Chapter 18: Paperwork & Possibilities
The scent of burning toast cut through the penthouse air, acrid and sharp. Ana winced from her spot on the leather couch, the cold water bottle pressed to her forehead doing little to soothe the low thrum of nausea that had become her new normal. “Something’s on fire,” she called out, her voice muffled by the leather.
“It’s fucking toast, it’s supposed to be bronzed!” Nevaieh yelled back from the kitchen, followed by the clatter of a knife and a muted shit.
Ana let her head fall back, staring at the pristine ceiling. A week. It had been a week since the two pink lines. Seven days of Nevaieh moving through the penthouse with a focused, restless energy that made the spacious rooms feel small. She’d cancelled a short tour, blaming a vocal strain. She’d ordered more pregnancy tests—digital ones, strip ones, the kind that spelled it out in cruel, clear English—as if seeking a different verdict. They all agreed.
The nausea was a constant companion, a sour tide that rose and fell but never fully receded. It was worse in the mornings, but it lingered throughout the day, a reminder that her body was no longer solely her own.
Nevaieh appeared, holding a plate in one hand and a charred slice of bread in the other. She was scowling. “It’s multigrain. It’s supposed to be good for you. The books say protein and complex carbs.” She dropped the plate on the coffee table with a clatter. Next to the sad, scraped toast was a perfect, symmetrical bowl of cut strawberries and a hard-boiled egg, peeled and halved with military precision.
Ana looked at the offering, her stomach churning. “The books.”
“Yeah,” Nevaieh said, as if it was obvious. She started pacing again, a long, tight path from the window to the kitchen island and back. Her socked feet were silent on the polished concrete. “There’s a lot of information. Contradictory shit. One says caffeine is the devil, another says a cup is fine. One says sleep on your left side only after sixteen weeks. How the fuck are you supposed to sleep only on one side?”
Ana pushed herself up, the leather sighing beneath her. She reached for a strawberry, the only thing that seemed remotely palatable. “Neva, you’ve bought, like, eight books.”
“Nine,” Nevaieh corrected, not breaking her pacing rhythm. “And I’ve curated them. The hippie-dippy one is mostly bullshit, but it had a good section on meditation for nausea. The clinical one reads like a robot wrote it, but the data is solid. The week-by-week one is borderline fear-mongering with its list of possible complications, but the illustrations are useful.” She stopped abruptly, ran a hand through her hair, and exhaled. “We’re flying blind here. I need a manual.”
“I am the manual,” Ana said quietly, biting into the strawberry. The sweet-tart burst was a tiny relief. “And my manual says toast smells like a tire fire right now.”
Nevaieh stared at her for a long moment, her dark eyes taking in Ana’s pallor, the slight tremor in her hand. Something in her face softened, then hardened into a fresh resolve. “Okay. Fuck the toast.”
She strode over, and before Ana could protest, Nevaieh’s hands were on her ankles. She gripped them firmly and pulled, sliding Ana down the smooth leather until she was lying flat on her back on the couch. “Hey—!”
“If we’re doing this,” Nevaieh said, her voice a low growl of determination, “we’re doing it right. You’re the vessel. I’m the… external support system. So lie there. Don’t move.”
She disappeared into the hallway towards the bedroom. Ana heard the sounds of the walk-in closet doors sliding open, the rustle of things being moved. She stayed on her back, looking at the ceiling, one hand resting on her still-flat stomach. Vessel. The word was cold, clinical. It didn’t feel like her.
Nevaieh returned, her arms stacked high with a tower of books. It was comically tall, wobbling as she walked. She dropped the stack onto the coffee table with a heavy thump that made the plate jump. The pile was indeed taller than Ana’s tattoo collection, a totem of their new, chaotic reality.
“Jesus,” Ana breathed.
Nevaieh knelt by the table, already pulling volumes off the top. “Alright. Week six, which is where the apps say you probably are. Major developments: neural tube forming, heart is just a tube but it’s starting to flicker. Size of a lentil.” She held up one book with a cartoonish drawing of a curled, bean-like creature. “Symptoms you’re currently experiencing: fatigue, nausea, food aversions, mood swings. Check, check, check, and… probably check later.” She flipped to a tabbed page in another, more severe-looking text. “Recommendations: small, frequent meals. Ginger. Vitamin B6. Acupressure bands.” She looked up, her gaze scanning Ana’s face. “We’re getting the bands. Today.”
Ana watched her, this frantic, beautiful, tattooed tornado of a woman, trying to wrangle the universe into a series of bullet points and action items. The fear was still there, a cold stone in her own gut, but watching Nevaieh’s version of fear—which manifested as hyper-competent research and logistical planning—was almost mesmerizing.
“Neva,” Ana interrupted softly.
