All I Want (A Farmers' Market Story) (16 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

C
HARLIE
COULDN
’
T
THINK
of a time where he’d ever been this nervous. No job interview, no test, no big presentation to the entire company. Never had his lunch threatened to revolt at the sheer enormity of what lay before him.

He forced himself to look at Meg, who was as white as the waiting room walls around them. She had her hands clasped together so tight they seemed drained of all color too.

He wanted to offer her a smile, a reassuring one. He wanted to offer her something, to commiserate at just how
awful
this wait was, and the word
viable
flashing over his head.

But he didn’t know how to move—no smiles, no gentle hand touches. He had no words. Because if he moved, if he offered any, he wasn’t sure what reserves would be left. And he thought he desperately needed those reserves.

For whatever came next.

When Meg’s name was called, they both jerked as if a grenade had been lobbed at them. Charlie forced himself to stand, but Meg remained sitting. Way too pale, her hands still clasped together like she didn’t know how to let them go.

“Meg.”

Slowly her gaze met his, wide and blue and
terrified
.
You have to do something. You have to reach out.
Stiffly, afraid of all that it would cost him, he held out his hand.

Just as slowly and stiffly, she unclasped her hands and reached out, sliding one into his outstretched hand. He helped her to her feet, and they walked toward the nurse, hand in hand.

When she slipped her hand in his, he could breathe easier. Easier than when they’d been waiting. Easier than possibly he had all day. She linked her fingers with his and they walked into the room cramped full of equipment and a computer and a bed-type thing.

The nurse offered directions, and Meg remained frozen. Until he squeezed her hand. He’d tell himself that was what had snapped her out of it. Because it would make every gesture like it come infinitely easier. If she needed it. If she needed him.

She disappeared into the little bathroom off to the side, and Charlie arranged himself uncomfortably on the chair in the corner that would allow him to watch the proceedings while the ultrasound technician situated herself.

“There’s nothing to be nervous about,” the woman said kindly, doing who knew what with the computer and machines until Meg stepped out in the hospital gown.

“All right, have a lie-down up here,” the tech said, patting the paper-covered exam table.

She got Meg situated, doing all sorts of horrible-looking things with all sorts of horrible-looking instruments. But she talked Meg through it, and in the end it wasn’t like Charlie had a choice. Except to close his eyes.

But he wasn’t a coward.

The woman was silent as she worked, one hand and what it was doing with one of the horrible-looking tools hidden under Meg’s exam gown, the other typing away on the computer.

Charlie inclined his head to look at the screen that was pointed toward Meg. There were splotches, and a lot of black static. Occasionally the screen would flash, or the tech typed letters or numbers that appeared on the screen, but Charlie didn’t know what any of it meant.

“See that flash there?” the tech finally said, pointing to a dot where something flashed over and over.

He nodded wordlessly, transfixed on the steady blinking. “That’s the baby’s heartbeat. One-seventy-one beats per minute. Which is perfectly healthy. In fact, everything looks right on target.”

“So, everything’s okay? Everything’s...viable?” Meg asked in a tremulous voice.

The technician offered a broad smile. “One hundred percent, honey. That baby of yours looks exactly like it should.”

She pulled her hand out from under Meg’s paper gown and pulled the gloves off her hands. “Now, Meg, if you want to change back into your clothes, I’ll print out some pictures you can take with you.”

Meg slid off the table and disappeared into the little bathroom, and after a few more button pushes on her varied machines, the technician handed him a strip of printouts.

Black-and-white, the words
BABY CARMICHAEL
in type across the top. The last name would be something they’d need to discuss, but not now. Not when he could see his
viable
baby as a real, living thing. It looked like a gummy bear, all in all, but it was clear. A body, little arm and leg buds, a head. A heartbeat.

He hadn’t realized Meg had returned until he felt her little gasp of pleasure next to him. “Oh” was all she said, but it spoke volumes.

They stood shoulder to shoulder, staring down at the picture. Like time had ceased to exist, and everything centered on this picture.

“That’s our baby,” she whispered, tracing the outline.

“Our baby,” he repeated, felled, again. Over and over again. In the most wonderful way he’d ever been knocked off his feet.

“I know it’s a big day, guys, but you’re going to have to leave so I can get ready for the next appointment. Feel free to sit in the waiting room as long as you need to.”

“Right. Of course.” Charlie didn’t manage to take his gaze off the picture they held together, but he at least got his brain engaged enough to move them toward the door, then out and down the hall.

“I can’t stop looking at it.”

“You don’t have to.” He squeezed her shoulder and gave her full ownership of the picture. He led her toward the door out of the hospital complex. “Look all you want. And I’ll drive us to Moonrise for lunch.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head, though her eyes never left the picture she clutched in her hands. “Take us somewhere we won’t know anybody. Then we can keep it out and look at it together.”

“Even better.” He planted a kiss on her head and led her to the car. Things couldn’t be better.

* * *

I
T
WAS
THE
most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. She wanted to blow it up and frame it. She wanted to wallpaper her house with it. She wanted to never look at anything else because this was a
baby
. Her baby. Hers.

Even though it was so big and scary and overwhelming, there was a
baby
on that picture.

“I should have taken you to McDonald’s. The food and ambience will be lost on you completely,” Charlie teased. But it was teasing because he hadn’t cracked his menu either. All they’d done since they sat down at the restaurant was stare dopily at the picture in front of them.

Meg had barely even noticed that it was a nice place. The kind of place her parents would have taken her to for interminable lunches where they’d pick at her manners and her posture and...

She sat up a little straighter as if out of reflex, finally breaking her gaze from the picture.
Oh no.

“The pasta is good here. So’s the pork chop.”

