Page 79 of Accidental Groom
“Sweetheart, you alright?”
A voice breaks through my incoming spiral, warm and gentle like maple syrup. I blink and look up, finding Mary, the midwife I’mfinallygetting to meet.
She’s standing in the doorway of the exam room in scrubs the color of the evergreen trees outside, her graying curls piled in a loose bun on top of her head. Laugh lines crease her cheeks, and her eyes — pale blue, sharp, butkind— scan my face like whatI’d imagine a good mother would do if she were checking on her kid.
Already, she’s nothing like Dr. Frasier.
Where Frasier is clipped and clinical, all scalpels and suspicion, Mary is soft-voiced and slow-moving, but not in a way that feelsold. She just feels safe. She crosses the room and reaches for my hand, her skin cool and dry against mine.
“You’re shaking,” she says, her frown tugging the sides of her mouth down.
The sound that comes from me isalmosta laugh. “Just a little nervous.”
I’d be more surprised if you weren’t,” she grins. “Big day, this one.” She helps me up onto the table, positioning the pillow just right behind my back. She leans over and flicks the monitor on for the ultrasound. “We’re looking at organs, growth, spine, limbs — the whole lot. Making sure everything’s in its place.”
I swallow. “And the, uh — the sex?” I ask, fidgeting with the hem of my top.
“If baby’s in the mood to cooperate, yes,” she chirps. “We’ll take a peek.” She dims the lights and turns the screen toward me, booting everything up properly, then warns me quickly about the chill from the jelly before settling the probe against my skin.
The screen flickers with static. A blob appears on the monitor, and she moves the probe, adjusting it until the blob turns into multiple blobs and then turns into things that resemble tiny hands, a head, a body. A fluttering heartbeat thumps alongside my own through the speaker.
My throat closes. It’s such a clear image.
Mary smiles softly as she looks over at me. “Beautiful, isn’t it? These machines are fantastic.”
I nod, too choked up to speak. On the screen, the baby stretches a little, and I can feel every bit of movement inside of me.
“Baby looks good.” Mary presses a button, capturing a photo, before measuring something else. “Really good. Fluid levels look normal, measuring right where they should. Strong heartbeat too.”
The tension in my shoulders eases, just slightly. But this still doesn’t feel right. I wasn’t supposed to be herealone. I pull my phone out from my pocket and open the camera, aiming it at the screen. The photo shoots off to Harry a moment later. “He was supposed to be here,” I murmur, my voice a little broken, a hint of anger creeping in through the rest of the emotions.
“Harry?” she asks, her mouth flattening into a thin line.
I nod. There’s no point in explaining, no point in bitching about the man who signs her checks, no point in wondering out loud to her why he pulled away. Instead, I say nothing, watching instead on the monitor as Mary orbits around the baby’s head.
“Looks like him,” I rasp.
“Mmm, but you too.”
The scan moves on. More measurements, checking organs, a close-up on tiny, twitching fingers. It’s a miracle, watching it all unfold — seeing who is growing inside of me, knowing that I made half of them, knowing that they’re morerealthan they’ve ever been.
“Want to know what you’re having?” Mary grins, her face lighting up the second I nod. She tilts the probe, just a little, zooming in — and clicks once. “A girl.”
The words hit me like a gentle explosion.
A girl. A daughter. We’re having agirl.
The air in the room feels warmer, the fear draining a little. We have a sex, we have a pronoun to use, we haveeverything?—
“A girl,” I echo, my voice trembling. “Oh my god.”
Mary chuckles and takes a few more photos, showing me as much as she can, before she puts the probe away and grabs a handful of paper towels. She gently wipes my belly clean. “You want me to print off some of those photos for Harry?” she asks, her voice calm even though it feels like she’s poking her nose into a potential war zone.
“Yeah,” I breathe. “If you can.”
“Of course, sweetheart,” she grins, turning back to the machine. She scrolls through the images she captured, hits print on a few of them. “Now, I’ve not got anything else to do today and you seem a bit like an emotional wreck. If I’m being entirely honest, I think what would be best for both of us is a massive stack of pancakes at Betty’s Diner.”
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