by Jamie Knight
“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. My morning sickness isn’t 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.
Once I arrived, 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.”
“Yeah. We’ve come to terms with it. I mean, we’re ready for anything, as long as we have a baby.”
“Well.” Dr. Williamson’s eyes brightened. “I admire you for not being put off by the possibility of a special-needs child.”
“Sure. A kid’s a kid.” I would be up to the challenge of a special needs child.
“It looks likely now that the baby won’t suffer any long-term health issues from the fire incident. We didn’t find any pathologies in the ultrasound or the blood test.” The doctor sat down at his computer screen. A message flashed on it. “Amnio results just came in.”
His face looked happy, then slightly concerned. He looked at me. “Good news. There are no genetic abnormalities. The test was negative for anything we can find with amnio.”
“Great. We’d be happy with the baby no matter what, but that’s great. But you seem — concerned?”
“It’s just that—” Dr. Williamson shook his head and smiled a little. “Amnio tests for gender.”
“Yes?”
“Your baby.” He looked at me. “Your baby is a girl. I hope that’s ok.”
“Wonderful!” I said.
“Oh.”
“Is there some reason I shouldn’t be happy?” Was there some medical fact that the doctor wasn’t letting out?
“Aiden always seemed to be referring to it as a boy. I figured that was what you both wanted.”
“No. That’s ridiculous.”
“Good. Thanks for clearing that up.”
“We never even really thought about the baby’s gender. A girl will be great. A boy would be great. Mind if I call Aiden about it?” I wobbled over a few steps and reached for the phone he’d left on the exam room’s counter.
“We’re actually all done for today, so take your time.” The doctor shook my hand.
“No problem. Thank you.” I nodded, and Dr. Williamson left the exam room. I started putting on my dress, then stopped myself to call Aiden.
“Eleanor, my beloved Eleanor. I’m driving now, but what’s up? How was the doctor’s?” Aiden’s voice was always a salve on my stresses, like a soothing balm on pregnancy's small everyday pains.
“Bunch of good news for you today. Can you handle it while driving your truck? I mean package van. They call it a package van, right?”
“Yeah, my package van. Always good news with you. And yeah, I can handle it. Lay it on me.”
“No birth defects found. No permanent health problems found from the fire incident.”
“Wow.”
“But wait, there’s more!” I was ecstatic and acting a bit silly. “They did an amnio fluid draw.”
“That’s the one that gets the baby’s sex, right?”
“Yup.”
“And…?”
“She’s a girl!”
“Really?”
Aiden’s voice was wan through wind noise and the distant honking horns of New York traffic.
“Yeah, really. A girl.”
“Wow. What a big commitment to undertake.”
His tone sounded shaky. The change had come from out of nowhere. Maybe Dr. Williamson was right to be worried about Aiden’s potential reaction to the gender news.
“Well, of course it’s a big commitment. But one that I’m prepared for. I drained my 401K and endured weeks of in vitro, didn’t I?”
Of course, I was ready to commit to this child. I didn’t want much else at this point in my life than to have a family and a baby.
But did Aiden feel the same?
Apparently not.
“Yeah, I know.”
His voice was lackluster.
“Aiden?”
“We should talk about this later,” he said, through even louder car horns.
“Yeah. Let’s talk about this when you get home from work.”
“I’m sorry, but, yeah, I do think talking about it later is for the best—”
“Yes. Later. We’ll talk about it later.”
I hung up t
he phone.
Exhaustion washed over my body again. I felt alone again. I’d gotten pregnant. I’d been in a fire. I’d taken leave from my job. I’d moved out of my apartment and moved in with Aiden.
Aiden was my life now. I had entrusted my life to Aiden — and maybe the life of the baby too.
I had nowhere to go but Aiden’s arms, but maybe I’d been wrong about who Aiden was. He had rescued me from a fire and had invited me to move in with him.
But maybe he wouldn’t be the perfect father to the child that I had imagined him being.
Maybe that part had all been my wishful projection.
