Ethan ran into Ivan last week. At the grocery store. He hid in the stock room and they thought he was shoplifting. Even though he didn’t have anything on him, they couldn’t get creative and think of any other reason a person would ever be hiding in a stock room all sweaty and shaking. It’s not like he had a grapefruit shoved down his pants. Robert had to go get him from the store security office and vouch for him, whatever that means.

If anyone ever deserved a fresh start, it’s Ethan. I wish we could all go with him. Me, Robert, and the baby. But Robert can’t leave the bar and restaurant and I can’t leave Robert, and Ethan doesn’t want to break up our weird, wonderful little family. If I were a better person and a better friend, I would tell him to go. I think about how I would do it. Plan it out in my head. I would sit him down and make him coffee and have cookies from that place he likes on Biltmore and tell him we’d call and visit and write and send so many pictures. I would tell him there will be new people for him to love. But I can’t. I know it’s wrong that I want to keep him. But I do.

— Chapter 55 —

Robert books a doctor’s appointment for me. There’s talk of a wedding. Of health insurance. Of things that leave me gasping for air if I think about them too much. But this first appointment he’s just paying for. We want to hear the heartbeat without having to wait for all the paperwork.

I heard once that before you drown, you get euphoric. That’s what this feels like. Happy drowning. I have a family now. I have a home. I am terrified.

Robert waits outside the exam room while I undress and put on that paper gown and drape like the nurse told me to. It’s funny how there’s sex-naked and doctor’s-office-naked and they’re not at all the same thing.

When Robert comes back in, it’s awkward. He holds my hand and makes a very concentrated effort to look at my face and not at the paper I’m wrapped in like a cut of beef from the meat market.

“So,” Dr. Katim says, looking at her clipboard when she walks into the room, “April and Robert. Looks like we’re having a baby!”

She’s young. Like medical student young. She has perfect straight hair and black-framed glasses that I think maybe she’s only wearing to make her look smart. Women like her are too perfect for glasses.

I don’t like the way she says we. We’re having a baby. There are already enough people on this baby’s team. And it’s not like she’ll be changing diapers.