13. Beatrice
— ? —
Beatrice
The waiting room is too quiet.
I’ve been here for fifteen minutes already, filling out the same paperwork I fill out every visit, pretending to read the same magazines I never actually read. My pen moves across the form automatically - name, date of birth, medical history - while my mind is somewhere else entirely.
The clock on the wall reads 9:40.
He’s not coming.
I knew it. I knew that standing in the rain was just another grand gesture, another performance designed to make me believe he’d changed.
Of course he’s not coming. Something more important came up.
A deal, a meeting, a phone call he couldn’t ignore.
The same excuses I heard for two years of marriage.
My jeans stopped buttoning last week. I’ve been wearing maternity pants with the stretchy panel, hiding them under loose sweaters, pretending I don’t notice how my body is changing around this person I’m growing. The evidence of what we made together, pushing against my skin, impossible to ignore.
The clock reads 9:43.
I should have known better. Should have kept the wall up. Should have refused him entirely instead of letting a pair of baby shoes and a rainstorm make me hope.
9:46.
The front door opens.
Kenneth walks in.
He’s wearing a clean suit. He’s shaved. His hair is combed, his shoes are polished, and he looks more like himself than he has since before the dinner.
But there’s something different about him, too. Something in the way he carries himself - less certain, more careful. Like a man walking through a room full of things he might break.
He sees me immediately. Hesitates. Then crosses the waiting room with measured steps.
“Am I late?”
I look at the clock. 9:47.
He’s thirteen minutes early.
“No.” My voice sounds strange to my own ears. “You’re not late.”
“Good.” He takes the seat beside me - not too close, leaving space between us - and folds his hands in his lap. “I wasn’t sure about parking. I wanted to make sure I had time to find a spot.”
I stare at him.
In two years of marriage, Kenneth Sinclair has never been early for anything involving me. Late for dinners. Late for anniversaries. Late for phone calls he promised to make. Always something more important, more pressing, more urgent than whatever I was waiting for.
Thirteen minutes early.
“Thank you for letting me come,” he says quietly. “I know you didn’t have to.”
“I did it for the baby.”
“I know.”
We sit in silence.
The magazines between us feature smiling women with perfect pregnancies, their hands curved around beach-ball bellies, their partners gazing adoringly from behind. I want to rip them all in half.
“Mrs. Sinclair?”
The nurse is standing in the doorway, chart in hand, smile professionally bright.
I stand. Kenneth stands with me.
The nurse’s gaze flicks between us - the tension obvious, the space between us carefully maintained.
“Would the father like to join us?”
I feel Kenneth go still beside me.
I could say no. Could tell the nurse this is a solo appointment, could make him wait in the lobby while I go through this alone the way I’ve gone through everything else alone.
“Yes.” The word comes out before I’ve fully decided. “He would.”
The examination room is small and cold.
I lie on the table, paper crinkling beneath me, staring at the ceiling tiles while the technician prepares the ultrasound. Kenneth stands in the corner - as far away as the room allows, giving me space, careful not to presume.
“Would the father like to come closer?” The technician smiles warmly. “The view is much better from here.”
Kenneth looks at me. Asking permission.
I nod.
He moves to stand beside the table. Close enough to see the screen. Close enough that I could reach out and touch him if I wanted to.
I don’t want to.
I don’t think I want to.
The gel is cold on my stomach. I flinch, and Kenneth’s hand twitches toward me - instinctive, protective - before he catches himself and pulls back.
“Let’s see how baby’s doing,” the technician murmurs, pressing the wand against my skin.
The image flickers to life.
And there it is.
Our baby. Bigger now than the last time, when it was just a blur of pixels and possibility. Moving. Stretching. A tiny person with a tiny spine and tiny hands and a heart beating visible even on the grainy screen.
“Everything looks perfect.” The technician’s voice is warm with professional reassurance. “Strong heartbeat, right on track. Would you like to hear?”
I nod.
She adjusts something, and the room fills with sound.
Fast and rhythmic. Steady as a drum. The unmistakable whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of a heart that didn’t exist six months ago.
I feel Kenneth go rigid beside me.
“That’s…” His voice breaks. “That’s the heartbeat.”
“That’s your baby’s heartbeat,” the technician confirms. “Strong and healthy.”
I glance up at him.
He’s crying.
Silent tears streaming down his face, his eyes fixed on the screen, his whole body trembling with something I can’t name. His jaw is clenched so tight I can see the muscle jumping beneath his skin.
Something cracks in my chest.
I don’t think about it. Don’t decide. My hand just moves, reaching out, fingers closing around his.
He squeezes back.
Not too hard. Not desperate. Just - there. Present. His hand warm around mine, his tears falling unchecked, both of us staring at the screen where our child’s heart is beating strong and steady.
For a moment - just a moment - we’re not the people who destroyed each other.
We’re just two parents, listening to their baby’s heartbeat.
