Now
“If we get caught, you’re going to be in so much trouble, Teller.”
“We’re not going to get caught,” he says. He takes a long drag from his cigarette before flicking it into the parking lot between cars. The embers burn red midair before burning out. “That was my last one. I’m officially quitting.”
Drawing my arm around his waist, I snort and say, “You’re a rotten liar.”
Teller tucks me tightly into his side and leads me toward the emergency room like he owns the place and isn’t just an employee. I should have insisted we stay in bed when Mr. Bright Ideas came up with this plan. But when he has me wrapped in his arms, and he’s just given me the best orgasms of my life, I’ll agree to anything.
Pregnancy orgasms are the best orgasms.
“Nope,” he insists. “I’m going to try the nicotine patch. And the gum.”
To avoid being recognized, I don’t make eye contact with anyone as we walk through the emergency room and nestle closer to Tell’s side to keep safe. Senior Resident Reddy directs me through the wide halls of the hospital, nodding when acknowledged and pretending to be in a hurry to keep from being dragged into conversation.
The bright florescent lights and hospital grade oxygen fill me with homesickness. There were times when it felt like I didn’t leave this place for weeks at a time, and the only familiar faces I saw were Teller and Joe’s. The three of us stomped through these hallways, escaping reasonability whenever we had the chance, in search of a normal moment to break the monotony of our days.
Teller would smoke cigarettes in the back near the dumpsters, and I’d stand with him drinking crappy coffee while we contemplated giving it all up and escaping to Mexico to live the rest of our lives on the beach.
Joe would stick notes in my locker and sneak away from his post to lie with me in the mess room between my shifts, so I wouldn’t be alone.
I was friendly with my classmates and the other nurses when I was hired full-time, but it was always Teller and Joe. They were who I looked forward to seeing every day.
“Fuck, I want a smoke so bad.” Teller laughs. He drops his arm from around my shoulders and takes my hand, lacing our fingers together.
“Already?” I ask with a laugh. “You literally just had one.”
Teller walks us through a maze of halls and waiting rooms until we reach a private elevator. He presses the arrow pointing up and squeezes my hand while we wait for our lift. Standing side-by-side, hand-in-hand, we smile like giddy fools with anticipation and curiosity for what’s to come.
“Are you sure the room will be free?” I ask as the elevator dings and the doors part.
Baby daddy pulls me inside and gently pushes me against the cool elevator wall as we start our ascent to Imaging and Radiology. He smiles against my mouth, and it’s my favorite thing he’s ever done. Until he kisses me. And then this particular kiss is my new favorite thing he’s ever done.
“It’s all set up,” he assures me between lips and tongue and favorite thing after favorite thing. “I called in a favor.”
“Watch out, everybody,” I say playfully. “Big man in the hospital, running things and calling in favors.”
Teller presses the emergency stop button, halting the trip to an abrupt jerk. An alarm sounds and the lights dim, panicking me and amusing him. I’ve never been trapped inside an elevator before now, but I’ve seen it happen in the movies. A signal is going off at the local police department, and in two minutes, the entire hospital will be on lockdown and an emergency crew will be to the rescue. They’ll cut a human-sized hole above us with a chainsaw, and we’ll have sixty seconds to get out before the elevator plummets to the ground and we all die.
I can’t handle that type of pressure.
“If you’re scared, we can go home.” Teller shrugs, as if he hasn’t put us in a very dire situation. “We’ll wait to see what happens at your doctor’s appointment next week. That’s five more days of not knowing if our baby has three heads, but whatever.”
I bounce up and down on my toes. “Teller, turn the damn alarm off!”
“Do you want to keep going up?” His hand drifts above the bright red stop control. “Or we can go down.”
“Up!” I shout, slamming my palm against the emergency button. “I want to go up.”
Shaking with laughter, Teller embraces me from behind as my heart rate soars, and he says, “You’re acting like the cops are going to break in here to save us. No one is watching the elevators, Smella.”
I elbow him and mumble, “Jerk.”
Everyone in Imaging is too preoccupied with X-rays and cat scans to notice us slipping through their organized chaos toward the empty ultrasound room down another hallway and to the right. Everything’s prepared for our arrival just like Teller said it would be. I’m speechless at the sight of the monitor and the transducer probe. It’s a machine I’ve used countless times, but one that’s never been used on me before.
“Is this happening?” I ask breathlessly.
“Absolutely.” Teller lifts me from my feet like I weigh nothing at all and sets me on the exam table. Disposable paper crinkles and bunches up beneath me as I lie back.
“Do you need me to show you how it works?” I lift my shirt up to expose my abdomen.
Teller looks at me with raised eyebrows and chuckles. “Shut the fuck up before I squirt gel in your face.”
