Chapter 19: Knuckle Deep
The waiting room smelled like lemon disinfectant and old magazines. Ana focused on a water stain on the acoustic tile ceiling, tracing its jagged edges like a coastline on a map. Nevaieh’s knee was a piston, bouncing up and down so fast it blurred. The grip on Ana’s hand was relentless, a dry, hot pressure.
“You’re going to vibrate a hole in the floor,” Ana murmured, not looking away from the stain.
“Can’t help it.” Nevaieh’s voice was tight. She’d been like this all morning: a live wire looking for a ground. The confident researcher, the logistical planner, had vanished. In her place was this twitchy ghost, scrolling mindlessly on her phone, then abandoning it, then picking it up again.
They were here for the twelve-week scan. The “genetic screening” scan. The words hung between them, unspoken but heavy. This was the one where they measured the neck, looked for markers. Where the abstract fear could get a name, a statistic.
Ana felt strangely calm. A numb, floating calm. She’d thrown up twice before leaving the penthouse, a bitter, emptying ritual that left her hollowed out and light. The hummingbird on her ribs, now healed into sharp, clean lines, itched faintly. Te escuché. She was trying to listen now, to her own body, to the silent, lentil-turned-seahorse inside her. But all she heard was the frantic drum of Nevaieh’s knee against the linoleum.
A pregnant person across the room shifted with a groan, their partner automatically handing over a water bottle. Nevaieh watched the exchange, her gaze intense, as if studying for a test she was about to fail.
Suddenly, she stilled.The bouncing stopped. She turned to Ana, her dark eyes wide with a new, specific horror. “Holy shit,” she breathed.
“What?”
“What if it’s twins?”
Ana blinked. “What?”
“Twins. Two of them. Two heartbeats. Two college tuitions. Two of everything.” Nevaieh’s voice climbed a notch. “The books never said anything about a higher likelihood with… you know, with IUI. Did we read that? Did we miss that chapter?”
“Neva, breathe.”
“I am breathing. I’m breathing and considering the statistical probability of dual occupancy.” She ran a hand through her hair, making the curls wilder. “My grandma was a twin. Did I tell you that? It skips a generation, they say.”
“You never mentioned it.”
“Well, it’s relevant now!” Nevaieh looked down at their joined hands, then back at Ana, her expression deadly serious. “I’m just saying. If they say it’s twins, I’m getting matching clownfish tattoos on my knuckles. A left knuckle clownfish and a right knuckle clownfish. So I can tell them apart.”
A snort of laughter escaped Ana before she could stop it. It was sharp and sudden, cutting through the thick, antiseptic air. The numb calm shattered into something lighter, realer. “You are insane.”
“I’m practical,” Nevaieh insisted, but the corner of her mouth twitched. “Easier than painting their toenails different colors.”
“Anaijiah? Nevaieh?” The nurse in blue scrubs stood at the open door, a tablet in her hand.
The laughter died instantly. The pressure returned to Ana’s chest, a cold squeeze. Nevaieh stood up so fast she nearly pulled Ana off the chair. They followed the nurse down a short, beige hallway, the sound of their footsteps swallowed by the sterile quiet.
The room was colder than the waiting area. The same machine sat in the corner, a monolithic presence. The technician, a woman with a kind, tired face and a name tag that read “Marlene,” gestured to the exam table. “Hop on up. Shirt up, waistband down. You know the drill.”
Ana complied, the paper sheet crinkling loudly under her. The gel Marlene squirted on her lower belly was shockingly warm.
“Alright, let’s take a look,” Marlene said, her voice softening into a professional murmur. The wand moved, and the black-and-white static resolved into shapes on the screen.There it was. Bigger. Undeniably a shape now, not just a curve. A head, a rounded spine, nubby limb buds. Ana’s breath hitched. Nevaieh leaned in, her hand finding Ana’s shoulder, her fingers digging in.
Marlene moved the wand, clicking buttons. Measurements appeared as fleeting calipers on the screen. “Good… good… beautiful cranial shape… spinal alignment looks perfect…” She was talking to herself, to the machine.
“The heart?” Nevaieh’s voice was rough, a single cracked word.
