Is anyone with you today, sweetie?” the ultrasound tech asked in the darkened exam room. “I’m Carly, by the way.” She busied herself flipping switches on the ultrasound machine, gathering the probe, and adjusting the TV monitor so Kaitlyn could see it from her semireclining position on the exam table.
“Just me,” Kaitlyn said with the biggest smile she could muster. She didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for her. She’d decided to come today by herself. Which might have been selfish, but she needed some space from Rafe.
Between the fake engagement and his wanting to fix everything in her apartment not tied down and the fact that she just wasn’t sure what was motivating him to be so solicitous…she just needed a breather. The family was understandably worried about Nonna, who was still in the hospital getting cardiac tests, and she and Rafe were on hold about telling them the truth. But right now all she wanted was some room to think.
She was perfectly fine with doing this whole baby thing on her own. And secretly, maybe she preferred it. Anything was better than Rafe’s strange hovering behavior and nervous energy.
Carly took a seat on a stool, reached for the ultrasound probe, and adjusted settings on the machine. “Okay,” she said, grabbing a plastic bottle and explaining that she was going to squirt some gel on Kaitlyn’s lower abdomen.
The gel hit her skin just as a text went off on her phone.
I’m at your place doing some work. Okay? Let myself in.
Rafe. Working in her apartment again, as he had all day yesterday too. Okay, she typed back, guilt running through her, cold as the gel.
She should have told him about this test and asked him if he wanted to come. But he was so…zealous about helping her and worrying about everything. He’d gone from being shocked about the baby to trying to prove to her that he was all in. She didn’t buy it. Oh, she couldn’t deny that he wanted to be a part of this baby’s life, but something just wasn’t sitting well. It was as if he was driven by his own strong sense of responsibility instead of his heart being in it.
It made her afraid he wouldn’t be able to really love this baby.
The screen flicked on, and fuzzy gray-and-white images filled the screen. She forgot all about Rafe and how weird he was acting and all her confused feelings because the room was filled with a loud whoosh whoosh whoosh sound.
Kaitlyn swallowed. “Is that…” Her voice trailed off as her throat suddenly tightened.
“You bet,” Carly said, adjusting a few nobs and dials. “That is the strong and regular heartbeat of this little person,” she said, pointing. Up on the screen was the profile, clear as day, of a baby. With arms that were moving and legs that were kicking. And a little nose and mouth and tiny moving fingers.
Something in her broke. A tide of overwhelming emotion washed over her. And just like that, Kaitlyn fell in love. An overpowering, relentless love that made her breath catch and her eyes well up with tears. She swallowed hard. “Is she—is she sucking her thumb?”
“Yes, he or she is.”
“Can you tell? If it’s a boy or a girl, I mean?” Kaitlyn asked.
“Not until the twenty-week ultrasound. That’s much more detailed.” She pointed out what features could be seen—organs, tiny fingers and toes.
It was the most amazing thing Kaitlyn had ever seen. Something she and Rafe had made, a part of her and a part of him.
Carly pressed keys on a computer keyboard. “Your little one’s heart is beating one hundred sixty times a minute, which is awesome. All the organs appear to be in place. The placenta’s right here. All the measurements indicate your due date is spot-on.”
Kaitlyn pressed her lips together and focused on the screen. She wasn’t going to miss a single second of meeting this baby.
Her first impulse was to text Rafe, to share this like they’d shared so many other moments. But of course she couldn’t. She should have invited him here. To show him what this was really all about. And maybe he would have fallen instantly in love too.
* * *
When Kaitlyn returned to her apartment, Rafe was on a stepladder in her bedroom fiddling with wires that were sticking out of the ceiling. When she saw him, her first reaction was, Who’s the hottie in the flannel shirt fixing stuff? It wasn’t the worst thing, having him around, doing things for the baby. She liked that he’d wanted to fix the baby’s room. And maybe—just maybe—it had also been a little nice that he’d walked her to her door the other night, and had caulked her windows, and was even talking about helping her pick out a paint color for the baby’s room.
