Page 60 of Together

Getting ready for bed, I can’t help but lift my t-shirt and turn so my profile is facing the bedroom full-length mirror. I’m only twelve weeks along and I’m not showing yet. It doesn’t stop me from running my hand up and down over my stomach, examining my mid-section for any changes.

Then I push my stomach out, suck it in, push it out. Laugh at myself.

Push it out again and let my hand rest on my rounded stomach.

Not satisfied, I pull one of my little throw pillows off the bed and shove it under my shirt, moving and tucking the material so it looks a little more real.

“Huh,” I say to myself. “That’s not so bad.”

Of course it doesn’t look bad. It’s a tiny pillow stuffed under my shirt — not the basketball that will be there in a few months.

For good measure, and because now I’m having a little bit of fun, I dance around my bedroom, moving my stomach up and down and watching it in the mirror. I know it will look a lot different when it’s full with a baby and it makes me kind of excited to see.

I go on to try on different tops with the pillow underneath just because I’m curious what I’ll look like, ending with my scrubs. Since I wear navy blue scrubs every day to work, I’m curious what I’ll look like. Then I add another pillow, which stretches the material to the point that it’s tight.

“Yikes. This could be a problem.”

Just for the fun of it, I add another pillow for good measure. The third, though, is too much. I can’t even stuff it in.

“Welp. I’ll have to buy some new scrub tops,” I mumble. I’m sure some of my co-workers have some from when they were pregnant that I can either buy from them or borrow. It’s not that I am poor and have no extra funds to buy maternity clothes, but my parents raised me to save any areas where I can, and that includes shopping secondhand for certain items.

My phone rings just as I’m taking off my shirt and I look down to see Grace’s name lighting up my screen.

“Craaaap. I really don’t feel like dealing with her,” I complain but answer anyway.

“Hey,” I answer.

“Hey there. What are you up to?”

No way am I going to admit I was just making myself look pregnant when I’m already pregnant so I opt for a half-truth. “Just changing clothes and getting ready for bed. What about you?”

“Still at the office,” she says proudly.

“Yuck.”

Her desire to work eighteen hours a day in a stuffy office isn’t appealing to me and I don’t do anything to hide that. She’s not bothered, though. Lucy and I have always given her grief about being married to her desk chair. I don’t mind working, but the amount that she does, inside an office and staring at a screen, no less, is not for me.

“Kind of what I think about sticking my hands in someone else’s mouth.”

“Touché.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Good. Kind of felt a little blech this morning but I got through it fairly quickly. It wasn’t too bad.”

“Oh, that’s good. Mom said you have an appointment tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Regular checkup but I think we’ll be able to hear the heartbeat this time.”

“That should be fun,” she says in a voice that says she doesn’t think it sounds fun at all.

“We think so. Nik and I were talking tonight and he wants to get something set up with you and Lucy and the guys for dinner soon. It would be good for you to meet him.”

“Why?” she asks, her fingers tapping on her keyboard in the background.

“What do you mean, why? Because we’re having a baby together.”

“Yeah, but you aren’t together, together, so why does it matter? I don’t need to know him. Neither does Lucy. Mom said she and Dad met him already. Isn’t that enough?”

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