Marlene smiled, not looking away from the screen. She toggled a switch. A new, faster sound filled the room. Not the whooshing of eight weeks ago, but a swift, strong, rhythmic thump-thump-thump-thump. A tiny, furious drum.
“Heart rate of 155. Beautiful,” Marlene said.
Nevaieh’s grip on Ana’s shoulder tightened. A single, shaky exhale left her lips, warm against Ana’s temple. Ana watched the rapid flutter on the screen, the tiny, determined pulse of it. Her own heart seemed to slow, syncing to a calmer, awestruck rhythm.
Marlene moved the wand again, pressing slightly. “And let’s just… take a look around. Make sure we’re solo in there.” She swept the transducer left, then right, up and down. The screen showed empty, grainy black spaces. “Nope. Just the one. A very photogenic soloist.”
Nevaieh went limp beside her. The tension drained from her hand, leaving just its weight. “Thank god,” she whispered, almost inaudibly. “My knuckles are safe.”
Ana giggled. It was a wet, hiccupping sound, tears she hadn’t felt coming now spilling from the corners of her eyes, tracking back into her hairline. Relief, so profound it was dizzying, washed through the hollow places the nausea had left.
Marlene continued, taking more pictures. A profile shot. A shot of the little hands, which looked like fuzzy mittens. “Do you want to know the sex? We can often see it at this stage, if they’re cooperating.”
Ana and Nevaieh looked at each other. This they’d debated. Nevaieh, the planner, wanted data. Ana, floating in the surreal, had wanted a surprise.
“No,” Ana said softly, looking at Nevaieh. “Not yet.”
Nevaieh nodded, swallowing hard. “We’re good.”
Marlene smiled, wiping the gel from Ana’s stomach with a warm towel. “Everything looks absolutely textbook. Measurements are perfect. All the markers we look for are within normal ranges.” She handed Ana another strip of grainy black-and-white photos. “Go on. Have a great day.”
Back in the car, the silence was different. It wasn’t the anxious quiet of the drive over. It was a saturated, heavy quiet, full of the echo of that thump-thump-thump. Nevaieh just sat in the driver’s seat, her hands resting on the wheel, staring through the windshield at the parking garage wall.
Ana clutched the new photos. The profile was clearer.A nose. A pronounced forehead. It looked, strangely, like a baby. Not a seahorse.A baby.
“Hey,” Ana said.
Nevaieh didn’t turn. A tear escaped, tracking a swift path down her cheek and into the line of her jaw. She didn’t wipe it away.
“Neva.”
“I was so scared,” Nevaieh said, the words barely a whisper. “I didn’t let myself feel it until just now.In there. When she was measuring. I was just… preparing for the worst.For bad news. I had a whole plan for bad news.”
“You had a plan for twins, too,” Ana offered, a weak joke.
“That was a distraction.” Nevaieh finally turned her head. Her eyes were red-rimmed, wide. “It’s real. It’s really in there. And it’s okay. It’s okay.”
She started to cry then, soundlessly, her shoulders shaking. It wasn’t the messy, angry crying from after the call with Tia. This was something quieter, more fundamental. A dam breaking somewhere deep inside.
Ana unbuckled her seatbelt and slid across the console, wedging herself awkwardly into the space between Nevaieh and the driver’s seat. She wrapped her arms around Nevaieh’s neck, pressing her face into her hair, which smelled like her shampoo and the clinic’s disinfectant. Nevaieh turned into her, her body curling, her face buried against Ana’s collarbone. Her tears were hot through the thin cotton of Ana’s shirt.
They stayed like that for a long time, in the dim grey light of the parking garage, the only sound Nevaieh’s ragged breaths and the distant hum of a ventilation fan.
Finally, Nevaieh pulled back, wiping her face with the heels of her hands. She looked wrecked. Beautiful and wrecked. “Sorry,” she rasped.
“Don’t.”
Nevaieh took a deep, shuddering breath, her gaze landing on the sonogram photos now crumpled between them. She gently took one—the profile shot. She traced the outline of the forehead with a trembling fingertip. “Look at that. That’s a nose. That’s my nose.”
Ana looked. The blunt, tiny slope did, inexplicably, look like Nevaieh’s. “It is.”
“It has my nose,” Nevaieh said, wonder dawning in her wet eyes. A laugh bubbled up, mixed with a sob. “Holy shit. It has my nose.”
