Chapter 3: The Appointment
The hum of the truck’s engine was the only sound between them on the drive back from the water’s edge. Soleil kept her face turned toward the window, watching the blur of green and brown, her fingers tracing the condensation on the water bottle he’d given her. The metaphor he’d offered—a root, not a knot—echoed in the silence, an annoying, persistent hum she couldn’t switch off.
He pulled up to Gran’s cottage and put the truck in park. He didn’t turn it off.
“I’ll be by tomorrow,” he said, his hands resting on the wheel. It wasn’t a question.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.” He finally looked at her. “Eat something solid. Rest.”
She opened the door and slid out, the gravel crunching under her sandals. She didn’t say goodbye. She walked to the porch, up the steps, and didn’t look back. She heard the truck’s engine rev softly, then the sound fade as he drove away.
Inside, the cottage was cool and still. Gran was in her rocking chair by the front window, mending a pillowcase. She looked up, her needle pausing. “Everything alright, baby?”
“Fine,” Soleil said, the word already worn thin from overuse. “I’m just going to lie down.”
She retreated to her room, closing the door with a soft, definitive click. She leaned against it, listening to the empty quiet. Her own breathing seemed too loud. She pushed away from the door, changed into an old t-shirt, and crawled into bed. Sleep, when it came, was a shallow, fitful thing.
The pattern began the next day, and the day after that.
Kordell came in the late mornings. She would hear the growl of his truck, the solid thud of his door. Her body would tense wherever she was—curled on the sofa, standing at the sink, sitting on the porch steps pretending to read a magazine.
He never knocked. He’d just step inside, his frame filling the doorway, and nod at Gran. “Morning, Ms. Evelyn.”
“Morning, Kordell. Coffee’s on.”
“Appreciate it.”
He’d pour himself a cup, lean against the kitchen counter, and talk to Gran about the weather, about Granny Baptreaux’s new batch of pepper jelly, about a boat engine that was giving his cousin trouble. His voice was a low, familiar rumble in the small space.
Soleil would become a statue. She’d focus on the page of her magazine, the words blurring into nonsense. She’d scrub a single plate until it squeaked. She’d study her own cuticles with intense fascination.
He never addressed her directly. But his presence was a directed force. She could feel his gaze like a physical touch—sweeping over the top of her head, lingering on the nervous tap of her foot, noting the untouched toast on her plate.
After ten, fifteen minutes, he’d set his mug in the sink. “I’ll be by tomorrow.”
“Alright, sugar,” Gran would say, her voice dripping with a knowing calm that made Soleil want to scream.
And he’d leave. The air in the cottage would feel suddenly thin, exhausted, as if he’d taken all the oxygen with him.
She began to orchestrate her avoidance. If she heard his truck, she’d slip out the back door and walk aimlessly into the trees, staying away for an hour. She took long, solitary baths when she guessed he might come. She started helping Gran with grocery shopping on a day and time he’d already visited.
It was a futile, transparent dance. And he knew it.
One afternoon, she’d hidden in the narrow laundry room off the back porch, holding her breath as his boots echoed on the floorboards just a few feet away. She heard him pause. A long, silent pause. Then his voice, not loud, but clear. “Tell Sunshine the gutter on the north side is fixed. Won’t drip on her window no more.”
She’d squeezed her eyes shut, humiliation burning her cheeks.
Days passed like this. A week. The calendar on Gran’s fridge, with pictures of hummingbirds, had a circle around a date. Thursday. 10 AM. The appointment she hadn’t made, but knew was coming.
The night before, the dread was a cold, lead weight in her stomach. She picked at her dinner.
“You’re going to need your strength,” Gran said gently, passing her the bowl of butter beans.
“I could reschedule. Go by myself next week.”
“Child, he’d just show up next week, too. Might as well get it over with.” Gran’s eyes held a patient certainty. “Sometimes a storm cloud just needs to rain. Fighting it just gives you a headache.”
Soleil went to bed early, but sleep was a traitor. She lay awake, listening to the cicadas, her mind racing with clinical images and invasive questions. Her hand drifted to her stomach, still mostly flat, hard to believe anything was truly in there besides the ghost of bad decisions.
Morning came, harsh and bright. She dressed in a simple navy-blue sundress, something loose and forgiving. She braided her hair tightly, as if securing her thoughts.
Right on time, the truck rumbled up the drive.
