26. Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Six
Meg
B undled up, I locked the door to the library on my way out. Though the entry was always well-lit, I sensed someone behind me and I jolted. “Ack!” I cried, turning and brandishing my keys.
Mike stopped a few feet away and held up his hands. “Meg, sorry. Did I scare you?”
My breath whooshed through my lips while I dropped the keys into my purse. “I was just closing up.”
“Yeah, I knew you would be.” He gestured toward the sidewalk. “Can I walk you home?”
Since he left my apartment, we had texted, but this was the first time I’d seen him. It didn’t take a mind reader to know he was upset about the ultrasound thing, even though he said he understood why I didn’t want him in the room. Still, looking at him twisted my gut into knots. “Okay.”
He reached for my hand. “I haven’t been able to sleep.”
I started to pull my fingers away but tightened my grip instead. “Me neither.”
“How are you feeling?”
Aside from being wrung out like I’d been crushed between the rollers of a 1930s washing machine? “I’m all right.”
“Um…well…I’ve missed you.”
I missed him, too. But I just kept walking.
“And I’ve been thinking.” He moved in front of me and grasped my shoulders. “I know we haven’t been ‘officially’ dating for very long, but I think I’m in love with you.”
I gulped, staring up into those gray eyes expressing so much emotion from worry, to fear, to… “You love me?”
“Yes, I love you, Margaret Lehn Corley. And regardless of whether or not you want me to go to the ultrasound, I’m all-in. ”
I was so confused, my brain was in a fog. But before I completely gave in, I had to ask one more time, “Even if the baby isn’t—”
“The child is mine.”
“How can you be sure?” I pressed because I’d never be able to handle it if he got on board then ditched me when I was eight months pregnant.
“Because children are beautiful and innocent.” Mike pulled me into his arms. “She’ll be half you, and a child who is half you will be amazing, and smart, and perfect .”
I was so sick of crying, I did my best to blink away my tears as I buried my head in his shoulder. “I don’t deserve you.”
“You deserve to be loved. You deserve to be worshiped and cared for.” He kissed my temple. “You’re going to marry me, right?”
God save me, I wanted to marry him more than anything. “W-what if you change your mind after…you know…”
“I’m not going to change my mind.” Mike took my cheeks between his gloved palms and kissed me. “The first time I saw you in the library this summer, I wanted to go out with you. You were so beautiful and confident when you took me up to the Archives. I never told you how disappointed I was that you weren’t the one I’d be working with. I never told you how many times I walked past the library wondering if you would go out with me, but too afraid a woman as amazing as you would want to date a guy like me.”
“What do you mean?” I brushed his beard with the tip of my glove. “You have the whole swanky geek thing going on.”
“Swanky?”
“Well, you’re like Clark Kent on steroids.” I slid my arms around his waist and hugged him. “There isn’t a single librarian in La Crosse who doesn’t drool every time you walk through the door.”
He grinned—sexily, irresistibly. “So, I’m a librarian magnet?”
“Yes.”
“Are you ever going to answer my question?”
Oh, my God, in the past few days the man of my dreams has asked me to marry him twice and this time, I had no doubt about his sincerity. “I absolutely want to marry you, but would it be okay if we waited until after the baby is born?”
“Why?”
“Aside from walking down the aisle looking like a blimp, we’ve only been dating for a couple of months. You need time to process.”
“Me? ”
“I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you I want to get married tomorrow. But the cautious side of my brain, which doesn’t always get a lot of airplay, is reminding me that we need to be together for a whole year. I’ve always felt any woman serious enough to take marriage vows ought to have known her husband for a least a year.”
Mike kissed me. “All right, but just remember it was July eighteenth when I came into the library to get information about my house. That’s officially the day we met.”
“The eighteenth? Did you just pull that out of your computer brain?”
“Not exactly. It was a week after I moved in—not so hard to add seven to eleven.” He kissed my cheek, his lips trailing to my ear as he whispered. “Marry me?”
“Yes,” I whispered back.
I stood by my decision and didn’t have Mike go to the ultrasound with me. At least not the first one. Of course I was going to tell him the truth no matter what, but I couldn’t imagine having him there holding my hand and finding out the baby wasn’t his. That would be too cruel. If the baby was Lance’s, Mike needed to find out in the privacy of his home.
Honestly, I almost told Mom not to come as well so I could be alone when I got the news. But I’d broken down in sobs when I’d told her I was pregnant at Buzzard Billy’s and she was worried. And I guess I needed support. This was terrifying and exciting. Moreover, I hadn’t told anyone at work I was expecting, not even Elaine.
Mom met me at the library all bundled up. Together we walked to the Moya Clinic in La Crosse and waited for about five minutes before we were called.
“So, is this your first ultrasound?” asked the technician.
“Sure is.” I tried to sound chirpy but my voice still trembled. “I’m hoping we can establish the due date.”
Mom squeezed my upper arm, her excitement almost palpable.
“Do you have any idea how far along you might be?” asked the technician.
“Nope.” I was either three-and-a-half months or seven weeks or maybe a little over a month, but if I told her that she’d think I’ d lost my mind.
“Well, if we can’t detect the heartbeat, we might have to do a vaginal ultrasound.”
I cringed—I totally should have come alone. “Seriously?”
“I promise it won’t hurt and I’ll be discreet.” The technician opened the door to a room with dimmed lighting. “We’ll be in here.”
After donning a gown, I climbed onto the bed while Mom sat on the opposite side of the technician. She covered my belly with warm gel, then made a few passes with a probe. After a series of clicks, she turned the monitor and pointed to a little tiny white glob that looked like it might be the start of a human with a really big head and an appendage that might have been an arm. “This is your baby.”
