Chapter 2 - The prenatal vitamins.
The pregnancy book on the counter.
The small ultrasound photograph attached to my refrigerator with a magnet shaped like the Eiffel Tower.
He walked toward it slowly.
“Is that…”
“Yes.”
He looked at me.
“Can I?”
I nodded.
He took the photograph from the refrigerator.
For a long moment, he said nothing.
I had seen that image dozens of times.
A tiny profile.
A forehead.
A nose.
A small hand near the baby's face.
Watching Joseph look at it made the photograph somehow new.
“When was this?”
“Three weeks ago.”
His thumb moved carefully along the edge without touching the image itself.
“Do you know if it's a boy or girl?”
“Yes.”
He waited.
I realized he was afraid to ask for too much.
“A girl.”
His eyes lifted immediately.
“A girl.”
“Yes.”
He smiled.
Not the polished smile photographers captured at charity events.
Something quieter.
Almost disbelieving.
Then his eyes shone slightly, and he looked back down before I could decide whether I had imagined it.
“A daughter.”
Hearing him say the word nearly broke something open inside me.
I busied myself making coffee.
“My doctor says she's developing normally.”
“Which doctor?”
I turned around.
He immediately raised a hand.
“Sorry.
That sounded intrusive.”
“A little.”
“I'm learning.”
The answer was so simple that my defensiveness softened.
“Dr.
Elena Moreno.”
He nodded.
“Do you like her?”
“Yes.”
“Then that's enough.”
I handed him a mug.
He took it and sat at my small kitchen table.
There was nothing intimidating about him there.
His knees barely fit beneath the table.
His expensive watch looked strange beside the bowl where I kept grocery-store coupons.
For several seconds, we simply looked at each other.
Then he asked the question I had been expecting.
“Why didn't you tell me when you discovered you were pregnant?”
I wrapped both hands around my mug.
“I almost did.”
“When?”
“The day I found out.”
“What stopped you?”
“Everything.”
“Amanda.”
“I was scared.”
His expression softened.
“Of me?”
“No.”
That answer came immediately.
I considered what the truthful answer actually was.
“Of needing you.”
Joseph was silent.
I looked toward the window.
“My marriage ended because somewhere along the way, I stopped trusting my own decisions.
Ryan had opinions about everything.
What I wore.
Where I worked.
Which friends were good for me.
How much I should weigh.
What I should order at restaurants.”
Joseph's jaw tightened, but he said nothing.
“When I finally left, I promised myself I wouldn't build another life around someone else's approval.”
“You thought telling me would do that?”
“I thought you were powerful enough to change everything.”
“Money?”
“Money.
Lawyers.
Family.
Expectations.”
“And instead?”
“I decided I could do it myself.”
Joseph took that in.
“I understand.”
“No, you don't.”
“Probably not completely.”
His honesty surprised me.
“But I understand wanting control of your own life.”
I looked at him.
He leaned forward slightly.
“I don't want to take that from you.”
The baby moved again.
My hand went to my stomach.
Joseph noticed.
His face changed instantly.
“Was that her?”
“Yes.”
He stared at my hand.
For one suspended second, I almost invited him to feel.
But I wasn't ready.
And somehow he understood.
He sat back without asking.
That simple restraint meant more than grand promises would have.
“We need time,” I said.
“I agree.”
“You've had ten minutes to process becoming a father.”
“Twenty-seven.”
“You counted?”
“I've been counting everything since you told me.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
He looked at the sonogram again.
“What do you need from me right now?”
It was possibly the best question he could have asked.
“I don't know.”
“Then I'll start small.”
“How?”
“You have my actual phone number.”
“I thought I did before.”
He took his phone from his pocket and placed it on the table.
“Call me.”
I stared at him.
“Now?”
“Now.”
I pulled out my phone and typed the number he gave me.
His phone rang.
Joseph turned the screen toward me.
AMANDA.
He had never deleted my number.
The sight of my name there unsettled me more than I expected.
“You still had it.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you call me?”
He looked genuinely confused.
“I did.”
My heart skipped.
“What?”
“Twice.”
“I never received anything.”
“Two days after the hotel.
Then again the following week.”
“I changed my number.”
“When?”
I thought.
“Three days afterward.”
“Why?”
“That wasn't about you.
Ryan kept calling from unfamiliar numbers during the divorce.”
Joseph nodded slowly.
Another coincidence.
Another missed connection.
Except there were suddenly too many of them.
The changed note.
His mother's voice.
My changed number.
Five months built on silence.
Perhaps nothing sinister had happened at all.
Perhaps two people had simply been exceptionally good at misunderstanding each other.
There was something almost painfully human about that possibility.
Joseph stayed for another hour.
We didn't solve our future.
