by CL Walters
When the truck finally moves into the 2nd right lane allowing faster moving vehicles to pass, I press the accelerator and speed past the truck two trailers deep thankful the roads are clear. By the time I park at the clinic, I’m five minutes late.
Shit.
I hustle through the doorway.
The waiting room is full of women whose faces swing my way. A quick scan and not one of them is Bella. Shit. Shit. Shit. I stop at the reception desk, a high counter that obscures a woman chatting on the line behind it. She holds up a finger, asking me to wait. Antsy, I shift my body weight from one foot to the other. I’m trying to play it cool, but I can’t miss my kid’s ultrasound.
I sigh.
Finally, she disconnects the call. “Can I help you, sir?”
“Uh. Yeah, I’m here for Bella Noble’s appointment. We have an ultrasound today. I’m a few minutes late.”
“There you are.”
I spin away from the receptionist at the sound of Bella’s voice. My heart drops into my gut and then climbs out, straining with the exertion and dripping with acid. “You’re done already? I missed it?”
She giggles. “No. I just was in the restroom. Haven’t been called back yet.”
I follow Bella across the room to a pair of seats. “I’m sorry I’m late.”
“You’re here. Haven’t gone back yet. Not late.” She puts a hand on my forearm. “Relax.”
“I got stuck behind a truck.” I run my hands through my hair. I’m sure it’s sticking up in tufts because Bella reaches up and pats it down. It’s a strangely intimate gesture, but I don’t feel anything but a reciprocal camaraderie that’s comforting. We’ve found this nice place between us in the last few weeks. I’ve been at her place helping put things together, fixing things, getting to know her better. Like I didn’t know how much she likes her beauty school stuff, which she’s continued to study. She and Greta aren’t friends anymore. Different paths. How she wanted to be a better example for her baby sister but feels like she failed epically. I told her she just has to pivot and be the best she can be with the way the situation presents itself.
Thanks, Cal.
“You’re here.” She sucks in a breath, winces, and lays a palm on her belly.
“You okay? What is it? Do you need help?” I look around like maybe I should get someone.
She shakes her head and one of her hands back and forth. “Nothing. I think I ate something that doesn’t agree with me or the baby.”
I sigh and lean back, finally, to catch my breath now that I’m here, and I won’t miss this appointment. I’m just able to take another deep breath when the nurse enters the lobby and calls Bella into the back. I stand up after her, swipe my palms over the thighs of my jeans and follow her. I’m so nervous, though I can’t figure out what I have to be nervous about. Technically, this isn’t happening to me. But, by the time Bella is situated on the table, I think I might be having a panic attack.
“Griffin.” Bella is staring at me, her eyes wide.
I can’t answer her, but I let her catch my gaze with hers. She holds out her hand, and I take it.
“I need you to calm down. Got it?”
I nod.
“If you pass out, you’re going to miss it.” She offers me a smile.
I nod again and offer a short smile in return; one I have to force. I’m still trying to breathe right. I know I need to get myself together and take a deep breath.
Bella squeezes my hand. “If you can’t do the ultrasound, how are you going to attend the birth?”
My eyes fly from the door and plaster themselves to hers. “You want me there?”
“Of course. Don’t be ridiculous. We’re doing this co-parenting thing, right?” She withdraws her hand from mine and smooths both over her belly, the knit stretching over the tiny bump of her abdomen.
“Yes. Yes!” I smile for real this time. It’s a little easier.
The door opens. “Hello, Momma.” The doctor enters without even looking our way and goes directly to the computer where she logs in. “How are you feeling this month, Bella?”
“Good, except for some indigestion, I think.”
I listen to Bella describe her pregnancy to the doctor who transcribes everything into the electronic chart. When they’re done, the doctor finally looks our way, and she stops. “Oh. Hello. I’m Dr. Raj.” She reaches out a small hand, and I take it.
“This is Griffin. The baby’s father,” Bella says.
Dr. Raj smiles. “Nice to meet you. How about we get a look at your baby?” She turns to the sink where she washes her hands and gloves them. “Pull up your shirt for me, Bella, just up to your bra so I can access your belly.”
Bella draws it up just so it’s draped across the top of her belly. The pretty skin is smooth with a gentle expanse from her navel to her hips. It makes me feel something, but it isn’t something I recognize. Her body is beautiful this way, not that it wasn’t before. I just didn’t notice before, the way a woman’s body is beyond what is sexual. I feel moved by it, but not in a way that fills me with lust, rather in a way that makes my heart move differently. Inside her is a baby, one we made—albeit accidentally—and her belly is evidence of it. It’s moving, and I’m ill-equipped to process it. I swallow the emotion before it reaches my eyes.
I glance at Bella’s face, and she turns her head to look at me. She smiles, and I take her hand in mine again. I don’t feel panic anymore. I just feel grateful.
