I wheel the ultrasound machine down the hallway and find it hard to contain my smile. It’s the best part of Elizabeth’s day. Those few moments when she can see her baby. Every time we do a sonogram it’s like the first one she’s ever seen. She gets all teary-eyed.
Every time.
And it’s become a joke about her not wanting to see what may or may not be between the baby’s legs. Although that’s not what we’re looking for, we’re looking closely at the placenta. But I still take a few extra minutes and show her a hand or a foot. Yesterday, the baby looked to be sucking her thumb.
It’s the only time Elizabeth talks about the baby. It makes me wonder if she’s scared about becoming a mom. Or maybe she’s scared about what’s waiting out there for her when she leaves the hospital. An old apartment with broken-down appliances perhaps. Or maybe it’s drafty in the winter. Hell, maybe it isn’t even heated, although I’m pretty sure that’s against the law. But slumlords these days don’t really give a shit what squalor their tenants have to live in as long as they’re making a buck.
Damn it. I wish she would let me help her.
I see someone walking around Elizabeth’s room as I make my approach. It’s Skylar Mitchell. I park the ultrasound machine outside the doorway and lean against the door jam, quietly observing them before I go in.
Elizabeth takes a bite of something from a Mitchell’s To Go container. She rolls her eyes to the heavens. “Oh, my gosh, this is the best lasagna I’ve ever tasted. It’s my favorite homemade meal, you know.”
“Really?” Skylar says with a huge smile, winking at me when she sees me in the doorway. “Imagine that.”
“Imagine what?” Elizabeth says, shoveling another huge bite into her mouth.
“Nothing. Now that I know you love lasagna, I’ll have to bring by some more next week. If that’s okay with you.”
“Can you bring your chef, too?” Elizabeth asks. “I’d like to keep him. Hospital food sucks.”
“Speaking of hospital food, what’s with all the Jell-O?” Skylar asks, pointing to her side table.
Elizabeth laughs. “Nothing. Just a game I’m hoping to play later.”
“A game? With Jell-O?” Skylar puts her hand up to stop Elizabeth from speaking. “Wait! I don’t want to know. Sounds kinky. But somehow I think I like you even more now.”
“It’s not like that.” Elizabeth giggles and damn it if the sound doesn’t make my heart skip a beat like a teenage girl at a rock concert.
She’s hoping to play the game with me? But she hates the game. It seems like every time, I either get too personal or bring up something painful.
She pushes the lasagna away. “I’m stuffed,” she says. “I wish I could eat more. It’s a shame to let it go to waste. I’ll bet if Kyle were here, he’d box it up and take it to some homeless person around the corner.”
Skylar looks up at me and smiles. “I bet he would.”
They are talking about me. I feel like I should enter the room, but at the same time, I think Elizabeth is more open with the girls than she is me, and I don’t want to miss an opportunity to learn something about her.
“He did that with some Chinese food he brought me the other night.”
“That’s Kyle. He wants to feed the world. And cure it of disease.”
Elizabeth starts chewing on her pinky nail again. She only does that when she’s nervous.
“Is he . . . a good guy?” she asks hesitantly. “I mean, he’s a doctor, so that probably means that inherently he’s good, wanting to help people and all. But is he good? Like deep down?”
Skylar puts her hand on Elizabeth’s arm. “You’d be hard pressed to find a better man anywhere.”
Elizabeth nods.
Skylar stands up and grabs her purse. “I’m off to get my hair done. Griffin is coming back in town after being gone for a week on a photo shoot. I want to look my very best.”
“I love your hair,” Elizabeth tells her.
“Thanks.” Skylar studies Elizabeth for a second. “You know, I might be able to help you out with your roots if you want. I have a great hairdresser who makes house calls.” She pulls a piece of paper out of her purse and hands it to Elizabeth. “Here, write down what brand and color you’ve been using and I’ll give it to her to match. If you want, I can see if she can come with me when I bring next week’s lasagna.”
“You don’t have to do that, Skylar. It can wait until I get home.”
“I know I don’t. And I also know how tired you’ll be once the baby comes. This may be your last chance for months to have a touch up. So, unless you plan on going full-on brunette . . .” She nods to the paper.
Elizabeth smiles and writes something down.
