Chapter 23
“There it is.” Steph pointed to the screen, where a pale gray, kidney-bean-shaped figure hovered in a dark pool of static. “That is your baby.”
There was a squiggle, a rhythmic thump. Steph froze the image and turned the monitor so Poppy could see it better, as if that would help her comprehend the surreal.
The last time Poppy was in that same room, her friend told her that there were other options. Now, Steph was telling her, “That is your baby.” Poppy kept staring at the screen, trying to see more than just a pixelated blur, as if by force of will, she could recognize her own child.
“I don’t understand…” Poppy’s voice felt jagged in her throat. “I thought… you said… everyone said.”
Steph clicked and measured. She didn’t look away from the screen.
“I know. The odds were low. Less than one percent.” She spoke in the calm technician’s tone she used for delivering news both good and catastrophically bad.
“But you’re here, and it’s there.” She circled the shape with the cursor, labeling it: Crown-Rump Length, 13.
4mm. “So this is where we are at, the next few weeks…”
Poppy was listening to her, trying to absorb the information her friend was telling her, but she just kept staring at the screen in disbelief.
Stephanie’s explanation blurred into bullet points after saying the pregnancy was high risk because of her medical history. She listed all the things that could go wrong, she did not sugarcoat it, but she ended on a high note, “But for now, this looks right on track. Perfect, actually.”
For so many years, this was all that Poppy wanted. From the time she was eighteen, she’d been working to start a family of her own. When she finally gave up, when she finally cried uncle, it was happening…? Well, at least the children part.
How was that possible?
A loud beeping sound went off on Steph’s pager, and she removed the internal wand and then checked it. “I have to go. My patient is at ten centimeters.”
Poppy nodded. “Yeah, go.”
“Are you okay?” Steph removed her gloves and printed out the ultrasound. As she handed it to Poppy she asked, “Do you want me to come back to talk after?”
Poppy looked at the image in her hand. The first official photo of her baby. “No, I’m going home. I have someone waiting.”
Steph’s mouth twitched into a sly smile, the kind she used when she’d just diagnosed someone with a terminal case of love-sickness.
“Would that someone happen to be the dark-haired, dimpled man with golden eyes and an air of authority pacing in the hallway that has every nurse on this floor tripping over their tongues?”
Poppy almost laughed, but then she snapped back to reality. She thought of AJ’s face at the prospect of domesticated life. He had the kind of logic that ran on rails, unyielding, but his eyes always betrayed him, amber and hungry and soft in the rare moments he let his guard down.
He didn’t want kids. He’d made that clear on several occasions. She’d told him that she couldn’t have kids. And she was pregnant. He wasn’t really a gray-area sort of guy. And this was about as gray as you could get.
“That would be him.”
When she’d called her friend as she and AJ left the ER, she was relieved to learn Steph was at the hospital already because she had a patient in active delivery.
She’d told Poppy to put on a gown and wait for her in her exam room.
Poppy asked AJ to wait in the hall, claiming it was because she was going to be getting undressed for the internal ultrasound.
The truth was she was terrified at his reaction.
“Is he the dad?” Steph whispered, although there was no way AJ could hear her.
Yes. Yes, he was. Not only was he the only man Poppy had slept with in the past year and a half or so, but the date showed she was eight weeks pregnant, meaning the bean growing in her tummy was conceived on the night of AJ’s mom and Liam’s dad’s wedding.
“It’s complicated.” She didn’t want to get into it. Technically, he was a one-night stand who had made it clear he never wanted children.
“It always is.” Steph gave her a quick hug before heading out of the door. She opened it, but before leaving gave her friend one more piece of advice. “If you’re feeling dizzy, make sure there are no cement planter boxes around.”
“Got it.”
When the door shut, and she was alone, Poppy inhaled slowly and deliberately as she looked at the ultrasound printout again. The bean was nothing like she’d imagined, but it was also exactly what she’d always wanted. She ran her thumb over the glossy photo until the edges curled.
A huge part of her didn’t want to leave this room, because in this room, in this moment, she was going to be a mom. Once she left this room, left this moment, that wasn’t guaranteed. As Steph pointed out, anything could happen.
