He shrugged, sliding my coat off my arms and tossing it over his arm. He took my hand as we began to walk. I eyed his unusually large smile.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m excited about seeing the baby.”
“Oh, yeah.” I grinned. “Me too.”
He led me down through the hospital, a maze of halls that even after all these years could get me lost. On the way, we passed several acquaintances of Patrick’s, who nodded at him but seemed to avoid my gaze entirely. Before I could analyze it too much, we arrived in front of a white door with a glass panel and a sign that said DR. LORRAINE HARGREAVES, followed by a lot of letters. We slipped in.
“Neva Bradley and Patrick Johnson,” Patrick said. “We have an appointment.”
“So you do,” Dr. Hargreaves said, appearing at the desk alongside a heavily pregnant woman and a man who I assumed was the father of her baby. Though one never really should assume. “Go straight in,” she said, gesturing to the room she had just exited, before chatting to her receptionist about billing for the couple who were leaving. Patrick and I skulked into her office and sat down. Dr. Hargreaves joined us a little while later.
“Breech, huh?” she said, after a quick look at her notes. “Shame. You could always try a vaginal birth next time, though.”
“Maybe,” I said. I didn’t want to get upset about it. Not in front of Dr. Hargreaves. “We’ll see.”
“Would you like to find out the gender today?”
“No,” Patrick said immediately, although we hadn’t discussed it. He turned to me as an afterthought. “I mean … we don’t, do we?”
I grinned. “I guess we don’t.”
“Good,” Dr. Hargreaves said. “I like surprises. Now, let’s take a look. Up on the table, Neva.”
I felt a smidge of excitement; Patrick was rubbing off on me. With his help I climbed onto the table and sat still as Dr. Hargreaves took my blood pressure. Then I lay on my back and pulled my T-shirt up to my bra-line. Patrick held my hand, his gaze already focused on the monitor.
“I’ll measure you first.” Dr. Hargreaves reached into her pocket for a tape measure and stretched it across my belly from pelvis to ribs. She clicked her tongue. “Good size for thirty-six weeks,” she said mostly to herself. “Got your height, Patrick.”
Patrick’s smile froze.
“Now, just a little bit cold, Neva.” She squirted some clear, sticky liquid onto my stomach. “Let’s take a look.”
She lowered the device onto my belly and the beating heart immediately came into focus. Patrick clutched my hand.
“There it is.” Dr. Hargreaves continued to swirl the device around. “Head, bottom—the wrong way around—and there’s the heart, the brain.” Patrick, I noticed, was smiling at the monitor. “Right arm, left arm, right leg, left leg. I’ll avoid this area since you don’t want to know the sex.”
I found myself smiling too. When I found out I was pregnant, I hadn’t expected to have this. A loving man, a father-to-be, by my side. And although I’d never allowed myself to go there, the idea of doing this alone was suddenly unimaginably sad.
“Good-looking little thing, I think,” Dr. Hargreaves said. “Right then, you can hop down.”
She wiped my stomach with a sheet of paper towel. When we were all back at her desk, she opened a new document on her computer.
“Okay, I have a few questions for each of you. Any hereditary conditions I should know about? Heart defects, spina bifida, blood disorders, Downs?”
“Nope,” I said.
“And in your family, Patrick?”
“Uh, no. Not that I know of.”
Patrick shook his head a little too fast, almost like a twitch. Dr. Hargreaves didn’t seem to notice, but I did.
“And you’ve been taking your prenatal vitamins since the beginning, Neva?”
I nodded.
“Good. Then this is going to be pretty straightforward. Now, we can do the C-section this side of Christmas, if you like. That’s only a week early. Give you a nice little Christmas present.”
Scheduling a date and time wasn’t something I’d expected to do for my labor. But before I could feel too sorry for myself, Patrick broke into the most adorable grin. “The best Christmas present ever.”
“Fine. You can book in the date with Amelia on the way out. Is there anything else? Any concerns?”
We bumbled through the rest of the pleasantries, and then Patrick walked me to the birthing center for my shift.
Halfway there, he stopped. “Nev, I’ve been thinking.”
I resisted making a joke about it hurting his head, as his expression was somber. “Go on.”
“All those hereditary conditions Lorraine asked about today—that’s important information. I deal with kids all the time who are born with genetic disorders. It’s horrible, especially if it comes as a surprise. Having that information in advance is invaluable—for early treatment, for readiness, for planning.”
“This baby won’t have any genetic conditions.”
“Are you sure?” Patrick was tight in the jaw. “Do you know the father well?”
“Yes. I know him very well.”
He paled. I took his hand.
“You’re the father, Patrick. In every way that counts.”
It wasn’t the answer he was looking for. Or maybe it was. I got the feeling that, over the past few weeks, Patrick had gotten as attached to my secret as I had. The idea that there was no father would be much easier to accept than the idea of an unknown man lurking out there, liable to burst in at any minute and turn our lives upside down.
Resignedly, he kissed the side of my head and we continued along the corridor. Perhaps it was a victory, but it didn’t feel like one. It wouldn’t be long before the subject came up again. And eventually, we were both going to have to admit the truth.