went on tour, I’d made her my business partner, because she was so much more to me than an assistant. She was my life partner. Now she was my partner in my production company, in Little Black Hole, everything I had. That way, she’d reap half the rewards of everything I did, and carry half the responsibility, too. We were in this together. And she’d stepped right up, been amazing in every way.
Because of her, touring was not only possible, it was enjoyable.
I really wasn’t sure how I’d get through it if she had to stop touring at some point in the pregnancy. But I’d promised her I wouldn’t freak out about it in advance. And I’d promised the band that if that day came, we’d sit down and talk about it, figure it out together.
That I wouldn’t give up on any of them.
“It’s okay to miss one or two things because you’re working,” she reminded me. “You’ve come to every other thing that you possibly can. And you came to the other ultrasound.”
“Yeah. But—”
“The important thing is… you got everything done and you didn’t stress out. I’m proud of you.” She looked me deep in the eyes. “No panic?”
“No panic.” I squeezed her. “But I’m definitely gonna lose it if you don’t cough it up soon. Did you get it?”
“Yes. I got it.” She grinned, pulling an envelope from her purse.
Because I wasn’t with her at the appointment, we’d agreed that she’d ask the doctor not to tell her or show her the gender of our baby. Instead, she had it written down, so the two of us could find out together if we were having a boy or a girl.
“They let me hear the heartbeat, too,” she said. “And all I could think was, if Cary was here, he’d hear music in it.”
“You’re killing me. I don’t ever want to miss something this important again.”
“I know. But you didn’t miss it. It’s right here. And anyway, life happens. We can’t always control it.”
She was right. I still hated that part; letting go of control. It wasn’t comfortable for me.
But at least there were still some things I could control. Or try to.
And I had one of them in my back pocket right now.
“You’re here now,” she said, reaching up to kiss me. “And you’re happy, and that’s all that matters to me.” She waved the envelope in the air. “Well… and this.”
“You sure you didn’t see anything?”
“Nope. I was very good. I looked away when she told me to. I didn’t want to see it without you there. It’s impossible to see much, anyway, without them telling you exactly what you’re looking at. It’s all very blobby and wiggling around… I definitely saw the head, though. And an arm. Either that or a very large penis, but I don’t think so. It was on the wrong end of the body. I think.”
I wrapped my arms around her. “Maybe it was a giant penis and he takes after his daddy.”
“Nope. Sorry, babe. This was freakishly big. Had to be an arm. Or maybe it was a foot? I’m telling you. It’s a mystery blob.” She pulled something else from her purse. “Look, they got this amazing picture, though.”
She handed me a strip of images they’d printed out for us. And she was right, it was pretty much a blobby thing. But one of the images was amazing. It was a closeup of our baby’s head. I could see the profile, the teeny, tiny little nose, and a little fist held up in front of its face.
“Meet your baby, Cary,” Taylor said softly, slipping her arm around my waist. “I know we saw it before, but it was more of a jellybean situation. Now it’s got a face.”
It totally did. I couldn’t stop staring at it.
“And look,” she said, “it’s doing a fist pump, like, ‘Hells yeah!’”
“Wow.” I studied it, my eyes misting up with tears. “Okay, we have to stop calling our baby it. Open that envelope.”
“Okay.” She poked her finger under the flap dramatically, then paused. “But before we do… I just want to tell you. I know we haven’t talked about picking a name yet, and I know you’ve been thinking about it but not saying anything, because I know I’ve been thinking about it. And I think if it’s a boy we should name him Gabriel.”
I stared at her. The tears were creeping up and I just wanted to keep it together long enough to process