She stared at the picture, her expression shifting from awe to a fierce, protective possessiveness Ana had never seen before. It was the look she got when she finished a new song, a raw, proud, this-is-mine look.But deeper. Softer. Terrified and unbreakable all at once.
“We should go,” Ana whispered.
Nevaieh nodded, still staring at the picture. She carefully placed it on the dashboard, facing her, as if setting a sacred icon. Then she started the car. The engine was a jarringly normal sound. She backed out of the space, her movements slow, deliberate.
As they pulled out into the muted afternoon light, Nevaieh reached over without looking and took Ana’s hand. Not the frantic, life-preserver grip from the waiting room. This was different.A holding. A claiming. Her thumb stroked the back of Ana’s hand, over the constellation of stars and the number 305, a silent, steady rhythm that mimicked the one now etched permanently in their minds.
Thump-thump-thump-thump.
“My nose,” Nevaieh said again, softly, to the road ahead. A statement of fact. A revelation. The beginning of a new, terrifying, and utterly real story.
The drive back to the penthouse was a silent, slow-motion reel. City sounds blurred outside the car windows, muffled and distant. Nevaieh kept one hand on the wheel, the other resting on Ana’s thigh, her thumb tracing absent circles over the fabric of her jeans. Every few blocks, she’d glance at the sonogram photo propped on the dashboard, as if checking it was still real.
Ana watched her, this quiet, focused version of Nevaieh. The frantic energy had been burned away, leaving behind a smoldering, intent stillness. It was more unnerving than the pacing.
“You’re thinking too loud,” Ana said, her voice scratchy.
“Just planning,” Nevaieh replied, her eyes on the road. “The closet. It’s full of my gear and, like, three hoodies. It’ll need to be converted.”
“Into a nursery.”
“Yeah.” Nevaieh said it like it was a fact as simple as the sky being grey today. “I’ll start moving stuff to the storage locker next week. We’ll need to research non-toxic paint. And a crib that converts to a toddler bed. Long-term thinking.”
Ana leaned her head against the cool window. “It’s the size of a plum.”
“Plums grow.”
They rode the elevator up in silence, the digital numbers climbing. When the doors opened into their hallway, the familiar scent of sandalwood and clean linen hit them. It smelled like before. Like a life that was already receding into memory.
Nevaieh went straight to the kitchen, filling a glass with water. Ana drifted to the living room, the sonogram photo held loosely in her hand. She sank onto the large, charcoal-grey sectional, letting her head fall back.
The fridge closed. Footsteps approached, then Nevaieh was standing over her, holding out the water. “Hydrate.”
“You hydrate.”
“I’m not hosting a circulatory system for two.” Nevaieh nudged the glass against Ana’s fingers until she took it. She didn’t move away. She just stood there, looking down at Ana with that same unnerving focus. “Can I see?”
“See what?”
“Your stomach.”
Ana blinked. They’d seen it. At the clinic, under the cold gel and bright lights. “It’s just… me. Same as yesterday.”
“No,” Nevaieh said softly. She knelt on the floor in front of the couch, her movements slow, almost reverent. “It’s not.”
She reached out, her fingers hovering just above the hem of Ana’s soft cotton t-shirt. A question hung in the air. Ana gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod.
Nevaieh gently pushed the fabric up, exposing Ana’s lower abdomen. The skin there was pale, dotted with a few freckles Ana knew by heart. The lines of her peacock and phoenix tattoos swept down from her hip bones, their vibrant tails not yet stretched or distorted.
But there, just below her navel, was a subtle, firm curve. It wasn’t a “bump” in the cartoonish sense. It was a gentle, definitive fullness where flatness used to be. A new landscape.
Nevaieh’s breath left her in a slow, silent stream. She didn’t touch at first. She just looked, her gaze scanning every centimeter. Ana watched her face, seeing the technician’s measurements, the sonogram’s grainy image, being mapped onto this living, breathing reality under her hands.
“Here,” Nevaieh finally whispered, her fingertip landing not on the curve itself, but a fraction to the left. Her touch was feather-light. “That’s where the head was. In the picture.” She traced a tiny, imaginary arc. “Facing this way.”
