“Thank you,” I tell him when he slides the plate my way and scoots a fancy butter dish across the counter. I’m not hungry anymore, but I know I need to eat, so I put PJ down on the floor and take the knife Dayton gives me.

“When is your next doctor’s appointment?” he asks after I take a bite of toast.

“Next Thursday.” I want to ask if he wants to come, but I don’t.

“Did they give you a due date?”

“December eighteenth,” I tell him after swallowing another bite. “During my last visit, they just ran a bunch of tests and asked me a lot of questions. This one, they’re going to do an ultrasound.”

Maybe that’s why it still hasn’t hit me that I’m actually going to have a baby. Maybe I’ll feel differently after I have my next appointment and they do the ultrasound and I hear the baby’s heartbeat. Right now, it feels like I’m in this weird place where I know this is really happening, but it doesn’t exactly feel like it’s happening to me.

“Who’s going with you?”

“I’m not sure. My mom went to the last one with me, and it was a lot. She kept asking a million questions, and even though I know her heart is in the right place, it was overwhelming.”

“Could I go?”

That knot in the pit of my stomach gets tighter.

Seconds ago, I stopped myself from asking if he wanted to come with me, but now that he’s asked, I’m not sure I should say yes. Probably because I know there’s a chance I’ll be doing this alone, and I don’t want to get used to having him around.

But maybe he needs to hear the heartbeat and see the ultrasound, too.

CHAPTER 9

Dayton

With my head spinning, I stare out the window of my office, trying to come to terms with the email I just read. Tuesday, after debating with myself for days, I went to the doctor, and they took a semen sample. Two minutes ago, they sent me the results. I already believed Franny when she said that the baby is mine. I just needed things confirmed for my own sanity, and now I don’t know what to do with the information.

Since I was old enough to come up with my own thoughts about life and how I wanted my future to look, I knew that I never wanted kids. Not because of the responsibility or the fear of losing my freedom, but because of the knowledge of what lives deep down in my marrow—a living, breathing monster lying dormant.