Even Steven by John Gilstrap Page A

and see.”
    And so they waited. She remembered now how hard she had tried to think positive thoughts, to keep the endorphins or the seratonins or whatever the hell they were high enough so as not to let her baby know that anything was wrong. Everything would be just fine. In bed that night, they both lay awake, each pretending for the benefit of the other that there was nothing to worry about, and each of them battling the panic that grew exponentially with each tick of the clock.
    Please, God, she’d prayed. Please let him be all right. Let me have just this one thing, and I promise I’ll make amends for everything else I’ve ever done. Please.
    Bobby skipped work the next day to accompany Susan to the doctor. Not that he expected anything to be wrong, you understand, but simply to be there to help her through the waiting-room nervousness. Once they found out how foolish they’d been to worry, it would be off to the deli for a nice sandwich and maybe a flute of that sparkling cider they’d never touched.
    By the time the nurse finally called her name, Susan calculated that it had been twelve hours since she’d last felt Steven move. She practically ran into the examination room, and Bobby helped her undress while they discussed everything—nothing, really—surrounded by photographs of happy little babies with their slick, wet chins and sparkling, bright eyes. It took every bit of an interminable ten minutes for Dr. Samson to arrive.
    Ever Mr. Cheerful, the doctor greeted them both with a comforting smile. “So you’re worried that the dancing stopped, are you?” He eased Susan into the familiar sonogram recline.
    “This happens all the time, right, Doc?” Bobby said lightly. “Nothing in the world to worry about, right?”
    Susan watched Dr. Samson carefully as he made his studiously noncommittal face. “Let’s just see what we see,” he said, and in that moment Susan knew that her baby had died. As the flimsy gown came up over her protruding belly, and the doctor reached for the microphone, Susan closed her eyes. Suddenly, she didn’t want to know.
    She heard Bobby move in close, and she heard a muffled scraping sound through the speakers as the microphone looked for the perfect angle from which to observe her son, but as the doctor finally settled the instrument into place, she clamped her eyes even tighter, silently mortgaging her soul to any power in the universe that could produce for her the familiar whoosh, whoosh of Steven’s heartbeat.
    “What do you see?” Bobby asked, his voice cracking from the blossoming fear.
    Dr. Samson repositioned the microphone and filled the room with still more silence.
    “He’s okay, right?”
    Susan opened her eyes to see her steady rock of a husband quivering at the end of the table, his mouth forcing a smile, while every other part of his face twisted into a mask of grief. She reached out for his hand, but he recoiled, overwhelmed by his realization of the truth.
    The doctor put the little microphone back on the stand and turned off the machine. For a long time, he didn’t say anything, instead staring at his hands and collecting his thoughts. When he looked up, his words were unnecessary. His face said it all.
    “I’m afraid the news is as bad as it gets.” Bobby turned ashen, and he helped himself to a corner of Susan’s exam table. “The baby seems to have died.” Dr. Samson appeared to be pushing himself through the words, making them come out of a throat that wanted to say anything else in the world.
    “What happened?” Bobby gasped. “How could that be?”
    The doctor pursed his lips and furrowed deep wrinkles into his forehead as he wrestled with the answer. “There are a thousand things that might have gone wrong. It could be a congenital defect we missed, or it could be a virus, or it could be just about anything. I’m afraid we won’t know until after he’s born.”
    “No,” Bobby groaned. “This can’t be happening. You have to be