Chapter 6 Melanie
Melanie
By ten a.m., my living room looks like a baby store sneezed. There’s tissue paper everywhere, a suspicious number of Allen wrenches that all look identical, and a crib in twelve languages that insists step four should be obvious. Nothing about step four is obvious.
Amelia sits cross-legged on the rug with the instruction booklet and a highlighter, like she’s prepping for the SATs: Crib Edition. “Okay,” she says, tapping the page. “We need dowels A through C, screws D, E, and possibly F if your baby is advanced.”
Amelia smirks. “Taste. I approve. Hand me an E.”
I pass her something that could be an E or a tax deduction and flop onto the couch with a graceless sigh I blame entirely on my center of gravity.
My hand slides to my belly—round, high, currently doing a slow stretch like a cat waking from a sun nap.
Seven months. How can time move this fast and this slow at once?
“Okay,” Amelia says, not looking up, “why did you tell Lucas the baby isn’t his?”
The question falls into the room like a bowling ball into a ball pit.
I pick at a thread on my maternity leggings. “Because he asked me if it wasn’t his like he needed me to say it. Because I panicked. Because I’m a disaster with a side of lightly salted denial.”
Amelia looks up, eyebrows in the stratosphere. “Mel.”
“I know!” I fling my hands. “But did you hear how he asked? ‘The baby’s not mine, right?’ like… he needed confirmation. Like he was bracing for impact.”
“Or like he didn’t want to blindside you in public?” she counters gently. “Like he was trying to make sure he understood?”
I make a face that is nine parts stubborn and one part… something else I don’t want to name. “He literally told me in Colorado he doesn’t do complicated. And you know what’s complicated? Humans. With diapers.”
“Lots of humans do diapers and complicated,” she says, sliding a dowel into the correct hole with maddening ease. “Charlotte and Asher are learning twelve dog personalities at once with a baby.”
“That’s different,” I say, even though I’m not sure how. “Lucas travels. He works weird hours. He… he’s really good at leaving. And I’m really good at wanting people to stay and then pretending it’s fine when they don’t.”
Amelia’s expression softens. She gets it. She was there for the college heartbreak, the almost-move to New York, the brand deal boy who loved the idea of me more than me. “You could have told him,” she says. “You still can. He has a right to know.”
I rest my palms on the roundness under my sweatshirt.
The baby shifts, a soft roll that makes me catch my breath with something like awe.
“I can do this,” I say, surprising myself with how steady it sounds.
“I can raise this baby on my own. There are whole internet forums of people who do it. I have you. I have Charlotte. I have an army of aunties and a dog rescue in Denver waiting for cuddles.”
“And what if Lucas finds out there’s no Freddy?” Amelia asks, threading a bolt with the patience of a saint.
I snort, tossing my head like a very pregnant horse. “I’m sure he doesn’t care enough to try to find him. He asked, I answered, box checked, everyone gets to keep their uncomplicated lives.”
“Uh-huh,” she says, the universal sister noise for I’m not convinced, but okay. “Hold this rail while I attach the side.”
I waddle over, grip the rail, and we maneuver the crib into three-dimensional reality with the combined power of stubbornness and the promise of snacks. We fall back to admire our work: one pristine white crib, sunlight dusting it with gold like a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
I swallow a lump. “Hi, tiny person’s bed. I’m your mom. I promise not to cry every time I look at you.”
Amelia squeezes my hand. “That’s a lie,” she says fondly, then glances at the time. “I have to get to work.” She pouts.
I give her a hug. “Thank you for helping me.”
“Listen, you need food. Make sure you eat.”
I give her a salute as she grabs her handbag and heads for the door. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m serious, Mel. Eat.”
“I will,” I declare. “The baby wants lo mein.”
She heads out after telling me once more to be sure to eat.
I browse through tiny clothes folded on the coffee table—onesies with stars, a knit sweater that makes me want to knit actual feelings into it—and try not to replay the baby store like a greatest hits reel. Some moments insist on playing anyway.
The baby’s not mine, right?
I exhale, long and controlled, like my prenatal yoga video told me while a woman named Sonya did impossible things with her spine. “I’m fine,” I tell a plant. “We’re fine.”
I grab my phone, and place the order. The sky over Saint Pierce goes cotton-candy pink, and the day slips into that cozy hour where the neighborhood smells like dinner and the world tucks itself in.
I slip on boots and my big cream coat, shove my hair into a messy bun that used to look cute and now looks like a nest for a small bird family, and waddle—walk—to Dragon Garden for takeout because the baby and I need fresh air and also lo mein in under fifteen minutes.
The bell above the door jingles when I push inside. Warmth hits my face, and the place smells like soy sauce, orange peel, and heaven. The hostess smiles. “Order for Melanie?”
“That’s me,” I say, feeling cheerfully anonymous in my puffer and scarf. I pull out my wallet.
A voice behind me: “Hey.”
I know that voice the way my hand knows my belly. It slides under my skin without permission.
I turn. Lucas stands there, hands in his coat pockets, beanie pulled low, a dusting of snow on his shoulders like the weather voted him Most Likely to Be a Movie Poster.
He looks tired in the way people look when they’ve been awake too long with purpose, not with insomnia. He looks… good. Which is deeply rude.
