Chapter 18 #2
The painful need to cry lodges in my throat.
I swallow it down. “No. No, you should probably be there. It’s just a check-up before I have to come back for my second ultrasound scan in a couple of weeks.
” Guilt swirls in my stomach. “I have copies of the first scan at home.” I asked the doctor for multiple copies, knowing my parents and sister would want to stick them on their refrigerators or frame them.
“Okay.” Jackson doesn’t ask to see it, but it must be killing him not to.
“Do you have to go to work after this?”
It’s just after one o’clock in the middle of the week, so he must.
He nods.
“You can come by the house later for the scan. My parents already have a copy, and so does my sister. You can take two. One for you and one for your parents.”
I suddenly feel terrible depriving his parents of news that they’re going to be grandparents.
They would have been just as excited to hear about the baby as my parents were.
I haven’t called them or spoken to them, though his mom texted soon after I moved back into the house to let me know that if I ever needed anything, they were there for me.
I’ve known them since I was sixteen, and I love them, but seeing them would have reminded me of Jackson, and I was trying to forget I had a husband. It hurt too much.
He smiles. “I’d like that.” He motions to the entrance. “Should we go?”
“Okay.”
The wait in the waiting room is odd.
Jackson sits quietly beside me after I’ve let the woman at the front desk know I’m here. She keeps glancing at Jackson, and I know she’s remembering how I’ve come to all of my appointments alone, and this is the first time I’m coming with someone.
Her eyes did not miss Jackson’s wedding ring and my lack of one.
When I came to see the doctor, I would always flick through a magazine as I waited.
Head down, eyes focused on an out-of-date magazine containing articles about ‘How to keep your man interested!’ were less painful than seeing the couples sitting together, whispering and smiling at each other as she rested her hand on her pregnant belly, and he smiled down at her.
Seeing them reinforced how alone I was. I could have told Jackson, and he’d likely have come with me, but what woman wants to sit next to her cheating husband when she has constant flashbacks to his assistant giving him a blow job at his desk?
Coming alone was less painful. A different kind of pain, but one I could manage better than having to sit next to him.
“Mrs. Olsen?”
I get to my feet with a smile at the woman who says, “He’s ready to see you now. Room number five.”
Jackson doesn’t move from his seat.
I glance at him and say, “It’s okay. You can come.”
My comment attracts curious glances from the couples in the waiting room, and their gazes track us across the room and into room number five.
Dr. Jaegar looks at Jackson curiously as we enter the room.
He’s been my OB/GYN since I moved back to Melton, and we first went to him after I couldn't get pregnant.
Usually, I attend my appointments alone, but over the years, as we did more tests to work out why I wasn't able to conceive, Jackson started coming with me to some of those appointments.
This is the first prenatal appointment Jackson has come to, and I’m now over sixteen weeks pregnant.
Dr. Jaegar would have expected Jackson to attend at least my first ultrasound scan since he knows how long we’ve been trying to conceive and thought Jackson would be as thrilled as I was to learn I was pregnant.
I never told Dr. Jaegar that Jackson and I were divorcing.
When I didn’t tell him immediately, it felt embarrassing to bring it up later, so I avoided mentioning Jackson in our appointments altogether.
He’s not stupid, though. I stopped wearing my wedding ring, and he must have noticed.
“Hi, Ellary. Good to see you again, Jackson,” Dr. Jaegar says, motioning to the chairs in front of his desk. “Please sit.”
“Thanks,” Jackson says, taking the seat beside me as I place my bag on the floor.
“This is just a quick check-up to see how you’re doing and to get you thinking about birth plans,” Dr. Jaegar says to me.
“It’s still a few weeks before your twenty-week scan, and we can talk in more detail then, but it’s nice to start thinking about these things now so I’m not drowning you in decisions you need to make then. ”
The next thirty minutes pass by quickly. Jackson is quiet, taking the leaflets the doctor passes us and scanning them.
After we leave, he’s quiet until we step into the elevator.
He shakes his head. “That was a lot.”
I glance at him, nearly smiling at his overwhelm. “There is a lot to know. I appreciate that he’s drip-feeding the information.”
He stares at me. “Drip feeding?”
“Apparently, the twenty-week scan comes with a terrifying amount of information, and we have a lot of decisions we need to make about the baby, if we want to learn the sex, and… well, a lot.”
He shakes his head again.
Outside, he walks me to my car and hesitates.
I know he has to get back to work, but he seems to be in no hurry to go. “Thanks.”
I tilt my head. “For?”
He takes a breath and releases it. “Letting me stay. It couldn’t have been easy after how badly I betrayed you.”
I nod. “I thought you would be mad. You know, for keeping it from you.”
“I’m not mad,” he says softly. “You were protecting your mental health. Having me around wouldn’t have helped.”
I nod again, unsure how I feel.
He steps back and lifts the leaflets from the doctor’s office. “Do you mind if I take these with me? I’d like to look through them between breaks at work. And I’ll give them back to you later.”
“You can keep them for a little longer than that.” I hesitate. “Um, and I’ll have those scans ready for you later.”
He smiles. “Is five o’clock okay?”
“That’s fine. I’ll see you at the house later.”