Page 77 of Pieces

It’s not just a heartbeat. It’s a promise. A beginning.

“That’s it?” Daphne asks, and my attention snaps to her. Those bright baby blues shine with everything I’m feeling too. I take her hand in mine and squeeze as I watch her watching our baby for the first time. “Is everything okay with them?”

“Everything looks good so far.”

Looking back at the screen, I swallow hard. My brain is trying to catch up, but my heart’s already there, fully invested.

The blob moves again, and I tilt my head. It doesn’t look like a baby. Not yet, anyway. It’s just a blob. A wiggly blob. I stare at it for a second, and before I can stop myself, I blurt out, “They look like Nemo.”

Daphne side-eyes me. “Nemo?”

“Yeah, like, you know when Nemo’s swimming to touch the butt?” I gesture vaguely at the screen, my hands shaking slightly, my mind reeling. “It kinda looks like that. Like they’re just floating around in there, being all…fish-like. Do babies swim? They must, right? I mean, they’re surrounded by water…or is it goop? Is it waterorgoop?”

The tech chuckles softly. “It’s amniotic fluid,” she says. “It surrounds the baby and protects them. Think of it like a cushion. And no, they don’t swim exactly, but they do move around a little.”

“Oh. That makes sense. I actually knew that, I think.” I glance at Daphne, feeling a little better. But then my brain latches onto something else as panic sets in. “Wait, how do theybreathein there? Like, do they have gills? Are they secretly part fish? But, like, only until they’re born, then they’re human babies?”

Daphne’s hand tightens on mine as she tries not to laugh, and the tech looks like she’s trying to decide if I’m serious.

“They get oxygen through the umbilical cord,” she says patiently. “Not gills. Your baby is human, unless you’re going to tell me you’re not from this planet.”

“Right. Of course. Umbilical cord. But that’s great, gotta get that oxygen,” I say, rubbing the nape of my neck, but I’ve opened some kind of door in my brain that’s screaming at me to protect and understand what’s happening to that little fish baby on the screen, my sanity caving in under the weight of things I don’t know yet. All of that, and this is what comes out of my mouth... “Doesn’t it kind of look like a booger? Like, a really…cute booger? Can boogers even be cute?”

I think I might be losing it. All that calm I told Jay I had earlier has disappeared and now I’m this guy. The one who thinks his baby is part fish or cute booger. And the tech definitely thinks I’m part alien at this point. It’s going well.

I sit back, suddenly hyperaware of how quiet the room is again. The tech’s clicking something, and I know I can’t look at Daphne, because she probably thinks I’m freaking out, which I’m absolutely not. Well, there’s a small chance of it. Miniscule, really.

Daphne reaches for my hand, squeezing it as she stares at the screen. “That’s the cutest little booger I’ve ever seen.”

Her voice pulls me out of the spiral, and for a second, everything slows down. Blob, booger, fish, whatever. It doesn’t matter what they look like because they’re ours. They’re ours, and that’s pretty freaking incredible.

“Yeah, it is.”

Chapter thirty-three

Daphne

12 weeks

AsIholdthesonogram picture of our baby, I can’t help but feel…everything. The fear, the joy, the uncertainty. It’s like my heart decided to host a parade, and every emotion I’ve ever felt is marching in step. I’m scared for what’s to come. Excited too. Terrified that I’m going to make mistakes. What if I’m not good at this? What if I mess up somehow? I push that thought away as fast as it comes because, most of all, there’s a bubbling beneath my chest that’s undeniable. I’m one hundred percent in love with that little booger and everything I plan to achieve in my life will be for our baby.

Taking out my phone, I snap a picture and send it to our family group chat. Within a minute, Mom and Finn reply.

Mom

That’s my grandbaby?

Daphne

It is

Finn

Shit, you’re really growing a human, Daph!

Mom

Thank you for sharing that, honey. I love you xx

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