Chapter 43Rayne

“E

arth to Rayne.” His voice is soft in my ear, broken only by his fingers snapping in my face. “Where are you?” He’s leaned across the counter, next to the doughnut case directly across from where I’m restacking the coffee creamers and straws. It’s hard to feel pissed off when his brown eyes sparkle like that. Like he’s happy. Excited.

As I should be.

I shift my eyes to the table in the corner and Preston turns to see. Jaycee’s holding court, Ainsley and Mallory at her side. Umpteen college pamphlets clutter the table, and snippets of conversation, punctuated by Jaycee’s shrill voice, float in the air—frat parties, sororities, football games, and new roommates from different states. I want to shove napkins in my ears so I don’t hear, because hearing it makes me jealous. And I never want to be jealous of Jaycee. At least I’m working the counter and don’t have to wait on their table. Thank God for small miracles.

“Forget her. She’s stupid and will fail-out before Christmas break,” says Preston. I smile. I’d regret wishing for anyone else’s failure, but Jaycee deserves it. And more. “We’ve got more important things to do. Are you ready? Get your stuff and let’s go.”

The tissue paper covering the reclining chair crinkles underneath me. Preston swivels a round stool to my side, looking all eager-beaver. I press hard into the headrest, studying the ceiling tiles as if they might unlock the great mysteries of the universe. Anything to take my mind off the fact that as much as I adore Preston, I’d rather have Gage sitting on that stool as we see the first glimpses of our baby. No more wondering about who this little person might be. Now, I’ll have an actual picture.

A chubby woman in scrubs plods in the room and to my side, and without a word, pulls down my elasticized pants panel and yanks up my shirt to fully expose the bump. She pushes her fingers into my sides, poking from one side to the next. When I shrink back, she looks up at me. “Just getting your little one good and awake.”

She takes a seat beside the ultrasound machine and pulls out a clipboard. “Just need to confirm before we start. Name—Davidson, Rayne?” I nod. “Gestation at twenty-one weeks, three days?” I nod again. “We’re checking measurements and functions. Are we finding out gender?”

Preston’s grin threatens to swallow his face, but I squelch his excitement. “No. I want to be surprised.”

Preston immediately gears up to bombard me with the perks of finding out. “But…”

I turn toward him, stoic and unsmiling. “I said no.” His shoulders slump and the corners of his mouth droop, and all I can think is how much harder it would’ve been if I’d told him the whole truth. I want Gage to be with me when the gender is revealed. I’m saving that for him.

“Very good. Here we go.” The technician squirts warm jelly across my stomach and pushes it around with the wand. Through the wispy clouds on the screen, a profile emerges with little ears, a little chin, and a nose, wide across the bridge with just a smidge of an upturn at the tip, that could’ve come from no one else but Gage.

Preston grips my fingers, squeezing them together to his lips. This should be one of the happiest days of my life, but it’s more like a knife to the heart. Sharing this with Preston could easily be any girl’s dream, but how can I be okay with it? Especially now with Gage’s nose staring me in the face, taunting me from the screen like a ghost from the past. If I can barely handle looking at the grainy 3-D image from a screen, how can I do this every single day of my life? But as much as I hate it, I also love it. Love at first sight meant nothing until now. I’m in love with that nose, with that face, with that little person that’s a fifty-fifty split of me and Gage. Our baby. Our love. Alive and well.

“Let’s check some functions.” She swipes the wand around the side of my abdomen, and the screen lights up in blues and reds with blood flow patterns. The heart, like tiny palpitating butterfly wings, beats in perfect rhythm. “Let’s have a listen,” she says and with a flip of a switch, a crackle of white noise gives way to another much more incredible sound. Woosh-woosh-woosh-woosh echoes rhythmically in the room.

“Is that…?” A myriad of emotions swells in my throat, forcing its way up like a gigantic pressure behind my eyes.

“A healthy heartbeat coming in at 145 bpm.”

“That’s good? Normal?”

“It’s perfect.” She smiles and pats my hand then goes back to clicking away on her keyboard with one hand, the other still roaming over my stretched skin with the wand. When finished, she prints out a long strip of still pictures from the ultrasound as a memento.

That night, I unwrap a silver picture frame engraved with “Baby’s First Picture” I’d purchased days before. I comb through the printouts and select my favorite profile shot that outlines the baby’s silhouette, tiny bow-lips, and Daddy’s nose.