Nevaieh didn’t look up, her finger tracing a line in a chapter about prenatal vitamins. “The one with folic acid is non-negotiable. I’ve cross-referenced three brands—”
“Nevaieh.”
She stopped. Looked up.
“Come here,” Ana said, patting the couch beside her hip.
Nevaieh hesitated, a dozen more facts clearly queued on her tongue. Then she closed the book, set it down, and crawled onto the couch. She didn’t lie down, but sat on the floor beside it, her back against the couch, her head level with Ana’s ribs. She was quiet, her restless energy finally spent for a moment.
Ana reached down and slid her fingers into Nevaieh’s thick, curly hair. She scratched her scalp gently. Nevaieh let out a long, slow breath, her shoulders slumping. She turned her head, pressing her cheek against Ana’s thigh, right over the peacock tattoo. Her eyes closed.
“You’re trying to solve it,” Ana murmured. “You can’t.”
“I can try,” Nevaieh muttered into the fabric of Ana’s sweats.
“I know.” Ana kept up the gentle scratching. “The books… thank you. But I need you here. Not just in the emergency instructions. Here, with me. While I’m scared.”
Nevaieh was silent for a minute. Then she nodded, her head moving against Ana’s leg. “Okay.” She shifted, turning to look up at the ceiling with Ana. “It’s just… I can write a song about anything. I can fix a broken pedal board, I can negotiate a contract. This…” She gestured vaguely at Ana’s torso. “This is biology. It’s this massive, inevitable thing. I can’t control it. I hate that.”
“Join the club,” Ana said dryly.
A real smile, tired but genuine, touched Nevaieh’s lips. She reached up and found Ana’s hand, lacing their fingers together. They lay there in silence, the tower of books casting a long shadow in the afternoon light.
“Lentil,” Ana whispered after awhile.
“Hmm?”
“You said it’s the size of a lentil.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m growing a legume.”
Nevaieh snorted, a sudden, genuine laugh that shook her whole frame. It was a good sound. It pushed back against the silence, against the weight of the books. “A magical, heart-flickering legume.”
“With a neural tube.”
“A very important tube.”
Ana smiled, looking at their joined hands. The fear was still there, but it had edges now. It had a size—a lentil—and a heart that flickered. It had a partner on the floor, who brought books and burned toast and held her hand. “I need to tell Tia,” she said, the thought forming and leaving her lips in the same instant.
Nevaieh’s grip tightened slightly. “Yeah.”
“She’s going to lose her mind.”
“Probably.”
“In a bad way.”
“Most definitely.”
Ana took a deep breath. “I should do it soon. Before she hears it from someone else.”
Nevaieh sat up, twisting to look at her. “You want me there?”
The offer was solid, a rock in the shifting sand. Ana considered it. Tia’s judgment, her certain disapproval, would be a directed blast. Having Nevaieh there would split the focus, provide a shield. It would also make it a united front, a declaration. We’re in this together.
“No,” Ana decided, surprising herself. “This one’s on me. I need to say it to her, just us. The way I’ve told her everything else fucked-up in my life.”
Nevaieh searched her face, then nodded. “Okay. But after. You come right back here. Or I meet you somewhere. You don’t sit with that alone.”
It wasn’t a question. “Deal.”
Nevaieh leaned forward and kissed Ana’s stomach, right through the shirt. It was a quick, firm press of lips. “Hang in there, lentil,” she whispered. Then she stood up in one fluid motion and offered Ana her hand. “C’mon. Get up. We’re going out.”
“Out? Where? I feel like warmed-over death.”
“Exactly. We’re getting you these acupressure bands. And real ginger tea, not that powdered shit. And then we’re walking. Slow. In the park. The books say light exercise is good. And sunlight. Vitamin D.”
Ana let herself be pulled up. The room spun gently for a second before settling. “You’ve memorized the books.”
“I skimmed for the actionable items,” Nevaieh said, grabbing her keys and a thin jacket. She paused by the coffee table, looking at the sketchbook lying beneath the mountain of pregnancy literature. She pulled it out, flipped it open to the hummingbird. Te escuché.
She looked from the drawing to Ana. “After the park,” she said, her voice softer now, “we’re calling my artist. First appointment she has.”
Ana’s heart, already working for two, gave a hard, hopeful thump. The hummingbird. The permanent mark of being heard, before the world went sideways. Before the lentil. It felt like a lifeline thrown back in time.
“Yeah,” Ana said, her voice thick. “Okay.”
Nevaieh nodded, satisfied. She didn’t say anything else. She just held out her hand again, waiting. Ana took it. Her touch was warm, her palm rough with calluses. It was the hand of someone who built things, who made music from noise, who was trying, desperately and methodically, to build a foundation under them as the ground kept shifting.
Together, they walked towards the door, leaving the tower of books and the smell of burnt toast behind, stepping into the uncertain light of the afternoon.
