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“You’ll be fine.”
“Tough love?” I kind of want to smack her, but I don’t.
“Yep.” She smiles. “How are you? Feeling okay? With Knox, you stayed sick.”
“I’m fine. J.R. couldn’t have picked a better time for a six-week tour, though.”
“Well, I’ll fill his shoes. I have before.”
“Knox! We need to go,” I call down the hall. “Kelley is here, and my appointment is in one hour.”
I hear Knox’s bedroom door open, and her little feet run down the hall. She’s like a blur as she runs into Kelley’s arms, and I smile as they embrace. Well, at least she likes one person in this world right now.
The doctor checks me, and then he begins the sonogram. Knox is sitting in Kelley’s lap, biting her nails the way J.R. does when he’s nervous. I try to ignore it, and I stare hard at the screen in front of me. I’m feeling agitated.
“There’s your baby,” Dr. Tyler says. “Baby looks good. Measuring well.”
“I don’t see the baby,” Knox says. “Show me.”
I want to roll my eyes at her. Bossy, little thing. She slides out of Kelley’s lap and moves toward the screen.
Dr. Tyler smiles. “Well, if you look right here”—he points at the screen—“looks like a tiny peanut. See these? Those are arms.”
Knox leans into the screen. Her blues squint. Kelley points to the screen, too.
“You looked like that once,” she tells Knox.
“Like a peanut with arms?” Knox asks.
I smirk.
Knox folds her arms across her chest. “I don’t think it’s a baby. I think you just ate a peanut, and your body hasn’t digested it yet.” Child logic.
“It’s a baby,” affirms Dr. Tyler. “Do you want to hear the heartbeat?”
“It has a heart?” Knox looks surprised.
“Thebabyhas a heart,” I say, correcting both of them on their use of the word “it” when referring to the human growing inside of my body.
Dr. Tyler adjusts the volume on the machine, and the room fills with the fuzzy sound of the baby’s heart beating.
Knox listens for a few seconds, but she doesn’t look convinced. “That doesn’t sound like a heartbeat.”
I feel myself growing frustrated with Knox and with her decision to ignore the fact that I am going to have a baby. Maybe it’s my hormones, but I’m fighting the urge to scream at her.
“Thank you, Doctor. I think we’re done here.” I am obviously perturbed. I wipe the gel from my skin and pull my shirt back down, ready to hop down off the examination table and get the hell out of here.
Dr. Tyler understands my frustrations. He puts away the machine, and then he stands. I think he’s unsure of what to say, so he goes back to speaking in doctor terms. “Everything looks good, Rachel. Continue your vitamins. I want to see you again during the week of Christmas.”
“That long?” I ask him surprised. “With my age, I thought you said it would be better to come every few weeks.”
“That’s true, but you’re healthy. The baby is healthy. Let’s push it out a little.” He smiles at me, but I’m not sure I’m okay with this decision.
“It’ll be fine, Rach,” Kelley says.
“It will be,” the doctor confirms.
When we get home, I decide I need a walk, so I leave Kelley and Knox and slip out the back door to the dock. I haven’t really had a moment to myself since finding out I was pregnant; and now with Knox so obviously angry, I think I just need time to clear my thoughts.
