18. Joseph
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
JOSEPH
I wake up before her.
She's on her side, facing me, one hand tucked under the pillow, the other resting on the small curve of her stomach.
The sheet is low on her shoulder, and the morning light catches the line of her collarbone, and I need to stop looking before I do something that wakes her up for reasons that have nothing to do with breakfast.
Last night keeps playing back. Not the details.
The feeling. The way her hands gripped my shoulders when I found the right rhythm.
The way her back arched when I kissed the spot below her ear.
Those little gasps she makes, breathy and almost silent, just the rush of air between her teeth.
I could live on those sounds. They're the closest thing to her voice I'll ever hear, and every single one felt like she was telling me something words couldn't touch.
I had to be careful with her. The bump between us is small, but it's there, and I was aware of it the whole time, adjusting, holding my weight off her, checking her face for any sign of discomfort.
She caught me checking once and pulled me closer like she was annoyed I was thinking about anything other than her.
But I keep thinking about what it'll be like when I don't have to hold back. When her body is fully strong again, and I can take my time the way I actually want to. Slow. Thorough. Take her hard and deep, feel every inch of her.
I need to get out of this bed before my brain takes that thought somewhere I can't come back from.
I make breakfast. She comes out ten minutes later wearing my shirt. Just my shirt, hanging past her thighs. Her hair is a mess, she's barefoot on the kitchen floor, and I almost burn the eggs. A grown surgeon. Steady hands, allegedly. Undone by a woman in his kitchen.
"Morning," I say. Casual. Cool. Like I'm not at all affected.
She signs good morning and slides onto the counter stool and steals my coffee. She takes a sip, wrinkles her nose, and adds a bit of sugar.
Things between us have changed. I can't pretend otherwise.
Not to myself, not to her. I think about her during work now.
Not in a way that compromises my focus, but in the gaps between cases, scrubbing out, walking to the next room.
She floats in. I wonder if she's eaten. I wonder if the morning sickness hit. I wonder what she's playing today.
I catch myself texting her things I wouldn't have texted a month ago.
Little things. A photo of a patient's kid's drawing.
A stupid joke I heard in the break room.
The message I type and delete three times before sending because it says miss you and I've never sent those words to anyone, and it surprises me that I even think them.
I'm more protective than I used to be. Not just about her ribs.
About everything. I check that the door is locked before bed.
I adjust the thermostat when she falls asleep on the couch because she runs cold now.
I bought a pregnancy pillow online, and it arrived in a box so large the delivery guy looked at me funny.
She laughed when she saw it. Then she used it that night and slept nine hours straight.
I didn't know I had this in me. This version of myself that plans around another person.
That builds a day around when she eats, how she sleeps, and whether she has what she needs.
I've always taken care of people. That's my whole thing.
But this is different. This isn't the hospital where I fix a problem and move to the next patient.
This is a life I'm building with someone.
And I'm building it on the fly, one day at a time, and somehow it's working.
I go to work. I come home. And every evening when I open the front door, I hear her.
The violin. She practices for hours now, rebuilding her technique. Some days it's scales and exercises, precise and controlled. Some days it's something slow and devastating that stops me at the door with my keys still in my hand. Something that makes the walls feel thinner.
I always listen before I go in. Standing in the hallway outside our apartment, bag on my shoulder, listening to her play. It's become the best part of my day now. The sixty seconds of standing outside my own door, hearing her speak in the only language that's fully hers.
Sometimes I recognize the piece. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes it's slow and aching, and I lean my head against the doorframe and just listen. And when I finally open the door, what greets me on the other side is music, and her, and a very judgmental cat I've grown fond of.
Apparently, it shows. In the break room yesterday, Sarah was stacking her lunch containers when she looked at me and said, "You've been extra chirpy lately."
"What do you mean? I'm always chirpy."
"No, this is different. You're like, radiating."
"Aww, you think I'm glowing? It's because I stay hydrated."
"That's not-." She stopped herself. "You know what, I'm happy for you. I know why you're like this."
I winked at her.