Chapter Eleven - Aiden
The door wasn’t open or unlocked when I arrived home from work. Typically, Eleanor opened and unlocked the apartment door and even fired up the tea kettle in the kitchen when she saw my car pulling into the parking garage.
I unlocked the front door. The apartment was quiet.
“Eleanor?” No answer.
I found her in bed. She was under the blankets, completely, including her head, like a beautiful librarian-mummy. It was her usual way to escape from the world and the stress of pregnancy. I couldn’t even imagine what all was involved when it came to carrying a baby.
I sat at the edge of the bed and lay my hand on Eleanor’s feet through the comforter.
“Hey, honey?”
The comforter rose up over her head. Her face was in tears.
“I’m sorry. I was crying. I was upset. I’m sorry.”
“I know pregnancy is stressing you, and there are hormones, and your body hurts.”
I had no idea personally. I could barely even imagine.
“It’s not the hormones or the pregnancy. My hormones or pregnancy don’t give you the right to reject our child.”
“Reject our child?” I looked at Eleanor’s exhausted face.
“You don’t want our baby girl.” She again pulled up the covers over her head. She was mummified again. Maybe emotionally, too, she was mummified. I felt unable to get through to Eleanor.
“What, I—”
It was true that I was scared of raising a girl. And it was true that when I heard about Eleanor’s pregnancy, I always thought the baby would be a boy.
“I feel like an idiot,” Eleanor said from under the blankets. Then she uncovered herself again. A drizzle of tears rained down her face. “I wanted a family and a baby so badly. I spent my retirement savings on it. I left my job for it. And now it’s like I made a big mistake.”
“It’s not a mistake.” I squeezed her foot again through the blankets.
“It. Now our baby is an it?” She wiped a tear from her eye.
“Eleanor. I’m really sorry.” I lay on the bed, side-by-side with her. I embraced her and spooned her through the blankets. I didn’t want to be right, even if in my mind I was right, kind of. I just wanted to relieve Eleanor’s pain and comfort her.
“Sorry about what?” she asked quietly, biting her lower lip.
“Sorry about saying the wrong words sometimes and upsetting you.”
“So, you were reacting like that to our baby being a girl, that was just saying the wrong words? What are the right words for that?”
“I’m sorry.” I knew that was the first thing to say. “I was just suddenly terrified of how real it all was. Becoming a father.”
“What was it before? A movie?” Eleanor shook her head.
“No. I mean. Just thinking about raising a girl. I don’t know anything about girls.” I shrugged and shook my head right back at her. “Eleanor, I’ve been a man all my life.”
“Isn’t that normally how being a man works?” She cracked a small smile through her tears.
“I mean, yeah, but I mean, I was raised by my dad and my older brother. I never even knew my mother. I didn’t have any sisters. And there aren’t exactly a ton of women driving UPS trucks.”
“Ok, so you could have said I don’t know many women instead of freaking out like that when I told you the baby is a girl.”
“See, that’s my lack of communication skills.”
“Mister English Literature Ph.D., lacking communication skills?” Eleanor rubbed my thigh with her toe through the blanket.
“They teach us, you know, literature stuff. Not how to talk to your pregnant girlfriend.”
I thought back to graduate school. There was definitely no graduate seminar on how to talk to one’s pregnant girlfriend. Or how to talk to anyone, pregnant or not, girlfriend or not. Grad school in English literature wasn’t the place to learn everyday communication skills.
“I just reacted like that because it just hit me in the face when I thought about us raising a little girl.”
Somehow the tidbit of information from Eleanor that the baby was a girl has intensified the feeling of the upcoming task being a severe challenge for me. I didn’t know anything about babies, much less about girl babies.
“We’re, like, two idiots, two idiots with no idea about raising a little baby.”
“Aiden. This isn’t gonna be a sitcom.” Eleanor grinned as if she had a movie playing in her mind. “We have time to prepare.”
“I mean, I guess, I guess we could learn?” I didn’t know how to drive a UPS truck either when I’d finished my English literature Ph.D. I’d somehow learned, even become very good at it. Maybe raising a daughter would also be learnable. More difficult than driving a truck but learnable.
