Chapter 14: Four Years at the Table

The twenty-week scan was on Thursday, and Valeria let Rodrigo come.

She told him in a text with three lines and no greeting.

*You can sit in the chair by the door. You cannot talk to the screen. You do not touch the bed.*

He was in the chair by the door at ten to nine, in a gray suit, with his hands on his knees.

The gray-haired doctor behind the green door looked at him over her glasses.

"So you're the husband," she said.

"Yes, doctor."

"Good. Sit still. This takes forty minutes, and I don't like fidgeting."

She spread the gel across Valeria's belly.

The screen flickered gray and then filled with two small shapes, one above the other.

Valeria had seen them twice before.

She had never seen them this clearly.

One of them had a hand up by its face, and the fingers were open.

"There's number one," the doctor said. "Strong heart, long legs, very opinionated."

"How can you tell?"

"It has kicked my probe three times since I started."

The doctor moved the wand lower.

"And number two is sitting on the cord of number one and doesn't care."

Rodrigo made a sound in the chair.

"They have a good amount of fluid," the doctor went on. "They're measuring right on schedule for twenty weeks."

"Do you want to know what they are?"

Valeria looked at the chair by the door.

Rodrigo's eyes were wet, and he shut them for a moment.

"Yes," she said. "We want to know."

"A girl," the doctor said, tapping the screen. "And a boy."

Nobody spoke.

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