Out On a Limb

I had to leave work early to make it to the ultrasound on time. Thankfully, the café’s owner, Lisa, is unquestionably high most days and doesn’t particularly care about any of her staff’s personal lives, interests, or—quite often—names. She didn’t bother to ask what the nature of my appointment was when she sent me on my way.

I’ve been working at the café long enough that I’ve earned that level of trust. Enough to bail on the end of my shift, at least. I’m not technically a supervisor, but I’ve picked up a few extra tasks here and there when asked.

I make the schedule, mostly so I can control who closes the night before I open. I also train the new employees when Lisa’s not around. But I don’t want the title of assistant manager, though she’s offered it to me a few times. That title comes with expectations of sticking around. It was never supposed to be a permanent position. I’ve had one foot out the door since I started. Not that I’ve done anything to get two feet out.

Snow has just started falling when I get off the bus and begin walking toward the big blue medical building across the street. Walking through the front doors, I spot Bo in the lobby. He’s standing under a directional sign, looking down at his phone. I make a quick note that the ultrasound office is on the second floor before looking at him as I make my way over.

He’s wearing a brown suede coat and blue jeans. Much more casual than his outfit from last week at the café, but still more put-together than me in my black yoga pants and a teal sweater I knit last winter zipped under my knee-length puffy purple jacket and far-too-long scarf that I’ve nearly suffocated myself under.

Have I mentioned I hate winter?

“Well, fancy meeting you here,” I chime, unwinding the scarf from around my neck.

When Bo looks up, he’s already smiling. “Hey, you.” He slips his phone into his back pocket. “We’ve got to stop bump-ing into each other like this,” he says, awfully proud of himself.

“Really? Bumping?” I raise a brow.

He shrugs, his cheeky grin far too wide for his face. His stupidly handsome face.

“Ready?” I ask, tilting my chin toward the stairs.

He nods, immediately following me as I start walking toward the second floor. “Oh, wait,” Bo says urgently, reaching for my hand. He tugs me closer by my wrist, and I huff in a breath at the surprise of being pulled to an abrupt stop.

“Sorry. Before I forget.” He pulls his phone back out of his pocket and holds it up in front of us, turning his camera around so he and I fill up the small screen. “Three, two…” Click.

I smile automatically when presented with my own reflection, but I’m still questioning why we just took a photo together in the middle of the lobby when Bo places his phone into his pocket and starts walking toward the stairs as if nothing odd happened at all.

“What was that?” I ask, my tone half amusement and half confusion.

Bo pouts disingenuously, as if to say oh, you poor thing. “A cell phone, honey.”

“Yes, thank you. I’m familiar. But why did you take our photo?” And you probably shouldn’t call me honey. It does things to my stomach. Like what I’d expect a cartwheel in space to feel like.

“I’m documenting! We’re about to meet our kid. I don’t want to forget anything.”

“Okay.” I smile, despite my eyes narrowing in on this strange, strange man. “Fair enough.” I charge up the steps, making it to the first landing before dread sets over me, realising Bo’s half a staircase behind, walking at his own, necessary pace.

I fight the urge to apologise and draw more attention to our difference in speed, and instead decide to act as if I’m fascinated by the shitty mural on the landing until Bo’s once again next to me. Then I walk slower, matching his pace until we reach the ultrasound office.

I give my name and identification to the receptionist before we’re seated in a waiting room alongside a very pregnant woman and her partner. The room has bright blue walls and awful fluorescent lighting. Decals of butterflies and forest animals half-cling to the walls, and there’s a small selection of magazines in the corner, which the far-more-pregnant lady is rifling through.

She looks… smug. Rubbing her belly like it’s a fortune teller’s crystal ball. Smiling with a pointed-up nose as if she, and she alone, is keeping the human species from extinction.

“First one?” she asks, her voice like spun sugar as she points toward my stomach. She snaps that finger back into place, raising her shoulders with giddy amazement.

I nod, wearing a polite, thin-lipped smile.

“Your first is so special. Oh, but you must be really scared,” she pouts insincerely.

No shit.

“Poor thing,” she coos, frowning.

Did I answer her that time? I check with Bo, who’s suddenly fascinated by the nonexistent lint on his jeans, picking at his knee. His subtle side-eye matched with his tilted smirk tells me he’s also hearing how ridiculous fertile-Myrtle is being. Though, based on her tone, she might prefer Mother Mary as her nickname.

“This is probably our last scan.” She places a hand with a diamond ring so large on her stomach that I worry about the load-bearing weight of her placenta. “We’re thirty-nine weeks.” She places her other hand on her husband’s shoulder. He’s beaming at her with pride, his eyes glued to her. He looks distinctly like Ned Flanders, with a bushy moustache and a golly-gosh way about him.