“Okay, now.” Doctor Raj sits on a stool next to Bella and folds a paper towel into the waistband of her yoga pants, sliding it down to the pubic bone and revealing all her belly. “This goop should be nice and warm since it was in the warmer, but sometimes it’s got cold spots.” She squirts gel from a bottle, then uses what I figure must be the ultrasound instrument to spread it over Bella’s tight skin. “Okay. We’re going to take some measurements today. Check baby’s organs and fluids.”
She talks as she moves the wand, clicks the machine here and there. I’m looking at a glob, really, until suddenly, I’m not. The baby’s profile comes into view, the head, space for eyes, a nose and mouth. I see the ladder of the spine. The doctor points everything out. My breath stalls a moment. Then the baby is gone as the doctor moves the wand to a fluttering spot on the screen.
“Ready to hear your baby’s heart?” The doctor punches some buttons. A speeding rhythm like a tinny echo moves around the room and connects with the beating of my own heart.
“It’s so fast,” I say.
“About 150 beats per minute,” Dr. Raj replies. “Perfectly healthy.”
I glance at Bella. She’s staring at the screen, her eyes filling with tears, but she’s smiling.
Dr. Raj continues moving the wand, talking us through it, then stops. “Want to know the gender of your baby?” She looks at Bella.
Bella smiles and looks at me. “I’d like Griffin to decide.”
Chills move across my skin under my clothes. I’m not cold, but in the whole of everything associated with this baby, it’s the first time I’ve had the opportunity to make a choice. I glance at Bella, not sure if there’s a right answer.
Bella smiles, waiting.
I look at Dr. Raj and nod. “Yes.”
“Congratulations,” she says. “You’re going to have a little girl.”
“See,” Bella says full of confidence. “Her.”
My throat constricts and emotion moves through me so quick, it’s hard to tamp it back down and keep it in. I look at Bella who’s staring at me, a tear slipping down her cheek.
“A little girl,” she repeats, smiles, then looks back at the screen.
A little girl. Who knew those three words would ever mean so much?
5
ME TO MAX:
I know you aren’t talking to me. I hope it’s okay to still text you to share, because the only one I wanted to share this with was you.
I got to hear the baby’s heartbeat today.
I didn’t know, Max.
<
br /> I didn’t know what it would do to me. How I would feel.
After the appointment, I got into my car and cried.
Maybe that’s weird, and maybe that makes me seem weak, but hearing her heartbeat for the first time filled me with so much feeling, it was all I could do to hold it in until I could find a place it felt safe to let it go.
Oh yeah! The baby is a girl.
I’m going to have a daughter.
I never thought I would be excited to say that I’m going to be a dad, but Max, my feelings have changed since I first learned I was going to be a father.
I’ve been wondering if that’s how my dad felt?
I wish I had my friend Max back to talk to. I miss her.
Max: I think it’s beautiful, SK. I’m sure your dad was just as excited about you.
I reply: Maybe I should go see my dad.
* * *
She doesn’t respond.
6
A few days after the ultrasound, I drive to my dad’s apartment. I’m already in the city because of school, so it’s an easy detour. The decision to do it is on impulse. He’s been on my mind a lot.
The apartment complex looks the same, but now without the glamour of Christmas lights strung up on the dilapidated building to dress it up. As I climb the stairs, I question why I’m there. The last time I was with him, I called him names, but I walk down the second-floor walkway and knock on his door anyway. Compulsion won’t let me leave even if I don’t have an exact answer as to why I’m there. I might feel both relief and despondency if he isn’t home.
The door opens.
My dad looks the same as he did in December, only his hair has gotten longer. He’s wearing a black t-shirt and jeans, fit and handsome even in his forties. I can see the ink spilling down his arms.
“Griffin?”
My name inked on his neck.
“Is it a bad time?”
He shakes his head. “No. Never. Not for you.” He widens the door.
I walk inside.
He closes the door behind me.
The apartment looks the same, only the Christmas stuff is gone. It’s neat. I’m not sure I would have ever assigned my father the quality of neatness, but then how would I have known? He wasn’t around much when I was little. Then not at all.
“I’m glad you’re here.” He runs his hands over his pants nervously. “Sit. Sit.” He holds his hand out toward the couch. “Can I get you something?”
I sit down on the edge, leaving my coat on and my keys in hand. “No. Thanks.”
Dad sits down in a chair perpendicular to me. And waits.
There’s music on, an older tune from when he was probably my age. A notebook and pen sitting open on the table as if that’s where he’d been sitting—and writing—when I knocked. I look at him a little closer. It’s strange at that moment to think of him as a young man, my age at one time, though I logically know it. A moment ago, he was in his apartment enjoying some music, just being with his own thoughts and ideas and hopes and dreams. Or so I’m imagining.
I study my car keys, unclear what I want to articulate, but acknowledging that there are feelings guiding me instead. “I’m going to have a baby,” I tell him after some time.
“Phoenix mentioned it.”
