Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Amy
The ultrasound tech squirts gel on my belly and I flinch, not from cold but from the fact that I'm about to see my baby in actual detail for the first time. Not a blob. Not a flickering heartbeat on a Doppler.
A person with a spine and a skull and fingers and a face.
Hamish is sitting forward in the chair beside me, elbows on his knees, hands clasped, the posture he uses when he's watching a critical replay.
His knee brace peeks out from under his jeans.
He's been limping more this week, though he won't admit it, and I've noticed him rubbing the joint when he thinks I'm not looking.
The tech presses the wand and the screen fills with gray static, then shapes begin to emerge. A curve. A flutter. A head, impossibly round, facing away from us.
"There's baby," the tech says, adjusting. "Let's take some measurements."
She works in silence for a while, clicking and dragging lines across the screen, measuring the femur, the head circumference, the abdominal diameter. Every number she records is a verdict I can't read.
"Everything's looking great," she says. "Right on track for twenty weeks."
Hamish exhales beside me. I didn't realize he'd been holding his breath.
The tech tilts the wand and a new image appears: the spine, a perfect string of pearls, each vertebra distinct. Then the face in profile, nose and lips and forehead, and my chest does something it's never done before. It cracks open, not painfully, but like a door I didn't know was shut.
That's my baby. That's a face I'm going to know for the rest of my life.
"Do you want to know the sex?" the tech asks, already smiling, which means she's already seen it.
Hamish and I look at each other. We've talked about this. We both want to know. He nods. I nod.
She moves the wand, adjusts, clicks.
"You're having a girl."
The room goes very still. Not quiet, because the machine is still humming and my pulse is still pounding, but still. Everything just changed.
A girl.
She.
Not "the baby" or "it" or "the bairn." She. A daughter. Our daughter.
Hamish makes a sound. It's not a word. It's something between a laugh and a gasp, wet at the edges, and when I look at him, his eyes are full, his jaw working. He reaches for my hand and grips it so hard, my knuckles ache.
"A girl," he whispers, voice cracking. "Amy. We're havin' a wee lassie."
"We are," I manage, and now I'm crying, too, because the tech is pointing at the screen and I can see her, our daughter, moving, one hand near her face, and she is real and inside me and twenty weeks from now, she'll be in our arms.
The tech prints images. She gives us a handful and leaves, murmuring congratulations, closing the door softly behind her.
Hamish stares at the printout. His thumb traces the outline of her skull.
"Bronwyn," he says, and the name sounds different now. In the elevator weeks ago, it was a word. Hypothetical. Literary. Could be a witch. Now it's attached to a spine and a face and a heartbeat I can't even feel when I lie still, but I know it's there.
"Bronwyn," I repeat, and it fits.
He leans forward and presses his lips to my belly, eyes closed.
"Hi, Bronwyn," he says, so quiet, I almost miss it. "I'm yer da. I'm goin' ta be the best da I can, even though I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. I promise ta try harder than I've ever tried at anythin'. Harder than football, even."
He pauses. His voice roughens.
"And I'm sorry in advance fer yer grandmothers."
I laugh, wiping my eyes. He straightens up and looks at me, and his face is doing that thing where everything he feels is visible, unguarded, no performance, no charm. Just Hamish, overwhelmed and grateful and terrified.
"Twenty weeks," he says. "That's all we've got."
"That's plenty of time."
"Is it?" He runs a hand through his hair. "I have a knee appointment next week that could change everythin', a Str1kecast contract starting in June, and I still dinna ken how ta fold a fitted sheet. Twenty weeks, Amy. And now she's got a name and a face and she's relying on us."
"You'll never learn the fitted sheet. Accept that and move on."
He doesn't laugh this time. He's staring at the printout, thumb still tracing.
"When she's two," he says slowly, "she'll want ta kick a ball wi' me in the garden."
"You don't have a garden."
"We'll get a garden. We need ta move out o' the condo anyhow, soon.
We'll be fine 'til she's walking, then we'll want more space.
And I'll need ta be able to kneel on the grass and roll the ball ta her and chase her when she runs away wi' it instead of kicking it back.
And when she's five, she'll want me ta carry her on ma shoulders at the park.
And when she's ten, she'll want me ta run alongside her on her bike. "
He swallows.
"I canna do any of that if ma knee is ruined."
The sentence sits between us. His appointment with Dr. Jelshi is next Tuesday. Neither of us has said out loud what we're both thinking: that the news might not be good. That "elite performance" might be off the table, but the knee still needs to work for a lifetime of being Bronwyn's dad.
"Then we make sure the knee works," I say, keeping my voice steady. "That's what Jelshi's for. That's what Vince is for."
His jaw sets. I can see the determination rearranging itself in him, shifting from I need this knee for the pitch to I need this knee for her. It's a different kind of motivation. Quieter. More permanent.
"Aye," he says. "I'll do whatever it takes. Fer her."
In the hallway, he's already texting. His phone lights up and doesn't stop.