“We’ll be having this baby any day now,” Ned chimes to Myrtle, loud enough for the room to hear.

“Wow, and you’re not even showing.” I point to his stomach, wearing a shit-eating grin that could be mistaken as friendly.

“Oh boy, she’s funny.” Myrtle points to me, looking at Bo. “Hopefully that’s genetic.”

“Funny wife, happy life—that’s what I always say,” Ned adds from beside her.

Bo gives me the smallest, briefest glance that asks about a hundred things. I agree, silently, to all of them.

“Oh, I wouldn’t know. We only just met in the lobby. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, and she allowed me to follow her up,” Bo delivers, deadpan.

“I’m Guinevere, by the way.” I present my hand to shake. “Sorry, forgot to introduce myself before.”

“Lance,” he replies, looking at the couple across from us. “You are?”

“Melissa…” she answers, oddly shy all of a sudden.

“Ted.” Close enough.

“Good to meet you both.” Bo bows his head across the aisle. “And you,” he says, winking at me, out of our new friends’ view, as to not blow our cover.

“So… you’re not the father?” Ted (née: Ned) asks.

“Whose father?” Bo replies, dumbfounded.

“Her baby.” Ted looks at me, his lips parted and pointing away from one another. Poor man could not be more confused.

“Oh! Gwen’s baby?” Bo points to me with his thumb.

I fight a laugh so hard my nose twitches.

“Yes,” Ted clarifies, growing more bewildered by the second. Bless him. Melissa only looks annoyed, glaring at her cuticles.

“No, he isn’t,” I confirm, my voice wavering. “But,” I turn to Bo, “if you are available, the job can be yours.”

“Oh, wow.” Bo places a hand across his heart, holding eye contact with me. It takes everything in me not to crack a smile. “I would be honoured…”

Melissa clears her throat, capturing our attention. “You know, if you didn’t want to talk, you could have just said so. You don’t have to be rude.”

Ted, seemingly oblivious, is still enraptured by our little performance. “So you don’t know who the dad is?”

“It’s a bit of a Mamma Mia situation, I’m afraid,” I answer.

“Here we go again,” Bo mutters under his breath as Melissa pulls Ted toward her and begins whispering into his ear. Once finished telling her husband to stop interacting with us, Melissa reaches next to her and opens a People Magazine from the early 2000s with an aggressive flourish.

Bo and I avoid eye contact, but I feel his shoulders shaking next to mine as he suppresses his laughter to no more than a few broken breaths. I’ve only ever been that stupid in public with Sarah, knowing that she’d always have my back. I suppose it can be taken as a good sign that being stupid alongside Bo came so easily.

Though I do feel a little bad for Ted. Sweet, simple Ted.

“McNulty?” The tech calls from around the corner, appearing only once I look toward the incoming voice.

“Yep!” I push to stand and notice my legs suddenly feel a lot weaker than when I walked up the stairs. Honestly, I’m grateful to Melissa, Ted, and Bo for the welcomed distraction up until this point. I was beyond nervous at work all day and barely slept last night.

It’s not that I think something terrible has happened to the baby. It’s been pretty smooth sailing symptoms-wise, though I’m still nauseous every day. Doctor Salim promises that having to keep a sick bag in my purse and crackers next to the bed is a good sign the baby is growing strong.

The fear, I think, is coming from how real this all suddenly seems. As if every step closer to the patient’s table at the end of this hallway is a recommitment to choosing this path forward. A reminder that I’ve made this very big decision with very little logic and a whole lot of instinct. Keeping the baby felt hypothetical to some degree. Once we’re in that room, I’m keeping my baby. Our baby.

Bo’s walking faster than my legs will let me go, ahead of me, next to the technician. He turns over his shoulder and gives me a sweet, encouraging wink and smile before turning back around.

I can’t help but wonder if he feels this too. The seriousness of this moment. The immense pressure. The looming feeling, as if gravity has been sucked out of this building and we’re floating down this hallway. Barrelling, really, toward this new reality.

Probably not.

Though when I find myself lying on the table in the middle of the room, hiking my shirt up to expose my still unchanged belly, I look to him for comfort on my left. And Bo provides it, reaching out a hand for me to hold.

“It’s okay,” he tells me. His voice reminds me of the way parents comfort their children before the plane takes off. A tone of people have done this before; there’s no reason to worry, but a tiny hint of concern of their own lying underneath, as if to say, then again, plane crashes do happen.

“Promise,” he says, his brows furrowing as he nods—his expression more concentrated and steady. I must look as scared as I feel for him to have to throw a word like promise around.

The tech is talking, a lot, to my right. And I’m only picking up about half of it. I keep my eyes on Bo. Watching him listen to her intently and nod along keeps me from spiralling even further. He’s present, at least. He’ll leave with whatever information we might need.