Her heart hammered against her ribs. She stood in the middle of the living room, a deer frozen in the sudden glare of headlights.
Gran gave her a gentle push toward the door. “Go on. It’s just a check-up.”
Soleil walked out onto the porch. Kordell was already out, leaning against the hood. He was in dark jeans and a black fitted tee, his locs pulled back. He looked at her, his expression unreadable.
“I can drive myself,” she said, the protest weak even to her own ears.
“You could,” he agreed, straightening up. “But you won’t.” He opened the passenger door.
The finality in his tone sparked a flash of anger. “You don’t get to decide that.”
“I decided it the moment I knew you were carryin’.” He didn’t raise his voice. He just held the door open, his gaze unwavering. “This ain’t a negotiation, Soleil. Get in.”
The bluntness stunned her. It was the first time he’d directly challenged her resistance, stripping away the pretense of choice. Her arguments died in her throat. Clenching her jaw, she marched to the truck and climbed in, yanking the seatbelt across her body.
He closed the door, got in, and they drove off. The tension in the cab was a living thing, thick and suffocating.
Dr. Hebert’s clinic was a one-story, peeling pink building on the town's edge. Weeds grew in cheerful defiance along the foundation. The waiting room smelled of lemon-scented cleaner overlying a deep, damp musk from the swamp-cooler fighting a losing battle with the humidity. A ceiling fan turned with a slow, rhythmic click.
A young nurse with a bright smile looked up. “Soleil Carter?”
“Yes.”
“And…?” The nurse’s eyes flicked to Kordell, who stood just behind Soleil’s shoulder.
“I’m with her,” he said. It was a statement that brooked no debate.
The nurse’s smile tightened slightly, but she nodded. “Right this way.”
They were led to a small, cold exam room. The paper covering the table crinkled ominously. Posters about fetal development and breastfeeding lined the walls in cheerful, pastel ignorance.
“You can have a seat there, sir,” the nurse said, pointing to a single plastic chair in the corner.
Kordell took it. The chair looked comically small under him. He stretched his long legs out, crossing his ankles, making himself at home. He was a mountain in the corner of the sterile room.
Soleil perched on the edge of the exam table, her hands folded in her lap to hide their trembling.
Dr. Hebert entered a few minutes later—a woman in her sixties with a cloud of silver hair and kind, tired eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. She shook Soleil’s hand, then glanced at Kordell with a mild curiosity.
“This is…” Soleil began, then faltered.
“Kordell Baptreaux,” he supplied, not getting up.
“I see.” Dr. Hebert’s eyes lingered on him for a second, a flicker of recognition and something else—respect, perhaps. She turned her full attention to Soleil, sitting on a rolling stool. “Alright, honey. Let’s get some history. Last menstrual period?”
Soleil mumbled a date, her face heating.
“Any previous pregnancies? Miscarriages?”
“No.”
“Any medical conditions? Medications? Smoking, alcohol, recreational drugs?”
Each question was a small, sharp knife. “No,” Soleil repeated, her voice growing quieter. She felt stripped bare under the clinical light, with Kordell as a silent witness to the inventory of her body’s failures and its current, precarious state.
“And the father? Any family medical history we should know about there?”
The room went very still. The hum of the mini-fridge under the counter sounded like a roar. Soleil stared at a poster of a smiling, plump baby. Her throat closed.
“Not applicable,” Kordell’s voice cut through the silence from the corner. It was flat, absolute.Dr. Hebert looked from Soleil’s frozen profile to Kordell’s impassive face. She gave a slow, professional nod and made a note. “Alright then. Let’s get your weight and blood pressure, and then we’ll try to hear that little one.”
The mechanical processes were a relief. The squeeze of the blood pressure cuff, the cool stethoscope. Her blood pressure was a little high. “Nerves,” Dr. Hebert said softly. “Perfectly normal.”
Then she wheeled over a small, older ultrasound machine. “Since you’re at about thirteen weeks, we might be able to see something. This’ll be external, just on your belly. We’ll see what we can find.”
Soleil lay back, the paper crackling beneath her. She lifted her dress, exposing the small, soft curve of her lower abdomen. She kept her eyes fixed on the water-stained ceiling tile above her.
The gel was shockingly cold. She flinched.
Dr. Hebert pressed the transducer against her skin, moving it in slow circles. The machine made staticky, whooshing sounds. The screen was a grainy, shifting landscape of gray and black, meaningless to Soleil.
