Julia nods, making the paper on the exam table crinkle. “I’m good.”

“Let’s measure this little peanut”—a few more keystrokes—“yep, yep, eight weeks and five days. Puts your due date a few days earlier, but since you’re still within a week, we’ll leave it at June twenty-third for the time being. See that?” The tech points to a moving bit in the baby’s center. “It’s your baby’s heartbeat. We can listen…”

She hits a few keys.

Then: swoosh swoosh swoosh.

The baby’s heartbeat is loud enough to drown out my own.

I feel a sudden, searing pressure behind my eyes.

“Look at that,” the tech is saying. She bangs a few more keys, and the sound disappears. “Heartbeat is 173 beats per minute. Perfect. Peanut is lookin’ real good, y’all.”

I look at Julia. A single tear slips quietly down her temple.

She’s smiling.

She looks at me. Eyes all soft and earnest and so beautiful I’m suddenly the one who’s struggling to breathe. She reaches out and grabs my hand, giving it a quick squeeze. Hers feels small and warm in mine.

Warmth that I feel moving up my arm into my chest. I sniffle, blinking hard.

Julia’s smile gets bigger.

“Looks like we won’t need David Bowie. At least for the time being,” she says.

“That’s a relief,” I reply. Still blinking, because these goddamn tears won’t clear up.

“You good?” she asks.

“Yeah.” I look away and swallow. “How about Charlie Brown or Lucy?”

“What?”

“The Peanuts. You know, the cartoons? What if we nicknamed our baby Charlie or Lucy?”

She’s still smiling. “I like that. Charlie Brown.”

I don’t want to think about the last time I cried. But I think it’s safe to acknowledge that this kind of crying feels different. Better.

I can’t remember the last time something good happened outside of work. For me. In my personal life, I mean.

Granted, I haven’t allowed good things to happen, because that’s how people get hurt.

Why then, is this good thing going down right now?

Why do I feel this good—why do I get to be with a woman who makes me feel this good—when I fucked up so bad?

The cynic inside me can’t help but wonder when the other shoe is going to drop.

But for the first time in a long time, I want to let myself have this moment. Feel it. The relief and the happiness and the hope.

I want to feel alive, fully. Julia’s kind of alive. The kind that makes you dance to eighties music while washing dishes.

Because it feels so. Damn. Good.

But there’s no way I can forgive myself that easily. I can’t just decide I’m done with the guilt. The shame. I have to earn forgiveness. And honestly, my crimes are such that I’ll be working to balance the karmic scales forever.

That’s what happens when you destroy a perfectly good person’s perfect life.

Julia and I are led to another exam room, where we meet with her doctor. We ask a million questions; the doctor assures Julia her symptoms should start to abate once she hits her second trimester in a couple weeks. She tells Julia to keep an eye on her depression and notify the office immediately if it worsens or she has thoughts of hurting herself. We set up our next appointment—12 week ultrasound—which I immediately mark on my Google calendar with the note DO NOT BE LATE!!!!!!!