“You know, Aiden, there’s this building with lots of books that you can borrow.” Eleanor’s grin was definitely back on her face. She was feeling better.
“I’m afraid I’m just an uneducated UPS deliveryman.” I shrugged theatrically. “Can you tell me more about this building, please?”
“The library. We have a huge parenting section. We even have a new parents’ reading group. And parenting classes.”
“You know your stuff.”
“Well, I know the parenting stuff, especially because I watched it for years, wishing it could be me, wishing I could be a parent.” Eleanor patted her pregnant belly. “I also think it’s difficult being a parent, for anybody, especially for two first-time parents. But I think we can do it.”
“I think so. I hope so. Actually, I’m sure we can.”
“It’s a challenge. I just didn’t like how you sounded like you didn’t want a baby girl.” Eleanor looked down at her knees.
“You know that’s not what I meant. I just meant it was going to be really difficult.”
“I know. I now know why. Pregnancy hormones got hold of me and took me for a ride for a few hours. You know by now how that goes for me.” She looked down at her hands, face full of compunction.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I grinned and winked at my love — no reason to rub it in.
“Just wait until I get the postpartum mood swings. Oh, man. I don’t envy you.”
“Hey, now. One crisis at a time.” I winked again.
“I sometimes forget how wonderful everything is.” Eleanor looked directly at me. “I focus on the crisis of the moment, but I forget that here I am living with my dream man, in my dream city, carrying a beautiful baby. What I’ve always wanted.”
“Me? Just humble me? Don’t you aim higher?”
“Aiden. I love you. I love our life. I love our baby.” Eleanor lay back on the bed and stretched her arms back. “But I’ve got the pregnancy exhaustion going on and badly need a nap.”
I lay next to her, supporting myself on my elbows. I looked into Eleanor’s eyes. Without breaking eye contact, I moved in for the kiss.
She closed her eyes. My tongue roamed Eleanor’s mouth, and I used my one free hand to massage her shoulder. I drew back, then patted her pregnant belly.
“I know we can do it, Eleanor. I know.”
“I know, too.”
She smiled and drifted back to sleep.
Chapter Twelve - Aiden
“Are you sure you can make it u
p the steps?”
I reflexively lay my hand on Eleanor’s pregnant belly. I felt my daughter kick; every time, it made me smile.
I had booked a table at a romantic brunch place downtown for Sunday brunch for Eleanor and me. It was the one day I didn’t have to work. She was due any day, and I wanted to treat the expectant mother.
“I can make it up anywhere with you holding my arm.”
Eleanor had become such a regular passenger on my arm that I had almost forgotten that this was something I was voluntarily, optionally doing. I’d stopped telling Eleanor that I was offering her my arm or reminding her about it.
Whenever we were together and not in bed, my arm was out, and she was holding on to it. Walking unassisted wasn’t easy for a nine-months-pregnant woman saddled with extra pounds of pregnancy weight.
We went up one step, then up another one. The restaurant was just ten more steps up. There’d be brunch, with salmon, caviar, and everything else Eleanor would need to be a very well-fed and very pregnant woman.
There’d be views of the skyline, and Eleanor and I could pose for pictures together. I was savoring the last stage of her pregnancy, what we knew to be the last weeks of her baby belly.
“I count six more steps,” I called out.
It was a little bit like reaching the end of my daily UPS route when I knew I only had to deliver six more packages.
“I can make —” As Eleanor exerted herself up to another step, there was a pop like a water balloon. I looked around for what it was. Then I saw her grin, and Eleanor holding her hands over her crotch. There was liquid all over her shorts and sandals and the ground under her.
“Oh shit. Let’s go.”
I clicked for an Uber on my phone and started leading my love down the steps. This was the moment, the big moment we’d been thinking about for six months.
“If it was just shit, it wouldn’t be such an emergency,” Eleanor muttered, breathing hard.
The Uber car was already waiting when we got to the bottom of the steps. “Labor! She’s going into labor!”
“Oh, a pregnant woman?” the driver asked. I looked into the rearview mirror and nodded.