“Is a crush a pregnancy symptom?” It’s the first thing I ask Nurse Blank when I see her the following Wednesday for the big imaging appointment. We’re in a different part of the clinic that I’ve never been to before. The room is filled with tubes and vials and equipment that looks like R2-D2’s elderly uncle.
“I’m sorry?” she says, glancing up from her clipboard.
“I like your glasses, by the way.” They’re new, purple, and make her look kinda badass. “A crush. On someone…that I should not have a crush on. That could just be a pregnancy symptom? It’ll go away once I’m not pregnant anymore?”
She blinks. The clipboard lowers. “Honey,” she says, and my stomach drops because I do not think she’s about to give me the answer I was hoping for.
“This thing is just really messing with my head,” I cut in. “And I can’t figure out…” How not to ruin my friendship with Shep.
“Pregnancy can certainly affect your libido,” Nurse Blank offers. “It sends some women into…overdrive, shall we say? And pregnancy can also be an emotionally vulnerable time.”
I absently stroke my imaginary beard. “Libido plus emotional vulnerability. That kind of sounds like a recipe for a crush to me.”
There’s a brisk knock-knock on the door and Nurse Blank goes to answer it, holding it open just a crack because I’m already in a robe. “Yes?”
“Ms. Hatch’s husband is here for her. Can he join her?”
“I’m sorry, what?” I say, leaning around the nurse and making the paper underneath me crinkle. “Who? My husband? By all means send him back, I’d love to meet him.”
Nurse Blank turns to me. “You weren’t expecting anyone to join you?”
I start to shake my head and then freeze. “Hold on.”
I lean over to where my clothes are folded up and extricate my cellphone. I have a stream of missed texts from Ethan.
Big appointment today, right?
Okay, I know this is something we definitely should have gone over before this exact moment but…is there any way it would be okay for me to join you today?
Obviously, it’s okay if you say no.
I can see that these texts aren’t being delivered because you’re probably on the train. Okay, I think I’m just gonna come to the office. I’ll be in the lobby.
I’m here. I hope this isn’t weird. Seriously, it is totally okay to send me away. I just wanted to be here in case it was actually okay for me to attend the appointment with you.
“Oh,” I mutter to myself, and then look up to see both the nurses looking at me expectantly. “Is it Ethan Rise in the waiting room right now?”
The second nurse consults her clipboard. “Yes.”
“Um…” My brain goes seven hundred miles a minute. A series of memories pass through me at light speed. Ethan and me running from geese. Ethan drinking my orange juice for me. Ethan watching through his fingers while I opened his mom’s painting. Lovely moments with a lovely person. These are moments I might describe for the baby one day. The first time your dad and I ever saw you, we were sitting in a doctor’s office watching you on a TV screen…“Um, yes. It’s okay for him to come back.”
The second nurse disappears and closes the door. Nurse Blank looks at me sternly. “Is this the crush?”
Tears automatically cloud my vision and she becomes a blur with light green scrubs on. “No,” I whisper miserably. Then there are more memories. These ones decidedly more inconvenient. “I have a girlfriend.” And him texting Eleni fifty times while he stood in my apartment. And then, the least convenient memory of all, Shep’s lavender room, a kickity-kick, a warm hand under my shirt. I scrub the tears out of my eyes and I watch as she opens the door to the room and flips the little sign on the outside that tells other nurses not to disturb us and then she crosses over to me. She looks like she’s considering taking my hand but decides against it.
“Honey, do you not want him to come back here? You can change your mind.”
“No, I do. I think, secretly. Somewhere. I just…I stopped daydreaming about having someone with me back here a long time ago because he and I aren’t together and that’s fine—”
I cut myself off because I did not intend to confess quite that much. But her face doesn’t change one iota.
“We’ll have to pull your robe open to expose your belly, as you know, but he can stay on one side of the curtain, if that would help?”
“No. That’s all right. He can stay with me.”
She nods, opens the door, and there he is.
He’s nervous energy personified. His lips sucked into his mouth, his eyes blown. He looks messier than I’ve ever seen him before. He’s in mismatched athleisure. Joggers in black and a hoodie in green. His wool coat looks out of place tossed on top. His shoes are coming untied. He clearly made a last-minute decision and ran out of the house to make it on time.