Her other hand came up, resting warmly on the right side. “And the feet… they were curled here. Kicking.” She looked up at Ana, her eyes blazing with fierce, quiet discovery. “She said they kick now. You just can’t feel it yet.”
Ana’s throat tightened. She placed her own hand over Nevaieh’s, pressing it more firmly against her skin. The warmth seeped through. “How can you tell?”
“I just can.” Nevaieh leaned forward slowly, until her forehead rested against Ana’s stomach, right over that new, gentle slope. She closed her eyes. “Hey in there,” she murmured, her voice vibrating against Ana’s skin. “It’s us. We’re home.”
Ana’s fingers slid into Nevaieh’s hair, curling in the thick, dark waves. She stared at the ceiling, at the faint track-lighting, feeling the solid weight of Nevaieh’s head, the whisper of her breath. The world narrowed to this point of contact. Her own breathing slowed, deepened.
They stayed like that for a long time. Minutes unspooled. The city light through the windows shifted, fading from afternoon grey to the deeper blue of early evening. Cars honked somewhere far below, a siren wailed, life continued its chaotic pulse outside. In here, there was only silence, and warmth, and the profound, invisible thing between them making itself known.
Nevaieh finally shifted, sitting back on her heels. Her eyes were soft, her earlier intensity banked to a low, steady glow. “It’s real,” she said again, but this time it sounded less like a revelation and more like a vow.
“It’s real,” Ana echoed.
Nevaieh nodded, her hands still cradling Ana’s hips. She didn’t let go. She seemed content to just kneel there, marinating in the fact, studying the slight change in contour as if memorizing a new constellation. “We should take a picture,” she said, not moving.
“Of my stomach?”
“Yeah. Not to share. Just for us. Today. So we remember.” She finally released one hand to fumble in her back pocket for her phone. “The books said you might not pop for weeks, but… it’s different now. It’s started.”
Ana shrugged, a slow, lazy movement. “Okay.”
Nevaieh positioned the phone, not angling for anything artistic. It was a blunt, documentary shot. The soft curve of Ana’s stomach, her tattoos framing it, Nevaieh’s own tattooed hand resting possessively on the skin. The silver ring on her thumb glinted in the dim room. She took the picture. The shutter sound was loud in the quiet.
She looked at the image on her screen, her brow furrowed. She showed it to Ana.
It was stark, real, unglamorous. A body in transition. It was the most beautiful thing Ana had seen all day.
“Save that,” Ana whispered.
“I am.” Nevaieh set the phone aside, screen facing down. She leaned in again, this time placing a single, soft kiss on the center of the firm curve. Then she laid her head back down, her cheek pressed against Ana’s skin, and simply held on.
The hum of the refrigerator kicked on. A dog barked in another apartment. Ana carded her fingers through Nevaieh’s hair, over and over, watching the sky through the windows deepen from blue to indigo. The small, firm presence beneath Nevaieh’s cheek, beneath her own skin, was a secret they now shared with the quiet room. A quiet, terrifying, utterly real promise.
A quiet, terrifying, utterly real promise thrummed between them, anchored by the warmth of Nevaieh’s cheek against her skin. The moment felt fragile, a soap bubble they were both afraid to move and pop. Eventually, the discomfort of the couch’s edge biting into Nevaieh’s knees broke the spell. She groaned, pushing herself up with a soft pop from her joints.
“I’m getting old,” she muttered, stretching her back.
“You’re becoming a parent,” Ana corrected, a faint smile touching her lips. “It’s the same thing.”
Nevaieh snorted and wandered to the kitchen, opening the fridge. “We have leftover Thai. And strawberries. And pickles.” She held up the jar of dill spears, raising an eyebrow. “This is a cliché. We are a walking cliché.”
“It’s a cliché because it’s true,” Ana said, accepting the pickle jar Nevaieh brought over. The sharp, vinegary scent cut through the air. She took a crunchy bite, the sourness a perfect counterpoint to the sweet afternoon. “My stomach wants what it wants.”
Nevaieh watched her, leaning against the kitchen island. She’d found a bag of chips and was eating them methodically, one by one. “You’re glowing.”
“That’s sweat. I just had a human’s head pressed against my intestines.”
“Nope. It’s a thing. The books mention it. Increased blood volume.” She crunched a chip. “It’s weird. You look… settled.”
