They put Brooke into a hospital gown and ask her all kinds of questions that I should have asked her at home.

“How are you feeling today? Was your morning sickness bad? Have you eaten anything and kept it down?”

Brooke answers and hands the nurse the file she has been clutching. “That’s the info Doctor Green wanted.”

“Perfect. I’ll put these on her desk, and she will be in shortly for your ultrasound.”

The door shut with a soft click, and I moved to lean against the wall arms folded across my chest.

“Do you have a preference?” I ask with a gentle voice.

“What do you mean?”

“Boy or girl? Which do you want?”

“Well, isn’t a boy required to issue your release?”

“That’s not what I asked.”

She glanced away. “I know.” Her words a soft breath of air.

“Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. Campbell.” Dr. Greens smiles brightly at me. She was tall, leggy, and blonde, her lab coat whooshing over her painted-on designer dress.

“I hear you’ve been having quite the morning sickness,” she says to Brooke.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You guess! You threw up ever twenty minutes for three hours this morning!”

Surprise flared in Brooke’s eyes. The doc pursed her lips. “Mmm,” she mumbles.

“Do you know what could be cause of such severe sickness? Is there something we can do to make it better?” I asked.

“Well, stress could cause it. Do you work Mrs. Campbell?”

“No.”

“And are there problems at home? Marital disputes, perhaps?” Dr. Green looks at me almost hopefully.

What the hell? I sneer at her. “I don’t believe that’s any of your business.”

“My deepest apologies, sir.” She turns back to Brooke. “We’ll put you on some prenatal vitamins see if we can get you eating and keeping your food down. And without further ado, let us start the ultrasound.”

She sits down next to Brooke’s bed, and I move closer to be by Brooke’s side. She lifts Brooke’s shirt up, revealing her flat pale tummy. There is a scar running across her side, about an inch wide and six inches long. I am fixated on it that I miss the doc telling Brooke it will be cold until Brook flinches at the cold contact.

Still fixated on her scar, I grab Brooke’s hand and squeeze, offering comfort for what I do not know. She seems tense. Scared, almost.

“And we have a strong healthy heartbeat,” Dr. Green says as the steady thump thump thump fills the room.

The sound is the most precious sound I ever heard, and a switch goes off in my head. I am going to be a father. This child that is going to grow in my wife’s womb was mine.

I glance at Brooke and see tears running down her soft, pale cheeks as sheer happiness shined in her eyes. That is when the ludicrous thought popped into my head. I wanted a girl! I wanted a girl with eyes a deep chocolate brown. With thick locks of chestnut brown hair. Just like her mother.