Chapter Seven
THE COLLECTOR’S NAME is Marion Hale, and she lives in a restored Colonial in Georgetown with more money than wall space.
Amy found her through the charity grapevine, or Marion found Amy.
Maybe the photographs found both of them.
The order of discovery doesn’t matter. What matters is Marion’s email, which arrived on a Wednesday morning while I was helping Dad source replacement basswood from a supplier in Pennsylvania.
“I don’t have pricing.”
“You need pricing.”
Dad appears in the kitchen doorway with Oscar under one arm and a reference book about Federal architecture under the other.
“A Federal-period room requires historically accurate wainscoting, chair rails, and period-correct window proportions. The plaster ceiling medallion alone will take you a week if you do it properly.” He sets the book on the table. “You should charge what it’s worth.”
“What’s it worth?”
“More than you think. Less than Marion Hale can afford.” He opens the book to a page he’s already marked with a sticky note. “Start here. The Adam-style mantelpiece is your centerpiece. Everything in the room should reference it.”
I email Marion a quote that evening. It seems too high, and I want to undo Send but don’t.
Amy sits across the table and watched me type the number.
The number made me nauseated. “You should add fifteen percent for materials you haven’t sourced yet,” Amy had said.
She looks at the Sent folder on my laptop and shakes her head.
“I added ten.”
She shrugs. “You should have added fifteen.”
“Amy...”
“You undervalue your labor. Sam did the same thing when he started consulting, and he didn’t listen to me either. Then he spent three years at below-market rates because he was too polite to renegotiate. You’re not polite. You’re scared. Add the fifteen.”
“It’s too late. I’ll add the fifteen next time...if there’s another client. Marion accepts within an hour and sends a deposit that covers my supply costs for the next three months. “I should have added fifteen percent.”
Amy laughs. “Told you.”
I sit at the kitchen table looking at the confirmation on my phone.
Dad is in his study. Oscar is asleep on the manuscript.
Dave is asleep on the rug. The deposit is real.
It came from Marion Hale, who saw photographs of a room box I built at my father’s kitchen table while my marriage was falling apart, and she thought the work was worth paying for, and handsomely.
I earned this. Nobody gave it to me. That matters more than I expected.
I CALL EVAN ON A WEDNESDAY. He picks up on the first ring, which tells me he’s been waiting. I don’t let that soften me.
“The twelve-week appointment is Thursday at ten,” I say. “You should be there.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “I’ll be there.”
“Separate cars.”
“Okay.”
“Evan, this is about the baby. You and I are a different conversation.”
“I understand.”
I hang up then sit on Dad’s porch with Dave and my phone. The baby deserves a father at appointments, and I need to practice separating fatherhood from marriage in case the separation becomes permanent. Amy was right when she said he should hear the heartbeat, whatever I decide about us.
THE WAITING ROOM AT Dr. Rourke’s office has beige walls and a magazine rack full of parenting magazines that feel like dispatches from a country I’m not sure I’m allowed to enter yet.
Evan is in a chair across the aisle, dressed for a weekday in slacks and a button-down, holding a bottle of water he isn’t drinking.
He arrived three minutes after I did. We haven’t spoken since I checked in.
The receptionist called me Mrs. Drake, and neither of us reacted.
A woman in the corner is reading one of the parenting magazines and rubbing her belly.
She’s farther along than I am. Her husband is beside her, scrolling his phone with one hand and holding hers with the other.
They look like people who have never questioned whether they’d be sitting in these chairs together.
I look at Evan. He’s looking at the floor.
They call my name. Evan stands when I stand. We walk down the corridor side by side without touching. The tech leads us into the ultrasound room, where the table is covered in paper, and the monitor is dark.
I lie down. The tech applies the cold gel on my stomach. I flinch. She apologizes automatically. The wand moves. The screen fills with gray-and-white static, then the image resolves.
There she is. I don’t know yet that she’s a she.
At twelve weeks, the tech can’t confirm sex.
What I know is that the shape on the screen has limbs.
Arms that move. Legs that kick against the walls of the space I’m providing, impatient already, and the thought makes me smile before I can stop it.
A head, a body, and a heartbeat that fills the small room with its steady rhythm.
I heard the heartbeat once before, when Dr. Rourke checked it at my last appointment, but it sounded smaller then.
Now it sounds like a person, though much faster.
I look at Evan. He’s standing beside the table with his water bottle in one hand, and the other hand at his side.
He stands completely still. The expression on his face isn’t the one I rehearsed for.
I’d expected remorse, guilt, or the careful managed emotion he uses in business.
Every trace of his usual control is gone.
The screen is showing him the child he denied, moving her arms, kicking her legs, and filling the room with the sound of her heart.
He puts the water bottle on the counter and both hands in his pockets. His shoulders shake once, hard, and then he’s crying. He doesn’t make a sound or wipe his face. He stands in the ultrasound room, watching our baby move on the screen, crying without hiding it.
The tech pretends not to notice because ultrasound techs have probably seen everything.
She prints images. She gives me two copies, and I take them without asking whether Evan wants one.
He doesn’t ask either. The appointment continues.
The doctor confirms that growth is on track, the heartbeat is strong, and there are no concerns at this stage.
In the parking lot, Evan walks me to my car. The sun is out. It’s one of those spring days in Maryland where the air smells green and the trees are doing their best impression of a calendar photograph. None of it matches the conversation I need to have.
“You can be this baby’s father,” I say. “I want you to be.”
He nods. He’s still holding the water bottle. His face is dry now, but the redness around his eyes is still there, and he keeps swallowing.
“You and I are a separate conversation. I’m not ready to have it yet.”
He nods again. He doesn’t argue or push.
Whatever he’s thinking stays off his face, which is either growth or strategy, and I’m not in a position to tell the difference yet.
He walks to his car on the other side of the lot.
I get in mine. I sit there for a minute with the engine off and the ultrasound photos on the passenger seat.
Before he reaches his car, I call his name. He turns. I hold out one of the ultrasound photos through the window. He walks back and takes it from my hand without touching my fingers. The care of that small distance says more than either of us is ready to put into words.
DAD IS IN HIS STUDY when I get home. Oscar is on the manuscript as usual. Dave comes to greet me before dropping to the floor with a huff. The house smells like the pot roast Amy must have started before she left for the afternoon.
“How was the appointment?” Dad asks without looking up.
“The baby is healthy. Growth is on track.”
“Good.” He turns a page. Then, not casually at all, he asks, “Did Evan attend?”
“He did.”
“Did he cry?”
I look at my father. He meets my gaze over his reading glasses without a trace of innocence. He knows exactly which questions produce the most useful answers.
“He cried,” I say.
Dad nods. He returns to his manuscript. “He cried at his child’s heartbeat, so he might be worth keeping.” He turns another page. “Eventually.”
I go to the kitchen and put the ultrasound photo on the refrigerator, next to the faded photograph of Mom holding me as a baby. The two images are thirty-one years apart.
“Dad,” I call.
“I’m aware,” he says from the study. “I’m having a moment. You may leave me to it.”
He appears in the doorway a few minutes later, composure restored except for the reading glasses, which are crooked. “I forgot to mention. I went to dinner with a woman named Estelle last week. Retired librarian from Hopkins. She corrected two of my citations during the appetizer course.”
“Was she right?”
“She was right about both of them, which is infuriating.” He adjusts the glasses. “I’m taking her out again.” He pauses. “I’ll probably cancel.”
He retreats to his study. I sit at the table with my basswood and my X-Acto knife. I have a Federal-period mantelpiece to design, a deposit in my account, and a father who just told me my husband might be worth keeping.
He might be right. Eventually.