10. Heather
— ? —
Heather
“Is the father joining us today?”
The receptionist asks it brightly, routinely, unaware of the grenade she’s just lobbed into my chest.
“I…” I hesitate.
I know he’s there. He has been in the parking lot at every appointment since the hospital, his car in the same corner spot, never pushing, just present. I’ve seen him through the clinic windows, sitting behind the wheel with his hands folded, waiting for something I haven’t decided to give.
Week after week, that silver car in the corner of my vision every time I come here. Weeks of knowing he’s out there, watching, hoping, not asking for anything.
Part of me wants to let him sit there forever. Part of me wants to march out to that parking lot and scream at him until my voice gives out.
Part of me wants my husband back.
“One moment,” I tell the receptionist.
I pull out my phone. Text Maya.
Send him up.
The response comes immediately: You sure?
No. Send him anyway.
I watch through the window as Maya crosses the parking lot.
I can’t see his face from here, but I see the way his whole body goes rigid when she approaches his car.
The way he almost falls getting out. The way he follows her back toward the building like a man who’s been offered water in a desert and doesn’t quite believe it’s real.
The door to the waiting room opens.
He comes through looking like a man approaching a bomb.
“Heather. I didn’t - I wasn’t expecting - thank you.”
I don’t respond. Just gesture to the chair beside me.
He sits. He doesn’t try to take my hand.
We wait in silence. The clock on the wall ticks. Someone’s toddler is making noise in the corner, and their mother keeps apologizing, and the whole room feels surreal - this mundane moment in the middle of everything broken.
“Mrs. Hale?”
I stand. Grayson stands.
The nurse looks between us, notes something in the tension, and leads us back without comment.
The exam room is small and cold, the way they always are. I change into the paper gown, lie back on the table, and stare at the ceiling while Grayson hovers by the door like he’s not sure he’s allowed to be here.
“You can sit down.”
He sits. Still doesn’t try to touch me.
The technician enters. A young woman, cheerful, oblivious to the wreckage in the room.
“Alright, let’s see how baby is doing today!”
Gel on my stomach, cold and shocking. The wand pressing down. The screen flickering to life with grainy black and white.
And then.
The sound fills the room. Rapid and strong and impossibly alive.
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump.
Our baby’s heartbeat.
My throat closes. My eyes burn. I press my hand to my mouth and try to hold myself together.
Beside me, Grayson is crying in a way I have never seen a man cry. Not quiet dignified tears, but gut-wrenching sobs that shake his whole body, his hand pressed over his mouth like he can hold himself together by force.
“Strong heartbeat,” the technician says, either not noticing or tactfully ignoring the emotional devastation in the room. “Measuring right on track. Fourteen weeks now - and your bloodwork results came back this morning. Would you like to know the sex?”
“Yes,” I manage.
“It’s a girl. Congratulations.”
A girl. A daughter.
I think about the tiny yellow shoes with the ducks. The card addressed to Daddy. The reveal that was supposed to be perfect.
I want to reach for him. My arms actually ache with it - the muscle memory of five years of comfort, of turning to him in moments like this, of sharing joy and grief and everything in between.
I keep my hands folded in my lap.
The technician finishes, hands me a strip of photos, and leaves us alone.
“Take your time,” she says on her way out.
Grayson wipes his face. Can’t seem to stop the tears.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry, I know I don’t have the right-”
“You don’t.”
He nods. “I know.”
“You should have heard this weeks ago. You should have been there when I found out. We should have celebrated together, the way we dreamed about for five years.”
“I know.”
“But instead I told my best friend in a café, and then I told you in a hospital, and now we’re hearing our baby’s heartbeat in a room that smells like antiseptic while I try to figure out if I can ever trust you again.”
He doesn’t defend himself. Doesn’t explain. Doesn’t make excuses.
“Whatever you need,” he says. “Whatever timeline you need. I’ll be in that parking lot every appointment. I’ll be wherever you want me to be, and I won’t push. I’ll wait.”
I look at him.
The anger is still there. It will be there for a long time - a low hum beneath everything, a wound that hasn’t finished bleeding.
But underneath it, something else is shifting. Something I can’t name yet, small and tentative and easily crushed.
“The wedding is next week,” I say.
He blinks. “Chris and Julian’s?”
“Chris invited you. He said-” I swallow. “He said you should see what I was protecting.”
“I don’t deserve-”
“No. You don’t.” I meet his eyes. “But you should come anyway.”