We didn't make dramatic promises.
We discussed practical things instead.
My due date.
My work schedule.
His travel schedule.
Whether I wanted him at the next doctor's appointment.
I said I needed to think about it.
He said okay.
Before leaving, he placed the sonogram photograph carefully back beneath the Eiffel Tower magnet.
At the door, he turned.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“Ryan.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“I don't want you doing anything.”
Joseph frowned.
“Doing anything?”
“To him.”
Understanding dawned.
“Amanda, I'm not planning to have him dropped into Biscayne Bay.”
I stared at him.
Then he laughed.
“Bad joke.”
“Terrible.”
“My sister says that frequently.”
“I already like your sister.”
“You may reconsider after meeting her.”
The word meeting made both of us pause.
It implied a future.
Joseph recovered first.
“I meant what I said.
Your relationship with Ryan is yours.
I'm not interfering.”
“Thank you.”
“But if you want someone with you when you have to deal with him, you can ask.”
That felt different.
Not rescue.
Support.
“I'll remember that.”
He nodded.
Then he left.
For several minutes, I stood behind the closed door.
My apartment felt exactly the same.
And completely different.
That evening, my best friend Leah came over carrying Thai food and enough questions to interrogate an international spy.
“He just happened to be there?”
“Yes.”
“Twelve feet away?”
“Yes.”
“While Ryan was insulting you?”
“Yes.”
Leah stared at me.
“If this were a movie, I'd complain that the writing was unrealistic.”
“I know.”
“And Joseph heard everything?”
“Apparently.”
“And he knows about the baby?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
I opened the container of noodles.
“And what?”
“Amanda.”
“He wants to be involved.”
Leah's expression changed.
“Do you want him involved?”
I leaned back.
“I don't know what I want.”
“That isn't true.”
“What?”
“You know exactly what you want.
You just don't know whether you trust it.”
Sometimes best friends were deeply inconvenient.
I looked down at my dinner.
“He was kind.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I remembered him being kind.”
“So?”
“So five months is long enough to convince yourself you imagined someone.”
Leah reached across the table.
“You didn't imagine him.”
“No.”
“And you don't have to decide everything tonight.”
That became my strategy.
One day at a time.
Joseph texted the next morning.
Not a paragraph.
Not an emotional declaration.
Good morning.
How are you both?
I stared at the message for ten minutes before replying.
Hungry.
His response came immediately.
That seems promising.
Over the next week, we developed a rhythm.
A message in the morning.
Sometimes a phone call after dinner.
Nothing romantic.
Nothing demanding.
He asked about my work.
I asked about his.
I discovered that the allegedly terrifying Joseph Raldi spent Wednesday evenings having dinner with his mother and younger sister unless he was traveling.
He discovered that pregnancy had given me an inexplicable craving for frozen grapes.
On Thursday, I received a message that surprised me.
My mother remembers the call.
I sat completely still at my desk.
I called him.
He answered on the first ring.
“What did she say?”
“That she answered my phone that morning.”
“Why?”
“I was in the shower.”
My throat tightened.
“And?”
“She said a woman asked for Joseph.”
“That was me.”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
There was a pause.
“She thought you were someone else.”
“Who?”
“A reporter.”
I blinked.
“A reporter?”
“There had been a story circulating about a business negotiation.
Someone had been repeatedly calling my office and private numbers.”
“So she told me I had the wrong number.”
“Yes.”
“That simple?”
“I think so.”
Relief mixed strangely with disappointment.
I had expected some great hidden reason.
Instead, a mother had protected her son's privacy without realizing who was calling.
“But the note?”
I asked.
“She knows nothing about it.”
“Could housekeeping have moved it?”
“Possibly.”
“Could someone have written another one?”
“Possibly.”
Neither explanation satisfied me.
But life rarely arranged itself into perfect answers.
“There's something else,” Joseph said.
“What?”
“My mother would like to apologize.”
My stomach tightened.
“She doesn't need to.”
“She wants to.”
“I don't know if I'm ready to meet your mother.”
“I told her that.”
I smiled faintly.
“What did she say?”
“She said she raised me to understand the meaning of the word patience.”
“I definitely like her.”
“She also said I should bring you cannoli.”
“I love her.”
Joseph laughed.
The next doctor's appointment was the following Tuesday.
I spent three days deciding whether to invite him.
Finally, at 11:47 Monday night, I sent one line.
Appointment tomorrow at 2.
If you want to come.
His response arrived twenty seconds later.
I do.
He arrived at 1:35.
Of course he did.
I found him in the waiting room reading a pamphlet titled YOUR SECOND TRIMESTER.
“You're early.”
He looked at his watch.
May you like
“Not excessively.”
“Twenty-five minutes.”
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