Ch 62 – Then and Now (1)
"What is that?" Sam looked up from her plate as Jonathan came through the kitchen door, schlepping what looked like a large instrument case with two straps attached to it.
"What do you think?" He shot her a dark look and set the thing down in the corner between the refrigerator and the window.
"I don't know, that's why I asked, dweeb."
"Hey! Hey!" her dad raised his voice. "No fighting, it's not even eight o'clock in the morning." But he, too, was eying the mysterious object.
Without a word, Jonathan sat down at the table and began to stab at the food on his plate.
Sam raised her eyebrows at her dad, who shrugged his shoulders. Before she could launch another inquiry, the door swung open and in came Angela, wearing one of her new outfits, a cute navy-blue dress with puff sleeves and a row of large buttons going all the way down from the left side of the collar to the hem just above her knees.
"Good morning," Angela said to Sam and Jonathan as she walked further into the room to where Sam's dad was standing by the stove.
"Hi," he said when Angela was close enough. Then they leaned in and gave each other a kiss on the lips.
Sometimes Sam still wanted to pinch herself when a scene like this played out in front of her. Her dad and Angela were so obviously and so terribly in love that it almost hurt to watch.
Now that they were engaged, her dad wasn't working for Angela anymore, and she had the tiniest round baby belly, his cocker spaniel eyes were worse than ever. It was incredibly weird and adorable at the same time.
Sam was grateful to have been in love before. She figured that that made it a lot easier for her to relate. Poor Jonathan was still such a child.
"Your tea is almost ready." Her dad pointed at a steaming mug that sat on the counter.
"Thank you," said Angela, licking her lips. "But I think first I need a nice big glass of milk."
She went to the fridge to retrieve the carton, coming across Jonathan's case in the process.
"Is that an accordion?" she asked, her interest piqued, and Sam remembered that Angela had been a band nerd herself. Of course Jonathan, being her son, would want to play the accordion instead of something normal.
"They're having us each learn an instrument for the rest of the year," Jonathan admitted. "So we can try out for band in the fall."
"Oh, really? How nice!" Angela said. "Why didn't you tell us before?"
"There was nothing to tell." Jonathan shrugged.
"Why'd you choose the accordion?" Sam asked, unable to keep her amusement in check.
Jonathan put down his fork. "What makes you think I chose it?" He glowered at her from underneath low-hanging brows.
Sam lifted her shoulders slightly, enjoying the moment. "Because that's what a nerd like you would do."
"Kids!" her dad warned again.
Sam tried not to roll her eyes.
"For your information: I did not pick the accordion," Jonathan said, but didn't elaborate on what exactly had happened.
"But it's such an interesting instrument," said Angela, obviously trying to make the best out of the situation, "and not at all easy to learn."
"Yeah, thanks, Mom."
"I'm sure you'll do fine, darling."
Jonathan shook his head and speared another piece of egg with his fork.
"Is there going to be, like, a concert at the end of the year?" Sam asked, working hard to suppress a giggle. Like any good sister, she enjoyed making things worse on purpose.
"Sam," her dad said sternly. "Leave him alone."
She raised her hands. "What? I look forward to going."
"Like I would invite you!" Jonathan retorted.
"Darling, don't you worry about the accordion," said Angela between sips of milk. "When I first started playing the cello, I wasn't at all sure I would get the hang of it. And we all know how that turned out." She smiled, and it didn't look ironic.
"Uh-huh," made Jonathan, managing a tone of voice that was truly unreadable. Sam had to give it to him, he was masterful at not hurting his mom's feelings about her various … talents. But surely he had to remember what it had been like when Angela re-discovered her cello a few years ago?
Sam decided that it was high time she changed the subject. "You look really nice, Angela."
"Thank you, sweetheart." Seeming equally flattered and self-conscious, Angela ran a hand down the front of her dress.
"Yeah, you do," her dad agreed, and they gave each other one of their looks.
"Do you have anything special going on at work today?" Sam asked.
Angela shook her head, and for the briefest of moments the look between her and Tony changed into something else that Sam didn't quite understand.
"No. In fact, it's going to be a short day. We have an appointment later."
Sam's dad reached out and touched Angela's arm. "We all set for that?"
Angela nodded, and even though Sam would have liked to ask what kind of appointment it was, something told her not to.
"I'm going into the City after school and we'll be back late, probably not before eight," her dad said. "If you guys get hungry, take something out of the freezer, okay?"
ooooooooo … ooooooooo
Tony's stomach was in knots as he waited on the sidewalk in front of the address that Angela had given him. The sky was getting dark, and a cold wind whipped around the corner of the building, not making the wait any more pleasant.
He cleared his throat. These past few weeks he had done a good job of pushing away the knowledge that today would come. Now it was here, and he had to face it.
Rationally, he agreed with Angela. It was smart to have the test done, to find out beforehand so they could be prepared if- well, if there was anything to prepare for. And he was sure that they would be relieved to know that the baby was healthy.
But there was also a part of him that still had doubts. Was it worth the risk? Angela said she trusted her doctor. But one in a hundred was still one in a hundred. What if something did go wrong, and they were the one percent? Not to mention the kind of decision they would be faced with if the result showed something- well, something that he didn't dare think about.
