Seventeen #2
Leo leans forward, lips slightly parted, the book forgotten. The sonographer tilts the wand and the chaos slowly resolves: a smooth dome, skull? and then a flicker of spine, a quick flash of limb.
“There we go,” the sonographer says, and a tiny, pulsing thrum fills the speakers.
It’s faster than I expected, urgent and steady, like a metronome for the world’s smallest marathon.
I had almost forgotten this part. The room goes silent, as if everyone is waiting for the next thing, the big reveal.
My mouth goes dry. I can’t look away.
“Is that the…” I start.
“That’s the heartbeat,” she says. “Perfectly normal, too. Would you like to listen?”
I nod, or at least think I do. My mind is focused on the heartbeat of my baby… of our baby.
She clicks something. The thud becomes louder, more insistent. Leo doesn’t speak. He just watches, perfectly still, the blue-white light from the monitor painting his face into a mask of awe.
Alexander’s hand finds mine, resting on the paper-covered edge of the table.
My eyes sting. There is no warning, just the sudden appearance of tears, and I am annoyed by the predictability of it even as it happens.
I try to pretend it’s nothing, but the sonographer catches my eye and gives me a smile that’s just professional enough to say she’s seen it all before, and just kind enough to say it’s fine, really.
She moves the probe, narrating as she goes: “Femur length, right on schedule. Head circumference, normal. Fluid levels, all good.” The images morph and shift, the baby a grainy alien at first, then more and more human with each new angle.
“Would you like to know the sex?” she asks.
I look at Alexander, who looks at me. I want to say I don’t care, but I do, just a little.
Before I can answer, Leo says, “Yes. Obviously. Am I getting a brother or a sister?”
The sonographer grins, adjusts the wand, and says, “A sister. It’s a girl.”
A girl. I tear up even more. I always dreamed of Leo being a big brother to a little girl. That was always my dream with Ethan, well, before he fucked it all up anyway.
Leo processes it for exactly one second, then says, “She’s going to need her own dinosaur book. I’ll pick one from the bookstore when we go next.” He says it not as a suggestion, but as a solemn vow.
I laugh, and the tears on my cheeks feel less embarrassing now.
Alexander’s hand closes around mine, just a little tighter, and I don’t let go.
When I look at him, I see my emotion reflected in his eyes.
His pale blue orbs are now glassy with tears, although he seems to be doing a much better job of keeping them at bay than I am.
The sonographer finishes her work, wipes away the gel, and prints out two blurry photos for us to take home. On one, you can just barely make out a fist, raised up next to her face, like she’s getting ready to punch through the screen and into the world.
“Congrats, Mum,” the sonographer says, and something about the way she says it makes the whole thing more real than any of the words that have come before.
When I sit up, my hair sticks to my cheek. Leo is beaming.
“Did you hear her heartbeat?” he asks, his voice so quiet I almost miss it.
I nod. “I did.”
He nods back, like a secret has been shared between us. Then he holds out the x-ray book to me, the page opened to a skeleton of a baby elephant. “It says they have very big hearts. Just like dinosaurs.”
I take the book, and for a moment, I don’t care about the future or the paperwork or the man who once thought he could own a piece of my life.
There’s just this moment, the sound of a heart on the speakers, the squeeze of a hand in mine, and the knowledge that some things, once they begin, keep going.
Even if you don’t believe they will. Especially then.
We sit in the car for a long time after, none of us in a hurry to move.
The sky is winter-bright, the light so sharp it renders the world in high-contrast, blue, white, asphalt black and the gleam of other cars.
Leo is in the back seat, knees drawn up, shoes kicked off, already composing a mental list of names for the baby. He narrates his progress out loud.
“No offense, but we are not naming her after any of my teachers,” he says, ticking options off his fingers. “That includes all variations of Susan. Also, nothing that rhymes with ‘fart’ because the kids at school are brutal.”
I glance at him in the rear-view. He’s using the back of Alexander’s headrest as a notepad, one hand scribing invisible letters on the faux leather.
The scan photo is still on my lap, the paper warm from my palm.
I run my thumb along the border. The image is a blur, but if you tilt it, you can make out the curve of a nose, the suggestion of a cheek, a tiny, perfect fist.
I say, to no one in particular, “She’s real.”
Alexander, who hasn’t started the engine yet, says, “She’s been real.”
“I know,” I reply. “But now she’s…” I stop. Because there’s nothing else I need to add. Or at least, nothing that would make sense.
We watch the world for another minute, the idle hum of other lives unspooling in the car park.
There is a woman wrestling a stroller from the boot, a man in a blue jacket balancing coffee trays, a small girl in a yellow coat refusing to hold her mother’s hand.
There is a peace in the ordinariness of it, a relief I didn’t know I was waiting for.
Leo leans forward, seatbelt stretched to its limit. “Can we get lunch? Somewhere with good chips. I’m starving.”
I turn to look at him, this boy who has survived every change in his life with only a mild addiction to dinosaur facts and an encyclopaedic knowledge of random facts.
His eyes are big and serious, and for a moment I see myself reflected back.
The need for something concrete to hold onto, even if it’s just the promise of potato wedges.
“Yes,” I say. “We can get chips.”
He nods, satisfied, and settles back. “She’s going to like chips,” he adds, the matter decided. It makes my heart warm to see him embracing the situation rather than balking at it. That had been a momentary fear, but Leo has never been predictable.
Alexander starts the car, glancing over at me with a look that says thank you and also please don’t cry in front of the child again, but not in a way that’s cruel. If anything he seems slightly amused.
The scan photo stays in my hand the whole drive.
I notice, almost absently, the lack of dread. The lack of a shoe waiting to drop, or a voice in my head reminding me of everything that can and will go wrong.
Instead, there is just the hum of the engine, the taste of salt on my lip, the weight of a photo in my hand, and a new, inexplicable, almost embarrassing feeling blooming in my chest.
Hope, maybe. Or something that could become it.
It’s so unfamiliar that I almost mistake it for fear, but it isn’t.
It isn’t fear at all.