22. Francisca
CHAPTER 22
Francisca
L ying in the dark with Dayton’s hand wrapped around mine and the sound of our baby's heartbeat filling the quiet of the room, I’m catapulted back in time to a few months ago when he came to my first ultrasound appointment with me. So much has changed since then, and not just my body, but our relationship is so different now. We are no longer just two strangers who are having a baby, and although I learn something new about him every single day, I feel like I know him better than anyone.
“Where is it?” Dr. Bride asks no one in particular as he moves the ultrasound wand over my stomach, and I turn my head focus on the screen. Unlike my first appointment, you can clearly make out the tiniest details of our baby including the nose and lips, and even the outline of one tiny ear. “Okay you two, are you sure you just want me to tell you what you’re having and that you don’t want to do some fancy reveal?”
“I’m sure,” I laugh. My mom tried to get me to just have Dr. Bride send her an e-mail with the sex of the baby so that she could throw us a party and make it a big deal when we announced the sex, but honestly, that sounded like a nightmare, so I turned her down. I just want the moment to be between Dayton and I. We can share it with everyone else later.
“Dad, are you sure?”
“Absolutely,” Dayton tells him while squeezing my hand.
“Alright then, Mom and Dad, you are going to be the proud parents of a bouncing baby boy in just a few more months.”
“It’s a boy?” I whisper, tipping my head back towards Dayton, and I find a look of awe on his face. “You were right.”
“Yeah.” He smooths his hand over the top of my head, then leans down to brush his lips across mine. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve gone back and forth on what we might be having but he’s held firm in his belief that we were having a boy. “I guess in a couple years, we’re going to need to get you an SUV to haul around soccer gear.”
“I guess so.” I laugh, remembering the conversation we had the night we met.
“Congratulations, you two.” Dr. Bride tells us
“Thanks.” I smile at him while Dayton asks.
“Is everything else okay?”
“He looks perfect.” He assures him before he focuses back on the screen to finish taking measurements while talking to me about what I might experience over the next few weeks. I have been lucky in my pregnancy so far. Besides morning sickness in the beginning and having to pee much more often, I haven’t had any strange side effects. Okay, that’s not exactly true. The hairy thing has started, so I’ve had to shave more often than I did before, but even that isn’t a big deal. Though I might feel differently in a couple months when shaving becomes difficult for me to do on my own.
A few minutes later, Dr. Bride leaves the room after reminding us to schedule our next appointment at the front desk, and I get off the bed with Dayton’s help. As I adjust my dress and slip on my sandals, I hold onto him, afraid I’ll tip over from the bump I’m now carrying around. Where before you would have to be paying close attention to see that I was pregnant, now there is no hiding it. Even hidden under my loose summer dress, you can make out the roundness of my stomach nowadays. And my belly is Dayton’s new obsession. He’s constantly touching it or talking to it in an attempt to get the baby to move. It's sweet and even sweeter to see his reaction when he gets a response.
“Who should we tell first?” I take my purse when he holds it out to me.
“Your mom and dad, then we’ll tell my family, and you can tell your girls.” He opens the door for me to step out of the exam room before him.
“My mom is going to gloat that she was right.” I smile up and him when he laughs.
“Probably.” He agrees taking his phone out of his pocket. Since I didn’t hear it ring, I know he must have had it on silent for the appointment. “Sorry baby, I got to take this. It’s Mary. Are you okay here?” He asks as we stop at the front desk.
“Yeah, go on.” I know that he’s been waiting anxiously to hear back from the judge he presented his case to. I hope that’s what this call is about.
“Meet me by the elevator when you’re done.”
“Sure.” I feel his lips at my temple before he walks away. Turning my attention back to the woman at the desk, I tell her that I need another appointment then I pick a time and day that I think will work for Dayton since I know he will want to come with me.
When I’m done, I leave the office and make my way down the hall to the elevators, where I find Dayton with his cell to his ear. Since he came right from work today, he’s still in a dress shirt, but now the sleeves are rolled up, his tie is gone along with his suit jacket that he had on when he left the house this morning. Hearing my sandals on the tile floor, his eyes lift to mine, and his face gets soft as he holds out his hand to me while he continues talking.
“Yeah, Mary, thanks again for letting me know.” Pulling me towards him, when I place my hand in his, he touches his lips to my forehead. “Alright, I won’t be back in the office today. We just got out of Franny’s doctor’s appointment and are going to celebrate that we’re having a boy and share the news with our families.” He laughs. “Thanks, and I’ll let her know you said that.” Another pause. “Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“So?” I ask when he hangs up.
“We can move forward.”