Then the doctor paused. Adjusted the probe. The whooshing sound changed, punctuated by a rapid, rhythmic thumping.
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump.
It was impossibly fast. A tiny, galloping horse. A frantic, living drum.
“There we are,” Dr. Hebert said, her voice warming. “That’s your baby’s heartbeat. Nice and strong.”
Soleil’s breath left her body in a quiet rush. Her hand flew to her mouth. She stared at the screen, where the doctor was pointing to a small, curved, ghostly white shape amid the gray. A head. A hint of a spine. A bubble of reality.
A tear leaked from the corner of her eye, tracing a hot path into her hairline. She didn’t move to wipe it.
From the corner, she heard the soft scrape of the plastic chair. Kordell had leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his gaze locked on the flickering screen. His expression was fierce, concentrated. His jaw was tight.
“Everything looks good for thirteen weeks,” Dr. Hebert said, clicking a button. A whirring sound came from the machine as it printed out an image. She wiped the gel from Soleil’s stomach and handed her a tissue for her belly, then the small, square photo.
Soleil sat up slowly, clutching the picture. The image was blurry, abstract to an outsider. But she could see it.The shape. The promise.
Dr. Hebert discussed prenatal vitamins, increasing her caloric intake, avoiding certain foods. Soleil nodded, hearing only every third word. The thump-thump-thump was still echoing in her skull, a sound now permanently etched inside her.
The doctor left with instructions to schedule her next appointment in four weeks.
Silence descended again, thicker now, charged with the aftermath of what they’d heard. Soleil carefully smoothed her dress down, her fingers fumbling.
Kordell stood. He didn’t speak. He just waited by the door.
She slid off the table, her legs unsteady. She looked at the photo in her hand, then deliberately folded it in half, blank side out, and tucked it into the small purse she carried. A thing to be examined later, in private.
She walked past him out the door. He followed.
In the truck, she held herself perfectly still, her purse on her lap containing the hidden photo. The sound of the heartbeat seemed to have replaced her own.
He started the engine. They were halfway back to Gran’s when he spoke, his eyes on the road.
“That’s our baby,” he said, the words low and rough. “Our family. You’re not alone in this, Sunshine.”
She didn’t look at him. She didn’t agree. She didn’t pull away when, arriving at the cottage, he came around and opened her door, offering a hand to help her down from the high seat. She placed her fingers in his, feeling the calloused warmth, and stepped down, releasing his hand the instant her feet touched the ground.
She walked to the house without a word. She did not look back. But that night, alone in her room with the door locked, she unfolded the grainy ultrasound photo and stared at it for a long, long time, her fingertips resting lightly on the tiny, ghostly curve, while the memory of a frantic, galloping heartbeat played on a loop in the silent dark.
But that night, alone in her room with the door locked, she unfolded the grainy ultrasound photo and stared at it for a long, long time, her fingertips resting lightly on the tiny, ghostly curve, while the memory of a frantic, galloping heartbeat played on a loop in the silent dark. Something solidified in her chest, a cold, clear certainty that had nothing to do with dreams and everything to do with biology. She was a host. A vessel. And vessels had to be strong.
The echo of that heartbeat rewired her. In the following month, a quiet, grim determination replaced the frantic energy of her fear. Derrick’s face, his hands, the sound of his voice—they were still there, jagged shards in her memory. But they were background noise now, static behind a new, dominant signal: provide. Protect. Prepare.
She started with a notepad from Gran’s kitchen drawer. On the first page, she wrote: ‘Things the Baby Needs.’ The list was terrifying in its scope and its mundanity. Diapers. Clothes. A place to sleep. A car seat. She had eighty-three dollars in her wallet, left over from the gas money she’d saved fleeing north. It was nothing.
“I need a job,” she announced to Gran the next morning, pushing her eggs around her plate.
Gran looked up from her crossword. “You sure that’s wise right now, honey? You need your rest.”
“I need money more,” Soleil said, and her tone brooked no argument. It was a new tone. Harder.
She applied everywhere. The Piggly Wiggly on Main Street needed a cashier. The dusty Dollar General wanted stock help. Miss Lena’s café was looking for a part-time waitress. She filled out applications with a neat, careful script, her heart pounding with a fragile hope each time she handed one over. She listed Gran’s address, Gran’s phone number. Under ‘previous work experience,’ she wrote ‘N/A’ and felt the heat of shame on her neck.