Ana considered this, licking pickle brine from her thumb. Settled wasn’t the word she’d use. She felt like a radio between stations, static and occasional bursts of clarity. But under Nevaieh’s steady gaze, she almost believed it. The sonogram photo lay on the coffee table, a silent, undeniable fact.
She looked at her phone, dark and silent beside it. The dread from the clinic’s relief hadn’t fully receded; it had just changed shape, hardening into a specific, unavoidable task. She’d told Tia. The fallout had been a cold, shrill void. But the list wasn’t finished.
“I need to call Crystsylia,” Ana said, her voice hollow.
Nevaieh stopped chewing. She put the chip bag down, wiping her hands on her jeans. “Your sister, the nurse?”
“The one who’s actually seen a birth that didn’t involve a stork in a cartoon.” Ana’s thumb hovered over her sister’s contact photo—a picture of Crys laughing at a barbecue, ketchup on her chin. The normalcy of it felt like a taunt. “She deserves to hear it from me. Before Mom finds out from Tia and the whole diaspora explodes.”
Nevaieh nodded, her expression careful. “You want me to…?”
“No.” Ana’s answer was quick, definitive. “This one’s different. Crys isn’t… Tia.” She took a deep, bracing breath that did nothing. “It’ll be fine.”
She said it to convince herself. Nevaieh didn’t argue. She just picked up her chips and her own phone and disappeared into the bedroom, closing the door with a soft, deliberate click. The offering of privacy was a profound understanding.
The living room felt cavernous. Ana pressed the call button and put the phone to her ear. It rang once, twice.
“Hey, bug! I’m on my break, you have nine minutes exactly.” Crystsylia’s voice was warm, slightly muffled, the familiar sound of a hospital cafeteria in the background. “Tell me something good. My last patient coded. It’s been a day.”
The normalcy was a spear to Ana’s gut. She opened her mouth, but the rehearsed speech vanished. “Something’s happening,” she blurted out.
The background clatter seemed to fade. “Ana? Are you okay? Where are you?” The warm concern was instantly professional, assessing.
“I’m home. I’m safe.” Ana closed her eyes. “I’m pregnant.”
Silence. Not the furious, icy silence of Tia. This was a vacuum, a sucking away of sound. Ana could picture her sister’s face, the rapid recalculation behind her eyes.
“Okay,” Crys said slowly, the nurse firmly in charge. “How far along? Have you seen a doctor? Are you… is this… are you keeping it?” The last question was delicate, soft.
“Twelve weeks. We just had the scan. Everything’s perfect.” Ana’s hand went to her stomach, to the firm curve. “And yes. We’re keeping it.”
Another pause. “‘We’?”
Ana braced. “Nevaieh. The musician. You met her at that barbeque last summer. The one with the phoenix tattoo.”
“The tall one with the guitar hands.” Recognition dawned in Crys’s voice, followed by a new, deeper silence. Ana could hear the gears turning, the clinical and the personal colliding. “So. This is… planned?”
“It wasn’t not planned,” Ana said, her default defensiveness rising. “It’s… complicated. But it’s real. It’s happening.” She grabbed the sonogram photo, as if it could transmit truth through the phone. “It has a nose. A strong heartbeat.”
Crys exhaled, a long, slow sigh that carried the weight of twelve-hour shifts and hard truths. “Have you told Tia?”
“Yeah.”
“Ah.” That single syllable held galaxies of understanding. “Let me guess. She invoked Dad, the family name, and the apocalypse.”
“Basically.”
“She’s scared,” Crys said, not excusing, just explaining. “She thinks she’s holding the last pieces of us together with spit and guilt. You just handed her a hammer.” There was rustling, the sound of a chair scraping. “Send me the picture.”
“What?”
“The sonogram. Send it. I want to see the nose.” Her tone had shifted, the professional distance evaporating into a fierce, familial curiosity.
Ana fumbled, sending the image with trembling fingers. She heard the tap of a phone being unlocked, then another, longer silence.
“Oh,” Crystsylia whispered. The word was soft, full of wonder. “Oh, bug. Look at that. That’s a good femur length.” She was crying. Ana could hear the thick tears in her voice. “That’s a really good profile. Textbook.”