“That’s great news, congratulations.”
“Thanks, baby.” He leans down pressing a kiss to my lips before reaching over to press the button for the elevator. “Mary also said congrats.”
“Tell her I said thanks when you talk to her again.”
“I will.” He smiles, his shoulders relaxed. The tension he’s been carrying around his eyes for the last couple weeks seems less present. I’ve been worried about him, not because of his case, but because the district attorney’s office has been under media scrutiny and suffering from internal turmoil since the truth about Jamie and Billy came out, including the news that she is pregnant with his child. Billy attempted to kill the story, but without Dayton to use as a scapegoat, that didn’t happen, and now people are demanding that Billy step down from his role as district attorney. I can’t even pretend that I feel sorry for him, the only people in that situation who have my empathy are his wife or soon-to-be ex-wife since Shelly has filed for divorce, Jamie, and her unborn child.
“Has Billy said anything about stepping down?” I ask as we step off the elevator hand in hand.
“Not to me or anyone else in the office. I think that with Jamie no longer around to make things awkward or to remind people of what he did, he thinks that everyone will eventually forget, and it will all blow over.”
“Jerk.”
“Yeah.” I hear the smile in his voice.
“Hopefully, Jamie is going to be okay.”
“I think she’ll land on her feet. She mentioned moving back home to her parents in Florida so that they can help her with the baby. And I told her that I’d be a reference for whatever jobs she applied to.”
“That will be good, even though I hate that it lets Billy off the hook. If she’s not here he doesn’t exactly have to be responsible.”
“I think that it’s wiser that he doesn’t have any real involvement with the baby. The guy is a selfish prick.”
“I guess you’re right,” I mutter my agreement as we step out of the building together.
“Should we pick up a cake and take it to your parents?”
“A cake?” I laugh.
“We can get one of the grocery stores to write it’s a boy on one and surprise them with it.”
“Mom isn’t going to let Dad eat cake.”
“She might make an exception for this occasion.”
“Alright, but I’m going to tell her that this was your idea if she freaks about having high fructose corn syrup in the house.”
“I’ll take the blame.” He laughs as we walk down the sidewalk.
Since we drove separately, he follows me to my car, and we make a plan to meet back at our building where I can drop off my car and grab PJ before we go to the grocery store to pick up a cake.
On the way home I group call my girls and ask them if we can meet for dinner the next evening. I want to be able to share the news that I’m having a boy with them in person and not over the phone. Since Georgia is out of town for the next few days, we make plans to meet on Friday then they each try to guess what news I have to share. None of them are correct, but they all do guess that I’m going to tell them that I’m engaged. The idea of marrying Dayton doesn’t seem as scary as it did just a few weeks ago, but I still don’t think that we are ready to take that step which is probably ridiculous since we are basically living together and I’m having his baby.
As I’m pulling up to park in front of our building, I recognize Matthew’s car and inwardly groan. I haven’t seen him since I visited his office weeks ago, and we haven’t spoken since then either. And not just because I’m avoiding him, he hasn’t called or text once either.
I hang up with the girls after telling them that we’ll see each other soon then park as Dayton double parks next to me. As I’m getting out of the car, Matthew comes from the side of the building where my apartment door is.
“Hey, I just knocked,” he says walking towards me as I slam my door, and he freezes mid step with his eyes glued to my stomach. “You’re pregnant,” he whispers as I hear a door slam.
“Ugh, yeah,” I assumed my mom would have shared the news with his mom and that she would have shared it with him but apparently that hasn’t happened.
I feel Dayton come up from behind me, and Matthew eyes move to over my shoulder.
“This is why you said it was serious between you two.”
“No, I said it’s serious because I’m in love with him.” I tell him quietly and his expression fills with pain.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you’re pregnant?”
“Because you and I aren’t exactly involved in each other’s lives anymore. And I kind of assumed that your mom would share the news with you.”
“She didn’t.”
“I see that now.” I agree softly.
“I still love you,” he says and Dayton makes a noise in the back of his throat.
“I’m sorry, Matthew, I’ll always care about you, but I don’t feel the same.”
“Fuck.” He tips his head back to the sky then drops his gaze back to me. “I should go.” I don’t reply, because honestly I don’t even know what to say.
“You okay?” Dayton asks when he’s pulling away a minute later.
“Yeah,” I tip my head back to look up at him. “I feel bad that in his head there was still a shot at us working out, but he had to know in his gut that that was never going to happen.”
“Hope springs eternal, baby.”
“I guess so.”
“You sure you’re okay?” His eyes search mine.
“I don’t want to sound callous, but it feels like I’ve lived a thousand lives since he and I were together if that makes sense.”
