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“Thank you,” she says quietly.
I shrug. “I told you. I meant what I said. I’m always going to be here. For both of you.”
She smiles. “I was scared. More scared than I admitted.”
“I know.”
“But you were more scared than the both of us. Which made me worse. I mean, you’re a big doctor. You’re used to dealing with bad diagnoses. You don’t wear your heart on your sleeve. You didn’t even show a ripple when you found out I was pregnant, remember?”
I let out a long breath. “You’re right. Guess you could say I couldn’t help it.”
Her face clouds over. “There isn’t anything wrong, is there? You’d tell me, right?”
She wants honesty. I’m going to give it to her.
“I’ll tell you everything you want to know. They were looking into whether you’re developing preeclampsia. It’s too early to tell right now. But you’re fine. They’ll keep a close eye on it. Everything’s all right. I just …” A laugh escapes my lips because I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this way before. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Even a point-zero-zero-zero-one chance of something happening to you is too much for me.”
An uneasy smile breaks out on her lips. “So I don’t have to be worried?”
I put an arm around her and drag her toward my side. “No. I’m taking care of you. You know that now, right?”
She nods. “I love you.”
I smile and kiss her forehead. “I love you, too.”
“No … I mean, I always have.” She gnaws on her lip. “Just like you said. From the minute I saw you, touring that house. You were wearing a blue coat and I looked at you and thought, There’s the boy I’m going to be with forever.”
“Forever?” Funny, that word used to scare me. But when she says it, it doesn’t. It feels right.
She looks back at the trainwreck unfolding on the screen and then her eyes meet mine again. “We’re all right, aren’t we? With everything?”
“Yeah. We’re perfect.” I hold her closer, and that’s when I feel it.
A little bubble, right by her stomach.
“Holy sh—” The baby can hear. I put my hand on it, and it comes again. Just a little tap-tap-tap.
Her eyes light up. “You can feel it?”
I nod. Yeah. Here we are. Stassi, me, and the baby. Our family. This is perfect.
39
Stassi
“Knock knock!”
I hear Mad’s voice as I’m sitting in the nursery, trying to assemble one of those cushioned rocking chairs from IKEA that came in about a thousand pieces. “Up here!”
Her feet echo on the steps, and a second later, she pokes her head in, holding two bags of what smells like fried chicken. “Oooh. I love the color. This is nice!” she says, looking around. “I never knew a room in this disaster could actually look this good.”
Holy God am I hungry. I jump to my feet and wipe my hands on my jeans. “Did you bring lunch?”
She laughs. “Down, girl. I did. It’s my day off, and I saw Alec leave for work earlier. I thought you might be hungry, so I stopped for chicken.”
I lick my lips. “Let’s go downstairs.”
We go to the kitchen, and I bring down plates from the cupboard and pour us drinks as Mad looks around. She picks up one of the baby books I have, spread over the kitchen counter, and starts to read as she nibbles on a drumstick.
“Who circled these?”
I turn back from pouring her an iced tea and realize she’s looking at a baby-name book I got. I don’t know. I’m confused because I never circled anything. “What do you mean?” I ask, coming closer.
She shows me the page. Sure enough, some names are circled. I glance through them all. The only person who has looked at this book is Alec, so it must be him. He circled my choices, Florence and Oliver, but he also circled others.
“Ever Hutton,” Mad muses as she chews. “Name meaning Always. It’s for a boy or a girl. I like that.”
“Hutton-Mansfield,” I correct, sitting beside her. When she gives me a look, I shrug. “It only seems fair. He’s been doing a lot of the heavy lifting. He deserves some credit for that.”
“I guess,” she says with a little smile. “So how is my godchild coming along?”
Luckily there have been no more contractions, no more pain, and I’ve been resting and feeling pretty strong. “Good. Tomorrow is the twenty-week ultrasound.”
Mad’s mouth makes an O. “Isn’t that when you’ll find out whether it’s a boy or a girl?”
I nod as I’m practically inhaling the chicken on my plate. When I swallow, I say, “But I’m not sure. Before, I felt like I had to know. Now, I don’t really care.”
“You don’t?”
“Well … yeah. Before, I wasn’t sure I could handle any more surprises. Now, I don’t mind it. Not every surprise in life is bad. Some are really good.”
