Chapter 27 #2
The words didn’t register at first. It was as if Poppy’s brain began to buffer at “cleared for regular activity,” as if the sounds themselves were so foreign that her mind lagged, lagged, lagged, then finally caught up, opening a trapdoor that dumped her into a sudden wash of relief.
The baby was healthy. She was healthy. Her body was responding well to the pregnancy. The baby was growing. Heartbeat was strong. The placenta looked perfect. Measurements were on track. Everything was good. Better than good.
Was this what it felt like to win the lottery? She imagined this must be how the newly pardoned felt: uncertain, giddy, and wary that a man with a rubber stamp might suddenly barge in and revoke the whole thing.
Poppy couldn’t believe what she’d just heard, but then…
“Cautiously optimistic.”
Those two words repeated over and over as she looked out the window of AJ’s SUV and watched the pine trees flash by. Steph said she was cautiously optimistic.
Now what?
For weeks, she’d lived in this suspended animation, moving through hours and days as if the human growing inside of her was an abstract concept, because it was. But now, now she had to get it together.
She needed a job. A real job. Should she go back to Pine Ridge? Technically she was on a sabbatical. She could return after the new year and just pick up where she left off like nothing happened.
Who cares if it wasn’t her “dream job?” She had a baby to support, a family. She placed her hand over her belly.
It’s just you and me…
Fuck. She didn’t know what she was going to call the human inside of her. That was a huge responsibility. That one decision would affect this human’s life forever. Her name had not done her any favors.
The only thing she’d wanted all her life was to have a family and have babies. How had she never named her hypothetical children? Her friends in school did. They even went as far as to call dibs on names they liked. How had she let that detail slip through the cracks?
If she hadn’t even done that, what else was she going to mess up or forget?
Her chest began to tighten and her palms sweat as she stared out the passenger window. The world blurred. What if she couldn’t do this? What if she fucked it all up?
“What are you thinking about?” AJ’s tone, like the man, was steady and strong.
She’d looked up at him during the ultrasound, wanting a connection, wanting to feel a bond during that moment, and saw…
nothing. No emotion. No joy. No tears. No fear.
Nothing. It made her feel…alone. He was in the room, but it was just her experiencing the high, the joy, the fear, and the tears.
She didn’t know if that was actually the reality.
If his expression was blank because he didn’t have any emotions looking at the monitor and hearing the heartbeat or if he just wasn’t displaying them.
If it were a topic that wasn’t a raw nerve ending to her, she’d have asked, but since it was, she figured, why poke the emotional bear inside of her?
“Names.” She could hear the jagged edges to her voice, part panic, part frustration. “I’m thinking about names.”
AJ remained quiet, and even though she knew it was irrational, his silence irritated the shit out of her.
“Cool, you just wanted that information, not to actually have a conversation?” she snapped at him.
“Do you want to talk?” His voice was comforting and soothing, yet had the exact opposite effect on her.
“Do you?” she snapped back.
“Yes.”
“Oh.” That actually surprised her, it knocked her off her emotional high horse. She was sure he’d say no. “Okay.”
“What names were you thinking about?”
“I wasn’t, that’s the problem. I was thinking that, for something I’ve wanted all my life, you would think that I would have thought of names, but I haven’t. I have no idea what to name this person.”
AJ didn’t respond at first, letting the statement hang suspended between them, then finally he stated, “You have time.”
“People think that they have time, but then a day turns into a week, a week turns into a month, and pretty soon nine months have flown by.” Poppy took a breath, and there was a tremor in her voice as she continued, “Naming a human is a huge responsibility. Names are important. I hated my name growing up. Kids made fun of it. I never thought I could have a serious job because who would take someone named Poppy seriously? Can you imagine a CEO named Poppy?”
“Yes. Poppy Gustafsson, CEO of Darktrace, was awarded the OBE for services to cybersecurity.”
She sighed and leaned her head back against the headrest. Of course, AJ would know a CEO named Poppy.
“That wasn’t your point,” he stated as if he was only just figuring that out.
“No,” she confirmed. “It wasn’t.”
“That was a specific, non-literal, rhetorical question meant to demonstrate the broader challenges you faced having an obscure, unique name.”