“Oh, wow! Is that an arm?” My breath stopped as the little image moved. At least I think it moved.
“Actually, it’s a leg.” The technician pulled the probe away from my belly. “I’ll need to do a vaginal to get the heartbeat. Okay?”
What was I going to say, no?
As she’d promised, the technician draped a blanket over my lap and respected my modesty. Using a serene voice, she explained everything she was doing while she found the heartbeat, the sound filling the room with life and, to me, it was nothing short of a miracle.
“Can you tell me the baby’s age?” I asked.
The technician rolled her fingers over a huge ball and made a few clicks. “Sorry, but only the doctor can do that.”
Seriously? I have to wait? But I’d made such a big deal about not having Mike here! “The results will be in my portal, right?”
“Should be. It usually takes a couple of hours for the radiologist’s report to appear, otherwise someone from Moya will call you.”
“Today, right?” Couldn’t she tell I was on the verge of exploding? Especially given my medical file. I needed to know, goddammit!
She removed the probe. “Should be.”
I squeezed my knees together. “How old does the fetus need to be to determine the sex?” I asked.
“Not until about eighteen to twenty-one weeks.”
My stomach roiled. If this was Lance’s baby, I ought to be about sixteen weeks—still too early to determine if I was having a boy or a girl. But wouldn’t the fetus be more developed? Why didn’t I look that up? Gah, I needed to get rid of the fog and engage my brain .
After I dressed, Mom met me in the waiting room. “Want to go over to my house for a latte?”
I looked at my phone, then refreshed it. Of course, there wasn’t a message from the portal yet. “Can you add valium?” I asked, joking.
“Not in your condition.” She chuckled and put on her winter gloves. “Maybe we ought to have decaf.”
By the time we finished our coffee and ate two of Mom’s efficacious slice-and-bake cookies, Mike had texted me five times. On the sixth ding, I was so sick of having my heart nearly fly out of my chest with excitement, I didn’t even look at my phone.
Mom picked it up. “Ahem, this says you have new test results in the portal.”
I snatched it from her. “Finally!”
Of course, my fingerprint reader decided to go on the fritz and I had to type in my password, which I fat-fingered the first time and had to do it again. After what seemed like an eternity, I read the report, which was prefaced with a whole bunch of technical jargon. It wasn’t until the end where it stated the measurement calculated the fetus to be seven weeks gestation and was due to be born on August twenty-third. There was also a tab with the ultrasound images of my baby—OMG, I couldn’t believe there was a living being inside me.
Mom leaned in. “What does it say?”
I tapped back to the report and showed her the sentence at the bottom while a weight the size of Gibraltar lifted from my shoulders. Mom steadied my hand…I didn’t even realize I was shaking. Usually I had no trouble doing sums in my head, but I couldn’t think straight.
“Mike is the father,” I whispered, pulling up my calendar and counting backward by weeks. If our baby was only seven weeks gestation, she (or he) ought to have been conceived around December first. My God, that was the first time we had sex.
I clapped a hand over my mouth. Unbelievable .
“What?” asked Mom.
“I need to go see Mike—he’s at work.” In this weather, the university was too far away to walk .
“You want me to drive you?”
I laced my fingers around the back of my neck. “You promise not to brake hard?”
“Are you kidding? I drive the safest car on the planet. There’s no way in hell I’ll take any chances with you or my grandbaby!”
I’d never been in Mike’s office before, but as a former student at UW La Crosse, I knew where the technology center was. In no time, I stood outside his open door, impatiently waiting for him to finish talking to somebody.
Mike hadn’t seen me yet, but as soon as he glanced toward the open door I grinned so wide I could have split my face in two.
He hopped up and grabbed my hands. “Why didn’t you text me back? I’ve been worried out of my mind.”
I fell into his arms and kissed him. “First, I had to wait for the results to come in and then my mom drove me straight here so I could give you the news in person.”
He held me at arm’s length. “So…?”
I was so excited, I almost peed my pregnant panties. “Remember when I brought over oven-ready pizza and you let me test out the mattress on your king-sized bed?”
His eyes brightened as he gaped wide and laughed. “Are you referring to the night you decided to come out of mourning?”
“Uh huh!” I bobbed my head emphatically. “That was seven weeks ago, and the report said I’m seven weeks pregnant!”
He grabbed my hands and jumped up and down like a little kid, and I jumped right along with him. “Oh, my God! Our first time.”
“Can you believe it?”
“I sure can.” He swept me into his arms and twirled me in a circle. “This dude doesn’t fire blanks.”
I howled with laughter. “Obviously not.”
“A little condom isn’t going to get in my way.” He set me down and steadied me with his hands on my shoulders. “Are you okay? Should I be swinging you around like that? When is our baby due? ”
“August twenty-third…and I’m fine.” I fumbled for my phone and brought up an image from the ultrasound, then shoved the screen under Mike’s nose. “This is the first official picture of our baby.”
He took the phone and a tear splashed from his eye. “There you are, precious.”
I pointed. “The wee one moved her leg for us.”
“Her? It’s a girl?”
“We won’t find out until the next ultrasound,” I said, dropping the phone into my purse.
“Whoa, I didn’t dare allow myself to hope that our little fetus actually had my DNA! Let’s do something to celebrate.” Mike looked toward the hallway. “Is your mom still here?”
“Nope.” I bounced up and down, trying not to pee my pants. In this exact moment, I had no doubt that I’d found the right man and thanked God he was the father of my child. “She dropped me off. I told her you’d give me a ride home.”
He kissed my lips. “Ice Cream? Hot chocolate?”
“I’m craving a Milwaukee Burger.”
“Mm—with blue cheese potato salad?”
“And a vanilla milkshake.”
He grabbed my hand. “Let’s go!”