Chapter Ten
Evan
PENELOPE’S NAME APPEARS on my phone at two in the afternoon on a Monday. She rarely calls me. Her messages come as appointment times or ultrasound photos. She prefers to text.
I pick up.
“I’m bleeding.” Her voice stays level, with each word controlled. She has clearly decided panic can wait until someone gives her a reason. “I’m in the car. Dad is driving. We’re going to the hospital.”
“Which hospital?”
“Anne Arundel. Amy called ahead. They’re expecting us.”
“I’m leaving now.”
I’m in the DC office. I close my laptop and grab my jacket.
Carter is in the doorway asking about the Gieffel tenant negotiations, and I walk past him without answering.
I don’t remember the drive to Annapolis.
I know I took 50 East because I’ve driven that route for months.
The traffic must have been light because I made it in forty minutes.
An hour later, my car is in the hospital lot.
Everything between the office and the parking space is a void in my memory.
Sam is in the waiting room. He’s sitting upright in a plastic chair. Oscar remains in the carrier at his feet, watching the nurses through the mesh with territorial suspicion. I’m shocked no one tried to challenge the dog’s presence.
Sam reads a manuscript page, his composure mostly intact. Amy is beside him, texting someone. She looks up when I come in.
“Room four,” Amy says. “Dr. Rourke is with her.”
I walk down the corridor. The door to room four is open. Penelope lies on the table in a hospital gown. The ultrasound monitor is on, the tech is working, and Dr. Rourke reads the image beside the screen without rushing.
Penelope looks at me when I walk in. Tear tracks remain on her face. She stopped crying before I arrived, though the effort probably took what little control she had left.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey.”
I stand beside the table, close but not touching, nor reaching for her hand. I just wait.
She reaches for mine. She grips my hand hard enough that her pulse beats against my fingers while we watch the screen and wait.
“Small subchorionic hematoma,” Dr. Rourke says.
“The placenta looks well-positioned, and the cervix is closed. Baby’s heartbeat is strong, and growth is on track for nineteen weeks.
” She turns from the monitor. “The bleeding can look alarming, but this type of hematoma often resolves on its own. I’d recommend reduced activity and pelvic rest for the next several days.
No heavy lifting, no strenuous exercise.
If the bleeding increases or you develop cramping, come back immediately. ”
“The baby is okay,” Penelope says.
“The baby looks great.” The doctor smiles. “Would you like to know the gender?”
Penelope exhales and nods before I can answer.
“It’s a girl.” “I knew it.” Penelope smiles and loosens her grip. I keep holding on. I don’t say anything because there’s nothing I can say right now that matters more than the grip of her hand and the sound of our daughter’s heartbeat on the monitor.
A girl. It’s suddenly real, terrifying, and exhilarating.
The doctor gives us a few minutes. The tech prints images.
I look at the screen where our nineteen-week baby is moving, kicking, and turning, alive and healthy, completely indifferent to the adults in the room who have spent the last hour terrified.
She doesn’t know about the hematoma, the bleeding, or the drive I don’t remember.
She’s just living, growing, and taking up space.
Dr. Rourke comes back to discuss follow-up.
I ask when we should come back, which warning signs to watch for, whether the hematoma could affect delivery, and whether Penelope should see a specialist. I ask clearly and in order.
Penelope lets me ask them. When the doctor answers, I listen and remember, because that is what I can contribute right now.
I can ask the right questions. I can drive her home.
In the hallway afterward, Sam is waiting. He’s put the manuscript away. Oscar has been let out of the carrier and is sitting on Sam’s lap, watching the nurses with suspicion.
“The baby is fine,” I say. “Small hematoma. Reduced activity for a few days.”
Sam nods. “Good.” He looks at me for a long moment. “You were here fast.”
“As fast as I could. Traffic was awful.”
“I know you drove. I mean you were here fast.”
I understand. He noticed.
“I can stay and help,” I say. “If Penelope wants me to.”
Sam considers this. Amy, who has been standing behind him with two coffees and a granola bar, says, “She wants you to stay, Evan. She told me in the room.”
