My Husband Used Me to Protect His Sister

The ultrasound room was cold. I sat on the paper-covered table in a hospital gown that tied in the back, my phone face-down on my lap.

The technician was a woman in her fifties with kind eyes and tired hands. She squeezed gel onto my stomach. It was cold too. Everything here was cold.

"First baby?" she asked.

I nodded.

"Dad couldn't make it?"

"Work," I said.

She didn't ask anything else. She'd probably heard it before. She pressed the wand against my skin and turned the monitor toward me.

The image was gray and grainy. Shapes I couldn't quite parse. Then I saw it—a flicker in the center of the screen. Fast and steady like Morse code.

"There's the heartbeat," the technician said. "Strong. Everything looks good at twelve weeks."

I stared at the flutter on the screen. My baby. Our baby. The size of a plum, according to the app I'd downloaded. I'd read that this morning while eating toast alone at the kitchen counter.

Dean's assistant had texted at seven-thirty. *Board meeting running over. Dean says he's so sorry. He'll make the next one.*

There wouldn't be a next twelve-week ultrasound. This was it. This was the one where you got to see the heartbeat for the first time, where they checked that everything was forming right, where you stopped holding your breath quite so hard.

I watched the flutter alone.

The technician printed out photos. Long strips of glossy paper with timestamps in the corner. She handed them to me with a smile.

"Congratulations," she said.

I drove home with the ultrasound photos on the passenger seat. At a red light I picked one up. The baby was a small curved shape, head too big for its body, limbs like little fins. I tried to feel what I was supposed to feel. Joy. Excitement. Wonder.

Mostly I felt tired.

I called Noelle from the car. She answered on the second ring.

"How'd it go?" she asked.

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

"Chloe?"

I looked at the ultrasound photo. At the empty seat beside me.

"I'm coming over," Noelle said.

She didn't ask if I wanted her to. She just said it like a fact. Like gravity.

"Okay," I whispered.

She showed up at six with Thai food and a bottle of sparkling water. She didn't mention the wine she used to bring. She set everything out on my coffee table and sat beside me on the couch.

"He didn't come," I said.

Noelle opened a container of pad thai. "I know."

"He said he'd be there."

"I know."

I showed her the ultrasound photos. She looked at them for a long time. When she looked up her eyes were wet.

"That's your baby," she said softly.

"Yeah."

"Not his. Yours."

I didn't know what she meant by that. Or maybe I did and didn't want to.

We ate in silence. Noelle didn't try to fill it with false comfort or advice I wasn't ready to hear. She just sat with me. Sometimes that was enough.

After she left I put one ultrasound photo on the fridge. I texted Dean the picture.

*Everything looks good. Baby's healthy.*

He responded an hour later. *That's amazing! So sorry I missed it. Love you both.*

I stared at the text. Three sentences. Thirty seconds of his time.

I didn't respond.

---

Two days later I met Noelle at Café Laurier to go over manuscript notes. It was a place I liked—good light, quiet corners, baristas who didn't hover.

We'd been there twenty minutes when Leanna walked in.

She was wearing a cream cashmere sweater and jeans that probably cost more than my rent. Her hair was loose. She looked delicate. Breakable.

She saw me immediately. I watched her face shift—surprise, then something softer. Sadness, maybe. Or the performance of it.

She walked to our table.

Noelle's hand tightened around her coffee cup.

"Chloe," Leanna said softly. "I didn't know you came here."

I said nothing.

She glanced around. The café was full. People at nearby tables looked up. Leanna placed her hand on my arm. Her fingers were cold.

"I just want you to know," she said, her voice gentle and just loud enough to carry, "I would never try to take him from you. He's your husband. I'm just his sister."

Her eyes were wet. A woman at the next table was definitely listening now.

I looked at Leanna's hand on my arm. At her perfectly applied makeup. At the small tremor in her lip that was so carefully calibrated it could have been real.

I picked up my coffee. Stood. Gathered my bag.

Noelle rose with me.

"Chloe?" Leanna's voice cracked. "I'm trying to—"

I walked past her without a word. Noelle followed.

Outside on the sidewalk the air was sharp and cold. I pulled out my phone and texted Noelle even though she was standing right beside me.

*She's escalating.*

Noelle looked at her phone. Looked at me.

"I know," she said.

We stood there in the cold. People walked past us on their way to somewhere else. I thought about the ultrasound photo on my fridge. About the empty chair at my book launch. About Leanna's hand on my arm and the woman at the next table who would tell her friends about the fragile stepsister and the jealous wife.

I thought about how many times I could be pushed before I stopped getting back up.

I didn't know the answer yet.

But I was starting to wonder.