Relief, so potent it made her dizzy, flooded Ana’s system. She sagged into the couch, a choked sob escaping her. She hadn’t realized how much she needed this, this uncomplicated, medical, loving acceptance.
“Is it… are you happy?” Crys asked, sniffling.
“I’m terrified,” Ana answered honestly, tears streaming down her own face. “And yeah. I think I am.”
“Good. That’s the correct ratio. If you weren’t terrified, I’d be worried.” More sniffling. “Okay. I’m on PTO next month. I’m coming up. We’re going to look at cribs. And I’m bringing my stethoscope. I want to hear this heartbeat for myself.”
“Okay.”
“And Ana? Tell your… tell Nevaieh… she’s got good nose genetics. For whatever that’s worth.”
The call ended, leaving Ana weeping silently into the quiet room. It was a clean hurt, a purging. She felt scraped raw but lighter. The bedroom door opened a crack. Nevaieh peered out, her face a question.
“She’s coming next month,” Ana managed, wiping her face with her sleeve. “She wants to hear the heartbeat. She approved of the nose.”
Nevaieh’s shoulders slumped in visible relief. She came out and sat beside Ana, pulling her into a side hug. “The nose gets a pass. That’s a start.”
They sat for a minute, the evening deepening outside. Ana looked at her phone again. One more. The person who wouldn’t need explanations, only details. She pulled up Maya’s contact and hit the video call button.
It was answered on the second ring. Maya’s face filled the screen, her lavender braids piled in a messy bun, a smear of blue clay mask on her cheek. She was in her art studio, canvases stacked behind her.
“Ana! I was just thinking about you. This new pigment is giving me grief—oh.” She leaned closer to the camera, her dark eyes sharpening. “You’ve been crying. What’s wrong? Do I need to hurt someone?”
“Nobody to hurt,” Ana said, a wet laugh bubbling up. She adjusted the phone, pulling Nevaieh into the frame beside her. “We have news.”
Maya’s gaze flicked between their faces, her artist’s mind reading the story in their red-rimmed eyes, the way Nevaieh’s arm was locked around Ana’s shoulders. She saw the sonogram picture Ana held up to the camera. Her clay-cracked mouth fell open.
“No,” she breathed. “Shut up.”
“We’re not joking,” Nevaieh said, her voice rough.
Maya’s hands flew to her face, smearing the clay mask further. “OH MY GOD!” she screamed, the sound tinny through the speaker. She jumped up, the phone wobbling, catching a chaotic blur of her ceiling lights. “OH MY GOD, ANA! NEVAIEH! THAT’S A BABY! THAT’S A WHOLE-ASS BABY IN THERE!”
Her joy was a physical force, a shockwave through the line. It was the opposite of Tia’s cold fury, the complement to Crys’s tearful acceptance. It was pure, undiluted celebration.
“When? How? Tell me everything! Are you throwing up? What does it look like? Is it a boy or a girl? Can I paint the nursery? I will paint a mural! A forest! With little hidden animals!”
The questions tumbled out, a rapid-fire barrage of excitement. Ana tried to answer, laughing through her tears. “Twelve weeks, we don’t know the sex yet, and yes, I’ve thrown up so much I’m basically a ghost.”
“And the nose!” Maya squealed, having zeroed in on the sonogram again. “Look at that profile! That’s art! That’s a Michelangelo nose!”
“That’s what I said,” Nevaieh mumbled, a genuine, proud grin breaking across her face.
For ten minutes, they talked over each other. Maya demanded more pictures. She promised to design a tattoo to commemorate the occasion. She offered to be the on-call doula, despite knowing nothing about childbirth. Her energy was a lifeline, pulling them both up from the emotional depths of the day and into a brighter, more chaotic light.
When they finally hung up, promising more details soon, the penthouse no longer felt like a waiting room. It felt charged, connected. The story was no longer a secret held between two people in a sterile clinic. It was a story being told, weaving itself into the fabric of other lives.
Nevaieh rested her head against Ana’s. “Maya’s going to paint a mural of clownfish, isn’t she.”
“Probably,” Ana said, exhaustion and a fragile new happiness settling in her bones. The phone was warm in her hand, a conduit to a world that was, piece by piece, learning to hold them. The quiet promise now had a chorus.