“Hi,” I say with a dorky little wave.
“Hi,” he breathes, his eyes wide as he takes in all the machinery. “Can I?” he asks, pointing at the threshold of the door.
I melt. “Come in.”
“Hello, I’m Ethan.” He introduces himself to Nurse Blank. He’s got his hands in his pockets and he’s shuffling sideways towards me.
“I’m Nurse Louise.” She introduces herself, and I almost burst out laughing. I guess it’s probably time I stop internally referring to her as Nurse Blank.
He comes to stand next to my head and there are blood draws and pricks and questionnaires. Next is the imaging. This is what we’ve all been waiting for. The sonogram machines they use at a regular appointment create images that are almost unintelligible to everyone but the medical professionals. But this is the equipment they use to see every single nook and cranny of the baby. And we’ll apparently leave with refrigerator-quality pics.
Nurse Louise opens the door for the tech to come in and she steps back. I think for a moment that she’s going to leave, but then she doesn’t.
The tech lubes up the little camera wand thingy and opens my robe. Ethan’s eyes are on my belly and I resist the urge to cover myself. The last time he saw my bare stomach I looked very different. If we were alone, I’d demand that he say something. Instead, he just stares.
The wand gets pressed to my belly and I jump because it’s cold. We all turn to the screen where the image is about to pop up.
“Wait,” Nurse Louise says from behind us, to the tech. “She doesn’t want to know the sex.”
She asked me that a few appointments ago and I’m, frankly, ridiculously touched that she’s remembered.
“Oh,” the tech says. “Then don’t look at the screen and let me check which position the baby is in, because there are times when it can be obvious from the imaging.”
“Even this early?” I ask.
“Oh, yeah.”
“You don’t want to know the gender?” Ethan asks me.
“Sex,” I correct him. “We won’t know the gender until the baby knows its own gender. But no, I also don’t want to know the biological sex of the baby either.”
He blinks at me. “Okay…”
I can see I’m gonna have to explain this one. “The sex is not important to me, and I don’t want preconceived notions of gender roles already interfering with the way I think about this person.” I point to my belly. “Plus, I don’t want the sex to be the thing that everyone focuses on when I inevitably start getting gifts and wind up with a bunch of blue stuff with trucks or pink stuff with ballerinas. I’d much rather wind up with a bunch of stuff that’s more gender neutral.”
“Do you want to know?” the tech asks Ethan. “Because if you look right now, I could show you.”
His head half turns, but his eyes stay on me. “No. No, I’ll wait to find out the gender too.”
“Sex.” Nurse Louise and I correct him at the same time. I legitimately love her.
“All clear,” the tech says. “Take a peek.”
We both turn and do identical intakes of breath. Because that, right there, is a perfect little hand. And foot.
“Look at that foot,” I say.
“There’s two of ’em,” the tech says, doing a lot of clicky-clicky stuff on the keyboard and making the image freeze every few seconds. I guess she’s taking lots of pictures. The whole thing takes about half an hour, because they really do look at every inch of the baby. For a while, the baby has its face turned away, towards my back, and they have me roll from side to side to get the baby to move.
“A drink of cold water?” Ethan suggests when the side-to-side thing doesn’t work.
“Good idea,” the tech says, and I swear I have literally never seen anyone look prouder of themself than Ethan looks in that very moment.
Nurse Louise gives me a glass, and I drink deeply. Sure enough, the baby squirms, turns. And…
“Face! Face! There’s the face!” I shout.
“Look at the eyes!” Ethan whisper-shouts.
“The nose.”
The baby’s mouth opens and it’s a perfect oval. There’s something extremely familiar about that posture.
“That’s a yawn,” Nurse Louise says.
“A yawn.” Ethan has two hands covering everything but his eyes. “Please tell me you got a picture of that,” he tells the tech.
She smiles. I smile. I look back and Nurse Louise is almost smiling. Is there anything more charming than a new father demanding comprehensive photos of his child doing nothing but yawning?
