pooch.”
“She’s a wiggly little thing,” the tech said, pointing and chuckling.
Josh laughed out loud, amazed.
“It’s so weird, seeing her move around so much on the screen, but I can’t feel it.”
“You will,” the tech said, hanging up her transducer. The screen went black, and she used a cloth to clean off the gel from my skin.
Josh helped me up. “Everything looked okay?”
The tech smiled. “I’m going to send the images to the doctor and he’ll tell you all about it.”
“But…” Josh said, his voice tinged with worry. “Is she okay?”
The tech looked around. I wasn’t sure for whom; we were alone. She leaned in. “She looks perfectly healthy to me.”
Josh sighed and then helped me sit up, kissing my temple. “Thank you.”
“Congratulations.”
The tech showed us out, and as we made our way to the ER, Josh’s cell phone rang. He glanced down, rolling his eyes and pressing the speakerphone button.
“Hello?”
“Josh? It’s Hope. Are you working today?”
“At an appointment with Avery, what’s up?”
She hesitated. “Oh. Never mind.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “She has your phone number?” I whispered.
He held up a finger to me. “Did you need something?”
She sighed. “Toby’s running a fever and fussier than usual. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind picking up some diapers on your way home. Size three.”
I made a face.
“Uh … sure, I can do that. Any brand?”
“Luvs, please. Thank you so much.”
Josh hung up the phone, and I eyed him.
“What am I supposed to do, baby? He’s sick and she’ll have to drag him into a store screaming if I don’t help.”
“He’s not screaming. Did you hear him screaming? Strange for a sick baby who already had colic.”
Josh’s eyes softened. “I’d want someone to help you if I weren’t around.”
“You think Hope will help me?” I asked, sardonic.
Josh opened my door. “Yeah, I do. She’s actually a nice person, Avery. You’d like her if you got to know her.”
I sat in the passenger seat, waiting for Josh to jog around to his side. “If she were interested in getting to know me, I’d be friends with her, too. Don’t you see it, Josh? You can’t be that blind.”
“She works the late shift, Avery. I’m off when she’s off. Otherwise, she’d be bugging you to run her errands for her.”
I frowned. “Is this the first time she’s called you for something?”
“Er … no. But sometimes I’m busy.”
“Josh, you are not her husband! Stop letting her order you around!”
“Okay, Avery. Don’t get upset. I’ll fix this.”
“You’d better,” I said, settling back into the seat.
Tipping the longneck to my lips, I let the beer slide down my throat, soothing the itch that had been forming. Winter had come and gone. The March air was warm, but I still wore my old hoodie. It smelled like Avery.
“Shots no longer doing it for ya?” Ginger ran her bar rag over the wooden surface. She was smiling, but her eyes showed how long of a day she’d had.
“Needed a change of pace,” I replied, leaning the bottle back to read over the label.
“Everything okay with you and the old lady?”
I nodded, chuckling at her terminology. Ginger had recently been seeing Bear, a meathead biker who rarely showered. He was already rubbing off on her.
“She’s a little stressed,” I said.
“Hormones.”
I nodded and took another swig. It was more than the baby on the way. In fact, Avery loved every minute of being pregnant, even with all the aches and pains that came with being thirty-one weeks along. As time passed, she’d grown more agitated. She’d even begun to suffer from hallucinations, and they’d been happening more frequently.
It was scary as hell, but we’d been to the doctor, taken as many tests as being pregnant would allow, and our only option was to try meds she couldn’t or wouldn’t take.
“It’s not just hormones, Ginger.”
“How did the tests come out?” she asked.
I shrugged, taking another swig. “With her fluctuating hormones, the doctor is reluctant to diagnose her. The MRI didn’t reveal anything, either.” I was beginning to worry it was all just in our heads.
“Is she still working so much? That can’t be good.”
“No,” I said simply. I’d convinced her to cut back at work because the stress seemed to make things worse. At first, Avery was resistant, until she saw how terrified I was that something may happen to her and our daughter.
My mind went to Kayla and how she may have looked today, on her twenty-third birthday. A black cloud had always hovered over March sixth, but today it seemed worse knowing that soon I would have my own little girl to look after. I couldn’t help but worry that just because Avery hadn’t experienced the extent of my bad luck, Penny might.