Page 11 of Forever Christmas
For a moment, my head is just empty, like all my thoughts flew out.
Then the cartoon sperm fill my head, wiggling around, flexing their biceps. So muchfor doctors. We’d been using condoms for a few weeks, so it had to be that first day, on the rock.
We were about to do everything all over again. I don’t know if she’s happy about it or not, given the job. Given Finn.
“You feeling okay?” I ask her.
“I think so.”
“You scared?” I ask.
“Petrified.” She gives a shaky laugh.
“Me too,” I say. My brain is bringing up scenes from the past like mylife is flashing before my eyes. Corabelle at her parents’ house. The test. Her belly swelling. Her water breaking. The hospital. The incubator. The funeral.
I grip the arm of the bench. The metal is hot but I don’t let go. It’s reality. It grounds me.
“We’re going to have a baby, Gavin,” she says. I can hear the tears in her voice.
“We are, we really are,” I say. My own voice cracks. So muchto think about. I can barely hold it all in.
“I’m coming over,” I say to her. “Stay right where you are.”
“Okay,” Corabelle says. “I’ll be waiting for you. We both will. Me and this baby.”
I remember all the pictures we looked at the first time, the kidney bean turning into a shrimp, then a miniature baby, then a balled-up infant barely fitting in the tight space. All that had already begun.
Life sure is turning on a dime lately.
And here we go again.
