Chapter Seven: The Ultrasound
1246 Words
The obstetrician's office smelled like hand sanitizer and false reassurance.
Lena sat in the waiting room alone, her hands clenched in her lap, her knees pressed together so tightly they ached. Around her, pregnant women glowed with happiness. They laughed with their partners. They flipped through parenting magazines with easy smiles. They rubbed their bellies with unconscious affection, their fingers tracing slow circles over the curves of their growing children.
Lena kept her hands in her lap. Her platinum ring caught the fluorescent light like a warning.
Mrs. Thorne.
She wasn't sure she would ever get used to that name. It didn't fit her. It was too sharp, too cold, too heavy. Like wearing armor made of ice.
"Lena?" A nurse appeared in the doorway, her smile warm and practiced. "Dr. Harmon is ready for you."
The exam room was small and warm, decorated with watercolor paintings of flowers and sleeping babies. Soft music played from a speaker somewhere. Everything about the room said calm, safe, welcome.
Lena felt none of those things.
Dr. Harmon was a kind woman with gray-streaked hair, steady hands, and eyes that had seen everything. She had been delivering babies for thirty years. She had held the hands of women who were overjoyed and women who were terrified and women who were both.
"You must be Lena," she said, washing her hands at the sink. "I'm Dr. Harmon. Nadia speaks very highly of you."
Lena managed a small nod. Her throat was too tight for words.
"So," Dr. Harmon said, drying her hands, "you're expecting. Is this your first?"
"Yes."
"And the father? Nadia mentioned the situation is… complicated."
Lena's eyes burned. "He doesn't know yet. He can't know. Not yet."
Dr. Harmon didn't push. She simply nodded, her face kind and unjudging. "Let's take a look, shall we?"
The ultrasound gel was cold against Lena's belly. She flinched, her muscles tightening, her breath catching.
"Sorry," Dr. Harmon murmured. "It's always a shock."
The wand moved across Lena's skin, smooth and steady. Lena stared at the black-and-white screen mounted on the wall, not sure what she was looking for. Static. Shadows. Shapes she couldn't name.
Then Dr. Harmon smiled.
"There," she said softly, pointing at the screen with her free hand. "Do you see?"
Lena saw.
A small, curved shape. Curled like a sleeping kitten. A flicker of light in the center — fast, fierce, alive. A heartbeat.
Eleven weeks, Dr. Harmon had said. The size of a fig.
But to Lena, it looked like everything. Her whole world, compressed into a black-and-white image no bigger than her thumb.
Tears spilled down her cheeks. She couldn't stop them. She didn't want to stop them.
"That's my baby," she whispered. Her voice cracked on the last word.
"That's your baby," Dr. Harmon confirmed. "Strong heartbeat. One hundred and sixty beats per minute. Perfectly on track. Good size. Everything looks healthy."
Lena couldn't look away from the screen. The tiny flicker of light mesmerized her — a pulse, a promise, a person. Someone who would someday laugh and cry and run and fall and get back up again. Someone who would call her Mama.
I love you already, she thought. I don't know how, but I love you. I love you more than I have ever loved anything. And I will die before I let anyone hurt you.
"Can I have a printout?" she asked.
"Of course."
Dr. Harmon pressed a button. The machine whirred. A small black-and-white image slid out of a slot. Dr. Harmon handed it to Lena like it was a gift — which, Lena supposed, it was.
She stared at the image for a long time. The baby looked like a bean. A beautiful, perfect, impossible bean.
You have Damian's nose, she thought. I can already tell. You have his stubborn chin. But you have my heart. You have all of my heart.
Dr. Harmon helped her clean off the gel and sit up. "You're healthy," she said. "No complications so far. But stress can be a factor in pregnancy. You mentioned the father doesn't know. Is there anything at home you need to talk about?"
Lena thought of the contract. Clause 14, subsection C. Damian's cold voice echoing in her memory: "Terminate immediately upon my request."
She thought of the fifteen million dollars he had offered her to erase this heartbeat. The casual cruelty of it. The way he had said it like he was ordering takeout.
Everyone has a price.
She thought of her father, who would be a grandfather if she could keep this secret long enough. She thought of the yellow house with the foreclosure notice. She thought of her mother's grave.
"Nothing," she said. "Everything is fine."
Dr. Harmon didn't look convinced. But she didn't push. She simply handed Lena a prescription for prenatal vitamins and a list of foods to eat and avoid.
"Take care of yourself," she said. "Eat well. Rest often. And if you ever need to talk — I mean, really talk — my door is open. Day or night."
Lena folded the ultrasound printout carefully and tucked it into her coat pocket, next to her heart.
"Thank you," she said.
On the way out, she passed a young couple in the waiting room.
The woman was laughing, one hand resting on her small belly, the other intertwined with her partner's. The man kissed her temple and whispered something that made her blush. They looked like an advertisement for happiness — effortless, uncomplicated, real.
Lena looked away.
She would never have that. She had signed away love the same day she signed away her freedom. She had married a man who saw her as a line item in a contract, a necessary inconvenience, a warm body in a cold house.
But this baby — this tiny, impossible, perfect baby — was hers.
Not Damian's. Not the contract's. Not anyone else's.
Hers.
She walked to her car, sat in the driver's seat, and cried for twenty minutes. Great, heaving sobs that shook her whole body. She cried until her head ached and her eyes were raw and there was nothing left.
Then she called her father.
"Dad," she said, her voice cracking. "You're going to be a grandfather."
Silence. Then her father laughed — a real laugh, rusty and surprised and beautiful. The first real laugh she had heard from him in months.
"That husband of yours," he said. "Is he happy?"
Lena closed her eyes.
He doesn't know, she thought. He would kill it if he knew.
"He doesn't know yet," she said carefully. "I'm waiting for the right time."
"Why not now?"
Because I'm a coward. Because I'm terrified. Because I signed a contract that says I have to kill this baby if he asks, and I'm not sure I'm strong enough to say no to his face.
"Because I'm not ready," she said.
Her father was quiet for a long time. When he spoke again, his voice was soft.
"Trust your gut, sweetheart. I'll be here. No matter what."
Lena laughed through her tears.
"I love you, Dad."
"I love you too. Now go eat something. You're feeding two."
She hung up. She pressed the ultrasound to her chest and closed her eyes.
Two more weeks, she promised herself. Two more weeks, and then I'll tell him.
It was a lie.
She knew it was a lie.
But it was the only thing keeping her together.
- Writer
