8. JACKSON
JACKSON
Three months later…
I wake to the sound of retching from the bathroom.
Fourth time this week. Maybe fifth—I've been counting, but the days blur together when you're tracking someone else's patterns. The toilet flushes. Water runs in the sink.
Jamie's bare feet pad across the tile, and I listen to her routine through the thin wall: toothbrush, mouthwash, the medicine cabinet opening and closing.
She emerges wearing one of my shirts and nothing else, hair pulled back, face pale. Tries to slip back into bed like nothing happened.
"You done pretending that was a one-off?"
Her shoulders tense. "It's probably the heavy cream I used yesterday. Sometimes dairy doesn't agree with me."
"Four times in five days."
"I haven't been counting."
"I have."
She turns to face me, propping herself up on one elbow. Her green eyes have that stubborn set I've learned to recognize—the look that means she's about to dig in her heels about something unreasonable.
"It's nothing, Jackson. My stomach's been weird lately, but that happens. I'm fine."
The word fine comes out too quick, too bright. She's performing normalcy, and after three months I know exactly what that looks like on her. The slight uptick in her voice. The way she gestures with her hands like she's conducting the conversation toward a conclusion she wants.
I sit up. "Get dressed. We're going to the hospital."
"No." The brightness drops out of her voice. "Absolutely not. I'm not going to the emergency room because I threw up."
"You're throwing up every morning."
"It's not every morning."
"Jamie."
She hears the tone shift. I'm not negotiating this, and she knows me well enough to recognize when I've moved from suggestion to decision. Her mouth opens to argue, then closes. She studies my face for a moment, looking for something to work with.
She won't find it.
"This is ridiculous," she mutters, but she's already getting out of bed, already reaching for clothes. "You're going to feel stupid when they tell us I have a stomach bug."
I don't respond. She can call it ridiculous if it helps her feel better about complying. The outcome is the same either way.
The hospital waiting room smells like disinfectant and coffee that's been sitting too long. Jamie perches in one of the plastic chairs, fidgeting with the sleeve of her sweater, making observations about everything around us like she's cataloging the experience for later review.
"Look at these magazines," she says, holding up something with a cover date from two years ago. "This is from when people still thought that diet trend was going to work. Remember? The one where you ate nothing but?—"
"I don't remember."
"Right. You probably never tried it. You eat like a sensible person." She flips through the pages without reading them. "God, this waiting room is depressing. Why do they always have the TV tuned to the most depressing channel possible?"
On the screen above us, someone is explaining the economic implications of something I'm not listening to. A toddler in the corner is crying while his mother tries to entertain him with a toy that makes electronic beeping sounds.
"At least the chairs are comfortable," Jamie continues. "I mean, they're not, but they could be worse. They could be those medieval torture devices they have at the DMV."
She's nervous. She fills silence when she's nervous, throws words at empty space until something sticks. I've watched her do this in checkout lines, in elevators, during the first ten minutes of any new situation that doesn't come with a clear script.
She settles back in her chair, still holding the ancient magazine, but she's stopped flipping through it.
"Coleman?" A nurse appears with a clipboard.
Jamie stands, and I follow. The nurse looks between us, then at her chart.
"Just the patient for now, please."
"He's coming with me." Jamie's voice carries a note I haven't heard before—something that doesn't invite discussion.
The nurse glances at me, takes in the six foot seven of me, and nods.
We follow her down a hallway that's too narrow for three people to walk comfortably. Jamie's hand finds mine, her fingers threading between mine like they belong there.
The examination room is built for smaller people. I take the chair in the corner while Jamie sits on the paper-covered table, her legs dangling. The doctor is a woman in her fifties who moves with the efficiency of someone who's had this conversation a thousand times.
"So you've been experiencing nausea and vomiting," she says, scanning Jamie's chart. "How long has this been going on?"
"Maybe a week?" Jamie glances at me. "Jackson thinks it's been longer."
"Five days," I say. "Mornings, mostly. Sometimes throughout the day."
The doctor nods, making notes. "Any other symptoms? Fatigue? Breast tenderness? Changes in appetite?"
