Chapter 17: Corabelle
I honestly don’t know any details about how Gavin’s father’s recovery goes after we leave town, as Gavin won’t talk about him. I assume he’s okay since I talk to my own mom every other day now that she knows I’m pregnant. She says he came home after a few days. She was in her backyard and heard him cussing in his.
I’m sad there was no change to their relationship. Maybe that was too much to hope for.
Tina gets married to her doctor. Her wedding is simple, our star-spangled arch carried out to a cliff overlooking the ocean. It’s a special place for her and Dr. Darion. She lets her baby Peanut’s ashes go at the end of the ceremony and it’s all I can do not to break down over it.
I’m not as able to let go as she is.
The day of the first sonogram arrives, and Gavin takes off work to go with me. I’m not particularly nervous about this one. I expect everything to go fine for a while.
Dr. Jamison comes in, dressed in surgical scrubs. “Sorry for the garb, expecting a delivery next door today.” The medical building is adjacent to the hospital where Jenny had her baby girl.
It was also where I was taken after nearly drowning in the ocean.
So much has happened here.
The doctor shakes hands with me and Gavin. “I hear we’ve got a baby coming!” he says. His dark hair and bright eyes help me feel calm. I can see why Jenny likes him.
“We met once before,” I say. “When my friend Jenny had her baby early. She went into labor during a concert. I was with her.”
“Oh, yes! Jenny is a lively one,” he says. “How is her little girl doing?”
“Great,” I say. “She’s crawling and everything.”
Dr. Jamison flips through my chart. He’s still old-school with a manila folder and printed pages attached with big gold fasteners.
“I see here you’ve had a baby once before,” he says. “Premature delivery. Congenital heart condition.”
I nod, my throat thick. “They didn’t operate. He died at seven days old.”
“I’m so sorry.” His eyebrows knit together, and I can see he really means it.
I manage to keep my voice even as I say, “I read we won’t be able to check this baby’s heart until sixteen weeks.”
“It won’t be conclusive until then, and if there is a minor defect, maybe not even then,” he says. “A lot of us walk around with minor heart problems that are never detected in our lifetime.”
“Finn’s wasn’t minor.”
“We can do a genetic study if you like,” he says. “We can pull an amnio, do the karyotype on you two as well.”
I think of the expense. I’m not sure what all this crappy insurance we have will cover. And this information won’t change anything. I glance at Gavin but he just shrugs.
“I don’t think so. We’ll see how he looks at sixteen weeks,” I say.
“He? You think it’s another boy?” He smiles as he helps me lie back and fits my heels in the stirrups. “A mother’s intuition is as good as any sonogram.”
“It is?” I hadn’t thought about what gender the baby might be, but I suppose I do often picture another boy.
Dr. Jamison feels along my belly, pressing in. He nods at the nurse, who rolls a sonogram machine up to the bed.
“This will be a transvaginal ultrasound, not a belly one,” Dr. Jamison says. “You’ll graduate to those next time.”
I nod. I remember.
Dr. Jamison turns the sonogram screen so I can see. Gavin steps forward and takes my hand.
As the wand presses against me down below, I’m flooded with memories of Finn. I didn’t expect this, and tears start flowing out of my eyes so fast that I quickly soak the paper pillow.
“You okay, Corabelle?” Gavin asks. He tries to wipe my face with his fingers.
The nurse passes him a box of Kleenex. “It’s to be expected,” she says. “Emotional time.”
I’m not sure if she means the sonogram in general, or because I’ve done this once before.
The black-and-white picture onscreen flickers as Dr. Jamison moves the wand around, trying to find the right spot.
“Still can’t make out a thing,” Gavin whispers near my ear.
“He hasn’t found the baby yet,” I say. But my heart hammers, drying up my tears. Was I wrong somehow? Am I not pregnant after all?
I should have taken more tests. The one I took at Jenny’s was old. What was I thinking? My face flames that all this could be for nothing.
But then he hits the right angle, and an empty space opens up. Floating in the black is a collection of white dots that are unmistakably a baby.
“There he is,” Dr. Jamison says. “He was playing hide-and-seek.”
He centers in on the fluttery pixels in the center and draws a square. A heart appears in the corner, and below it, the rate, 150 beats per minute.
Then he measures the length of the baby. All the numbers lining up on the side match up to nine weeks along.
“Everything looks perfect,” he says, withdrawing the wand.
“Will you print one out?” I ask. I have more sonograms than real live pictures of Finn.
“Already done,” he says, reaching below the machine. He lifts out a series of printouts and tears off the last couple. “Those are for you,” he says, passing them to me. The others he gives to the nurse for my file.
I hold the images in my hand. It’s proof another baby is here. This moment lines up against the last one, those first sonograms of Finn. I can scarcely breathe.
I should be happy in this moment, knowing a new little life has begun. But there’s too much competition in my heart. Grief for Finn, who should be here right now, excited over the prospect of a brother or sister.
And fear.
Stark, bone-chilling terror that I will have to go through everything a second time.