I feel like a brick wall just slammed into my chest.
She’s a fucking brunette?
Someone drops something in the hallway behind me and Elizabeth finally notices I’m standing here. “Oh, hi, Kyle. Skylar just brought me the best lasagna. Have you ever had Mitchell’s lasagna?”
Skylar and I share a look. “Once or twice,” I say. Or a hundred times.
“I’m out of here,” Skylar says, stopping to kiss me on her way by.
I nod in thanks as I wheel the ultrasound machine into Elizabeth’s room.
“Will that thing see all the lasagna I just ate?” she jokes. “Because it might be embarrassing. I ate a lot.”
“You’re allowed to,” I say. “You are eating for two.”
“I don’t know.” She looks down at her leftovers. “More like three or four if you ask me.”
I stare at the dark roots beginning to show in the part of her hair, wondering how I’ve never noticed this before. She looks like a blonde with her sun-kissed face and striking blue eyes. She looks good as a blonde. Then again, I thought she looked good in blue when it wasn’t her best color at all.
I find myself trying to picture her as a brunette—but I stop. I stop when I realize I’m getting dangerously close to that line again.
“Ready?” I ask.
“Are you kidding?” She squirms in the bed like it’s Christmas morning.
I smile as I unhook her from the monitor and then squirt the gel onto her abdomen.
“Don’t—”
“Show the salami or the cheeseburger,” I say, finishing her words for her. The same words she says every day when we do this.
Last week on my day off, the resident assigned to her saw the note in her chart and made a joke about not showing her the salami or the cheeseburger. On an ultrasound, a girl’s parts resemble the layering of a burger. I’d call it more of a hamburger myself, but whatever.
I quickly locate the placenta and make sure it’s not tearing. Everything looks good from a medical standpoint.
“What’s it going to be today?” I ask. “Hand, foot, face?”
“Yes,” she says, with a hopeful grin.
Not able to deny this woman anything, I begin from the top down. The baby is opening and closing her mouth as if she’s chewing. “Looks like he or she wants the lasagna,” I say.
Elizabeth laughs, causing her belly to jiggle which in turn has the baby moving.
I find one of her arms and work down toward the hand. I know how much Elizabeth likes to count the fingers. She raises her hand to the monitor and traces the outline of her tiny fingers.
“Still five?” I ask.
She rolls her teary eyes at me before she looks back at her daughter.
But I’m still looking at her. Jesus Christ, she’s beautiful. The way she looks at her baby. I’ve never seen so much love on someone’s face before. I try to look away, but I can’t.
The baby starts to jerk around.
“Baby’s got the hiccups,” she says, laughing. “Must’ve eaten too much.”
I find the baby’s head again and we watch her jump around on the monitor.
“Can you feel it?” she asks.
“No. But I can see it on the monitor.”
“You have to feel it. It’s the best feeling. Here, give me your other hand.”
I hold my free hand out and she takes it, placing it on the left side of her belly. My eyes close momentarily as flesh touches flesh and I feel her taut skin under the palm of my hand. When I feel the tiny jerking movements, my eyes fly open to meet hers.
“Pretty great, huh?” she asks.
Life. There is a new life under my hand. A girl who might someday look just like her mother. She could have short brunette hair, falling just past her chin in soft waves. She could have stunning blue eyes that can draw any man’s stare like a tractor beam. She could have soft hands and perfect pink toenails and full pouty lips. She could have that curve to her smile that lets you know you are important. She could have that giggle that brings you to your knees.
Suddenly, the walls of the room start closing in on me. My heart starts pounding. I can’t breathe. I’m suffocating.
I pull my hand away and take the wand off her belly. I hand her a towel to wipe the gel off. “I’m sorry. I just remembered I have somewhere to be.”
“Oh.” She looks sadly at her tray table where the cups of Jell-O sit untouched. “I was hoping . . . never mind, you need to go.”
“Yeah, I need to go.”
I walk out of her room, not even bothering to bring the ultrasound machine with me. I need to go. I need to go like I’ve never needed to go before.
I need to go, because what I just experienced in that room was something I’ve never felt.
What I just experienced in that room was so wrong I can’t even begin to list all the ways.
But how come what I just experienced in that room feels nothing but so fucking right?