27. Eric
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
ERIC
Amanda has been careful since we saw that apartment and ran into that woman. Not cold, but not exactly warm. She laughs at my jokes, eats beside me on the couch, but there is a fear in her eyes that wasn’t there before.
“Eric, you love Amanda.” I had envisioned telling Amanda some other way.
“You are not equals,” Val said. She’s right.
I was so worried about taking responsibility for what I did that forgot that if I want us to work, we have to be.
And we can’t be if I won’t ask, well, anything from her.
Still, I’m not sure how to navigate this line between wanting and acknowledging it’s my fault.
I feel it, though; the ache of almost being stuck.
It’s nothing like our old status quo, where I wouldn’t rock the boat. It’s a test of who I’m becoming, and I don’t yet know if I’ll pass. Still, possibility is… progress.
Today has to be a good chunk of my final grade.
Sure, we’ve told people we’re raising this baby together, and we both mean it.
But it’s precarious, one ill-informed move away from falling apart.
I could say the wrong thing, or she could decide they both deserve someone with steadier hands than mine.
Uncle Sandro seems to be pro-that.
So, yeah, today matters.
We’re sitting in the dim, too-quiet waiting room of the OB clinic, flanked by a faux ficus tree and a table stacked with old Parents magazines.
Amanda is twenty weeks and one day—solid timing for the second-trimester scan.
She booked it the moment the window opened.
Said she didn’t want to wait another week. Said she didn’t like not knowing.
I can relate.
So we wait. I bounce my right knee until Amanda leans over and presses her palm against me, curving around my leg and squeezing until I stop.
Stunned. That’s when the nurse calls her name.
I follow, still holding my breath. I’ve gotten familiar with these appointments—I haven’t missed a single one—but I still half expect her to tell me to wait outside.
My palms are sweaty when Amanda climbs onto the table without looking at me, and I take the seat beside her. A small blonde woman with a pixie haircut introduces herself as Melisa and asks to confirm Amanda’s name and date of birth.
“Amanda Donato. July 17, 1996,” Amanda replies without missing a beat.
“Alright! And we’re checking in on everything today and…” She glances over at me with a bright, curious smile. “Oh—hello. Are you Dad?”
Amanda looks at me and tilts her head, waiting.
It feels like both a win and a test I’ve already failed.
No one’s asked at the family clinic we go to for her monthly appointments.
I’m just Dad this and Dad that. They act like attending every single appointment earns me brownie points.
As if I’d miss anything having to do with my kid.
I nod and smile tightly, though I’m nauseous about saying the wrong thing. “Yes, I’m the dad.”
“Great! Just like to check.” Melisa doesn’t slow down because to her it’s just procedure. But to me, “being the dad” is a privilege I want to earn and keep.
“I’ll be talking through what I’m seeing on screen as we go,” she says. “Is it okay to share everything openly with both of you?”
Amanda nods. “Of course. Eric will remember better than I will.”
“Perfect. We’ll be doing the full anatomy scan today. And I believe we’re finding out gender?”
“Yes, please,” Amanda says.
Melisa looks at me, but the lump in my throat barely allows me to nod. She dims the lights and gestures for Amanda to lift her shirt and settle. The tech is talking, but I’m losing track of the words.
It’s been three weeks since the wedding, and Amanda’s stomach is undeniable now.
I want to run my hands over her skin and feel the difference.
I want to feel the baby move. She still hasn’t said anything about him or her moving.
Is there something wrong, a reason our baby isn’t moving?
Are they moving, and Amanda hasn’t said? Shit. I’m losing my mind.
A slurping sound pulls me out of my thoughts as Melisa spreads the gel and positions the wand over Amanda’s belly. “I’ll explain what I can as we go,” she says. “And if I go quiet for a moment, don’t worry. I’m probably just concentrating.”
She moves the wand in small, practiced tilts.
The screen flickers again—and then, suddenly, there it is.
A dark curve. A glowing line. The ghost of movement.
Tiny bones, arcing like a crown. The flicker of a heartbeat inside a small rib cage.
A femur. A nose. A thumb, already tucked into a tiny mouth.
I tell myself to breathe, but my lungs don’t catch up to the command. This baby is real. This is a baby. Our baby. He or she looks like they might have the hiccups.
