Violetta Craft's Arc

Chapter 7 of 65

Three weeks later Violetta drove to the clinic with Lymber in the passenger seat and Jordie in the back. She was twenty weeks now. The puppy stayed home in the kitchen with a chew toy. Violetta had a folder in her lap with two name lists inside. One list was for a boy. One list was for a girl. Neither list was finished. She had been telling herself all week that she would pick after the scan. The clinic waiting room smelled like paper and hand soap. Jordie kept bouncing his knee until Lymber put a hand on it. When the tech called her back, Violetta climbed onto the table and pulled up her shirt. The gel was cold. The screen turned on and the room went quiet except for the fast thump of the heartbeat. The tech moved the wand and pointed at shapes Violetta could barely read. Spine. Heart. Four chambers. Then the tech smiled and turned the screen a little more. "Do you want to know?" she asked. Violetta nodded. Jordie leaned forward. "It's a girl," the tech said. "Strong and measuring right on track." Violetta stared at the screen. She had spent every quiet minute of the last month picking boy names. Oliver. Theo. Sam. She had a whole page of them, circled and starred. The girl list had four names on it and she had crossed out three. She looked at Lymber. Lymber was already crying a little and trying to hide it. Jordie squeezed Violetta's hand and grinned like he had won something. In the parking lot Violetta sat in the driver's seat with the printout on the wheel and did not start the car. "I don't have a name," she said. "I picked the wrong list." Jordie said they had four months. Lymber said the name would come. Violetta shook her head. It was not just the name. She had been sewing baby clothes in her head all week in blues and greens, and now the fabric she had ordered for a small quilt sat in a bag in the sewing room in the wrong shades. She thought about the spring showcase dress too, the one she had barely started. She had wanted to trim it with something the baby could wear later. A boy's vest, she had thought. Now it had to change. All of it had to change. She drove them home. In the sewing room she put the ultrasound picture on the wall above her table, next to the sketch for the spring dress. She opened the folder and tore the boy list in half and dropped it in the bin. Then she sat down with a blank page and wrote one word at the top. Daughter. Below it she started a new list. The dress on the wall stared back at her, half-drawn, and she picked up her pencil and began to change the neckline.