“Hi,” I say, aiming for breezy. It comes out breathy. My lungs are like, we’re busy housing a human, sorry.
“How are you?” he asks, and somehow manages to make it sound like he means all of it, not the default small talk. His eyes flick to my belly, then back to my face. “Everything okay?”
I bob my head, aiming for nonchalant. “Great. Hungry.”
He nods. A beat. “How’s Freddy?”
There it is. The name I invented like a place card at a dinner party. My laugh sticks. “He’s—uh—fine.”
Lucas watches me with that steady scan he does. It’s not interrogation, more like reading the room. The second I think I’ve sold the lie, my belly tightens like someone cinched a belt from the inside. I wince, hand flying to the top of my bump.
“Mel?” Lucas steps closer. “What is it?”
“I’m—mm—okay,” I say through gritted not-okay teeth. It’s like a very bossy hug around my entire abdomen. It eases, then comes back stronger, a wave I ride with a strangled little noise I did not intend to make in public.
Lucas’s hand is at my elbow immediately, warm and steady. “Pain scale?”
“I don’t know,” I breathe. “Five? Seven? Spicy?”
“How long have they been like this?”
“They?” I echo, dumb. Another squeeze hits, and I bend slightly, forehead briefly meeting his chest because physics. “Okay—ow—maybe not fine.”
The hostess materializes, eyes wide. “Do you need water?”
“Water, yes,” Lucas says calmly. He looks at me, attentive, the rest of the restaurant falling away.
“Breathe with me. In…” He inhales. “Out.” He exhales.
His voice is low, steady, please-listen-to-me-I-know-things voice.
I follow because my body has decided it only trusts competent men and noodle dishes.
“It’s too early,” I whisper when the wave recedes, panic prickling the back of my eyes. “It’s too early.”
“Could be Braxton Hicks,” he says. “Could be dehydration. Could be your body rehearsing. Or it could be your body asking to be checked.”
“Checked,” I repeat, already nodding. The baby wiggles, a reassuring nudge against my palm. Please be fine, little star.
Lucas turns to the hostess. “Sorry—can you box hers when it’s ready? We’ll be back for it.”
“We’ll deliver it!” she says, thrusting a pen at me. “Write your address.”
My hands shake as I scribble. Lucas looks at the address like he’s memorizing it for later.
“Let’s go,” he says.
“I can drive,” I insist, because the part of my brain that hates inconvenience is stronger than the part that likes survival. “But my car is two blocks away at my apartment.”
“You’re not driving,” he says, already guiding me toward the door.
“I’ve got you.” He tucks an arm around my shoulders, the other guiding, and we’re out into the cold, snow stinging my cheeks, the night brisk and clean.
He opens the passenger door of a black SUV at the curb and helps me in like I’m glass and storm-proof at once.
“Seatbelt?” he prompts gently. I click it with shaking hands. Another tightening rolls through, and I breathe with it, counting, Lucas counting too under his breath like he’s training with me for a sport we didn’t sign up for.
He jogs around, slides behind the wheel, and pulls smoothly into traffic. One hand on the steering wheel, the other on the console where my fingers find his without asking. He turns his palm up, our fingers interlacing like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“Hospital?” he asks.
“Saint Pierce General,” I say, and he nods once, like of course, and heads that way like he’s been doing this route in his head all day.
He calls Amelia on speaker. “Hey, it’s Lucas. I’m with Melanie.”
Silence, then Amelia: “What’s wrong?”
“Possible early contractions. We’re heading to Saint Pierce General now.”
“I’m on my way,” she says. “I’ll call Mom. Tell Mel I’m bringing the hospital bag because I know she left it behind the couch.”
“I did,” I admit, half laughing, half crying. “I was saving it for dramatic effect.”
Lucas squeezes my fingers. “You’re doing great.”
We pull up to the ER drop-off. He parks in a spot I’m pretty sure says “no,” flashes someone a look that says “yes,” and is at my door in a heartbeat.
Inside, he steers me to triage with efficient calm, relays to the nurse exactly what happened, and the time between cramps—he was counting. Of course he was counting.
The nurse guides me into a wheelchair. “We’ll monitor,” she says in the soothing tone of someone who has seen everything and can handle it all. “We’ll make sure baby is happy.”
“Okay,” I breathe, gripping the sides. “Okay.”
Lucas bends to eye level. The busy waiting room blurs, and it’s just his face and the ridiculous steadiness I told myself I didn’t need.
“I’ll be here,” he says softly. “If they let me, I’ll stay.”
I want to tell him about Freddy, about the truth, about the way his hand on mine makes me feel like I’m tethered to the ground instead of floating away.
I want to confess the panic and the Chinese food and the stolen breath in the baby store, and ask him if he meant complicated like impossible or just… messy.
Another wave builds, and I just nod, tears spilling hot and fast. “Okay.”
The nurse pushes me toward double doors. Lucas straightens, ready to track.
“I’ve got you,” Lucas says toward the nurse, but more toward me.
And even though I’m rolling into a room full of beeping machines and bright lights, my heart unclenches an inch.
Because maybe I can do this on my own. I’ve been saying it all day.
But right now, with Lucas keeping pace at my side like it’s the most natural thing in the world, I don’t have to.