Luis: A WEE LASS. brO. I'm buying the smallest boots you've ever seen
Coach Jensen: Congratulations, Dad. She's going to be tougher than you
Gerald: Welcome to the girl dad club. We have meetings on Thursdays and use a lot of nail polish remover
Andrew: Congrats. You dodged the little boy demon club.
Declan sends a single line: Well done, cousin
Hamish is grinning so wide, it looks like his face might split. He shows me the screen, scrolling through message after message, teammates and friends and people from every corner of his life, all reaching out, all wanting to share this.
I watch him type back, thumb flying, and I feel it: a quiet, sharp sting.
I take out my own phone. I text Shannon: It's a girl. Bronwyn.
Shannon's reply is instant: SCREAMING. I knew it. I love her already. Tell me everything
I text Carol: Girl. Bronwyn. We're dying of happiness
Carol: I'm crying at my desk. My coworker thinks someone died. This is your fault
Dad texts me directly: Another granddaughter. Your mother is going to lose her mind. I may need to hide. Congratulations, sweetheart. I love you so much.
That one gets me. I blink hard and type back: I love you too, Dad. She's beautiful. You're going to be the best grandpa.
Dad: I already am the best grandpa. Ask anyone. Except Agnes.
Then the group chat with Hamish, Mom, and me erupts.
Mom: A GIRL A GIRL A GIRL A GIRL
Mom: I'M SHAKING
Mom: brONWYN????? IS THAT THE NAME??? WHAT DOES IT MEAN
Mom: JASON SHE'S HAVING A GIRL
Mom: I NEED TO SIT DOWN
Mom: WHERE ARE MY CRYSTALS
Hamish shows me his screen. Seven messages in forty seconds. A record even for Marie Jacoby.
"Yer mum types faster than ma midfield ever passed," he says.
Mom again: I am going to knit her the most beautiful blanket you have ever seen. It will have EVERYTHING. Moons and stars and her name and maybe a likeness of Hamish if I can figure out how to knit a face
Me: Please do not knit my husband's face into a baby blanket
Marie: Too late. I'm already googling it. Did you know you can upload a picture to AI and it gives you a knitting pattern? This is a game changer. Ooo, you can upload more body parts than just faces!
Jeffrey chimes in on a separate thread with Carol and me: Finally. Ellie gets a girl cousin. It's been me and Tyler drowning in boy stuff forever. Thank you for evening the score, Aunt Amy
Carol adds: I can't wait until Bronwyn is a teen and you have to deal with a younger version of you
Jeffrey: Tell Uncle Hamish she can have my old soccer ball. It's signed by some guy from the Revolution. IDK if that matters to a Scottish person
"It matters," Hamish says when I show him. "Tell the lad it matters."
Then the text I've been waiting for. Fiona: Are you SURE it's a girl? You know about the ultrasound curse. Every McCormick baby is born the opposite. EVERY ONE. I'm buying boy clothes just in case
Fergus follows: A girl. Good. Girls are smarter. Dinna tell yer brothers I said that
And then, because no moment in our lives can exist without being monetized, a text from James to both of us: Wonderful news. Pink can be interwoven into the commercial color palette. This opens up an entirely new demographic angle. I'll have the creative team mock up options
Hamish reads it, tilts his phone so I can see, and locks the screen without replying. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't have to. The look on his face says: Not today. Not her. Not ever.
I love him so much in that moment, my throat burns.
Outside, Boston is doing its spring thing, warm and green and buzzing. We walk to the car and Hamish moves slowly, his limp more pronounced after sitting in the hard chair for forty minutes. He catches me watching and straightens, but the wince is already there.
"Knee?" I ask.
"It's fine."
"You have Jelshi next week."
"Aye." He says it the way you say dentist or audit. Something you know is necessary but know will hurt.
I take his arm and we walk, and I think about what the tech said. Right on track. Twenty weeks of growth, everything measuring exactly as it should. Our daughter's body is doing its job perfectly, building itself cell by cell, right on schedule.
Hamish's body is doing something different. It's rebuilding, too, but toward what? Toward the pitch or away from it? Toward the life he planned or the one he's being handed?
He doesn't know yet. Neither do I. But Bronwyn doesn't care about any of that. She just needs us to show up.
In the car, he holds the printout in one hand and drives with the other, which I would normally protest, except he keeps glancing at it at red lights with an expression so tender, it would be cruel to take it from him.
"She has ma nose," he says again.
"That could be her elbow."
"It's her nose. Look at it. Distinguished."
"Distinguished is a word for noses that are too big."
"Ma nose is no' too big. It's been the recipient of too many breaks, and therefore has character." He touches the bridge of it, then looks at the printout. "I hope she gets yers, though."
"You said that before."
"I mean it every time."
At the next red light, he sets the printout on the dashboard, leans over, and kisses me. It's brief and warm and tastes like the beginning of something enormous.
"Bronwyn McCormick," he says.
"Bronwyn McCormick," I repeat.
The name fills the car, the space between us, the twenty weeks we have left.
It fills everything.