After that, the fun part’s over. There is more poking and prodding and question-asking. Everyone leaves and I put my clothes back on. Ethan and I are shuffled to a small office and Nurse Louise comes in with a set of pamphlets in each hand. She hands one set to Ethan and one set to me.
There’s the usual suspects of pregnancy nutrition information, pregnancy exercise information, pregnancy mental state information. But there’re also some new things as well. How to start preparing your home for a baby. What to have on hand in case the baby comes early. A checklist for everything you’ll need to have prepared for the hospital stay.
I stare at the pamphlets, a little shell-shocked.
The tech knocks on the door and delivers us a little folder. “The images,” she says with a big smile.
“Only one set?” Nurse Louise says with a frown.
“Oh.” The tech looks back and forth between us. Most couples likely only require one set. “Sorry.”
I flip open the file folder and Ethan and I look at each photo.
“Can I take this one?” he asks. It’s a perfect still of the left hand. “And this one?”
Of course it’s the yawn that he wants. I say yes to both and throw in one foot photo out of the goodness of my heart. Everything else is mine.
Then suddenly we’re back on the sidewalk. I look up at Ethan and the winter sun is directly behind his head. I can’t see his face. “Am I a total fool for not having considered the birth at all?”
He steps out of the sun. “No. I think you’re probably taking this one thing at a time.”
“But I…I just got used to the fact that there’s a baby in there.” I point to my stomach and then let my hand drop. It’s one thing to have Dustin say “baby” at Christmastime. But these scans, these pamphlets, these are a finish line. “But now I have to get used to the idea that there’s gonna be a baby out here.” I gesture to the world. “What the fuck.”
“Yeah. I know. What the fuck.” He scrubs a hand over his hair. His ears look cold. He rushed out of the house without a hat.
“I’m gonna have to take care of this kid,” I tell him. “Like, all the time. Twenty-four hours a day. For the rest of my life.”
He opens his mouth and closes it. Looks distinctly uncomfortable. “Lunch?” he asks.
“Oh. Yes. Okay.” I let him lead me to a fancy little brunch spot with a single peony in water on every table.
“Oh. Congrats,” the bored waiter says when he sees the ultrasound images laid out on the table between us. Ethan and I cannot tear our eyes away. “What’ll you have?”
Ethan must see that I am not capable of the read-choose-speak progression that is required of ordering food at a restaurant and kindly orders one large stack of pancakes and one huevos rancheros.
“You can have either of them,” he tells me. “Or both. Or all. Oh!” He flags the waiter back down and orders an extra side of hash browns and fruit salad.
“Eve,” he asks eventually. “Are you all right?”
I’m still staring down at the images. Everything that seemed novel and thrilling when it was on the screen in the exam room now seems all too real when it’s printed on paper. These photos feel almost like a legal document. Each photo is a hidden clause in a contract I signed months ago while half drunk and seconds away from orgasm. What a terrible time to make a life choice.
“I’m gonna have a baby,” I say dimly.
“Yes,” Ethan agrees quietly.
“And kickoff is in twenty weeks.”
“Give or take.”
“Is time suddenly moving, like, bullet-train fast for you too? Because for me…Okay. Okay. I’ll get twelve weeks of maternity leave,” I say. Which is generous in comparison to most jobs but now seems absolutely ludicrous. “What do I do at the end of the twelve weeks? I haven’t even looked into daycares yet. Maybe I need one of those Rottweilers that feeds your baby butter sandwiches and dances to records while you’re out doing errands.”
“What?” He’s alarmed.
“You never read that children’s book? Good Dog, Carl?”
“Oh.” He looks relieved I haven’t actually descended into gibberish. “You’re saying you’re worried about childcare.”
“And you’re not?”
He takes a deep breath. “We’ll figure it out. I work at night, you work during the day. Between the two of us we’ll be able to—”
My chair makes a hyena screech as I scrape it back across the tile floor. I charge out through the restaurant. I’m on the sidewalk. No coat. Not even Shep’s pink Christmas market hat to keep me company. The air is slicingly cold in my lungs. I take huge gulps of it and sag against the brick wall of the restaurant.
