Page 187 of The Wild Card

She squeezes the gel onto Emmie’s belly, and Emmie winces—it’s always cold, she hates it—and I reach for her hand. She takes it without looking, like it’s automatic. Our fingers lace together.

The wand presses down, and the screen fills with static, and then—

There.

A shape. A flicker. The unmistakable curve of a head, the tiny line of a spine, the rapid pulse of a heartbeat echoing through the room.

“There’s your baby,” Dr. Kohli says. “Measuring right on track. Good heartbeat—152. Strong.”

Emmie’s grip tightens on my hand.

I stare at the screen. I’ve seen this image before, at the twelve-week appointment, but it was abstract then. A smudge. A concept. I can see the profile—the nose, the forehead, what might be a hand tucked near the chin. Now it’s a baby.

My baby.

Something is happening in my chest that I don’t have a tactical framework for. It’s not anxiety, although it’s close. It’s not fear, although that’s in there too. It’s something bigger than both, something that fills up all the space between my ribs and presses outward.

“Do we want to know the sex?” Dr. Kohli asks.

Emmie looks at me.

I look at her.

“Yes,” we say at the same time.

Dr. Kohli moves the wand, adjusts the angle. The image shifts.

“You’re having a girl.”

A girl.

Emmie makes a sound—a soft, shattered, beautiful sound—and presses her free hand to her mouth. Tears are already spilling down her cheeks.

I don’t cry. I don’t. I’m a federal agent. I’ve been trained to maintain composure under extreme duress.

My vision blurs.

Okay, maybe I cry a little.

“A girl,” Emmie whispers, squeezing my hand so hard my knuckles crack. “Crew. A girl.”

I bring her hand to my mouth and press my lips to her knuckles. The ring—her engagement ring, next to the wedding band now—catches the light from the screen.

“A girl,” I say. My voice doesn’t sound like mine. It sounds like it belongs to someone who never expected to be here, in this room, looking at an ultrasound of his daughter while the woman he loves cries happy tears beside him.

It sounds like it belongs to someone who got everything he didn’t know he was allowed to want.

Dr. Kohli prints the image for us and leaves the room to give us a minute. Emmie sits up, gel still on her belly, tears still running, and cups my face with both hands.

“Hey,” she says. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” I cover her hands with mine. “We’re having a daughter.”

“We are.” She’s smiling so wide it takes up her entire face. “She’s going to have you wrapped around her finger.”

“Probably.”

“Definitely.”