“
Your belly’s getting big,” he said one night.
“I know,” I answered, looking down. It was kind of hard to deny.
“I love it,” he said, stroking it with the palm of his hand. I recoiled a little, remembering the black bikini I’d worn on our honeymoon and how comparatively concave my belly looked then, and hoping Marlboro Man had long since put the image out of his mind.
“Hey, what are we naming this thing?” he asked, even as the “thing” fluttered and kicked in my womb.
“Oh, man…” I sighed. “I have no idea. Zachary?” I pulled it out of my wazoo.
“Eh,” he said, uninspired. “Shane?” Oh no. Here go the old movies.
“I went to my senior prom with a Shane,” I answered, remembering dark and mysterious Shane Ballard.
“Okay, scratch that,” he said. “How about…how about Ashley?” How far was he going to take this?
I remembered a movie we’d watched on our fifteenth date or so. “How about Rooster Cogburn?”
He chuckled. I loved it when he chuckled. It meant everything was okay and he wasn’t worried or stressed or preoccupied. It meant we were dating and sitting on his old porch and my parents weren’t divorcing. It meant my belly button wasn’t bulbous and deformed. His chuckles were like a drug to me. I tried to elicit them daily.
“What if it’s a girl?” I said.
“Oh, it’s a boy,” he said with confidence. “I’m positive.”
I didn’t respond. How could I argue with that?
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