Page 13

“Let’s go ahead and get your weight,” she says, motioning to a scale up against the wall.

Even now, when I’m not dancing, I still avoid looking at the number.

It’s been years since my body image has been a major struggle for me, but you don’t grow up being told by dance teachers that they can see the lunch you ate through your leotard and just learn to accept everything about your body.

I’d mostly grown to love mine and all the amazing things it could do before my injury and the miscarriage.

Before I’d started to feel like it was betraying me.

But in both stages, I avoided looking at the scale.

I’d long since determined that that number was none of my business.

The nurse scratches something on her clipboard, and then we head back to the exam room. I sit down in an uncomfortably hard chair and fold my hands in my lap, desperate to hide the shaking. The nurse asks me a hundred questions that I already answered online.

“Is this your first pregnancy?” The question feels like a punch to the gut, and I can’t help but let my eyes drift toward Beau’s.

His grieved expression mirrors what I guess mine looks like.

It makes me feel oddly connected to him in this moment, takes the sting out of the answer just the tiniest bit.

“No.”

The nurse types something. “Any live births?”

I don’t move my gaze from Beau, soaking in his strong, steady presence. “No.”

She finishes asking her questions and then finally turns to face me.

“There are cups in the restroom for you to pee in and a small door in the wall where you can place the sample. I’m going to head out for a few minutes.

” She stands and opens a cabinet, pulling out a faded hospital gown.

“Go ahead and change into this and get comfortable on the table. I’ll be back in a few. ”

The gown feels scratchy against my hands as I wait for her to disappear. When the door closes behind her, I stand, but the sound of Beau’s voice makes me stop in my tracks.

“Hey,” he says, and catches my wrist. His hands are calloused, familiar, and make my overly sensitive skin tingle. I meet his eyes. They’re sincere, more intense than I’ve ever seen them. “Whatever happens today, we’re going to be okay.”

I think he’s just now starting to figure out that I didn’t ask him to leave because I wanted him gone. That I want him just as badly as I ever have, probably more. That I’m fighting the hardest I ever have to piece myself back together for him.

That I want us to be together again.

Emotion clogs my throat, so I can only manage a nod. But his lips curve in the barest of smiles like he understands, and it makes some of the anxiety in my stomach settle.

I can’t handle looking at him anymore, so I let myself into the bathroom and lean back against the cool wood, taking deep breaths until my heart rate slows to something bordering on normal.

My hands are still shaking as I pee and change, but I feel calmer, steadier.

I let Beau’s words sink into me, like I’m a plant that’s just been watered after being parched for much too long, its wilted leaves growing full again.

They repeat in my mind as I stare at myself in the mirror, gathering my courage.

I’ve done this millions of times over the years, forced my overwhelming emotions into tidy little boxes in my mind.

It’s harder to do that now than I expected, but I still manage it, letting out one last deep, centering breath before exiting the bathroom.

The nurse has already returned, and she gives me another warm smile. “You ready?”

I nod and climb onto the table, hoping neither of them notice my shaking legs.

She asks me to lift my hips and places a hard pillow beneath them before reaching for the wand.

It’s already covered in lube that I know from experience will be uncomfortably cold, but I can’t even focus on that.

My eyes are trained on the TV screen in front of me as she inserts it, waiting to see something .

“We probably won’t be able to see much today,” the nurse says. “Your doctor just wanted to bring you in early to make sure things are progressing as they should.”

I knew this. I did my research. But I still can’t help hoping there’s enough there to calm the beast in my mind, make me feel settled for the first time in a week.

I don’t even notice that Beau has sidled up beside me, gripping my hand, until I see the white blob on the screen.

It looks a little bigger than our last baby did, because they told us that one had stopped growing sometime between five and six weeks, although it took my body another two and a half to realize it.

“There’s your baby,” the nurse says.

I stare at the little white blob on the screen in wonder. The anxiety still niggles at the back of my brain, but it’s eclipsed by awe and excitement and…love. I don’t know how I feel such intense love for a blob on a screen, but I do.

When I look at Beau, his expression mirrors the way I feel. I squeeze his hand, and he squeezes back, three times, the signal he’s always given for I love you .

“And there’s the heartbeat,” she says.

I wrench my eyes from my husband to look back at the little flickering she’s pointing to on the screen. I know from my research that seeing a heartbeat this early is rare, and I can’t help but feel like this little baby is doing it just for us.

I turn to Beau, heart in my throat, and find him already looking at me. I was watching our baby, but he was watching me, and it makes some of the jagged edges inside me heal just a little. I can barely speak over the lump in my throat, but I manage to say, “Beau, that’s our baby.”

“That’s our baby,” he says, and then his lips are on mine. It’s quick, his kiss, something fierce like he’s a man going off to war and this might be his last chance, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling it all the way down to my toes.

When he pulls back, he keeps one hand in mine, the other threaded through the hair at the back of my neck. We stare at each other for a long moment, and Beau looks like he’s about to say something, but the nurse interrupts.

“There’s just one.”

I can’t help but laugh. “Oh, thank God.” I hadn’t even considered the possibility of multiples, and I feel that would have been one surprise too many for me in the past few months.

“Heartbeat is 112, so that’s good. I’m going to take a few measurements, but you look right on track,” she says.

Relief courses through me.

Turning to Beau again, I meet his brown eyes, warm as a Montana summer day. “We’re having a baby.”

“Yeah, Els,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “We are.”