The tech’s hand on my right shoulder makes me turn toward her and the machine she’s standing in front of. “I’m going to apply the gel now—it’ll be cold. We’ll make sure to wipe it all off once finished.” She shows me a bottle of gel, and I nod, smiling weakly.

I tighten my hold on Bo’s hand. He squeezes back rhythmically, as if he’s attempting to match my heartbeat. I find myself briefly wishing I had brought Sarah along too. That way, I wouldn’t be clinging to this guy for dear life.

Cold gel lands on my stomach, and I feel pressure as the tech lowers the probe and presses down more forcefully than I was expecting. She’s really digging around down there. After a few achingly long seconds, I start to worry that maybe she can’t find the baby. That maybe there is no more baby.

Dread creeps up my spine like ice water as a million and one worst-case scenarios take my brain hostage. I feel a chill in the room that wasn’t there before, a cool breeze washing over my skin, raising each hair, goose bumps forming across my skin. Every nerve ending sends a signal that it is absolutely time to panic. But then Bo’s gasp pulls me back from the ledge.

I look at him as he, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, stares at the screen behind me that I’m too afraid to face. He exhales shakily, joy overtaking his features. He leans forward, whispering something I don’t quite make out that I’m not even sure he intended to say. Then he stills when the probe moves again, angling against my stomach.

I watch as Bo’s small wonderment bursts into a full-fledged, beaming smile that he attempts to subdue by biting his lip and shaking his head.

“Winnifred?” the tech says from behind me. “Did you want to see as well?”

I turn slowly, bracing for impact with squinted eyes and puckered lips.

But there, on the black and white screen, is a small, perfect, bean-like thing.

My baby.

Not the baby. But my baby.

And it’s not nearly as terrifying as I thought it would be—knowing it’s mine. It’s actually really fucking unreal. An honour. An amazing, incredible, spectacular, sublime thing.

I watch as the baby moves in tiny, fluttering rotations. Relief warms my skin and senses like standing under a sunbeam on an otherwise cloudy day, my heart swelling with joy to the point where I feel it might give out.

The tech smiles softly as she presses the probe against me further, trying to get a better view on the screen. “They’re certainly active,” she says. “You’re going to have your hands full with this one.”

“Hmm,” I murmur my agreement. Hands are kinda the issue here, lady.

The baby moves on the screen again. A little twitch-like jump that reminds me of a flea. And I forget the world.

Do it again, I shout internally, imagining my veins and the blood pumping through them as radio transmitters, hoping foolishly that the baby can hear me somehow.

Bo laughs, deep and low, as the kid does another flip away from the probe’s view. “Seems like they want some privacy,” he says.

“Oh my gosh, Mom and Dad-uh. Leave me alone,” I say like a moody teenager.

“You guys are so annoying,” Bo adds in his own similar whine.

We’re already so obnoxious. I love it. Probably more than I should.

The tech types as she continues clicking around the image, making notes and taking measurements. Her concentrated face could be just that: concentration. But it could equally be concern. Maybe there’s something not quite right only someone with a trained eye could notice.

“They’re okay?” The two words fall out before I think to ask them.

“All seems well to me,” she answers, turning to face me instead of the screen. “Do you want to hear the heartbeat?”

“Yes, please,” Bo and I answer in unison.

With a few buttons pressed and knobs twisted, a quiet sound begins. Turned louder, the baby’s heartbeat fills the room, reverberating against the walls in a perfect rhythm. The most life-altering, exquisite sound.

It’s all I can hear. Above my panted breaths. Above Bo’s seemingly subconscious happy murmurs of amazement. Above everything. The city outside, the voice of anxiety in my head, the subtle creaking of my ribs tightening under the weight of all this change.

Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum. Like a steady train.

Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum. Not a mistake.

Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum. A happy accident.

“Wow,” I breathe out, tears blotting along my lower lashes.

“Heart rate is one-sixty-seven,” the tech says, typing.

“Is that good?” Bo asks softly, as if to not disturb the moment.

“Yes, that’s right where we want it.”

He huffs a sigh of relief. Then his warm lips are pressed on the back of my hand. I turn away from the screen toward him, hit with a rush of surprise at that form of contact. Which may be absurd, considering all we’ve done.

“Thank you for letting me be here,” he says. Or maybe he mouths it, I’m not sure. All I can hear is that steady beating heart.

“Can you record this?” I ask hoarsely, emotion tightening my throat.

Bo lets go of my hand to pull out his phone, then, after a moment, holds it up slightly, the voice recorder on his phone blinking red.

