Chapter 25 Daisy
DAISY
The waiting room at Dr. Okonkwo's office smells like hand sanitizer and new carpet. Adam is sitting beside me, his knee bouncing so rapidly that I finally put my hand on it to make him stop.
"Sorry," he mutters. "Nervous."
"I couldn't tell."
"I've never done this before."
"Neither have I."
"You're not bouncing."
"I'm internally bouncing." I lean my head on his shoulder. "Trust me, there's a whole earthquake happening inside my brain right now."
The door to the back opens, and a nurse in purple scrubs appears with a clipboard. "Daisy Williams?"
I stand, Adam immediately standing with me, and the nurse's eyes move between us with barely concealed curiosity.
"Mrs. Smith?" she asks, clearly reading from the chart.
"Williams," I correct automatically, then grimace. "But also... technically Smith. It's complicated."
"I'm her husband," Adam says, and his tone makes the nurse's eyebrows rise. "For now. And I'm working on the rest."
The nurse, her name tag reads PATRICIA, blinks at him. "Okay then."
"What he means," I cut in before Adam can make this weirder, "is that we're still legally married but going through some things. He's the father. He's here because I want him here."
Patricia's expression softens. "Understood. We see all kinds, honey. No judgment. Come on back."
The exam room is small and clinical, with an ultrasound machine that looks like it belongs in a science fiction movie. Patricia takes my vitals with brisk efficiency, asks about my last period (awkward with Adam in the room, but not as awkward as I expected), and makes notes on her tablet.
"Any morning sickness?"
"Some. Mostly if someone microwaves fish."
"Classic." She smiles. "Fatigue?"
"I could sleep for a hundred years."
"Also classic. Any bleeding or cramping?"
"No." The word comes out too fast, betraying my anxiety. "Should there be?"
"I'm checking to make sure there isn't." Her voice is gentle. "Everything sounds perfectly normal so far. Dr. Okonkwo will be in shortly, and we'll do your first ultrasound. Any questions before I go?"
"About a thousand," Adam says.
Patricia laughs. "Save them for the doctor. She loves an engaged father."
When she's gone, Adam immediately starts examining every piece of equipment in the room. "What's this for? What about this? Is this where the baby shows up on the screen?"
"Adam, please sit down before you break something expensive."
He sits, but his leg starts bouncing again. I don't stop him this time.
"I read that we might be able to see cardiac activity today," he says. "Is that true? The book said six weeks is usually when they can detect it, but sometimes it's later, and if we don't see it I don't want you to panic because it doesn't necessarily mean—"
"Adam."
"What?"
"You're spiraling again."
"I know." He takes a deep breath. "I just want everything to be okay."
"Me too."
The door opens and Dr. Okonkwo enters, a tall woman with graying locs and kind eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. She shakes both our hands, settles onto her stool, and reviews the chart with calm efficiency.
"So, Daisy. First pregnancy?"
"Yes."
"And you believe you're approximately six weeks along?"
"Based on my calculations, yes." I don't look at Adam. "I know the approximate... date."
Dr. Okonkwo's lips twitch like she's suppressing a smile. "Most people do. Let's take a look and see if the measurements match up."
The ultrasound gel is cold, and the probe is uncomfortable, but I barely notice because I'm staring at the screen. At first it's just gray static, meaningless shapes and shadows. Then Dr. Okonkwo adjusts something, and there it is.
A tiny white blob. Barely visible. But unmistakably there.
"There we go," Dr. Okonkwo says. "That's your baby."
Adam makes a sound like he's been punched. I can't make any sound at all.
"Let's see whether we can find cardiac activity."
She adjusts the image, then points.
A tiny flicker. There, then there again.
Quick and steady and impossibly real.
"Oh my god," I whisper. "That's… that's inside me?"
"That flicker is cardiac activity," Dr. Okonkwo confirms. "The rate and measurements look reassuring for this stage."
Adam's hand finds mine and squeezes so tight it almost hurts. When I glance at him, his eyes are wet.
"Based on the measurements," Dr. Okonkwo continues, "I'd estimate you're at about six weeks, which is consistent with a conception date roughly four weeks ago. Sound about right?"
Four weeks ago. The basement flood. The candles and the rain and the moment everything changed.
I feel myself laugh and cry at the same time, the sounds mixing into what might be hysteria. "Yeah," I manage. "That sounds about right."