“I can understand that.” He wraps his arm around me and starts leading me towards my apartment.
“Hopefully he’ll find someone who makes him happy.” I lean into his side.
“Only time will tell.”
“Yeah, only time will tell,” I agree. I just hope if it does happen, he realizes what he has before it’s too late.
* * *
Coming awake it takes me a second to realize that the sense of being alone I feel is because Dayton isn’t with me in bed. I don’t think I’ve ever woken up without him unless it’s after he’s left for work, but even then, he always kisses me goodbye before he goes. Lifting my head off my pillow I look towards the bathroom and find the door open but the light off, so he’s not in there. Reaching over to the side of the bed for my phone on the nightstand, I pick it up and check the screen. It’s a little after three in the morning, which is way too early for him to be up for work or out with PJ who also seems to be missing.
Tossing back the blanket, it takes me a minute to get up, the weight of the baby on my full bladder making it uncomfortable to move or even sit up. Once I finally get my feet on the floor I quickly go and use the restroom then leave the bedroom in search of Dayton. It doesn’t take me long to find him in what was his guest room until a couple of weeks ago when my brother and his all showed up and got everything moved to a storage locker. Stopping in the bedroom door, I lean against the jamb and feel my chest get warm as I watch my guy wearing nothing but a pair of plaid sleep pants with his glasses on reading an instruction manual with a few pieces of the baby bed he bought on the floor in front of him, and some other pieces already put together leaning against the wall.
Okay maybe this look on him tops them all.
“What’s going on in that head of yours?” he asks, and I focus on him.
“Just thinking that this is my favorite look on you. Sexy soon-to-be dad putting together furniture.” I watch him smile.
“What was your favorite look before?”
“It was a tossup between hot professor and sexy athletic guy.”
“Is that so?” He grins as I walk to him. Once I’m standing in front of him, he cups my belly in both his hands and presses a kiss to it before he pulls me down to sit on his lap. “You should be sleeping.”
“Your son woke me up sitting on my bladder.” I pet PJ when he wanders over to me to say hi with his tail wagging.
“I’ll have a talk with him.” He leans down to my stomach. “Hey kid, you need to be kind to your mom while you’re living in there.”
“I’m sure that worked.” I laugh threading my fingers though his hair. “Why are you awake?”
“Just couldn’t sleep, so I figured I’d do something productive with my time.” He lifts the instruction manual he was looking at then tosses it aside.
I lean over and pick up one of the pieces of wood next to us. “Okay, tell me what we’re doing.”
“You’re not doing anything except sitting here looking unbelievably fuckable in this nightgown.” He slides his fingers under the lace at the bodice and I smile.
“Should I be offended that you’re not allowing me to help put together furniture, big guy?” I ask softly tugging his hair.
“Sure, but it’s not going to change anything.” He kisses me then helps me off his lap before he stands. “Anyways we’re going back to bed. I’ll finish the crib tomorrow.”
“Are you sure you can sleep?”
“Don’t worry about me, you need rest.” He flips off the light then captures my hand and leads me down the dark hall to the bedroom. Once we are both in bed, he pulls me against his side and I lay my head on his chest. “We need to start thinking about names soon.”
“Do you have something in mind?” I ask tipping my head back to look at him through the dark.
“I’ve never thought about it before, do you have any names you like?”
“Dayton,” I say, and he chuckles rolling towards me.
“That’s not happening.”
“Dayton Jr.”
“No.” He kisses the top of my head.
“It doesn’t hurt to try.” I press my lips to the underside of his jaw. “Molly sent me a few names, so we can look at those.”
“Are they from guys she’s met on whatever dating app she's using right now?”
“I don’t think so.” I laugh softly.
“I’ll pick up a book tomorrow, and we can start going through it for ideas.”
“Or we could have the kids name the baby. They would all love being involved.”
“I love my nieces and nephews but if we did that, we’d end up with a kid named Hamburger or T. rex.”
“Don’t hate me but I kind of love that, we can call him Hammy for short or Rex depending on which one we decide to go with,” I tell him smiling and his body shakes as he starts to laugh.
The sound of his hilarity stirs the baby, and he pushes his feet and his hands out like he’s trying to get closer to the sound of his dad’s laughter, and feeling him move, Dayton slides his hand across my stomach to where his son is and just holds it there. At his touch our son stills like he recognizes his dad and tears fill my eyes. It’s such a surreal moment, because I know that Dayton can feel the love our son has for him and our son can feel his father’s love. The significance of that is not lost on me. It’s something that will forever be imprinted in my mind as one of the most beautiful moments in my life.