Then I hear the heartbeat. That rhythm tugs at something in me I’ve felt before, a tether that can’t be undone. I am more than my failures. The thought rises up from nowhere, quiet and clean. I know I can be what this child needs with a certainty I didn’t know I possessed.
The longer Melisa moves the wand and stays quiet, the more the fear creeps in. It whispers beneath the hum of the machine. The thought arrives before I can block it. Please, don’t be a boy. It’s irrational and unfair, but real.
What if I pass all the scars I haven’t healed from onto him? What if, try as I may, I am just not good enough to break the cycle of abandonment?
Amanda exhales softly—more sigh than breath—and it cuts through the spiral.
Her hand rests beside her rib cage, fingers splayed gently.
After a moment, I push my hesitation aside and splay my hand over hers.
I have a right to want. She intertwines her fingers around mine before I’ve settled my hand over hers.
It’s a gentle grip. Her thumb strokes the inside of my hand, raising goose bumps, but neither of us looks away from the screen.
We’re sharing a first. Last time we saw the baby, it was all light and shadows.
Abstract. Now, it’s a person in there. It makes all the firsts we’ve missed a bit more tolerable.
Melisa smiles at the monitor. “This one’s a mover,” she says, her voice full of wonder. “Mom, have you felt the baby move yet?”
Amanda shakes her head. “Little flutters here and there.”
“That’s perfectly normal,” Melisa says, nodding reassuringly. “Especially for first-time moms. Soon enough, it’ll be kicking with a purpose.”
I squeeze Amanda’s hand, and when she meets my eyes, I ask, “Will you tell me?”
She tilts her head slightly.
“When he or she moves, will you let me know? Maybe let me feel it?”
Melisa glances between us, eyebrows drawn slightly inward.
“Sure,” Amanda says, her tone soft but pleased.
I want to ask her to come into my room at night if it happens. I want to ask her to share a bed with me so I don’t miss it. I have a right to want. I don’t say it, but I savor the fact that I could. That maybe, soon, I will.
“Let’s see if we can get a look between the legs,” Melisa says, returning our attention to the screen. “Babies don’t always cooperate, but I’ve got a good feeling about today.”
My chest tightens. The fear returns, as foolish as it is real. I close my eyes, just for a moment, and listen to the soft clicking of the machine, the hush of gel shifting under pressure. I beg the universe a little.
Let me be ready. Let me not screw this up.
When I open my eyes again, the screen tells me everything I need to know. No training required to figure out what I’m looking at.
“Well,” the technician says with a gentle smile, “he’s not shy.”
Amanda lets out a tiny laugh—nervous, disbelieving—and turns to me. My brain stalls. There’s a beat where the word doesn’t land, but when she turns her head to me, smile as wide as I’ve ever seen it, it registers. He. A boy.
The walls fold inward, and my chest cinches tightly. Can I really do this with a boy? My own father couldn’t—or wouldn’t—love me. But I am not my father.
I nod and smile because I know I should do both.
What if I’m not enough to look at a boy who looks just like Daray and move past the hurt? Maybe Amanda and her baby should find their way without the ticking time bomb that is my self-worth.
Then she squeezes my hand. Her green eyes meet mine, shining with something that cuts through the static in my head.
They touch parts of myself I’ve tried to ignore and neglect.
Every doubt sharpens, spiraling through me, a storm of inadequacy without shape or center.
I hold her gaze, and I breathe. I am not my father, or my failures, and I love without conditions.
My boy. My privilege. I want both him and the woman I’m holding. I want us to move past all this pain between us. I deserve to want. I breathe again, and the spiral softens. It’s still there, but it’s no longer controlling me.
Amanda hasn’t looked away. Her green eyes wide and witness to every thought I’m sure played on my face. And her gaze isn’t cautious. Instead, it’s full of wonder. She saw I’m teaching myself to come back without fucking it up.
I swallow hard and nod again. “A boy,” I say aloud with reverence.
The fear isn’t the loudest thing in the room anymore. It’s pride.
Melisa moves the wand one last time and freezes the image on the screen—a still frame of our son, his profile soft and perfect in grainy gray. Then she wipes down the equipment and smiles.