I lock my lips and throw away the key as Teller takes a seat on the rolling stool and settles into his role as doctor. His posture changes, and his motions are deliberate and well-studied. He’s vigilant when prepping the ultrasound machine, and he’s gentle when caring for me.
“This will be a little cold, baby,” he warns me with expertise.
My eyes swarm with emotion, and I smile to keep from weeping. “It’s okay.”
Daring me to fall deeper in love with him, Teller applies the ultrasound gel in the shape of a heart on my belly. I almost don’t want him to spoil it by dispersing it across my skin with the probe, but I want to see our baby more.
We have our entire life to draw hearts on each other with lube.
With his eyes on the monitor, Teller moves the transducer in small circles across my pelvis and lower abdomen, applying the slightest pressure in search for our baby. I see the flickering heartbeat before he does, but I’m too caught up with emotion to even say so.
Teller circles the probe once, twice, three times before he finally sees what I do and stops.
“Is that it?” he asks, zeroing in on the beanlike shape.
I cover my mouth with my hands and whisper, “Yes.”
Focusing on the tiny fluttering image in the center of the screen, Teller adjusts the contrast between light and dark until the picture is clear. Every single thing I know about fetal development abandons me, and I’m reduced to nothing more than a mother seeing her child for the very first time.
“Tell, turn on the sound.” I wave my hand toward the ultrasound machine and point to the sounds controls.
Teller turns on the volume, and the thumping sound of the baby’s heart fills the tiny examination room from wall-to-wall. It’s perfectly swift and vivacious, and this is my favorite thing. This is absolutely it.
“Gabriella,” Teller says with bated breath. “We did that. We made that.”
With tears running down my cheeks, I’ve never felt such affection and pride in my life. It billows inside of me, swelling my heart until it’s big enough to hold how massive this feels. I don’t have to worry if I’m capable of loving Teller and our baby at the same time anymore, because loving them both is as thoughtless as breathing.
It’s supposed to be, so it is.
“I am so sorry, Teller,” I cry out, hiding my eyes in the bend of my elbow. “I am so, so sorry for how horrible I’ve been to you.”
“Baby, you don’t have anything to apologize for,” Teller says. He freezes the frame and prints the image of our conception. “This is so good. This is fucking fantastic.”
He rolls his chair closer to me, leaving the frozen picture on the monitor. I take his face in my hands, wiping his tears away with my thumbs. “I was so stupid. I almost ruined everything when I left.”
He shakes his head, turning his face to kiss the inside of my palm. “I was never going to let you go for long, Ella.”
“Let’s do it. Let’s get married,” I say, nodding in assurance when he looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “I don’t want to be without you again. We won’t survive it.”
“Are you sure?” he asks.
“I’ve known I wanted to marry you since the day we met, Tell. There’s only one other thing I’m as sure of.”
The next day, we gather everyone at Em and Nicolette’s apartment. Teller and I stand at the front of the living room, recognizing their confusion but excited to share our news. The Reddys and Maby and Husher sit shoulder-to-shoulder on the sofa, swallowing every inch of sitting space. Emerson and Nic linger to the side. I’m concerned about how close they are to the kitchen—to the knives, but we’re closer to the front door—to safety, should things turn sour.
Six sets of expectant eyes stare at us from their posts. Maby winks, in on the secret. Husher smiles kindly, supportive and nonjudgmental. Theodore Reddy is wildly out of place in his tailored suit and thousand-dollar shoes. He checks emails from his cell, prepared to act unsurprised if his son disappoints him again. Mili quietly asks her husband to put his phone away. When he doesn’t, she snatches it out of his hands and holds it hostage. Nicolette picks at her manicured nails, indifferent. And my brother pockets and unpockets his hands, overflowing with anticipation.
“I have fifteen minutes, Teller,” the first Dr. Reddy advises. “If need be, come to the house this weekend for dinner and we can have a full—”
“This part won’t take that long, Pops,” Teller says. He’s riding so high, not even his habitual critical father can bring him down. Excitement bursts from Tell, making him warm to the touch and fidgety.
Or it can be tobacco withdrawal.
I suddenly feel nauseated, and it’s not the baby spinning in my stomach. What we’re about to tell these people will change their lives, and it’s a lot of pressure to shoulder. Besides Phish, not even one of us has a pet, but we’re supposed to care for a human?
What if I need Maby to babysit for an afternoon and she forgets the baby is in the back seat of her car while she shops, and a stranger breaks the window to save my offspring? What if this Good Samaritan calls the authorities and Maby is arrested? Then Maby will have an arrest record. Surely, she’ll fall into a heavy depression because she’s now a felon, and it’ll all be because I didn’t refill my birth control prescription.