The afternoon light was a weak, gauzy thing, doing little to warm the creeping autumn chill that bit through Ana’s thin jacket. They walked, just as Nevaieh had decreed, through the muted greens and browns of the park. Her hand was a warm, solid anchor in Ana’s, their fingers loosely threaded. The acupressure bands were a pair of ugly beige circles around Ana’s wrists, a dollar-store solution to a cosmic problem. They didn’t eliminate the nausea, but they carved its sharp edges down to a manageable, rolling hum.
“Talk to me,” Nevaieh said, her voice low. It wasn’t a demand. It was a request for a tether, a distraction from the churn of her own thoughts.
“About what?” Ana watched a scattering of pigeons explode from their path. “The miraculous benefits of sea-band technology? The existential dread?”
“Whatever’s loudest in there.” Nevaieh nudged her shoulder gently with her own. “Even if it’s stupid.”
Ana was quiet for a long block, her boots scuffing through fallen leaves. “I’m terrified of telling my sister,” she finally admitted, the words leaving her like a confession. “But I’m more terrified of not telling her. Of this…” She gestured vaguely at her own body. “…becoming a secret I have to keep. Secrets between us… they rot.”
Nevaieh listened, her silence an open space. “She loves you,” she said, simple and certain.
“Love isn’t the issue,” Ana sighed. “Approval is.Control is. Her vision for my life just got a fucking hand grenade tossed into it. A tattooed, guitar-playing hand grenade with a nose ring.”
A faint smirk touched Nevaieh’s lips. “I am pretty explosive.”
“You know what I mean.” Ana squeezed her hand. “She wanted me stable. Normal. A husband with a 401k and a symmetrical lawn. Not… this.”
“This,” Nevaieh repeated, stopping and turning to face her. The wind lifted a curl of her hair. “What is ‘this’, Ana? To you, right now, in this second.”
Ana looked at their joined hands, then up at Nevaieh’s waiting eyes. “It’s a lentil,” she said softly. “And it’s you. And it’s me, throwing up strawberries. It’s the only thing that feels real, even though it makes no sense.”
Nevaieh leaned in and kissed her, a brief, grounding press of lips against the chilly air. “Then that’s what you tell her.”
---
The call to Tia happened two days later, from the stark white bathroom of the penthouse for the solid surface it provided against collapse. Ana sat on the closed toilet lid, phone gripped like a lifeline. Nevaieh was a silent, tense presence just outside the door, pretending to reorganize a shelf of towels.
“Hey, Tia.”
“Ana?You sound weird. Are you sick?” Tia’s voice was all immediate, practical concern.
“Not exactly.” Ana took a shuddering breath. “I need to tell you something. And I need you to just listen. Can you do that?”
A beat of suspicious silence. “Okay. I’m listening.”
The words came out in a rushed, clinical tumble, stripped of any poetry. “I’m pregnant. About six weeks. Nevaieh’s the other parent. We’re keeping it. We’re… figuring it out.”
The silence on the other end was absolute, a void. Ana could picture her sister’s face, the slow-motion collapse of her expression.
“Tia?”
“Are you out of your mind?” The words were a hissed whisper, layered with a fury so cold it burned. “Do you even know her? This person? She’s a musician, Ana. She lives in a penthouse. That’s not a life, that’s a… a music video! What about your job? What about your future?”
“This is my future,” Ana shot back, heat rising in her cheeks.
“This is a mistake! A permanent, life-altering mistake!” Tia’s voice cracked. “My god, have you even thought? What about Dad? Have you thought about what this will do to him?”
The mention of their father was a low, expert blow. Ana felt it land deep in her gut. “This isn’t about Dad. This is about me.”
“It’s never just about you!” Tia was crying now, angry, terrified sobs. “It’s about this family. About the mess you’re dragging us all into. You’re going to be tied to this… this stranger forever. Have you thought about that?”
Every fear Ana had ever whispered to herself in the dark was now screaming through the phone in her sister’s voice. She felt tears spill over, hot and shameful. “I have to go.”
“Ana, wait—”
She ended the call, dropped the phone on the tile as if it had scalded her, and curled over her own knees. The sob that ripped out of her was silent, a violent, shuddering contraction of her entire body.The door opened instantly. Nevaieh didn’t speak. She just folded herself onto the floor, her back against the bathtub, and pulled Ana into her lap. She wrapped her arms around her, one hand splayed over Ana’s stomach, the other holding her head to her chest. Ana clutched the fabric of her shirt, her tears soaking into it.
“She hates you,” Ana choked out.
“I know.” Nevaieh’s voice was a rumble in her chest, calm and unsurprised.
“She thinks this is a disaster.”
“I know that, too.”