"The flood," Adam says, and his voice is choked. "That's when… the basement—"
"I remember." My laugh has turned into full-blown tears. "I remember."
Dr. Okonkwo hands me a tissue with the practiced ease of someone who's seen this reaction a thousand times. "I'll give you two a moment. What we can see today looks reassuring. I'll print out some pictures for you to take home."
When she's gone, Adam slides off his chair and kneels beside the exam table, pressing his forehead to my hip.
"I can see it," he says. "Daisy. That little flicker."
"I know."
"It's real. It's actually real."
"I know."
He looks up at me, and his face is a wreck, tears and joy and disbelief all mixed together. "Thank you," he whispers. "For letting me be here. For letting me be part of this."
"Where else would you be?"
"Three months ago? Anywhere else. Anywhere you weren't." He turns his face to kiss my hip through the paper gown. "I'm never going back there. Never."
I run my fingers through his hair, and for a moment we just stay like that: me on the table, him on his knees, the flicker on the screen still bright in my mind.
Gray and Abbie's apartment is somehow exactly what I expected and nothing like it at all. Modern and minimalist, but with enough warm touches (plants, throw blankets, a wall of cookbooks) that it feels like a home rather than a showroom.
Abbie answers the door with flour on her cheek and a wooden spoon in her hand. "They're here!" she yells over her shoulder. "Try to look normal!"
"When have I ever looked normal?" Gray appears behind her, wearing an apron that says KISS THE COOK. "Daisy. Adam. Welcome to our humble chaos."
"Do you need a hand?" Adam asks.
"Absolutely not." Abbie doesn't seem concerned. "The garlic bread is running late. Come in, come in."
The apartment smells like Italian food and candles, and there's soft music playing from somewhere. Gray takes our coats while Abbie rushes back to the kitchen, and within minutes we're settled on the couch with glasses of wine that Adam immediately notices I'm not drinking.
"Water," he says, handing me a glass. "I checked."
Gray's eyes narrow. "You're not drinking."
"I'm not thirsty for wine," I say, which is technically true.
"You're always thirsty for wine. You once told me wine was one of the three reasons you got out of bed in the morning."
"What were the other two?" Abbie asks, returning with a platter of appetizers.
"Coffee and spite."
I can't help but laugh. "I said that during a very specific period of my life."
"Three months ago."
"Like I said. Specific."
Abbie settles onto the arm of Gray's chair, her eyes moving between me and Adam with the intensity of someone trying to solve a puzzle. "Something's different," she announces. "You two are doing something weird with your faces."
"We're smiling," Adam says.
"Yes, but it's a specific kind of smile." She leans forward. "I know that smile. That's a baby smile."
There's a beat of silence.
"Oh my god," Gray says slowly. "Oh my god."
"We wanted to tell you in person," I start, but I don't get to finish because Abbie is shrieking.
"A BABY?" She's on her feet, hands flapping. "You're having a BABY? Oh my god, oh my god, when did this happen? How far along are you? Do you know if it's a boy or a girl? Have you picked names? Can I throw you a shower? I throw excellent showers, ask anyone—"
"Breathe, Abs," Gray says, but he's grinning. "Let them actually answer."
"Six weeks," I manage through my own smile. "We found out last week. We just had the first ultrasound today. Everything looks healthy."
"Can I see? Do you have pictures?" Abbie is practically vibrating.
Adam pulls the ultrasound photo from his wallet, where he's apparently been carrying it since we left the doctor's office. "It doesn't look like much yet. Mostly a blob. But that's where we saw the flicker…" he points, "… and that's the—"
"That's your baby," Abbie finishes, her voice going soft. "Look at your baby."
Gray comes over to look, his hand settling on his wife's shoulder. "Damn, Smith. You actually did it."
"Did what?"
"Got your head out of your ass." He grins. "Welcome to the terror of impending fatherhood. It's awful. You're going to love it."
"I already do." Adam's voice is quiet, and when he looks at me, his expression is so open and so raw that I have to look away.
Dinner is chaotic and loud and perfect, Abbie's baked ziti could feed a football team, Gray keeps making jokes about Adam's "new dad energy," and somehow we end up going through a bottle of wine for Gray and Abbie and two liters of sparkling water (for me).