Theodore won’t have any interest in his grandchild. He isn’t fond of his own children. He’ll tolerate the small person with the same last name as his, but the fact that my kid will have a subpar mother and a grandfather who will merely endure them is devastating.
“I—I need to,” I stammer, looking for a way out.
Teller seizes my hand and keeps me steady and in place. “Keep it together, Smella.”
Nicolette sighs. “If you brought us here to announce you’re back together, I’ll have you know we took bets on how long it would be before this happened. None of us thought it would take this long, but we’re not surprised.”
Dr. Reddy pinches the bridge of his nose. “Please, tell me you didn’t invite me across town because you’re in a relationship with Gabriella, son.”
“For heaven’s sake, Theodore. They wouldn’t do something like that,” Mili argues. She crosses her legs, turning her face away from her other half.
“Wouldn’t they?” Nic scoffs.
Anxiousness swiftly somersaults into irritation, and under different circumstances, I’d have no problem flipping the coffee table over to make things interesting. I’d give them a reason to complain about their commute over here.
“Can you let them get a word out?” Maby comes to the rescue, dismissing her parents’ bickering and Nicolette’s constant pessimism. “The comments are unhelpful and rude.”
Emerson takes a step closer with father-like concern stamped on his face. There isn’t a tense muscle in his body. Instead, he’s receptive and forgiving. If things go bad, he’ll be there for me like he always is. Emerson will scoop me up in his arms and protect me from the big bad world. He’ll take the big hits to spare me from the bottom of anguish.
“What’s going on, Ella?” he asks with his arms wide open.
“It’s all right, you guys,” Maby says.
It’s not until she says this that I realize it is all right. Continuing to assume that the people I love are going to leave me because I’ve failed them is something I need to unlearn. That frame of mind has given me nothing but grief, and as I look around the room, I only see the faces of my family who’ve stayed by my side through every hardship and complication I’ve thrown their way.
They are to be trusted.
Sliding my arm across Teller’s lower back, I stand by his side with my chin held high and say, “I’m pregnant.”
The small space erupts with cries, gasps, and applause. Maby bounces up and down on the sofa, slapping her hands together with unadulterated cheer. Tears flood her green eyes, and the smile across her face is contagious.
Nicolette comes forward to sit on the coffee table with her hands over her mouth. “I’m going to be an aunt? Really? Really?”
I nod, and she jumps up to hug me, driving us into unfamiliar territory. Nicolette is the look but don’t touch type. An awkward pat on the back is her go-to move when someone needs comfort, and I can count on my hands how many times she’s embraced me in the last seven years.
“I don’t know if I’ve held a baby before,” she admits, retreating from our hug. Nic’s hands tremble as she wipes away tears from under her eyes. A truly rare sighting. “My parents only had me. I don’t have any cousins I’m close with or anything. I’ve never held a baby!”
“Get some fucking practice before you go near mine,” Teller says. He smirks. “You’re mean. Don’t be mean to my kid, Nicolette.”
She doesn’t show Teller the same regard I was given. Instead, she punches him on the arm and says, “You’ve finally done something right, dummy.”
Teller rubs his arm and takes her comment for what it is: the best compliment he’ll get from the ice queen. “Thanks, Nic,” he says.
The entire room is on their feet, facing different levels of excitement and shock. But no one is disapproving or hurt with our pending birth. They might be worried, but those opinions are kept to themselves and it’s happiness all around. Even from Theodore Reddy.
“Congratulations, sweetheart.” He kisses my cheek, tickling my skin with his mustache. Dr. Reddy pats his son on the shoulder before pulling him in for a short hug. “I’m happy for you, Teller.”
Teller pats his pockets for a pack of cigarettes he dramatically crumbled in his hand and vowed was the last one. Quitting cold turkey is a terrible idea, and he hasn’t had a chance to buy the nicotine patch or gum yet. I give it about twenty minutes before the crazy in his eyes invades his entire body and he transforms into an oversized green monster who smashes things.
“I wasn’t sure how you’d react,” Teller says honestly.
Theodore looks at his watch and says, “I only wanted you to be successful, son. You’ll be a doctor next year, and now you’ll have a family of your own. If that isn’t success, I don’t know what is.”
“Thanks, Pop,” Teller replies.
“I have to run. Come over this weekend and we’ll talk.”
“Wait,” Teller says loud enough for everyone to fall silent. “You can’t leave. You’ll miss the wedding.”
“What wedding?” Mili asks, coming forward to stand beside her husband.
Teller takes my hand, rubbing his thumb across the back of the ring he slid back onto my finger after we saw our baby for the first time.
“Our wedding,” he says as if it’s the most natural thing to ever exist.
And it is.