I look at Sam. Sam looks at Amy. Amy looks at both of us. She has spent three years managing Sam and Oscar. She has no interest in watching two grown men negotiate a decision Penelope already made.
“I’ll make up the couch,” Sam says.
THE FIRST NIGHT AT Sam’s house, I lie on the couch in the dark and listen to the house.
The refrigerator hums. Somewhere, the furnace clicks on.
Oscar’s toenails tick across the hardwood upstairs.
Then he appears at the bottom of the stairs, considers me, and jumps onto the couch.
He weighs fourteen pounds and occupies the space of a much larger dog. He settles on my chest.
Dave arrives two minutes later. He heaves himself onto the couch, pins my legs, and sighs with the satisfaction of a creature who has never in his life worried about whether he was welcome.
Oscar adjusts. I adjust. Couch negotiations follow the usual rules.
Dave doesn’t care, so Oscar wins by default.
I lie in Sam O’Hara’s living room with two dogs on my chest and legs, listening to Penelope moving upstairs.
A faucet runs. A door closes. She’s getting ready for bed in the room where she grew up visiting, in a house that smells like old books, pot roast, and Jean’s garden through the cracked window.
I’m downstairs on a couch that’s six inches too short for me, holding a small dog on my sternum and a golden retriever on my knees. This is the closest I’ve been to my wife in months.
I’m being given something I haven’t earned.
My phone buzzes on the coffee table with a call from my dad. I answer immediately.
“Your mother told me about the hospital,” he says. “Is she okay?”
“She’s okay. The baby’s fine. Small hematoma.”
“Good.” He’s quiet for a moment. “Your mother and I had dinner last night. We’ve been spending time together. She’s the only person who understands what that year was like. I forgot that for a long time.”
The call reminds me of what’s happened. I’m in Penelope’s father’s house, on his couch, with his daughter’s trust balanced on something fragile, and Paul Ridley’s petition is still in my email.
The thing I started to tell Penelope on the porch, the word I couldn’t finish.
Called. She asked me who I called, and I gave her everything except the answer.
“I’m glad you and Mom are talking,” I say.
“We’re doing more than talking,” Frank says. “I wasted twenty-five years being afraid to try again. Don’t make my mistake.”
He hangs up. Oscar is asleep on my chest. Dave is asleep on my legs. Upstairs, the faucet stops. The house gets quiet.
THE SECOND DAY, I TRY to make breakfast. Sam finds me in his kitchen at seven, holding a spatula, staring at eggs that have turned into something between an omelet and a punishment.
“Your technique is wrong,” Sam says. He takes the spatula from me. “Lower heat. More butter. Your mother would be appalled.”
“My mother can’t cook either.”
He chuckles. “That explains a great deal about your technique.” Sam cracks two more eggs into the pan. “Amy left instructions on the counter. You didn’t read them.”
“I didn’t see them.”
“They’re under Oscar.”
They are, in fact, under Oscar. I move him. He protests. Amy’s instructions are written on a yellow legal pad. Typed notes never work on Sam. Butter the pan first. Med-low heat. Don’t touch the eggs for two minutes. SAM: THIS MEANS YOU TOO.
THE THIRD NIGHT, I’M on the couch reading Sam’s manuscript.
He asked me to look at a chapter about the surrender of Singapore, and I’ve been reading it for an hour, making small notes in pencil on a legal pad because Sam doesn’t trust pens near original pages.
The chapter is good. Sam writes with clarity and occasional flashes of dry devastation that explain a great deal about Penelope.
I hear the stairs creak. Penelope comes down in sweatpants and one of Sam’s old Naval Academy T-shirts. Dave is behind her. She looks at me on the couch and pauses at the bottom of the stairs before crossing the room.
She sits at the other end of the couch. Dave settles between us, his golden head hanging off the cushion. She tucks her feet up underneath her. Then, without looking at me, she stretches her legs out and puts her feet in my lap.
She freezes. Her ankles go rigid against my leg. She stares at the wall across the room.
I put my hand on her ankle. I keep reading.
Neither of us moves. Neither of us speaks. Oscar watches from the armchair. Dave snores between us. I keep one hand on Sam’s manuscript and the other around Penelope’s ankle. She leaves her feet in my lap.