My coat is placed over my shoulders and my two hands are smooshed together and rubbed for warmth. “Eve?” he asks me, his eyes soft and worried.
“You can’t just slide that into conversation!” I half shout. My voice is shaking. I’ve got adrenaline tingling in my hands and feet. “You have to actually tell me!”
“What?”
It feels incredibly good to yell at Ethan.
“I’m over here, mincing words and trying not to scare you away. Meanwhile, I’m panic breathing in the shower because I am about to have a baby by myself. And you have the audacity to sprinkle in ‘we’ll figure it out.’ Who is we, Ethan? You can’t just casually mention that we’ll figure it out and that you’ll be willing to take care of the baby during the day when I’m back at work when you haven’t even told me if you’re going to be around at all! Mentioning is not telling! Jesus Christ, I need some clarity already.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry.” I’m folded into a hug that’s warm and soft and fits well. I cry bitterly hurt tears into his shirt, and his hug tightens. “I’m such a bonehead.”
“No, you’re not!” I get mad about that too. “This is an awfully hard situation and I know it’s not easy for you. But if you’re a bonehead then I’m a bonehead and I don’t want to be a bonehead. We did this thing together. Both of us were there and there was nothing wrong with what we did!” My forehead is against his collarbone and I can feel him shiver either from my words or from the cold. “We just liked each other and had sex. Is that so bad?”
“No,” he whispers. “It’s not. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“What are you sorry about?” I tip my head back.
“I shouldn’t have said that. About taking care of the baby during the day. Not without…” He abruptly unhands me and falls to a crouch, balancing on the balls of his feet. He grips his hair. “I’m so scared, Eve. I’m so scared that I’ll make a promise to you that I can’t keep. What do I do if I can’t keep it? What then? I just…I want to make everything all right for you. And I can’t. I just can’t. I’m so sorry.”
For some reason, his hysteria calms mine. “Oh. You still don’t know if you’re going to be around.” I name it for what it is. “I…guess that with you telling your family and giving me that painting, and us hanging out at Good Boy, and the appointment today, I kind of thought you were signaling that you had decided but hadn’t bothered to even talk to me about it…but, okay. If you’re still not sure…”
He doesn’t say anything. I study him down there. Whatever is happening to him looks very hard. But him reassuring me that we’d figure this out together, that seemed very…easy.
“Ethan…why did you say that about taking care of the baby during the day?”
He’s frozen for a second and then he shakes his head, staring down at the sidewalk. “It was stupid. It just…came out.” Finally, he looks back up at me. “Eve, I don’t know what I can reasonably promise you. Between the bar…Eleni…”
I eye him for a long moment and then decide that with our relationship as nebulous as it is, I really—sadly?—don’t have very much to lose. “Ethan…don’t think, just answer. Do you want to be involved?”
I ask the question so fast he doesn’t have time to guard against it. It’s a direct hit. His face opens plainly. It’s Sunshine Ethan. The easy happiness and desire that emanates from somewhere deep and unimpressionable. The very light that drew me to him in the first place.
His phone starts buzzing in his pocket.
The clouds draw over the sun and he closes his eyes.
“Excuse me…Are you two coming back? Or…?” The waiter is leaning out the front door of the restaurant. “Because you still have to pay for your food. And you left your, uh, pictures.”
I blink down at Ethan, the pain etched across his face, and as strung out as I feel, I still want to make him feel better. “Ethan, dear. We forgot the baby in the restaurant.”
He gives a watery laugh and stands up slowly, bringing his hands to his knees and then walking himself up straight. “Oh, boy.”
We go back in and eat a very quiet meal. We have to get on different trains so we hug goodbye on the street. I can hear the crinkling of the photo folder where Ethan presses it against my back. It’s a strange hug. There’s something resigned about it. It’s heavier and less tentative than his normal clinch. This feels like an I’m sorry hug. It makes me nervous and I don’t like it nearly as much as his Can-I? hugs.
When we separate, he walks backward for a moment and waves at me with his free hand, the photos limp down by his hip. Then he turns his back. And he leaves.