She could come to like this behavior—well, some of this behavior—a lot. Too much, really. That was why she wasn’t going to put much stock in it. Because whatever was making him feel guilty was going to pass, and they’d go back to Rafe being Rafe and her going it alone. And that would be all right. Better to get used to things being that way between them than hoping for more. The other scenario was way too dangerous.
“I hope you don’t mind I came over and got started,” he said, flashing a smile as he looked down from his high-up perch.
And oh, that smile. It might’ve even affected her if guilt hadn’t crept through her. Ugh, she was a terrible person.
“No, of course not,” she said. There he was, spending all his spare time fixing up her apartment for the baby, and there she was, going by herself to their baby’s ultrasound. She was the worst. She took the ultrasound images she’d been holding in her hand to show him and slipped them under her mouse pad on her desk. She wanted to show him—at the right time, when she could explain.
“I’ve been Googling a few things you might be interested in,” he said as he stepped down from the ladder, pulling out his cell phone. “Do you know how many micrograms of folic acid are in your prenatal vitamin?” He scrolled through his phone intently. “Because there needs to be four hundred to prevent spina bifida.”
“I’ve been on a prenatal vitamin for quite some time,” she said. It was suddenly coming back to her why she’d needed some alone time.
“And did you know you shouldn’t eat uncooked hot dogs?”
“I don’t eat hot dogs, Rafe.” Hot dogs? He’d been reading about hot dogs?
He dug into his jeans pocket and pulled out a sticky note. “And do you get twelve hundred milligrams of calcium a day? If not, you might need a supplement.”
“Ice cream is my favorite food. I’m pretty sure I don’t have a calcium deficit.” Was this what it was like to have someone really be concerned? She wasn’t used to this. Steve, being a football coach, had been concerned about the outcome of all football games, local and otherwise—but she’d never had this level of obsession directed at her.
“Have you been checked for diabetes?” That list Rafe was reading from must be a mile long. She fought a sudden urge to toss his phone out the window.
She crossed her arms and frowned. “Are you implying that I eat too much ice cream?”
He glanced up, still dead serious. “Of course not. It just says here that you have to be checked. And how much fish do you eat a week? Because fish have mercury in them, especially big fish. You know, the ones at the top of the food chain. I had no idea you had to watch out for that.”
“I don’t really like—”
“I forgot the most important one. Have you had your flu shot? Pregnant women who get the flu are at high risk of complications. Basically, your immune system sucks when you’re pregnant.”
“Rafe, stop. Enough Googling.” She tugged his phone out of his hands, forcing him to look up at her. “You’re freaking me out.”
“Oh.” Oh dear. He suddenly looked…hurt. Hurt? This was a strange side of him, one she’d never seen before, and she had no idea where it was coming from.
She softened her tone and touched his arm. “Look, everything’s fine. I feel great. There’s nothing to worry about. I’ve got to take a shower and get to work, okay?”
She needed a little breather from his obsessions. Because he was driving her completely batty.
* * *
Rafe heard the shower whoosh on and the old pipes screech and clank as they struggled to supply hot water. Yes, he was acting like a mother hen. Yes, he was worried about…everything. But not because he felt guilty about their relationship—or rather, their lack of one. The truth was, Nonna’s health scare had brought him back in time. To Claire. And their baby. And now he was scared to death. About everything. Kaitlyn’s health. Her safety. How could he tell her that every fear, every list of everything that could possibly go wrong in a pregnancy, was running at warp speed through his brain 99 percent of the time? That he was terrified that he’d lose her too.
Man, he needed to get a grip. His obsessing over everything that could go wrong wasn’t making things any easier, and now he’d gone and freaked out Kaitlyn too. He pulled out his tape measure and climbed the ladder to take a ceiling measurement but ended up coming back down and scrubbing a hand over his face.
He knew repairing everything in sight wasn’t a substitute for talking about the elephant in the room. Which was that he couldn’t stop thinking about the baby from so long ago. And this time, he wanted to do everything right so that everything would be all right.
Logically, he understood life didn’t work like that. But he had to do something. The last time he was young and focused on himself and look what had happened. The worst. He was determined for things to be different this time.
Not on my watch was what kept running through his mind.