I reach for the rag the technician left behind, and clean the gel from Amanda’s belly, even when it’s all gone, I can’t stop touching her.
“Is it okay if we stay a few minutes?” she asks, turning to Melisa.
Melisa nods, already halfway to the door. “Take your time,” she says, “Just grab your printouts from the main desk. They’ll have your name.”
Then, it’s just the two of us, and the image of our boy still glowing on the screen.
Her shirt’s bunched just below her chest, her stomach still bare.
I’m out of excuses to keep touching her.
She gently takes the rag from me, sets it aside, and threads her fingers through mine.
Then she guides my hand back to her lower belly and presses it in.
“That’s where I feel him the most,” she explains. “I was reading that it’s still too early for others to feel him move. We’re about a month from that.”
“Are we?”
She nods. “I will tell you when it happens.”
“No matter the time?” I ask.
She smiles. “Do you want me to run into your bedroom at night and wake you up?”
“No,” I answer. “I want you to sleep next to me so I don’t miss it.” She hides her shock well. “But I’ll take what I can get.” I smile.
I’m brushing her stomach with the pads of my fingers, hoping she feels the commitment in my touch.
“What went through your head, Eric?”
I let out a long breath. “I did what I do,” I explain. “I spiraled.”
Amanda shifts, tucking one leg underneath her and using her free hand to cup my cheek. She guides my gaze up to meet hers. Gently, but with enough insistence that, I can’t opt out.
“I-I have been worried it would be a boy,” I admit. “It’s too much like my life. Kid with a father who didn’t choose him. My dad never thought I was enough. I don’t want to not be enough for you or him.”
She studies me, and I brace for pity, but her brows smooth in calmness and her mouth curves in tenderness. “Eric, our kid is already so loved by their dad, don’t you see?” Her words hit me so sharply I have to look away from her. I look back at her when she brushes her finger against my jaw.
“I’m still afraid I won’t do a good job.” I pause, getting ready for my confession. “I thought about you being better off with someone else.”
Her breath hitches—small, controlled. I can see the effort it takes for her to stay open, to keep space for honesty rather than hurt. “Are you still thinking about it?”
“Fuck no, Amanda. I told you. I’m not fucking this up.”
She nods, slowly, letting the words settle. “What helped?” she asks.
“You helped,” I say. “Your touch. Your eyes. It helped me breathe.”
“Maybe,” she says. “But you worked through it on your own.”
I nod. “I slowed myself down. Slowed my thoughts until I could feel what I needed to feel. I focused on him. On how much I already love him.” I squeeze my fingers on her belly. “Then I reminded myself that I have a right to want.”
Amanda leans her forehead against mine. Her voice is a whisper now. “I’m so proud of you.”
I close my eyes and taste the moment. Savor it.
“You’re finding ways to pull yourself through.”
We stay like this, in the moment, I cradle her belly, and she cradles my cheek, until she says. “He’s been able to hear for a while, you know? He probably knows your voice.”
I fucking love that the child inside Amanda’s belly knows my voice and not Daray’s.
“You like that, don’t you?” Amanda says through a chuckle when I smirk.
I nod.
“You should tell him something.”
I spread my fingers wider over her belly and lean in, lips near her skin like it’s a secret I’m whispering straight to him.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, dude, but I’m kind of a mess,” I say, voice low.
Amanda’s thumb brushes my cheek, grounding me.
“I’m sorry for the things I’m going to fuck up.
” A shaky laugh slips out. “Shit. Well—exhibit A, I guess.” My throat tightens.
“But I’m going to do my best so you grow up better than I did.
” There’s a drop on my hand. I glance up and see Amanda’s eyes shining.
“And you’ve got the best mom in the world,” I add, my voice softening. “She’s going to do amazing by you.”
I’m just staring at her now, into the green of her eyes, wide and mesmerizing. We stay this way, with her hand on my cheek, mine over her belly, and both of us holding on.
Finally, I clear my throat. “Now,” I say, managing a small smile, “let’s go get some food for both of you.”
Amanda lets out a soft laugh. “Okay,” she says, brushing the corner of her eye. “But I’m—actually, you should pick the place.”
“Deal.” I lace our fingers together as we stand. “I’m calling the shots.”