More cheers from my team erupted as I turned to shake hands with the members of both teams and the umpires, but they didn’t match the sound of Maggie’s hollering from the other end of the field. She may as well have been screaming, “That’s my husband!” and no one would have known the difference.
The woman I was coming to know better than ever pulled at my heart more than anyone had before, and I wasn’t sure if it was because I was getting to know her as a person or because she was carrying our baby.
A baby who had a doctor’s appointment this afternoon, so I needed to rush my trailer home so we could make it into town on time. Maggie was nervous about meeting her obstetrician—I could tell by the way she clutched her hands against the kitchen counter when she told me about her appointment last week. She wasn’t struggling with any pregnancy-related symptoms yet, at least she didn’t tell me if she was. And I made sure to ask how she felt daily without fail.
When she came down to the barn after I unloaded my horses from this morning’s game—a game we won, seven to nine—unease coated her features. Her jaw tight, her eyes looking ahead instead of into mine, her hands grappling at her purse like it was a crystal glass that would shatter if it fell.
“Hey,” I reached a hand over the console to graze her arm. She shifted her gaze from the windshield to me. “I got you.”
Maggie nodded.
Admittedly, I hadn’t been to a doctor in years. After my annual checkups came back positive year after year, I gave up on the concern that anything was wrong with me. I was healthy, I ate right, my job was exercise—I figured if something was wrong with my body, it would tell me. Which was why, when I openedthe door to the doctor’s office, I was taken aback by the bright white, sterile environment. And alotof pregnant women.
Maggie wasn’t showing—she was only ten weeks along—but the foreshadowing of what she would look like in the next few months made our situation feel entirely more real than half an hour ago. The protruding bellies and pained posture made my legs heavy with empathy. The photos of bare, pregnant stomachs on the wall made my own roll.This was real.
How the hell was I going to be a father at twenty-three years old?
I didn’t know the first thing about changing a diaper or feeding an infant. Or, well, would it all be up to Maggie? The feeding? How often did we feed the baby? How many times would they wake up in the middle of the night? What was this doctor going to say?
I placed my hand on Maggie’s lower back for comfort and my own. She inhaled a sharp breath, her cascading waves shifting with the rise of her chest. Her lips tightened into what looked like a failed fake smile. We sat in the waiting room after checking in with the medical receptionist, and just when I was ready to reassure my baby mama, a nurse called, “Maggie Rynne.”
It was a jolt to hear her maiden name—or, more like herreallast name—after introducing herself as MaggieHennicketo everyone at Golden Meadow. The reminder that it wasn’t her legal name pressed against my chest.
This was arealdoctor’s office where she used herrealname.
And this marriage was fake.
The nurse led us down a blinding white hallway and into an equally blinding exam room, where she guided Maggie to lie on the gynecology chair with a paper sheet drawn over it. She questioned Maggie about her medical history, then asked me about mine. When she asked about Maggie experiencing pregnancy symptoms, Maggie shook her head.
“I don’t think I have experienced any bad symptoms.”
Glancing at her, I asked, “Is insomnia a symptom that she would experience during pregnancy?”
The nurse nodded. “Absolutely. Insomnia is very common during pregnancy.” Her greying hair streaked through the tight bun at the back of her head, and her warm smile made everything a little easier to discuss. Despite the hours of research I dug into about pregnancy the previous night, I still felt clueless sitting in this exam room.
“She isn’t sleeping the whole night,” I replied to the nurse.
Maggie’s eyes shot to mine. Like it was strange I knew she wasn’t sleeping all night. But how could I not know? Her room was right across the hall from mine, and my door stayed cracked open during the night in case she needed anything. Lying awake in the middle of my bed meant I heard her pacing at least twice a night.
“Are you feeling nauseous or pain in your legs?” The nurse asked Maggie.
“No. I think I am just really nervous about everything. We just moved here from Pennsylvania, and with the baby coming…it’s just a lot to get used to.”
Fuck. Hearing her stressed like this meant I wasn’t doing my job. At least, not enough. Her creased forehead and dark under eyes were proof of that.
“Pregnancy can be overwhelming, especially since this is your first time going through it.” The nurse leaned forward, comforting Maggie in a way I wasn’t sure I could achieve myself. “The most important thing you can do when feeling stressed or afraid is to talk to your partner. Communicate what you are feeling and have a conversation about how you can allay your concerns.”
Maggie could have smirked at me. Could have shot the nurse’s words right at me in spite of the conversation we had in thekitchen a few weeks ago. When I told her she could come to me with her worries, but I wouldn’t do the same.
But she didn’t use them against me. She looked at me with more trust than I deserved. It made my chest ache and my throat dry. I didn’t like it, and I wanted her to look at me that way forever at the same time.
After too many seconds, she turned back to the nurse and nodded. “I can do that.”
Another thirty minutes passed. I left the room so she could change into a blue hospital gown. The obstetrician performed a physical exam, and the nurse took her vitals. She left the room once to do a urine test. I looked away as the nurse drew blood from her right arm. The obstetrician talked to us about what Maggie would experience during the pregnancy, and I took notes in the small journal I had stuck in my pocket. It was already full of information I researched last night, and after today’s appointment, I realized I might need one for each trimester.
“Okay,” Doctor Gaines clapped her gloved hands together and looked between us. “Are you ready to see your little fig?”
She was referring to the size of the baby as a fruit, which nearly me chuckle. At eleven weeks, the baby was supposedly the size of a fig. This baby meant so much more to me than a damn piece of fruit. I hadn’t even seen them yet, and their existence felt monumental.