Deciding to make coffee, he walked into the kitchen. For a few minutes, he lost himself in figuring out the complexities of the new coffee maker that he’d set up for Kaitlyn and even found a bag of beans in the cupboard.
As the pleasant gurgles and the rich aroma of brewing coffee filled the kitchen, he walked into the main room and sat down at Kaitlyn’s computer desk. Maybe if he Googled signs of a healthy pregnancy he’d be able to calm down. Kaitlyn was right—she was doing great, and he was letting his imagination carry himself away. He tapped the space bar to wake up the screen and shook the mouse.
That was when he saw them. Edges of thin paper sticking out from underneath the mouse pad. He lifted it up to find a couple of grainy black-and-white images—ultrasound images. His hand paused in midair, a mishmash of feelings pitching and yawing inside him.
Rafe swallowed hard. Heard the shower turn off down the hall and the pipes shudder one last time. He reached for the photos but suddenly withdrew his hands as if they would burn him. He took in a few gulps of air. With shaking hands, he finally picked them up.
The fuzzy image of a baby viewed longways from the side was plain as day before his eyes. It was the clear outline of a tiny human being, with miniature hands and feet. He could make out facial features too, and the hands were near the mouth.
A baby. Not a pregnancy, but a baby. His and Kaitlyn’s.
He heard his name. Kaitlyn was standing there in leggings and a bulky sweater, watching him. For how long he didn’t know. Her eyes were wide with surprise, wariness, maybe even shock, but she said nothing.
He swallowed, but words failed him. His hand was shaking, but he hid that by setting the images down.
“I—I had an ultrasound today,” she said.
He cleared his throat. “I see,” he said, his voice tight. He was disappointed she hadn’t told him and relieved at the same time.
“You’re upset with me,” she said, walking over to him.
Instead of waiting for her, he got up and walked into the tiny kitchen. He opened the fridge and pretended to search for milk but then shut the door and stood there, in front of the closed fridge, trying to think of what to say. The images would not leave his head. Ultrasound images. Of a baby, plain as day. Like the ultrasound Claire never got to have.
“Rafe, I didn’t ask you to go because…because I feel like you’re doing all this because it’s expected of you.” She waited for him to turn around. “And I appreciate all you’re doing, but you’re just being super…super hovering about everything. I-I just wanted some space. I’m sorry if I hurt you.”
“Hovering, huh?” he said, anger making his voice sound higher than usual. This was getting worse. She didn’t want him at the appointment, and she didn’t want him here doing things.
“I—appreciate your help,” she said firmly. “But I don’t need it.”
“You mean you don’t want my help.” He turned to the coffee maker and started punching buttons, determined to get at least one thing right today.
“I don’t want you to feel like all of this”—she gestured to all of his projects—“is an obligation. I want you to want this baby.”
His heart sank. “It’s not what you think,” he said. It was complicated. It wasn’t about wanting or not wanting. It was about being scared out of his mind.
“Then what?” She threw up her hands, frustrated with trying to read him. “What is it? You want your old life back? Then take it back. I’ll be fine on my own.”
“Stop.” He quit fidgeting with the stupid coffee maker and rested his hands on the counter. He couldn’t look at her. “I need to tell you something.”
* * *
Kaitlyn scanned Rafe’s face and saw that it was full of…struggle. Which surprised her, because he was always the one to break the tension in a hard moment, always the one to find a reason to laugh or crack a joke.
He wasn’t cracking any jokes now. He looked so at odds that she placed her hand on his arm. He stared at it, seeming to gather his thoughts.
Suddenly he took up her hands and looked at her intently. She couldn’t help the feeling that he was about to reveal something raw, something awful, and every muscle braced for impact. Please, please, she thought. Please don’t say you don’t want this baby.
“There was a baby,” he said, his voice barely audible.
She barely heard him. “Excuse me?” she said.
His grip was desperate, his face full of anguish. “Eight years ago—there was a baby.”
She echoed his words, comprehension dawning slowly. Suddenly she got what he was saying. Eight years ago. With Claire. A baby?
“Claire was eight weeks along when the accident happened. We hadn’t told anyone yet. She was—she was driving herself to her ultrasound appointment.”
