Chapter 21: Heartbeat

At nine on Friday, I lay on my back in a dim room with cold gel on my stomach.

Davis sat on a plastic chair beside the table with his cap in his hands.

I had asked him to come in, and he had said, "Only if you're sure."

I had said, "I'm sure," and he had followed the technician through the door with his cap in his hands.

"Any questions before we start?" the technician asked. She was young and quick, with a wide, friendly face.

"Will it take long?"

"Not if the baby cooperates." She smiled at Davis. "Are you Dad?"

"No," Davis said. "I'm a friend."

"Of course. Sorry."

"It's all right," I said.

She slid the wand across my stomach, and the screen filled with gray static.

I watched the shapes shift.

Davis watched my face.

"There," the technician said quietly.

She tapped the keyboard, and the picture froze.

A tiny curved shape sat in the middle of the black, with a flutter of white at the center.

"That's the heartbeat," she said. "Let me turn the sound on."

For a second, there was only the hum of the machine.

Then it came, fast and strong and steady, filling the room.

I stopped breathing.

It was a hundred and sixty beats a minute, the technician said.

It was perfect.

It was louder than anything I had heard in four years.

I put my hand over my mouth, and the tears ran down into my hair.

Beside me, a chair scraped.

Davis had stood up.

He stood with one big hand clamped around the back of his neck, looking at the screen.

His jaw was working.

"That's it?" he said, hoarsely. "That's what that is?"

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