I nodded, trying not to feel hurt that he didn’t believe what I had told him, that he was the only possibility in the paternity department. “I guess you have to be sure,” I commented. “Some women do this, right? They claim that a rich football player knocked them up just to get money out of him.”
César didn’t look at me as he nodded.
“That’s not me,” I informed him. “Got it?”
“Let’s just do the test,” he said, eyes again on the fish tank.
“Camdyn?” A nurse came out from the back and looked across the waiting room.
“That’s you,” César reminded me. He held up his hand, signaling her.
I stared at the nurse, who nodded and smiled at me. No. “I just remembered something I have to do at work. I’ll come back and have an appointment another day,” I said.
“What? What do you have to do that’s more important than this?” he demanded incredulously.
“It’s important winery event stuff.” I swallowed. “No, it’s not. I’m lying. I hate doctors and I don’t think that I’m ready for this,” I told him. Forget about not running from a fight—I was going to run to New Mexico, if I needed to. “I should come back later. A different time.” I grabbed my purse and stood up to leave.
César stood too, blocking my path to the door. “No, we’re here. We’re going to do this now, unless there’s something you need to tell me instead.” His one eyebrow raised.
“Are you implying again that the baby isn’t yours and I’m trying to trick you?” I asked angrily. I had also said it very loudly, I realized, because the waiting room got very, very quiet. I didn’t need to glance around to know that all eyes were on us, and this time, it wasn’t because he was so handsome.
The nurse approached. “Why don’t you wait here, and we’ll call you back for the ultrasound?” she suggested to César. She smiled serenely, and gestured at me to follow her.
“Camdyn, I can tell that you’re scared, but you have to do this,” César told me.
I nodded and went with the nurse, but I looked back at him standing by the chair. He was the only one I had here, as little as I knew him. My feet barely moved my body across the carpet.
“Would you feel more comfortable if he accompanied you?” the nurse asked me, and I found myself nodding. I needed someone, even if it was only the person who had doubts over whether I was pulling a pregnancy scam. She turned to César. “Dad, why don’t you come on back, too?” she invited.
I watched his face lose its color again. “Dad?” he asked. “Holy…” He stopped, breathing hard.
I got afraid that he was going to keel over so I stepped quickly to him. “Come on,” I said. “We can do this.”
“We can do this,” he repeated, and we walked back together.
None of our weird behavior fazed the nurse. She went on with the exam, like us fighting and nearly passing out in the waiting room had been a normal thing. We went through what I assumed were the formalities of an obstetric appointment, checking me, questioning me, weighing me, handing me the plastic specimen cup that had sent me into a tailspin at the other doctor’s office. This time, I took it and went to the bathroom and did not run away with my pants on backwards. That had really been a low point for me, behaviorally.
After a while, the doctor came in, and she was as calm as the nurse, acting like it was just another day, not a big deal at all that I might be pregnant with César Hidalgo’s baby. “Nice to meet you both. This is your first visit?” she asked pleasantly.
“We’re mostly here to confirm pregnancy,” I said. “We’re not sure.”
She looked at her computer screen. “We did run a test on the sample you gave me, and it’s positive. You are pregnant.”
I heard César breathe out like he’d taken a punch, but I wasn’t giving in quite yet. “I’m sorry, but I need more than that,” I told her firmly. “No offense to you and your test, but I have to have better proof.”
The doctor at the clinic I’d been to over the weekend had not been able to keep her true thoughts from her face. This woman was much better at it. She didn’t register any “you’re crazy” or “wake up, woman” expressions. “Let’s go ahead with the ultrasound,” she said instead. She adjusted me and my gown and squeezed goo on my skin. “Here we go.” She moved a plastic piece around my flat stomach.
“It doesn’t look like a baby could be in there,” César muttered.
“Right?” I agreed. But everyone else seemed so sure. I felt my heart pound.
“There we are,” the doctor said. She pointed to the little TV screen.
I saw a head, and a body. Arms and legs. Tiny hands, and tiny feet. The outlines of a face.
“That’s inside me?” I gasped.
“Here’s the heartbeat,” the doctor said. A quick tapping sound filled the office.
I looked up at César. He was transfixed by the image and I turned my head back to stare at it also.
It was a baby. Our baby. The doctor kept talking, but all I could do was stare. I stared and stared, not really even blinking.
“Camdyn?” César asked me a while later. “Camdyn, you haven’t said a word for at least half an hour.”
I was still staring, now at the black and white pictures that the doctor had printed out for us. We had left her office and gone to the lab to complete the paternity test, and now we were in the building lobby, with me transfixed by the images that I held in my hand.
I had done everything on autopilot. I had said, “Wonderful,” when the doctor had told us that everything with the