The technician finishes the exam.
Prints out images. Hands them to me with another warm smile. I fold them carefully and tuck them into my bag while Kenneth stands silently beside me, wiping his face with the back of his hand.
“Everything looks wonderful,” the technician says. “Doctor will want to see you in about a month for the next check. You can schedule at the front desk.”
“Thank you.”
We walk out together.
The waiting room is more crowded now - other couples, other pregnant women, other lives intersecting in this small space. I stop near the exit, not quite ready to leave, not quite sure what comes next.
“Bea.” Kenneth’s voice is rough, scraped raw from crying. “I know I don’t have the right to say this. But hearing that heartbeat…”
“Kenneth.”
“I missed so much already.” He’s not crying anymore, but his eyes are still wet, still red. “The first trimester. The first ultrasound. All the appointments where you had to sit alone and hear news alone and process everything alone. And it was my fault. All of it.”
“Yes.” There’s no point in softening it. “It was.”
“But I’m here now.” He meets my eyes. Holds them. “And I’m not going anywhere. Whatever you need, whatever you’ll let me be part of - I’m here.”
I look at him.
The man who broke me.
The man who just cried at the sound of our baby’s heartbeat.
Something shifts between us. Some wall coming down, some door cracking open. I lean toward him - just slightly, just a little-
His breath catches.
“Mrs. Sinclair?”
We spring apart.
A nurse is hurrying toward us, waving a paper.
“You forgot your printout! The ultrasound photos.” She beams at us, oblivious to the moment she just shattered. “You two are such a lovely couple. Congratulations!”
The words hit me like ice water.
Lovely couple.
We’re not a couple. We’re two people who made a baby and then destroyed everything else. We’re standing in an OB office pretending to be something we haven’t been in months, maybe ever.
I take the printout. Force a smile.
“Thank you.”
The nurse leaves, still beaming.
I take a step back from Kenneth. Then another.
“I should go.”
“Bea-”
“I’ll text you about the next appointment.”
I walk to my car. Get in. Drive away.
I don’t look back.
That night, I lie in bed at Celia’s and stare at the ceiling.
I almost leaned in. Almost let him kiss me. Almost forgot, for one moment, everything he did. The accusations. The humiliation. The boxes by the door.
You two are such a lovely couple.
We’re not a lovely couple. We’re wreckage. We’re a disaster wrapped in polite smiles and carefully maintained distance.
But when he held my hand during that heartbeat…
I press my palm against my stomach, over the place where the baby is still too small to feel.
I almost forgot, I think. I almost let myself forget.
The shame burns through me like acid.
The next day, I drive to the house.
I need more of my things. Clothes that actually fit my changing body. Books I’ve been meaning to read. The small comforts that make Celia’s guest room feel less like exile.
Kenneth’s car is in the driveway.
I consider leaving. Coming back later. Avoiding him entirely.
Instead, I go inside.
The key still works - a spare I’d forgotten in my bag, and he apparently never changed the locks. I’m not sure what that means. I’m not sure I want to know.
I find him in the hallway outside the master bedroom.
He’s carrying a box. His own clothes, from the look of it. Moving them somewhere.
“What are you doing?”
He turns. Looks caught. Guilty.
“Moving some things.”
“Where?” I look at the box, at the direction he was heading. “Wait - why are you taking stuff from the guest room?”
“That’s where I’ve been staying.”
I stare at him.
“You’ve been sleeping in the guest room?”
“Yes.”
“Since when?”
“Since you left.” He sets the box down. Can’t quite meet my eyes. “I couldn’t - I couldn’t sleep in our room anymore. In the bed we shared.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The bed smells like you.” His voice is quiet, almost ashamed. “Your pillow. Your shampoo. The lotion you put on at night.” He swallows hard. “I kept reaching for you. In my sleep. Reaching for you and finding nothing, and waking up alone in the dark, and-”
He stops.
“I couldn’t do it anymore,” he finishes. “So I moved to the guest room.”
Something shifts in my chest again. That same crack, widening.
“I came for the rest of my clothes,” I say, my voice carefully neutral. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“It’s your house.”
“It’s your house. I’m staying with Celia.”
“It’s our house.” He finally meets my eyes. “And I want you to have it.”
The paperwork arrives at Celia’s apartment three days later.
I find it in my mailbox, a thick envelope with a law firm’s return address. Inside, a stack of documents with yellow tabs marking signature lines.
Kenneth has signed the house over to me. Full ownership. No conditions. No strings attached.
And tucked between the pages, a handwritten note:
Beatrice - This was always supposed to be yours. I’m sorry I ever made you feel like a guest in it. I’ve started seeing someone. A therapist. Twice a week. I’m trying to understand how I became someone who could hurt you so badly. I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m just trying to be better. -K
I read the note three times.
Then I fold it carefully and put it in my drawer, next to the baby shoes.