She crossed her arms over her bump and gave me the look. "Look at that, you're not even denying it. I'm really excited to meet her now."
I didn't say anything to that. I just grabbed my coffee and walked out before my face gave away more than it already had.
Tuesday night. I'm at the kitchen counter with my takeout going cold, a YouTube tutorial paused on my phone, the beginner ASL workbook I've been wearing the spine off of open between us, and Millie on the stool across from me, ready to correct my hands for the fourth time tonight.
I'm trying to remember the sign for home.
"Pretty sure it's this," I say, and do something with my fingers that's somewhere between a wave and a salute.
She doesn't say anything. She doesn't have to. Her left eyebrow goes up a quarter of an inch, and that's a full sentence in Millie. She types: That is not the sign for home, Joseph.
"It could be the sign for home. I'm bringing my own flavor to it."
She bites the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing, then takes mercy on me. Her fingertips touch the corner of her mouth, then tap once at her cheekbone. Easy. Like she's done it her whole life.
Home.
I copy. Fingers to mouth, then cheek. She nods. Better.
I do it again, slower. She watches my hands the way she watches her sheet music, listening for the right note.
Later, the workbook is shut and the dishes are in the sink, and she's curled against me on the couch with Tofu wedged between her thigh and a throw pillow she's been losing a quiet war with for an hour.
My hand is on her stomach. She takes it and lifts it.
Shapes my fingers into a sign I haven't seen yet and bumps my hand once, light, against the curve of her belly.
Son, she mouths to me.
I learn ten new words that night. I remember three by morning. The one I get right, the one I'll get right for the rest of my life, is the one she pressed into my hands and held against her belly.
She's twenty-two weeks. The bump is real now.
Small but undeniable, a gentle curve under her clothes that she rests her hand on without realizing she's doing it.
I've caught her looking down at it while she reads, while she cooks, while she sits on the couch with Tofu.
Her hand just goes there. Automatic. Like she's checking he's still inside.
I'm on the couch reading a journal article. She's at the kitchen counter pouring water. Then she freezes.
Her whole body goes still. Her hand flies to her stomach.
I'm on my feet and at her side instantly. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"
She grabs my hand. Both of hers wrap around mine, and she presses my palm flat against her belly. Hard. Her eyes are wide. Her fingers are tight around my wrist.
I hold still. I don't breathe. I don't move. I just keep my hand where she put it and wait.
Five seconds. Ten. I'm about to ask what I'm feeling for when something taps against my palm. Tiny. Quick. Like a finger flicking me from the inside.
Then another one. Slightly stronger.
Our son just moved.
I look at Millie. She's looking at me. Her eyes are wet, and her lips are pressed together, and she's holding my hand against her stomach like if she lets go, the moment will disappear.
He kicks again, stronger this time, a real nudge against my palm. Like he's knocking.
"Oh my god," I say. My voice comes out thick, unsteady, like the feeling is too big to fit through it. "Millie. That's him. That's our kid."
She nods, tears running down her face, smiling through them.
I don't move. I just stare at her belly with my hand pressed against it.
I've seen the scans. I've heard the heartbeat.
I know there's a baby in there. But feeling him move is completely different.
His tiny foot, or his elbow, or whatever that was, pushing against my hand from the inside.
It's like the difference between reading about the ocean and getting hit by a wave.
"That's our son," I say. The words sound far away. "He just kicked me."
She nods, and the smile won't leave her face even as the tears keep coming.
"He kicked me, Millie. Our son just kicked my hand."
She squeezes my wrist. I can feel him shifting in there, small movements, like he's rearranging, getting comfortable.
And it hits me so hard my knees almost buckle.
This is real. This is actually happening.
I'm going to be someone's dad, not in theory, not on a scan.
A real, kicking, moving person is coming.
I pull her into me. She presses her face against my chest, and I hold her. Between us, under my hand, our son keeps moving. Tiny and persistent and alive. Like he wanted us to know he's been here this whole time, listening, growing, waiting for us to catch up.
This is him saying I'm here. And everything I thought I understood about this pregnancy shifts from theory to fact.