"He's going to be insufferable," Gray announces as we're finishing dessert. "You know that, right? He's going to be the dad who coaches tee-ball and knows all the other parents' names and brings the best snacks to practice."
"I was thinking organic fruit cups," Adam says seriously.
"See? Insufferable."
"What about you?" Abbie asks me. "How are you feeling about all this?"
"Terrified," I admit. "Happy. Overwhelmed. Like my life changed completely overnight and I'm still trying to catch up."
"That's parenthood." She reaches over to squeeze my hand. "You're going to be amazing."
"You don't know that."
"I know you." Her smile is warm. "And I've seen the way he looks at you. Whatever happened before, that's not who you two are now. The fact that you're here, together, trying? That's everything."
I feel tears prick my eyes and blink them back. "Thanks, Abbie."
"Also, he's already carrying your ultrasound in his wallet, which means he's gone." She glances at Adam, who's now deep in conversation with Gray about strollers. "Like, completely gone. I've never seen him like this."
"He's been reading parenting books."
"Of course he has." She laughs. "Did he highlight them?"
"Color-coded."
"Oh, he's gone."
The drive back to the bookstore is quiet, but it's a good quiet. Adam holds my hand across the center console, his thumb tracing patterns on my palm, and the city lights blur past the windows.
"Tonight was good," he says.
"It was."
"They were happy for us."
"They were." I turn to look at him. "Gray's right, you know. You are going to be insufferable."
"In a good way?"
"In a very Adam way."
He smiles, that soft smile that makes my heart do stupid things. "I can live with that."
When we pull up outside The Margin, he parks but doesn't move to get out. Just sits there, looking at the darkened storefront.
"I don't want to say goodnight," he admits.
"Then don't."
He turns to look at me. "What?"
"Come upstairs." The words come out before I can overthink them. "Just for a while. We can talk, or not talk, or—"
I don't finish the sentence because his mouth is on mine, soft and hungry and tasting like the tiramisu from dinner. When he pulls back, his eyes are dark.
"Are you sure?"
"Take me upstairs."
I disarm the shop alarm as we let ourselves in.
We pass the box of Mom’s books in the dry front storage nook, still waiting for Nell’s basement repairs, and make it upstairs without speaking, the stairs creaking under our feet.
The apartment is dark except for the streetlight filtering through the windows, and when I unlock the door, Chaucer is nowhere to be seen, probably sulking because dinner was late.
"Daisy." Adam's voice is rough. "If you want me to go—"
I pull him inside by his jacket and kiss him.
It's not like the soft kisses we've been exchanging for weeks.
This is something else, urgent and wanting and full of all the things we haven't said.
His hands find my waist; mine fist in his collar.
We stumble until my back hits the apartment door with a soft thud, and the sound makes us both grin like we got away with something.
"We should—" he starts.
"I know." I drag his mouth back to mine. "In a minute."
His mouth drops to my throat while his thigh slots between mine, and I grind down shamelessly.
He groans like I've committed a crime worth celebrating.
His hands slide up under the hem of my dress, then higher, palms spanning my ribs, and I yank his shirt free of his waistband just to get at the inked heat of his stomach, mapping the familiar lines like a promise I'm almost ready to keep.
"Bedroom," he murmurs against my pulse. "Bed. I am not going to fumble a night we finally have to ourselves against a door like a teenager."
"Since when are you sensible?"
"Since you started carrying our kid." He kisses me again, slower, filthier, one hand splayed warm and careful low on my belly even as the other fists in my hair. "Give me thirty seconds of restraint and then I'll be as un-sensible as you want."
"Thirty seconds," I breathe against his mouth. "Counting."
Then the air changes. First as a tickle in my nose. Then as a wrongness. Then as the faintest thread of smoke: wrong for kissing, wrong for candles, wrong for everything we were about to be.
"Do you smell that?" I pull back, suddenly alert.
Adam frowns. "Smell what?"
"Something's—" I inhale sharply. "Something's burning."
He straightens in an instant. I grab my phone as he moves toward the door, and the smell gets stronger. Smoke, and not from cooking or a candle.
Fire smoke.
The smoke alarm starts shrieking. Adam throws open the door, and smoke billows in from the hallway, thick and acrid. Below us, somewhere in the store, I can hear the crackle of flames.
"The store," I gasp. "The Margin, Nell's store—"
Adam grabs my hand.
Both of us freeze, staring at the smoke curling up the stairwell.