Page 208 of Say My Name

“Reasonable hours.”

“Define reasonable,” Dominic says.

“I’m beginning to regret bringing you.”

“You didn’t bring me. I told you I was coming.”

“And then you asked if I wanted you here.”

His attention shifts fully to me, his gaze quiet and unyielding. “You said yes.”

The simple reminder quiets every clever answer trying to leave my mouth.

I did say yes.

I wanted him at this appointment. I wanted his questions, his overprepared notebook, and the way he watches me take my prenatal vitamin every morning as if he needs the daily proof that we are doing this together.

The doctor reaches for his notebook. “May I?”

Dominic hesitates before handing it over.

She studies the page. “You made categories.”

“They’re organized by urgency.”

“Mr. Rowe, pregnancy is not a hostile takeover.”

“No,” he agrees. “Hostile takeovers usually come with better disclosures.”

She laughs. I press my lips together, trying not to encourage him.

“You’re both doing fine,” she assures us. “Some uncertainty is part of the process.”

Dominic’s expression suggests he considers uncertainty a design flaw.

The doctor moves us into the ultrasound room. I lie back while she dims the lights, and Dominic takes the chair beside the table. His notebook remains open on his knee until the monitor flickers to life.

The image is grainy, a confusing field of black and gray that I cannot immediately translate into anything real.

Then the doctor points.

“There’s your baby.”

Everything inside me stops.

I have seen the positive test. I have read the books now stacked beside Dominic’s bed. I wake every morning aware that my body carries a life we made.

This is different.

This is our baby, visible on a screen.

“And there’s the heartbeat,” the doctor says.

A sound like frantic drumming fills the room, fast and steady.

Dominic’s pen stops moving.

I turn toward him. His eyes stay fixed on the monitor, and the pen slides from his fingers onto the open page. His questions disappear. He barely seems to breathe.