A few moments later, the nurse turns the volume down slowly and shuts off her machines. “We’ll print off some photos for you. You can expect to hear from your doctor within the next few days—” The tech stops herself. “Well, actually, given that it’s only two days before Christmas, you most likely won’t. But,” she leans close to whisper, “I can tell you there’s absolutely nothing to worry about. Just between us.” She winks.

“Thank you,” I say.

“I’ll give you two a minute,” she says, handing me a warm towel. “For the gunk.” She points to my stomach as she walks around the bed and leaves.

“That was amazing,” Bo says as I wipe off my stomach. “They’re a lot less human-looking than I was expecting, though.”

“Like a little jelly bean,” I say, smiling fondly.

“And it was moving a lot,” he says in disbelief. “Like, it’s free to just move about in there. It’s wild.”

“They seem to be making themself at home, yes.” I sit up, lowering my shirt. “Wow…” I say again, because wow.

“Yeah…” Bo says on a long breath, a crooked smile in full, bold agreement.

“A baby,” I say, flashing my eyes at him.

“A baby,” he repeats, shaking his head.

“Insane.”

Bo sighs, dragging a hand down his face. “Pretty fucking cool,” he says, then looks up at me. We share a small, giddy smile before I hop off the table and we make our way out toward the receptionist’s desk.

After the tech hands us an envelope with two identical ultrasound photos, we walk downstairs to the lobby in companionable silence. Arriving at the main floor, I notice the snow is coming down harder, illuminated only by the streetlamps outside.

“Yikes,” I say, looking out toward the no-doubt blistering cold, winding my scarf around my neck.

“Can I give you a ride?” Bo asks, buttoning up his coat. But then he stops and watches me intently for a moment. “Actually, I’m going to insist. I’m giving you a ride.”

I roll my eyes with affection. “Yes, that would be nice. Thank you.” Then I remember Sarah’s suggestion. “Actually… do you have plans tonight?”

He finishes doing up his coat, shoving both hands into his pockets. “No.” He raises a brow, lifting the corner of his mouth alongside it. “What were you thinking?”

“Want to come to Caleb and Sarah’s with me? We’re doing a game night.”

He nods enthusiastically. “Yeah, sure. I’d love that. My car is around the corner.” Bo opens the front door, and we step out into the storm. He leads me by a floating hand above my waist toward his car as the wind whistles around us. The passenger door is opened for me and closed behind me. Then I’m regaining my senses and attempting to warm my hands with my breath as he opens his door briefly before throwing himself inside.

His car is really nice. I don’t know a lot about cars, but with a monitor screen the size of a tablet in the centre console and leather-wrapped seats with buttons for seat warmers, I imagine it cost a pretty penny.

“Great ride,” I say like a total dunce.

His lip twitches as he pushes a button and the car erupts with beeps and lights and a subtle vroom of the engine. “Thanks.”

“You remember how to get to Sarah’s?”

“Think so. Pretty sure everything about that house is carved into my memory.” He pulls off the side street, windshield wipers working overtime.

At first, I think he means it because of how nice their home is, or something alluding to Sarah and Caleb’s obvious wealth. But then I realise the way in which he said it. As if the home was infamous. Referring, subtly, to the last time we were both at Sarah and Caleb’s. I feel my cheeks warm with a blush and thank the moon for not shining too brightly.

“I’m glad you asked me to come. Honestly, I haven’t been sure about how to do this, but I think spending some non-appointment time together would be good. To get to know each other. We’re sort of…” His voice trails off as he looks over his shoulder, changing lanes.

“Stuck together?” I offer.

“I was going to say something like working toward a mutual goal, but that sounded too unattached.”

“I called us colleagues the other day, and Sarah was aghast.”

“Aghast, huh?” he teases.

“Flabbergasted, if you will.”

“But there is no proper term for this,” he says in a way of agreement.

“Co-parents, I guess.”

“But parents feels like a title reserved for when a kid is physically present,” Bo says. “No offence.” He speaks to my belly.

“Let’s aim for friends?” I suggest.

“Friends that are having a baby together.”

“Yes. Friends with foetuses.”

“A totally new type of benefit.” He laughs. “But yes. Friends is good.”

“Great,” I concur.

“I’m going to friend the shit out of you, Freddie McNulty.”

“So aggressive,” I say, giggling.

“A trait of mine you should probably know. I’m wildly competitive. Even in a mutually beneficial task. So prepare to be friended. Hard.”

“You’ve already made it weird.” I sit straighter, crossing my arms. “And you should know, I’m also very competitive. Which, I’m sad to say, is why you’ll never win. I’m going to be your best friend so fast that your head will spin. As for you? You’ll be a mere acquaintance to me.”

“You’re on,” Bo fires back.

“And don’t call me Freddie,” I say, crossing my arms.

“Sure thing, Frederick.”