Knowing that she couldn’t prolong the inevitable, she folded the ultrasound, placed it in her purse, quickly got dressed, and left the exam room.
AJ was, just as Stephanie said, pacing in the hall.
She noted that his middle fingers were tapping against his palms. Of course he was panicked.
He knew they’d had unprotected sex, and he wasn’t stupid.
“Are you okay? Is everything okay?” he asked.
Poppy nodded, throat tight. She watched for his reaction, but other than looking slightly relieved, he had none, so she began to head to the parking lot. She just wanted to go home.
Her composure was fraying at the edges, a fact she realized he noticed, because instead of pressing her further, he simply started walking beside her, matching her stride, keeping just a half-step behind as if to catch her if she faltered.
He did not question when she veered left, away from the main elevator bank and the scattered chaos of the ER intake.
AJ offered no commentary as she led them down a quiet corridor, past the vending machines and supply closets, to the service elevator.
The elevator ride was silent, except for the hum of fluorescent lighting and the faint soundtrack of their breathing.
Poppy fixed her focus on the brushed steel doors.
In the reflection she caught AJ watching her, eyes narrowed with concentration, like a psychic trying to read the future off the crystal ball of her face.
They exited out the service door onto the parking lot.
The walk to the SUV was surreal, and Poppy felt as if she was dreaming, she just wasn’t sure if it was a nightmare or not.
All of the risks Steph had just detailed were terrifying, not to mention she’d just quit her job and bought a home, except in the opposite order.
She bought a home and then quit her job.
The father of her baby was a man who had no interest in having a family but was, as of a few hours ago, legally a part of her family, so she’d be seeing him on holidays and special occasions.
Also, she had just sustained a significant head injury, so she wasn’t entirely convinced she wasn’t imagining all of this. Maybe her concussion was causing her to have hallucinations. That would actually make a lot more sense than this actually being her reality.
Another car had parked beside them since they arrived at the ER, a minivan with a stick-figure family taped on the rear window.
Poppy wondered if AJ noticed it like she did.
If so, he had no reaction to it, nothing about his expression or demeanor changed.
He clicked the fob and helped her in the passenger door without saying a word, then closed the door.
She exhaled, grateful for the buffer of him walking around to the driver’s seat.
For a full ten seconds, she sat in absolute stillness, the ultrasound printout burning a hole in her bag.
When AJ slid behind the wheel, buckled his seatbelt, and started the engine, he didn’t look at her.
Instead, he thrummed the steering wheel three times before toggling through several different music playlists ultimately settling on a low, instrumental mix that filled the car with a soft, aimless piano.
It was background music for emotional paralysis.
The hospital receded behind them, streetlights painting their faces in intervals of gold and shadow.
The silence between them was thick, unprocessed, and loaded.
She was grateful for it because she wasn’t ready to talk.
Poppy watched the pine trees roll past her window in a blur, just like they had every other time she’d driven that highway.
It seemed impossible that the world had not paused to register the seismic shift in her reality.
She was pregnant.
“Less than a one percent chance,” Steph said, but somehow the odds had bent in her favor or against her, depending on how this turned out. Poppy tried to feel... something. Joy, terror, hope, regret. None of it stuck. She was numb.
The drive home was measured in silence and highway markers.
AJ didn’t push her, didn’t ask the obvious questions.
Instead, he drove cautiously, exactly the speed limit, checking his blind spots twice before every lane change.
The only sign of nerves was the way he tapped his thumbs against the steering wheel in staccato bursts of three on a constant loop and glanced at her every five seconds.
It was a language she could read, it said, I am thinking about you.
I am worried. I am not sure if I should reach over and hold your hand or let you have your space. In the end, he went with space.
At some point, Poppy realized she was clutching the seatbelt so hard she had half-moon impressions in her palms from her nails.
She forced herself to let go and exhaled long and shaky breaths.
The lights of Hope Falls crept closer, then the familiar turnoff, and they were winding through the quiet streets of Hope Falls Hills.