Page 28 of The Glass Dolphin

“I’ll just take you back and bring him when he comes,” she said, gesturing for Kelli to get on over there to where she stood. Kelli did, and she followed the woman down the hall to a room with a long table in it and plenty of equipment.

She’d just pulled out her phone to text Shad when Dr. Willis entered. “All right,” he said. “Let’s check on your baby.” He also beamed, but the sunlight felt false, like that of a tanning bed. Bright, but almost lethal.

“Shad isn’t here,” Kelli said. “He’s coming from City Hall, and he was going to meet me.”

“City Hall.” Dr. Willis scoffed and shook his head. “It’s incredible what’s going on there, right?”

Kelli didn’t know how to answer, so she simply blinked at him.

“Did you see that article that said the Planning and Zoning Commission approved over two hundred building permits this year?”

Kelli took a breath. “The Planning Commission doesn’t actually approve permits,” she said, her voice growing hoarse. “Theyrecommendthem to the City Council, and they get reviewed there.” She swallowed, because she wouldn’t have known that without Shad’s knowledge and expertise in city government. “Then they go to the Building Permits Division for final approval.”

Dr. Willis took his turn to blink at her. “It’s still a lot of building permits. Two hundred?”

Kelli wanted to tell him that number might not even be true, but she held her tongue. The tension between them broke, and Dr. Willis took a big breath. “Okay,” he said, his voice moving back into the bright zone. “You did want to know the gender, right?”

“Yes,” Kelli said. “But we’re waiting for Shad.”

“Oh, we can get started without him.” Dr. Willis stood and picked up a tube of gel.

Kelli did not lay down and expose her belly. “I want to wait for him before we start.”

“He’s late,” Dr. Willis said.

“And you don’t have any other patients after us,” Kelli said pointedly. “So can we please just—?” She cut off when the door opened and Shad hurried inside.

“Sorry,” he said. “Sorry, doctor. Hey, honey.” He smiled at her and pressed a kiss to her forehead, obviously oblivious to the mood of the room. He’d broken it, and the awkwardness had fled through the open door. He looked from Dr. Willis, who still held the tube of gel, to Kelli. “Did I miss something?”

“No,” Kelli said quickly. “We were waiting for you to start.” She laid back and lifted her shirt, her heartbeat suddenly tumbling through her veins. “Let’s see how this baby is doing.”

Shad smiled at her, but Kelli had a hard time returning it. She’d always liked Dr. Willis. She’d known there would be differing opinions on the growth happening in Five Island Cove.

She and Shad lived on Pearl Island, the one furthest from the center of the cove. Life there was slower, quieter, easier, and she had no desire to be in the thick of anything political like how many building permits were issued this year.

All of that disappeared when the steady, drumming heartbeat of her baby filled the room. “Oh,” she whispered, looking over to the screen. She let Dr. Willis talk about the size of the baby, and how things looked like they’d been developing properly.

He adjusted her due date from March tenth to the fifteenth, and a rush of adrenaline filled Kelli. Five more days? She didn’t want to be pregnant for an extra five days—especially by the end of all of this. Not only that, but March fifteenth was the Ides of March—a day of misfortune.

She shook the superstition out of her head. March fifteenth was just a date, like the fourteenth before it and the sixteenth after it.

“All right,” Dr. Willis said. “Right here, I’m seeing that you two are going to be the proud parents of a little girl.”

Kelli’s smile burst onto her face then, and it was the first real one she’d experienced since the windows had been shattered at The Glass Dolphin.

“A girl,” she repeated. Shad laughed and leaned over to kiss her. As he gazed at her, they smiled at one another and both said, “A little girl,” at the same time.

Kelli would like to think she could retreat to her bubble on Pearl Island and let all the other things slide around her. She knew that wasn’t possible, but for this one moment, with Shad, it totally was, and she seized onto it and committed it to memory.

She couldn’t wait to tell her friends, and she hoped her news would be a ray of light in the darkening uncertainty hanging over all of them.

ChapterTwelve

Maddy twisted the key, and the new glass doors to The Glass Dolphin opened just like they had before the vandalism. She breathed a soft, nearly silent sigh of relief even as Ben pressed close behind her.

“Okay,” he said, because that was what he said to steady her. He’d asked her if she was okay two weeks ago, before they’d left for Nantucket. She’d said she was.

She’d taken him to her father’s house, and they’d enjoyed their stay there before continuing up to Canada.

---