He's real. He's coming. He's going to have a face and a name and a laugh and opinions like his mother and probably my bad sense of direction.
He's going to be a person I'm responsible for.
The thought terrifies me. It also fills me up so completely there's no room left for anything else.
We stand there for a long time. I don't let go. She doesn't either. Tofu is on the counter, looking up at us like she's mildly concerned about the emotional display.
Later in bed, my head is on her stomach. My ear pressed against her skin, eyes closed, listening for something I know I probably can't hear yet. But I keep trying. Every few minutes there's a faint flutter under my cheek, and I go still, holding my breath, waiting for more.
Millie's fingers are in my hair. Slow, absent strokes. She doesn't seem to mind me using her as a pillow.
She taps my shoulder. I lift my head and look at her. She types: Anything?
"No," I say, settling back against the headboard. "I think he's out for the night. Probably tired from all that kicking. Takes a lot of energy to beat up your dad from the inside."
She smiles, but it fades quickly. She's staring at her belly, hand resting on it, fingers spread. But her mind is somewhere else. Her face has gone still, her eyes far away.
"Hey." I touch her arm. "You okay?"
She hesitates. Her thumb hovers over the keyboard. She types a few words, deletes them, tries again. Whatever she's trying to say, it's caught somewhere she can't reach.
Finally, she turns the screen toward me.
I'm just worried.
"About what?"
What if something is wrong with him? What if he's like me?
Like me.
I read it again. And again. Those two words get heavier every time.
She thinks she's broken. The funniest, kindest, strongest, most incredible person I've ever met thinks she's broken because she doesn't have a voice.
I can't speak for a second.
This isn't new. This didn't start with the pregnancy. She's carried this her whole life. Parents who handled her like glass. A world that doesn't know how to talk to her. All of it building until she believed it.
And the thing that kills me is I never would have guessed.
She carries herself with so much strength, so much quiet confidence.
The way she walks into a room. The way she holds her violin.
The way she looks me dead in the eye when she disagrees with something I've said.
You would never look at Millie and think she sees herself as less than anyone.
But she does. She's sitting right next to me, and she does.
And it shatters something in me.
I have to swallow hard before I can talk.
"First of all." I wait until her eyes meet mine.
"There is nothing wrong with you. Nothing.
Absolutely nothing at all." I take her face in my hand so she can't look away.
"You're not broken, Millie. You're not lacking.
You are the most expressive person I've ever met, and you've never spoken a single word.
You say more with your face in five seconds than most people say in an entire conversation. "
Her chin is trembling. I keep going because she needs to hear this, and I need to say it.
"I watch you play the violin, and it's like listening to someone speak from the deepest part of themselves. I watch you sign to Adeena, and it's the most beautiful language I've seen. You make me laugh, you comfort me, you encourage me. You do that every single day. More than anyone with a voice."
A tear slips down her cheek, and I continue.
"Every day you walk into a world that wasn't built for you, and you move through it like it was. Do you know that?"
She's crying now, quiet tears sliding down her face, but she's holding my gaze through every one of them, like she doesn't want to miss a word. I shift closer until our knees touch, until there's no space left for her to disappear into.
"So please, don't sit here and tell me there's something wrong with you. Don't tell me that the woman who made me laugh harder than anyone I've ever met, who plays music that makes me stop in hallways, who is growing our son inside her body right now, is somehow less. I won't hear it. I refuse."
I wipe her tears with my thumb. I tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, just to keep touching her. My other hand stays on her belly, flat and warm, over our son.
"And our son," I say. "Whatever happens. Whether he's deaf or mute or has something we haven't even thought of yet. There will be nothing wrong with him. He'll be ours. Yours and mine. And he'll be perfect. Because he's ours. And we'll make sure he never has to wonder."
She sets her phone down. She doesn't need words for this. She takes my face in both her hands, small and strong, and draws my forehead to hers. I can feel the fear leaving her, breath by breath.
We stay like that. And I make a silent promise to her and to our son and to myself that I will spend the rest of my life making sure neither of them ever feels like something is wrong with them.
Under my hand, our son moves one more time. Small. Gentle.