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“You’re just jealous again about Dr. Williamson and me.” I looked at him mischievously and chuckled.
“Oh, man. I’ll never live that down.” Suspecting that something was going on when he’d seen me and elderly Dr. Williamson at Starbucks wasn’t Aiden’s proudest moment. But he’d been in a weak state that day. Everybody, anybody, could be in a weak state sometimes. He had hoped I could forgive him for that silliness.
“Nah, everybody makes silly mistakes sometimes. Don’t worry.” I waved away the worry in Aiden’s thoughts, knowing what was bothering him. “And when all those pregnancy hormones were going wild in me, and I refused to talk to you?”
“Oh yeah. Well. At least you have an excuse, pregnancy. I was just — I was just stupid and a jerk.”
“I think you also have an excuse.” I lay on my back and looked up at Aiden. He nodded.
“That I’m in love with you?” He leaned down and kissed me. Our tongues swirled together in my mouth, then in my lover’s.
Suddenly I sat up and quick-stepped to the bathroom. “Pee time!”
“You’re like a racehorse, honey.” Aiden pressed his back into the headboard again, sighing contentedly.
I had the perfect man and the perfect life. And we would soon have the perfect baby; that was all I could hope for.
“I can cook today after I come back from the doctor’s. I’m feeling up to it. Morning sickness not too bad.” I watched Aiden buttoning up his UPS shirt as I returned from the bathroom.
“I’ll bring takeout. Don’t worry. Maybe we can celebrate tonight.”
Aiden didn’t talk about it too much. He didn’t want to jinx it. And, of course, he and I would love the baby no matter what medical conditions that baby would have once born. But after the fire, there was always a risk, a significant risk, of the baby being born with congenital birth defects and disabilities. Or not even being born at all. As long as the baby was born, no matter what disabilities, my love and I would be happy.
Unfortunately, Dr. Williamson couldn’t even guarantee that much. He had told Aiden and me that since I had such a hard time conceiving before, it was already a risky pregnancy. Then there had been the fire. Aiden had carried me out during the fire. I had felt sick for the few days after the fire.
As for the baby, there was no way to know for sure until birth whether the baby would survive the pregnancy and whether the baby would have congenital birth defects. But every “no” result at every one-month mark helped us feel better. If the baby wasn’t having medical problems by this time, it probably wouldn’t have any problems by the time of birth.
Aiden left for work. Through the bedroom window, I watched his car pulling out of the underground garage and onto the street. Once the silver Camry disappeared into New York traffic, I gazed across the city, all the way to the library where I no longer worked. Whenever a UPS truck drove by, I imagined it was Aiden’s truck, even if I knew that his route didn’t take him by our home. UPS rules wouldn’t have allowed that.
After a long and careful pregnancy shower with lukewarm water, I stepped out of the shower cubicle. I clicked on my Uber app to get a car. It would take me—and his baby inside me—to Dr. Williamson’s office.
The nurses performed two ultrasounds scans and drew blood for a hormone panel. Dr. Williamson came in to listen to all sides of my pregnant belly with a stethoscope. Then he told me about the amniotic fluid draw. The needle would be guided by ultrasound, and Dr. Williamson had been trained to perform the procedure. Soon after the fluid draw, they’d know more about the baby.
The doctor then disappeared again into his office to examine the ultrasound and lab results. I wasn’t the only one who liked hiding out in a secret windowless office; from what glances I could catch, Dr. Williamson holed up in a room not too different from the one I had holed up in at the library.
“You should be careful about that room,” was the first thing I said to the doctor as he entered the examination room.
“What room?”
“Your office. That small windowless office. That’s what got me in trouble in the library fire.”
“A small windowless office?”
“I liked to hide out and get my work done in an office that wasn’t meant to be an office. Firefighters didn’t even know to look for people there. It was supposed to be a storage room. And there I was, the baby and me.”
“And Aiden showed up because he knew you were holed up in there, right?”
“Aiden showed up. Even though I’d been rejecting his calls.”
He nodded and looked down at the chart. “I told you and Aiden already that your baby has some significant risks from your exposure to smoke, heat, toxic fumes.”