Ana cried until her throat was raw, until the violent shakes subsided into hiccupping tremors. Nevaieh just held her, her chin resting on top of Ana’s head, her thumb tracing slow, absent circles on Ana’s arm. The bathroom fan hummed its useless dirge.
Finally, Ana went limp, spent. “I didn’t fight back enough,” she whispered, voice wrecked.
“You told her the truth,” Nevaieh corrected gently. “That was the fight. The rest is just her noise.” She pressed a kiss to Ana’s hair.“You survived it. That’s all that matters.”
---
The tattoo artist’s studio was a sanctum of sterile light and buzzing needles. The hummingbird on Nevaieh’s sketchbook page was now a stencil on Ana’s rib cage, just below her left breast. The pain was a bright, clean counterpoint to the murky ache in her heart.It felt good. It felt like claiming something back.
Nevaieh sat on a stool beside her, one hand firmly wrapped around Ana’s. She watched the artist’s work with a fierce, unblinking concentration, as if supervising a sacred rite. The buzzing filled the room, a metallic purr.
“Te escuché,” the artist, a woman named Paz with kind eyes and sleeved arms, murmured as she wiped away a trickle of blood and ink. “Powerful words.”
“They are,” Ana said, her jaw tight against the sting.
Nevaieh’s hand tightened around hers. She hadn’t let go once.
---
The OB-GYN’s office was a different kind of sterile, smelling of antiseptic and lavender air freshener. It was crowded with other women in various states of bloom, their partners clutching magazines or staring at phones. Ana filled out forms with a trembling hand, listing Nevaieh as her emergency contact and partner. The word looked absurd and bold on the official lines.
A nurse called them back, her smile professional and worn. “We’ll get your vitals, then the doctor will do a quick scan today, since you’re a new patient. Get a baseline.”
The room was small, dim, dominated by the exam table and a large, intimidating machine with a monitor. Ana changed into the paper gown, its crinkle deafening in the quiet. Nevaieh stood by the wall, her arms crossed, looking more out of place than Ana had ever seen her. She was a portrait of contained chaos in this world of calm, clinical order.
The doctor, a brisk woman with a gentle touch, came in and asked a barrage of questions. Dates.Symptoms.History. Ana answered mechanically. Then it was time.
“Go ahead and lie back, feet in the stirrups. This will be transvaginal today, for a clearer picture this early,” the doctor said, holding a wand-like transducer.
Ana complied, a cold, clinical dread seeping into her bones.This was it. The confirmation. The point of no return. She felt exposed, vulnerable in a way the tattoo chair could never emulate. Nevaieh moved then, coming to stand beside the table near Ana’s head. She didn’t look at the screen. She looked at Ana’s face.
“You’re okay,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the rustle of the doctor’s gloves.
There was pressure, a foreign, uncomfortable intrusion. Ana flinched, her eyes squeezing shut. She focused on the feeling of Nevaieh’s hand finding hers again, the rough calluses a familiar topography.
Then, a rapid, whooshing sound filled the room. Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh. It was fast, rhythmic, alive. Like galloping horses heard from far away. Like tiny, frantic wings.
Ana’s eyes flew open.
The doctor was smiling, pointing a pen at the grainy, black-and-white screen. “And there we are.See that flicker? That’s the cardiac activity. Beautiful, strong heart rate.”
On the screen, in a sea of murky grey static, was a small, curved shape. It looked like a cashew, or a tiny seahorse. And in its center, a tiny, blinking light, flashing in perfect time with the whooshing sound that filled the room. Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh. A little lighthouse in the dark.
Ana’s breath caught. It wasn’t a lentil. It wasn’t an idea or a problem or a secret. It was a shape. It had a heartbeat.
Nevaieh’s gaze finally broke from Ana’s face and followed the doctor’s pen to the screen. Her grip on Ana’s hand became vise-like. Her lips parted. All the frantic energy, the research, the planning, the bravado, seemed to drain from her in an instant, leaving pure, unguarded shock.
“That’s…?” Her voice was hollow.
“That’s your baby,” the doctor said cheerfully, clicking a freeze-frame on the image. The whooshing sound stopped, leaving a ringing silence. She clicked a button, and a printer in the corner whirred to life. “Measuring perfectly on schedule. Everything looks exactly as it should.”
The doctor finished up, offering congratulations and instructions, her words blending into a hum. She handed Ana the warm, glossy printout. Then she was gone, leaving them alone in the dim room with the image.
Ana sat up slowly, the paper gown crackling. She held the sonogram picture. The grainy, indistinct form. The blinking light. Nevaieh leaned in, her shoulder pressing against Ana’s, her head bowed close to look.
They stared at the picture together, not speaking. The whooshing sound echoed in their ears, a new, permanent rhythm laid over the old one. It was the sound of a second chance, or a first one. It was the sound of a future, terrifying and real, blinking right back at them from the static.