“I like it, Dee.”
He starts moving his ear around my belly.
“What are you doing?” I ask. “I don’t think the baby has started kicking yet. At least, I haven’t felt it.”
“You’re at about twenty-weeks, right?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“I read that sometimes you can feel the baby as early as thirteen weeks. The article said that you’re more likely to notice it if you’ve been pregnant before.”
“You been reading what it’s like to be a pregnant woman?”
He nods. “Yeah, a bit here and there the last few weeks.”
“Well I haven’t felt a kick or even a movement yet.”
He presses his ear harder against my belly, and suddenly I wish I could do that, too.
“What do you hear?”
“Squelching.”
“Squelching?” I cry, slapping his head. “It doesn’t sound that disgusting.”
“Sounds liquid.”
“That’s the amniotic fluid.”
“I’m listening for his heartbeat.”
“You won’t hear it this early. I can’t even hear it through the fetal stethoscope.”
“Turn over,” he says, getting up and rolling me onto my side.
“What?”
He presses his ear to the small of my back, right next to my spine. “I read sometimes you can hear it from this position.”
A few moments pass, and he sighs. “No, nothing.”
“Try the stethoscope,” I say. “It’s in the drawer.”
He stretches, opens the drawer and then pulls it out and places the diaphragm against my back.
“I just hear liquid sloshing. Sometimes there’s a dull thud, I guess that could be Thom moving?”
“Could be,” I say. “I hear thuds sometimes through that.”
He sidles up the bed with me and holds me from behind, his hand on my belly, rubbing it.
“I wish I was there when you found out it was a boy.”
I hold onto his hand, interlock my fingers with his.
“Do you want to see the ultrasound picture?”
“Of course I do.”
I reach over to the bedside table, ruffle through some papers until I find the envelope. I open it, and slip out the small, post-card sized picture.
“Here,” I say, handing it to him.
“I,” Duncan begins, before his voice trails off. He turns it around, then back around, and then finally admits to not knowing what he’s seeing.
“Here’s the head,” I say gently, tracing it with my finger. “See? Thom’s little nose?”
“Yeah,” he breathes. “I see it now.” His lips pull into a broad beaming smile that makes me feel a pang in my gut.
“That’s our son, Dee.” His hands are shaking a little, and so I hold them in mine.
“That’s our son.”
“The doctor could tell it was a boy from this?”
“Here,” I say. “That’s his penis.”
Duncan frowns. “Really?”
“That’s what the doctor said.”
“It doesn’t look like one.”
He stares at the picture for a while, tracing the outline with the tip of his finger, utterly mesmerized.
“Are you mad at me? Honestly?”
Duncan sighs. “Yes, but no. It’s… I don’t know. How can I be mad at you? You did what you thought was right. You were trying to protect our baby.”
“And you,” I say.
“And me.”
“But you’re still mad about something. I can feel it, Duncan.”
“I’m mad I’ve missed this much.”
“Do you blame me?”
“I wanted to,” he tells me. The truth hurts, but I didn’t expect a different answer. “But the more I thought about it, the more I trusted that you had a reason.”
“But it bothers you.”
“Dee,” he says, leaning up onto an elbow and looking down at me. “Every day of my life I look forward. It was no different when I met you, and it’s no different now. I’m here with you now, and I’m not letting you go again. I’m just looking forward.”
“You can’t just bury your feelings.”
“I’m not burying anything. I’ll work it out. We’ll talk, don’t worry. It’s just… I can’t just open all the doors and windows now, you know? I’ve kept it all shut. I’m not good at putting this shit into words.”
“How did you find me, anyway?”
“I contacted my fans.”
I blink. “What?”
“Some of them are magic with computers. They found out that you’d boarded a flight to Hong Kong, so I followed the next flight I could get out.”