“Yes,” she confirmed.
A few moments of silence passed before AJ spoke. “I like your name. It reminds me of my favorite painting by Vincent Van Gogh.”
“He did sunflowers,” Poppy corrected him.
“He did do sunflowers. He also did Field of Poppies.”
“Oh.” Why the fuck would she correct AJ about anything when he was literally the smartest person she knew?
She could add that to the empirical evidence of her stupidity, which was another reason she was probably going to mess this up.
“I should know that since it’s my name, and I took art history my freshman year of college.
If I didn’t even know that Van Gogh had painted poppies, how can I be trusted to name, much less raise, a whole person? ”
Poppy recognized the change in her breathing pattern. The octave shift in her voice. It was higher. She was panicking.
AJ remained calm, soothing, and steady. “Art knowledge is not a prerequisite for motherhood or an indicator as to whether or not you’ll be a good parent. And you are not—”
“Well, maybe it should be,” Poppy argued back, cutting him off. “I mean, how many people’s lives have been ruined because of their name? It’s a person’s entire identity.”
Poppy had been so upset the entire drive she didn’t even realize how close they were to home when they pulled up the driveway of AJ’s Airbnb.
He didn’t turn off the engine, he just sat in place, the engine idling. “It’s natural to feel overwhelmed. It’s okay to feel relieved, happy, scared, and grateful all at the same time.”
She blinked up at him. “I’m not—” She started to argue but then realized every single one of those emotions was fighting for first place just below the surface. “Okay, yeah, I guess maybe I’m overwhelmed.”
He turned to face her. “You are not alone. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. And when you’re ready, your family will be here for you, too.”
Tears began to well in her eyes, and she looked down at her hand resting on her belly, and she inhaled.
Poppy knew that he meant what he was saying—he would be there for her, and so would her family—but she still felt like she was doing this alone.
She’d always pictured doing this with a partner, someone who they’d planned this together, and they came up with a birthing plan, and she knew that AJ would be there for her, and he’d do the right thing by the baby, and for that she was luckier than a lot of women, but still…
it was just not how she thought it was going to be.
“Dylan.”
Her head spun towards him. “What?”
“The name. For our baby. Dylan.”
What had started as a little bit of moisture filling her lower lids was now huge puddles.
Dylan. That was the perfect name. Treating Dylan was the first time in Poppy’s life she ever felt good at anything, she ever felt like she mattered, or she ever felt like if she didn’t wake up in the morning someone on earth would miss her.
Of course her baby should be named Dylan.
Her bottom lip trembled. “What if it’s a girl? ”
“Dylan,” he stated again.
She smiled as two large teardrops fell down her cheeks. Yep. Dylan. It was perfect. That name was perfect. AJ was perfect, too.
“Come on. I’m gonna be late.” He got out of the SUV and came around and opened Poppy’s door.
“Late for what?” she asked as he helped her down. She wiped her cheeks and sniffed, wondering what she’d forgotten as they hurried to the ADU.
“OnlyFans. I can’t let my public down. It’s chicken and rice tonight.”
Her head fell back as she belly laughed. It had been a running joke now that whenever AJ cooked, he was livestreaming for his “public.” He even pretended to talk to them sometimes just to make her laugh, especially if she was having a tough day.
He always did that, whenever she was upset or in pain or overwhelmed, he knew exactly how to distract and entertain her, but he could also have the hard talks, like he’d just shown.
AJ let them in, and he immediately went to work on chicken and rice for dinner with strict instructions for her to rest.
Poppy sat on the loveseat and pulled out her computer.
She tried to concentrate on her thesis notes, but she just kept getting distracted by the hotness in the kitchen.
All her life she had a picture in her head of what her perfect life, and her perfect family would look like.
She’d have her dream job, meet the love of her life, they would date, get married, buy a house together, get a dog, and start a family.
As of now her professional life was in limbo, she bought a house alone, she was back in school, she had no dog, the love of her life was a one-night-stand fail who was also her brother’s new wife’s brother, and she was pregnant, but she hadn’t told anyone in her family.
It definitely wasn’t what she’d pictured, but she was starting to believe it was the way things were always supposed to be.