My gaze flicks up from the keys to his. “Wow. I’ll remember to thank him for talking behind my back.” Betrayal hits me. A horrible image of Phoenix and our dad talking and laughing about my circumstances flashes like a moving slideshow in my mind, but then I realize I’m lying to myself to justify the anger rather than acknowledging the hurt. It’s a dangerous, slippery slope.
“It wasn’t like that.”
“How was it then?” Even knowing it, I struggle to turn it off. My reactions feeling more like predictable rotations and revolutions of normalcy to keep me safe.
“I ask about you. He shares what he can.”
I stand up, restless suddenly. Angry. A quiet voice asks if that anger is really at my dad, but I shut it down. “Well. I thought you should know you were going to be a grandpa. Now that you know, I guess I don’t need to be here.” I move to the door and hear him stand up behind me.
What are you running away from?
“Griffin?”
I stop with my hand on the doorknob.
“Please, stay.”
Or are you running toward something?
I look down at my hand on the brass fixture. A choice. Cal’s wisdom assails my thought process. Shit happens. And maybe that’s what I was thinking by coming here. An acknowledgment that perhaps it wasn’t in my father’s grand design to leave me, to be arrested, to have another kid, but it happened. Just like it wasn’t in my grand design to get pregnant with Bella or lose Max.
“Was it hard leaving us,” I ask.
“I didn’t–”
I turn, and my look must be enough to sever the words in his mouth.
“You’re right. Not the arrest. The other stuff.” He sighs and walks into the kitchen where he pours himself a cup of water. “I wish I could say ‘yes,’ Griffin, but I was a young and stupid man then. Selfish. Unhealthy. Broken. I’m walking the line a bit better now,” he says, “but I have many regrets that I’m better able to understand now.”
“Like?”
“Like cheating on your mom. Like doing the shit that got me sent to jail. Like missing out on your life. And as much as I regret hurting your mom, I can’t completely discount the joy I have in Mara, who wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t.” He leans over the counter, bent at the waist. “That probably isn’t what you want to hear.”
“I just want the truth.”
“Okay.” He nods. “Fair enough.” He stands up straight again. “The truth is, when I look in the mirror, I recognize my failure every day. It’s a terrible burden, but I can’t allow the self-pity that tempts me. I did it to myself. Instead, each morning when I look at my reflection, I say to myself, ‘Be better today. Make better choices today. Be there for your kids today.’”
I step away from the door and turn toward him. “Getting pregnant was an accident,” I admit. My words are vulnerable and full of open-ended hope. I think: I messed up. I need some help. I need you.
But I don’t want to need him. I press my teeth together.
He doesn’t say anything, just waits for me.
So, I keep going. “I thought my life was over, but–” I stop and swallow. “It is strange to say that I feel like my life is just beginning?” I don’t know why I’ve said this, but then maybe it’s because I’m so different.
He offers me a gentle smile, gentle like the man I remember playing with me when I was little, wrestling with Phoenix and me in the living room and letting us win. “I don’t think that’s strange.”
A part of me wants to hang onto the anger I feel, and I think it’s still there filtering most of how I am with him, but I also feel a hope, something different than just anger. Hope that maybe by accepting his flaws and all, that I too can be accepted, flaws and all. I say, “It’s a girl.”
He smiles. “Congratulations.”
I nod. “Well, I just wanted you to know.” I turn back to the door and twist the doorknob to open it.
He moves around the counter. “I’m glad you did.”
I turn away.
“Griffin?”
I stop and turn back toward him.
“Maybe we could meet for breakfast, or you could come with Phoenix one of these days.”
I take a deep breath. Another choice. I can continue down the path away from him, down the road of hating my father, of being bitter and angry. I can continue to shut him out, but I can also make a different choice. Run toward something instead. “Yeah. I’d like that,” I say.
He offers me a look that can only be described as relieved joy, and when he nods, his eyes sparkle with tears.
I close the door behind me and walk away from the apartment. I think it might be the lightest I’ve felt in months.
7
TO MAX:<
br />
I went and saw my father, told him about the baby.
I’m not sure how I expected it to go.
It’s always tense between us, not because of him, but because of me.
This time, I felt like I wanted it to be different, so I didn’t run away which is what I’ve done since he got out.
My dad told me that he wants to be better, and I decided that if I want people to trust in me, I should probably do the same, right?
I keep circling back around to that night when I didn’t trust you to be on my side.
I wish I’d made a different choice, but like Cal said, sometimes life kicks you in the balls and you have to figure out if you’re going to lay there or get back up.
Okay, he didn’t say it exactly like that.
I spend nights wishing I’d made a different choice.
Replay it over and over wondering how it would be different.
I know it was my fault, Max.
I didn’t trust you because I was just a coward.
Afraid you wouldn’t choose me because I wouldn’t choose me.
I know you’ve moved on, and I’m happy for you.
I just miss my friend.
* * *
MAX: I miss you too, SK.
* * *
1
ME TO MAX:
You know you told me one time—
that time we went to the Bend—
that my name meant a “guardian of treasures,” and you believed it.
I loved that you did.
It made me feel like it could be true.