“Oh no, Rafe. No.” Without thinking, Kaitlyn wrapped herself around him and hugged him, hard. Dear God in heaven.
“I’d gotten called to a fire. It was at the washer factory in Richardson, and mutual aid calls went out to four counties. So I called her on the way and told her I wasn’t going to make it to the appointment. I didn’t even take the time to tell her I loved her.” His voice broke. “Truth was, I was more interested in heading to my first big blaze.”
Kaitlyn clung to him, her cheek pressed against the scrape of his rough one. Losing a fiancée was catastrophic. But a baby as well…A whole new understanding dawned. “I’m sorry,” she murmured into his shoulder. “So sorry.”
They stood together in the tiny kitchen. She wanted to be strong for him, to take away his pain. A pain that must surely stab him in the heart every time he thought of their baby.
His eyes searched hers. She thought he might say more, but he didn’t. Or maybe he couldn’t. For a man who wielded his sense of humor with such proficiency, she understood how hard it was for him to be serious.
“I’m sorry about the way I’ve been acting,” he said again. “I don’t want this to—I don’t want this to drag down a happy time.”
She ached for him, for the family he’d lost—no, for the life he’d lost. She struggled to say something lighthearted, as he might—but failed. “I can’t imagine your pain,” she said. “But thank you for telling me.” Her head was spinning. Everything she’d thought about him—the fun Rafe, the happy-go-lucky guy, always ready with a quick joke—that wasn’t really who he was. The humor was a front, a mask to hide all this heartache.
She held him by the arms and met his troubled gaze. Before she could analyze what she was doing, she found herself desperate to fill the silence. “I saw the baby kicking today—I mean really kicking, even though it’s too early to feel a thing. They said the baby’s growing well and everything’s in its place and the heartbeat is strong. I-I’m really sorry I went without you. I hope next time you’ll come so you can see everything too.” Maybe she was blathering. Maybe he didn’t want to hear about it. But it was the one way she could think of to give him the only thing she could…hope.
He nodded, but he still didn’t say anything, so she kept talking. “No matter how difficult this whole situation is for either of us, we created something…good.” She took his hand and placed it on her abdomen, leaving her hand atop his. “This baby is joyful and good.”
She looked at his ashen face. The dark circles under his eyes. She’d never seen him so weary.
He nodded and attempted a smile. For a moment, he pulled her close and held her there, finally planting a brief kiss on her forehead before releasing her. Then he glanced at his watch and mumbled something about getting back to work.
Now she understood that her entire perception of Rafe as an easy-breezy ladies’ man was entirely wrong.
Just as Rafe never crossed the line of intimacy with anyone, she’d never leaned on anyone or let anyone help her. Maybe he wanted to help her—maybe he hadn’t just been saying that. Maybe it would be healing for him to help her, and to see that this baby was going to be just fine. From now on, she was going to give him the benefit of the doubt.
She understood that Rafe had locked his heart away to prevent it from feeling any more pain. She got that. The trouble was, this Rafe—the real Rafe—was making her feel all the feelings again that she’d worked so hard to shut down.
* * *
It hadn’t been so awful to open up to Katie. His secret was out in the open now. But it would be naïve to think she could save him, that she and this baby could somehow take away all the pain he could hardly bear for all these years. The way she’d felt in his arms—so sweet and full of love and understanding—it nearly undid him. But how could he allow himself the luxury of accepting her comfort when he could give nothing in return?
Rafe walked into the room that would one day be their baby’s and shut the door, Kaitlyn’s words echoing in his mind. This baby is joyful and good.
Like its mother, he thought.
Rafe got back to work, wanting only to lose himself in his project. When Kaitlyn knocked to tell him she was headed downstairs, and that she had an appointment to see Hazel’s guidance counselor today, he nodded and waved, pretending to be engrossed in whatever was playing in his earbuds. But the truth was, there was nothing there but dead silence, his own brain working overtime.
It dawned on him what Kaitlyn had done just by being herself—she’d made him want to find a way through this pain. For their baby. And who was he kidding? For her.
Kaitlyn was like sunshine, offering warmth and sweetness and…hope. The scary part was that she made him wonder, what would it be like to dare to step into that light?