down.
The guy caught his eye. The same deer-in-headlights expression that West was sure he wore was faintly visible on the other man’s face. West smiled and nodded, and the man nodded back, then looked at the selection of magazines and opted to sit and stare at the wall.
West watched the other couple, who were whispering to each other now. They were far enough away that he couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he could tell by their body language and gestures that they were in love.
The man placed a hand on his wife’s huge belly, on a spot she indicated, and smiled at her. He must have been feeling the baby kick.
Had Soleil felt their own baby kick?
He wouldn’t know.
How did they look to others? Each of them sitting stiffly, not touching, not talking, they must have looked as if they were waiting for grim news.
He didn’t want it to be like this. Okay, he’d never imagined how it would be to await a baby’s arrival, and he’d never imagined getting a woman pregnant by accident. But now they were in this predicament, so it was time to figure out how he wanted circumstances to unfold.
Soleil giggled again at the article she was reading.
“Mind reading it to me?” West dared to ask. “I think I’ve learned all I need to know about breast-feeding for now.”
“Hold on,” she said, not even looking up. “I’m almost done. You can read it yourself.”
How were they supposed to make the best of it when she shot him down at every turn?
The door to the examining rooms opened, and a nurse called, “Soleil Freeman?”
West looked at Soleil. “Come on back with me,” she said, so he stood and followed her through the door and down the hallway to the room the nurse indicated they enter.
“You can change into the gown behind the curtain,” she said. “When you’re ready, pull back the curtain and the doctor will be in to see you shortly.”
West took a seat in a pink plastic chair against a lavender wall. Was there anything in this place that wasn’t designed to look girlie?
On the wall next to him was a bulletin board filled with pictures of new babies, some alone and some in the arms of grinning parents. A few lay in cribs with siblings standing next to them or propped on the laps of awkward- looking children who clearly had never held a baby before.
Soleil stepped behind the curtain and drew it as the nurse closed the door.
“No peeking,” she said, only half joking, he suspected.
“I’ve already seen you naked, you know.”
“Trust me, I’ve got a daily reminder.”
He heard her shuffling as she disrobed, and he tried to imagine how her body had transformed in pregnancy. Fuller breasts, rounder curves…She’d once had a waist so small he could put his hands around it and nearly touch fingers on both sides.
He shifted in his seat, aroused by his train of thought. Turning his attention back to the photos on the wall, he found instant relief.
Soleil pulled back the curtain to reveal an examining table with some complicated-looking equipment and a video screen next to it. She was wearing a hospital gown-pink, of course-and gave him a look that made it clear she didn’t need any cute comments about her attire.
The doctor knocked, then came in and introduced herself as Dr. Singh.
“This is West, the baby’s father,” Soleil said by way of introduction.
West smiled. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” the doctor said. She turned to Soleil. “Do you have any questions or concerns before we get started?”
“I’ve been getting eczema lately. Do you think that could be related to the pregnancy?” Soleil asked.
West was too nervous now to pay close attention to the answer. He watched Soleil, who was both familiar and foreign to him, and he wondered again about the strange twists of fate that had brought them here together today.
Deep down, something tugged at him. He recalled the laughter they’d shared last summer, the passion, the carefree way they’d come together for two short weeks-some of the best times of his life.
Did Soleil feel the same? If she did, she’d never admit it. She was more disturbed by their differences than he had been. She was the one with the temper he’d so enjoyed toying with. She took him seriously, which was both charming and a source of endless strife.
But he’d enjoyed their fights, too. He loved watching her tense for battle. When she was angry, her green eyes glowed as if a fire burned inside her, and she could hurl an insult like no one else he’d ever met. The freedom of saying exactly what they felt-no dancing around anyone’s feelings-was one of the most liberating sensations he’d ever experienced in a relationship.
Soleil, on the other hand, had merely found him infuriating.
Dr. Singh went through the motions of a routine exam, then she asked Soleil to lie back on the table. She squeezed a bunch of clear jelly on Soleil’s stomach and began poking around with an ultrasound wand.
“Come closer,” she said to West, “so you can see.”
He stood and went to Soleil’s side. Before he could brace himself for the shock, a blurry image appeared on the video screen. Dr. Singh pointed to one end of the blob.
“That’s your baby’s head…and there’s the heart, the spine, the arms, the feet…”
West’s mouth went dry, and everything he thought he knew and felt was suddenly turned upside down.
There was his baby.
There was
A wave of dizziness hit him, and he sat on the edge of the examining table to steady himself.
He could see the baby’s too-big head, and its delicate limbs curled up like a spring bud waiting to bloom. He could see the tiny spine, and the
His own heart stopped for a beat.
He looked at Soleil, and she was smiling in a way he’d never seen her smile before. She glowed like a child on Christmas morning who’d gotten her heart’s desire.
This was not the Soleil he knew. This was a glimpse of someone new.
She caught his eye, and for a moment they were looking at each other instead of the baby. Then they both looked back at the video screen.
“Would you like to know the baby’s gender?” the doctor asked.
West and Soleil looked at each other again, and simultaneously they said, “Yes.”
“You’re going to have a little girl. Congratulations.”
The sheer joy that he’d seen a moment earlier in Soleil’s expression was replaced by something else entirely. Something like amazement.
He was sure it matched his own expression.
“Really?” West said. “A girl? You’re sure?”
“As sure as I can be,” the doctor said as she moved the ultrasound wand around on Soleil’s belly.
She was attempting to get a better image of the baby’s bottom half.
“Let’s see if I can get her to shift a bit, so we can make sure nothing’s hiding behind the umbilical cord.”
“It’s a girl,” Soleil said, sounding certain. “I’ve been thinking it was a girl since the moment I knew I was pregnant.”
The doctor smiled as she continued to watch the screen. “Never argue with a mother’s intuition.” She held the wand still. “See there?”
She was indicating an area of the screen that just looked like a bunch of blurry nothing to West.
“I think we can rest assured you’ll be having a little girl in a few more months. Would you like a picture of her?”
“Could you make a copy for each of us?” Soleil asked.