Days passed. Then a week. The phone at Gran’s house, an old cordless model, didn’t ring for her once.
The manager at the Piggly Wiggly, a man with a kind face, had said he’d call in two days. He didn’t. She walked back in on the third day, the bell jingling too cheerfully. “Just following up on my application,” she said, forcing a smile.
“Oh, right,” he said, not meeting her eyes. He scratched his chin. “Position’s been filled. Sorry about that.”
At the Dollar General, the woman just shook her head and said, “We’re all set.”
The silence was a rejection. It was familiar. It felt like the world looking at her swelling body and seeing only complication, liability, trouble. She’d sit on the porch after another day of nothing, her hand resting on the small, firm mound of her stomach that had finally begun to show, a definite curve beneath her t-shirts. Discouragement was a bitter taste in the back of her throat. How could she build a life from this quiet, persistent ‘no’?
And always, there was Kordell.
His morning visits became a relentless ritual. He’d come bearing things now. A bag of oranges. A container of Granny’s gumbo. Prenatal vitamins he placed pointedly on the counter next to her untouched toast.
“You need to eat more than that,” he’d say, his voice leaving no room for debate.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not. You’re eating for two.” He’d stand there, arms crossed, until she took a deliberate, angry bite of something.
He talked about the baby with an ownership that made her skin prickle. “When my son gets here,” he’d say to Gran, as if discussing the weather.
“It might be a girl,” Soleil snapped one day, unable to bear it.
“Either way,” he said, his dark eyes sliding to her, “they’ll be a Baptreaux. Strong.”
“It’s not your baby, Kordell.” The words were a desperate fence she kept trying to build. “You need to stop saying that.”
He’d just look at her, a deep, unshakable certainty in his gaze. “That heartbeat I heard was my blood. My future. You can say what you want, Sunshine. Truth don’t change.”
He started leaving money. Folded bills tucked under the vitamin bottle, or on her pillow when she was out of the room. It was never a large amount—fifty dollars, sometimes a hundred. It felt like a burning brand. She’d snatch it up, storm out to his truck where he was already climbing in, and shove it through his open window.
“I don’t need your charity.”
“It’s not charity. It’s for him.” He’d start the truck. “Buy some fruit. You look pale.”
Then he’d drive off, leaving her shaking in the driveway, the rejected money fluttering to the gravel.
Sunday dinner at the Baptreaux compound was the one place the job rejections didn’t sting as badly. The noise was a buffer, the love a temporary anesthetic. She was carving a piece of roast chicken when Kordell’s cousin Malika slid into the chair next to her. Malika was a few years older, with a sharp wit and a warm smile.
“How you holdin’ up, girl? You got a little glow now,” Malika said, nudging her.
“Tired,” Soleil admitted, pushing her greens around. It was the safest truth.
“You still lookin’ for work? I heard you was askin’ around.”
A spark of hope. “Yeah. Nobody’s calling back, though. It’s… discouraging.”
Malika took a sip of sweet tea, her expression turning thoughtful, then slightly uncomfortable. “Well, you know, that might be ‘cause of Kordell.”
Soleil’s fork stilled. “What?”
“Yeah, I mean…” Malika lowered her voice, leaning in. “He put the word out. All through the family, down to anybody who does business in Belle Marais. Said you wasn’t to be stressed while you’re carryin’. That no Baptreaux woman works a job while she’s pregnant.” She said it like it was obvious, like quoting a well-known law. “Thought you knew. Everybody knows.”
The sounds of the dinner—the laughter, the clattering plates, Big Papa’s deep chuckle—faded into a distant, muffled roar. A cold, clear fury began to crystallize inside Soleil’s chest, so sharp it felt like the air in her lungs had turned to ice.
“He did what?”
Malika blinked at her tone. “He’s just lookin’ out for you, Soleil. It’s how they are. My daddy was the same with my mama. Big Papa was the same with Granny. They provide. We…” She gestured vaguely. “We grow the babies. In peace.”
Soleil set her fork down very carefully. She felt the eyes of the table on her, felt Kordell’s gaze from where he sat talking with his father. She stood, her movements stiff. “Excuse me,” she said, her voice strangely flat.
She didn’t run. She walked out the back screen door, onto the long porch that overlooked the water. The evening air was thick with gnats and the scent of honeysuckle. She gripped the railing, her knuckles white, waiting.
