Claire sipped the ginger ale.
“Boys make you throw up,” the nurse said matter-of-factly. “Girls give you a nice complexion.”
“I think it’s passing,” Claire said.
“You’re carrying like it’s a boy,” the nurse continued. “All in front.”
“I’m not,” Claire said. “I’ve gained so much weight, I’m huge everywhere.”
This baby could not be a boy. A boy with another man’s eyes? With a nose that turned up slightly at the tip instead of straight and Roman like Peter’s?
“I’m never wrong,” the nurse said.
She reached behind her neck and unclasped the thin gold chain she wore with a small gold cross dangling from it.
“Hold your hand out,” she said.
“Really, I—”
“It’s fun,” the nurse said. “Hold your hand out.”
Reluctantly Claire removed one damp glove and held her hand out in front of her.
The nurse gently tapped the side of Claire’s hand three times with the necklace. Then she turned it palm side up.
“Now hold still,” she said.
“A necklace is going to predict if I’m having a boy or a girl?” Claire said.
The nurse held the necklace steadily a few inches above Claire’s palm. It began to swing back and forth in a straight line. She grinned.
“See? A boy. If it’s a girl, it moves in circles.”
From behind them the elevator doors groaned open and the heavy sound of a man’s footsteps moved across the green and black linoleum.
“Everything all right?” Peter asked, his face creased with worry.
“She thought she might be sick,” the nurse told him.
“I’m all right now,” Claire said.
“What’s this all about?” Peter asked, indicating the necklace that still hung over Claire’s hand.
“Foolishness,” Claire said, hoping the nurse would let it go at that.
“You her husband?” the nurse asked.
“Yes,” Peter said.
“You’re going to have a son,” the nurse said proudly, as if she’d just delivered the baby herself.
The smile left Peter’s face.
“Interesting,” he said, his eyes meeting Claire’s.
This was what lay between them, the thing neither had dared to bring up. With each day, as Claire grew more pregnant, the question weighed on them even more. Perhaps, Claire sometimes thought, Peter didn’t want to know the answer. Perhaps he believed he was the father. He didn’t know when the affair had started, couldn’t know about that summer night in the parking lot. The night when Claire, who had done the math of it so many times she could recite it by heart, knew she got pregnant.
“Isn’t it interesting, Clairezy?” Peter said.
Claire pushed the table away with her feet. “Well,” she said, standing, “I think it’s a girl. We have a daughter already and this feels exactly the same,” she added, lying. It felt completely different, every minute of this pregnancy felt completely different than Kathy.
“My name’s Bridget,” the nurse said, reclasping her necklace. “When you have that baby boy, you let me know. You call 4 East, ask for Bridget, and say, ‘Bridget, you were right.’”
“We’ll be sure to do that, Bridget,” Peter said. He put his hand on Claire’s back, urging her forward.
Claire let him lead her down the corridor, past rooms with sick people and the gurgling sounds of machines. Claire? Miles had said. Is that you? Why hadn’t she said Yes, it’s me? She could make this right somehow, couldn’t she? Couldn’t she?
The first time Claire met Peter’s mother was five years earlier when they drove to Providence to tell her they were engaged. The night before, Peter had taken Claire to Frankie & Johnnie’s, where they’d gone on their first date. When he ordered champagne, something deep inside Claire fluttered. He had spoken of marriage in vague terms over the year they’d dated. He wanted four children, a wife who was a good homemaker and pleasant to be around. “I want my life to be easy. My wife to make everything around me smooth.” I can do that, Claire had thought. I want to do that for you. But as she sat across from him in Frankie & Johnnie’s, watching the waiter approach with a bottle of Moet & Chandon and two champagne flutes, Claire found herself wondering if that flutter she felt was cautionary rather than excited. Did she want four children? Did she want to spend her life keeping house and making her husband’s life smooth?
The champagne cork popped and in an instant Peter was on one knee. He was opening a small blue box and a square-cut diamond glistened up at her. So handsome, he looked in that moment. His eyes shone brightly, his hand taking the ring from its velvet perch trembled.