“Yeah.” She looked back at the menu. She’d never been
here
, per se, but it could have been right out of her childhood. It could have been right out of that life that had crushed her into bits.

She’d been so blindsided by the perfection of a picture that she’d entered here willingly and stupidly.

It’s fine.
Charlie was tracing the picture of
their
baby with his fingertip—over and over. The same awe and reverence in his expression as she felt. So this was fine. He wasn’t going to complain about her table manners, or the appropriateness of her smile or clothes.

He was
Charlie
. Not her parents.

“M-maybe we should just go to McDonald’s. G-go home.” She was stuttering. She hadn’t stuttered since second grade. She took a deep breath and tried to breathe, tried to be calm.

She was fine.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” He reached out across the table, as if to take her hand, but she lifted it in a wave. Wave it off. Pretend she was fine. The last thing she was going to do was rehash the ways she’d always failed her parents and this life.

Not today, when everything was magic. “Just feeling a little sick all of a sudden.”

“You need to eat something,” he said with a self-assured nod. “I was reading it can help with any nausea to make sure you’re eating a little bit throughout the day—not just three decent meals.”

She felt some of the panic fade at that, too blanketed in the warmth that he would care—not just to read up on how the baby was developing, or what she should be doing to help grow the baby best as she could, but to read about what might help
her
.

Yeah, she was a little more than
fine
. “Well, I guess I should look at the menu, then. Do you think they can bring up some bread and butter or something?” Because suddenly she was hungry. Hungry and happy and... She touched her index finger to the picture again.

“This is the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me,” she whispered, because the emotions were bubbling out of her, and though it wasn’t easy or in her nature,
sharing
what she was feeling did really help offset the crying breakdowns she’d been prone to lately.

It was hard to open herself up like that. So often she could see the end result being ridicule, but with baby stuff...it was easier. Because Charlie would have to be cruel to hurt her with that, and she didn’t believe he was cruel.

“Me too,” he said, his voice gruff, his finger touching hers—all centered on that little miracle of a picture.

They soaked up that silence, fingers gently touching. Meg could have lived in this moment, and she vowed that no matter what happened with them, no matter what missteps she took when it came to a
relationship
with him—she would remember this moment. This joy.

They’d figure it out. They’d always choose to make something work, because for both of them this was the most amazing thing—and so she could be assured they would always work together to make sure it was their priority.

Unless...

So many unlesses, and she didn’t want to think about them. Didn’t want to give them credence, but they lived in her like organs. Those whispers, those beliefs, those chinks in her armor.

She could only hope her child would never feel this. Would never constantly struggle to believe in his or her worth.

I won’t let you.

“If you want to order a bunch of things, we can always take leftovers home.”

We. Home.

Maybe she should tell him. Maybe she should
share
. It worked for the pregnancy things, for the baby things. To tell people what she was feeling. It lightened the load. It made the anxiety and fear far less potent.

But how did she tell him something that would give him the ammunition to ruin her? To sweep everything away from her? How did she give him all those feelings and insecurities when it would most surely make him wonder if she could do this?

She couldn’t have him worrying she’d relapse. Someone had to believe in her. She had to prove someone right instead of wrong.

“Where do you go?” Charlie asked, leaning forward across the table. “Where is your head when you look so damn terrified?”

She blinked at him. Where did she go? Oh, just to all the dark, ugly recesses of her soul. She forced herself to smile. “Pregnancy is terrifying, Charlie.”

She didn’t think he bought it, based on the grim line of his mouth, but the waitress appeared and took their lunch orders.

She didn’t want him to ponder her terror or where her mind went. She didn’t want him worrying or trying to figure her out, because anything he found out would only lead to him looking at her differently. He would see her as an addict, someone not to be trusted.

It would be him telling his family against her wishes, only worse—with everything. Every decision boiling down to him being the
actual
responsible one. The one who knew best, because he certainly hadn’t spent his twenties failing at sobriety and a clean life. He’d been climbing his way up the company ladder.

She couldn’t allow her future to become her past, and so Charlie could never know the extent of her instability. No matter how kind and sweet and caring he was, she couldn’t allow someone to take the reins and find her lacking, her decision-making suspect, her failure at sobriety inevitable.

“Have you thought about names at all?” she asked. “I haven’t wanted to dwell on it until the whole viability thing was over, but I do have some pretty specific ideas for a girl.”

He stared at her for a moment, and she had to hold her breath. Charlie’s will was a thing of iron. Sometimes she thought he might be able to unravel her simply by willing it so.

“I haven’t thought much about names. I won’t be picky. As long as it isn’t goat-related.”

She managed to smile, to exhale, to feel some semblance of normal. “No goats. Just...if it’s a girl, I’d want to name her after my grandmother.”

“I’d
never
argue with that.”

“Do you have any family names for if it’s a boy?”

“Well...”

He said something, but she didn’t quite hear it because another woman’s voice seemed to jump out of the hum of the crowd around them. “Margaret.”

The word rang dimly in the back of her head, like something she should remember, but she didn’t want to think about whatever that was. Not when they were talking about names. Names for their baby.

“Margaret.”

The sharp command finally broke through, memory flooding over her. Placement. She sat straighter, and she was sure she paled, because she could all but feel the blood draining out of her.

Mom’s world-weary sigh. “Fine,” she muttered, finally coming into view from behind. “Meg. What are you doing here?”

Meg blinked up at her mother, and then—even more shocking—her father not far behind. Out to lunch. On a weekday.
Together.

She couldn’t speak, because she realized way too belatedly that the picture was laid out on the table between her and Charlie. A long row of evidence. If Mom looked down, she would see it. She would know.