She didn’t have to wait long. The screen door hinges whined softly. His boots sounded on the planks behind her.
“Sunshine.”
She turned. The controlled quiet in her own voice scared her. “You told people not to hire me.”
He didn’t flinch. He leaned against a post, his face in shadow. “I did.”
The admission, so blunt, so devoid of apology, fanned the cold fire in her gut into an inferno. “You had no right. You have no right. You’re not my husband. You’re not this baby’s father. You don’t get to decide what I do!”
“Someone has to,” he said, his voice low and even. “You were runnin’ yourself ragged for minimum wage, worrying over applications when you need to be restin’. That’s not how this works. Not for you.”
“How what works? My life?”
“Our life. This family. I provide. You don’t need to be chasing some shitty job at the dollar store. Everything you need is right here.” He gestured back toward the house, toward the land.
“I need my own!” The shout tore from her, raw and ragged. “I need something that’s mine, that I earned, that you didn’t hand me like I’m some… some helpless child! I won’t be dependent on a man again. Not ever. You hear me? Not even you.”
He was silent for a long moment, just watching her heave with the force of her anger. “This ain’t about dependence. It’s about order. It’s about what’s best for that child. My child. Stress ain’t best.”
“Stop saying that!” She was trembling now. “He is not yours!”
“He is.” Kordell pushed off the post, taking a single step toward her. The air around him seemed to crackle. “In every way that matters from this day forward, he is mine. His blood might tell one story. My name, my protection, my faith—that’s the story that’s gonna define his life. And your stubbornness ain’t gonna change it.”
She stared at him, breathless, trapped in the immovable wall of his conviction. Arguing was like shouting at a cliff face. It just echoed back at you.
Without another word, she shoved past him, back into the noisy warmth of the house that suddenly felt like a gilded cage. She found Gran, said she had a headache, and asked to go home.
In the following days, her preparation went underground. The job search became a covert operation. She used Gran’s ancient desktop computer when Gran was at prayer meeting, her fingers clumsy on the keys. She looked beyond Belle Marais. Lafayette. New Iberia. Anywhere the Baptreaux name might hold less sway.
She called Dr. Hebert’s office from Gran’s landline, her voice a hushed whisper. “I need to reschedule my next appointment. And… can you make a note not to give out any information to anyone but me? Specifically to Kordell Baptreaux?” The receptionist paused, then agreed softly. “Of course, hon.”
She moved the appointment to a Tuesday afternoon. She didn’t write it down.
A week later, an email landed in the junk folder she’d created. A truck stop and 24-hour diner off I-10 in Rayne, the next town over, needed an overnight cashier. The shift was eleven to seven. The pay was cash, off the books. It was exactly the kind of place that wouldn’t care about a Baptreaux directive, or a pregnant belly, as long as she could stay awake and make change.
Her interview was a five-minute conversation with a weary manager named Roy who smelled of cigarette smoke and coffee. “You look reliable,” he said, barely glancing at her. “Can you start Thursday?”
“Yes,” she said, the word feeling like a key turning in a long-locked door.
On Thursday, she told Gran she was going to a late movie in Lafayette with a friend she’d reconnected with on Facebook—a flimsy lie that made her stomach twist. Gran just nodded, her eyes lingering on Soleil’s face for a beat too long. “You be careful, baby. The roads are dark.”
“I will.”
She took Gran’s keys off the hook by the door. The old Honda Civic coughed to life. As she pulled onto the dark highway, the radio playing static-laden gospel, her hands were steady on the wheel. In the passenger seat was a bag with a protein bar, a bottle of water, and an extra sweater. In her wallet was the eighty-three dollars, plus forty more she’d saved from not buying groceries, thanks to Kordell’s relentless provisions.
She drove east, away from the bayou’s sleeping breath, toward the hard, artificial light of the interstate interchange. Fear was there, a thin wire in her chest. But beneath it was something else, something solid and fierce she hadn’t felt in over a year. It was the quiet, grim hum of self-reliance. It was the sound of a plan, however difficult, in motion.
The neon sign of the ‘Crossroads Cabins & Diner’ buzzed against the deep indigo sky, a lighthouse in a concrete sea of eighteen-wheelers. She parked at the edge of the lot, switched off the engine, and sat for a moment in the sudden quiet. She placed a hand on her stomach, on the small, hard curve of her future.
“Okay,” she whispered to the dark, to the life inside her. “Let’s go to work.”