Jamie shifts on the table. "I've been tired. And my appetite's been weird—some things smell wrong now."
"When was your last menstrual period?"
There's a pause. Jamie's face goes through a series of micro-expressions I can't quite read.
"I... I'm not sure. I haven't been tracking it closely." She looks at me again, then back at the doctor. "Maybe six weeks? Seven?"
The doctor sets down her pen. "I'd like to run a pregnancy test."
The words land in the room like a stone dropped in still water. Jamie goes very still on the examination table. I feel something shift in my chest—not surprise, exactly, but a sudden sharp clarity, like someone has adjusted the focus on a lens I didn't realize was blurry.
"Okay," Jamie says quietly.
The test takes twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of sitting in a room that's too small while Jamie makes increasingly strained conversation about the motivational posters on the walls and the degrees hanging behind the doctor's desk.
Twenty minutes of watching her hands fidget with the edge of her sweater, watching her face as she processes possibilities she hasn't let herself consider until now.
Twenty minutes of thinking about the conversation we had three months ago on the couch. What if I actually get pregnant? Good. Then you can't get away from me. I'll keep you pregnant. Watch your belly swell over and over again.
I meant it then. Sitting in this examination room, I mean it more.
The doctor returns with a small smile. "Congratulations. The test is positive."
The words hit me like a physical force. Something expands in my chest, something large and immediate and completely outside my usual range of internal experience. My hands, which were resting on my knees, suddenly need to be doing something.
I stand. Cross the small room in two steps. Jamie's eyes are wide, her mouth slightly open, and I cup her face in my hands and kiss her.
Right there. In front of the doctor. In front of the nurse who's appeared in the doorway with additional paperwork. I don't think about it before I do it—my body moves and my mouth finds hers and the kiss is everything I can't say with words.
She tastes like toothpaste and something that's entirely Jamie, and when I pull back her eyes are shining with tears that haven't fallen yet.
"Okay?" I ask.
She nods, laughing a little. "Very okay."
Behind us, the doctor clears her throat diplomatically. "I'll give you a moment, and then we'll discuss next steps."
Next steps. Prenatal vitamins. Appointments. Things I'll need to rearrange to be there for. The future, suddenly concrete and scheduled and real.
I look at Jamie's face and see my own thoughts reflected there—the slight overwhelm of something hypothetical becoming fact. But underneath that, something else. Joy. The same thing that's currently taking up all the available space in my chest.
"You're happy," I say. Not a question.
"So happy." She reaches up and touches my face, her thumb tracing along my jawline. "Are you?"
I don't answer with words. I kiss her again, softer this time, longer. When I pull back, she's smiling in a way that makes her whole face different.
The doctor returns with pamphlets and a prescription and instructions about folic acid and scheduling the first appointment.
Jamie listens and nods and asks questions about morning sickness remedies.
I listen too, but mostly I watch her process the information, the way she tilts her head when she's thinking, the way she's already unconsciously resting her hand on her stomach.
Pregnant. The word sits in my head like a fact that's still settling into place.
Jamie is pregnant with my child. In a few months, she'll be huge with it, and after that there will be a small person who's half her and half me, and the life we've built together will expand to accommodate this new reality.
The prospect doesn't scare me. It should, maybe, but it doesn't. It settles me deeper into certainty about things I was already certain about.
"I don't need maternity clothes yet," Jamie says as I pull into the parking lot of a store with soft pastels in the window display. "I'm like five minutes pregnant. I probably won't need them for months."
"You'll need them eventually."
"Eventually, yes. Not today. Jackson, this is crazy."
I park the truck and look at her. She's holding the pamphlets from the doctor in her lap, her hair falling across her face as she shakes her head at me.
"What's crazy about it?"
"I can fit into my regular clothes for months still. There's no rush. We can come back when I actually need things."
I get out of the truck without responding to this argument. She follows, still protesting, but she follows.
The store is exactly what I expected—racks of clothes designed to accommodate changing bodies, soft fabrics and adjustable waistbands and colors that look like they've been through a washing machine full of pastels.
I walk through it like I walk through any store: with purpose, looking for what we need.