It was unlikely, of course. But after Marie, Tony had sworn to himself that he would never again go into another doctor's appointment with the naïve expectation that everything would be okay.
'I'm sure it's nothing.'
He still remembered saying that to Marie the first time she told him that she was afraid something might be wrong. How he had come to regret those words.
Tony looked at the tips of his leather shoes. He had taken freshly pressed dark-gray dress pants, a nice shirt, and a tie with him to campus this morning, hanging them in the backseat of the Jaguar.
It felt strange to pull up at Ridgemont College in a car like that, and every morning he would see a few of his fellow students staring at him as he got out and locked the door. With any luck they didn't realize he was one of them. Maybe they mistook him for a professor.
Yeah, right. As if, Micelli, as if.
After his last class of the day, Tony changed in the restroom on the ground floor of the student union.
"Yo, Tony! Are you going to a job interview or what?" a young man from one of his classes asked in passing as Tony hurried down the hallway towards the exit.
"Something like that," he mumbled without turning around.
Thankfully, traffic going into the City hadn't been too bad, and he had found garage parking not far from Dr. Solomon's building.
He was early and had to wait a little longer until, finally, a cab pulled up at the curb and Angela got out, looking sophisticated in her long black coat and boots. Tony was glad he had decided to match her professional style as best he could.
They kissed and without many words walked into the building, holding each other by the hand.
Tony had never once come along to Marie's appointments while she was expecting Sam. Nobody had seen a need for it back then. Pregnancy and babies were women's concerns. Tony paid for the appointments with the money he made playing ball, that was all that was expected of him, and he didn't question it.
Things had changed a few years later, once they found out how sick Marie truly was. He tried to be with her for as many doctor's appointments and consultations as possible, sitting next to her in stuffy hospital waiting rooms and on lumpy chairs in messy offices, holding her ice-cold hand in his sweaty one as doctors delivered worse and worse news.
In his head he knew that this was different. But there was still a pit in his stomach as he and Angela went up in the elevator.
He looked over at her, once again struck by her beauty. She looked well again, which made him glad, and she had gained some weight. In all the right places, as far as Tony was concerned. Just this morning in bed, when she had snuggled up to him and he had slipped his hand under the hem of her nightgown and run it along the outside of her leg, towards the dip of her waist, he had marveled at how all-around enticing she was to him. He could have eaten her up right then and there.
"Are you okay?" she asked, squeezing his hand.
He nodded and gave her a small smile. "Just a little nervous, I guess."
"I know. Me too."
Tony wanted to say that they didn't have to do this, that they could get out on the next floor and take the stairs back down. That he would drive them to that little diner they'd been to twice before, for hot chocolate and apple pie. That he was sure the baby was healthy. And even if it wasn't, that they would figure it out.
But he didn't say anything, and an electronic bell chimed, announcing their arrival on Dr. Solomon's floor.
ooooooooo
While Angela signed in at the reception desk, Tony waited a few steps behind her, taking in the elegant interior.
Dr. Solomon's upscale practice was leagues above anything Marie had had access to during the final months of her life, or ever before then. There were neat looking plants everywhere, certificates in expensive frames, and what he supposed was tasteful art on the walls.
When Angela was done, they went to the waiting room and found two seats next to each other. There were a few other women and couples waiting with them, and Tony was again grateful for his impulse to dress up for the occasion. He felt adequate sitting here with Angela, confident that he looked just like any other person working an office job in the City.
One way in which Dr. Solomon's operation didn't differ from those of other doctors was waiting time. It took at least 25 minutes until they were finally called.
"Mrs. and Mr. Bower?" A nurse popped her head through the door to the waiting room.
Angela gave him an apologetic look, and Tony tried to take the mix-up in stride as they both got up to follow the nurse down a short hallway. He didn't enjoy being confused for Michael Bower but decided that it didn't matter right now.
He did, however, preemptively correct Dr. Solomon after they had taken their seats before his desk and the doctor began to talk to them while simultaneously flipping through Angela's file that lay open in front of him.
"Mrs. Bower, Mr.-"
"Micelli," Tony supplied immediately. He wasn't sure what Angela had or hadn't told her gynecologist about her personal life, but Tony's self-respect demanded this much.
"Mr. Micelli." Dr. Solomon looked up and at him over the rim of his small, round glasses with a kind expression.
Then he went on to explain the amniocentesis procedure one more time, and while the information as such was not new to Tony, it did make him feel a little more confident in their decision to hear Dr. Solomon talk about the whole undertaking in a calm, strong voice that projected routine and experience.
In the end, both he and Angela signed the papers that Dr. Solomon put in front of them, and then Tony was sent back to the waiting room while the doctor examined Angela.
On his way down the hallway, Tony realized that nobody here knew his and Angela's history. If they thought about them at all, the other people had no reason to assume that they weren't a couple like any other. And of course they were, at the end of the day: a man and a woman, soon-to-be husband and wife, about to become parents.
But in moments like this, it was still astonishing to Tony that this was really happening, that they had made it this far. Had someone told him a year ago – heck, half a year ago! – he would have laughed in their faces.
"Mr. Bower?" the nurse was back.
Tony gritted his teeth and got up. "Actually, my name is Micelli," he said this time, unable to let the mistake slide anymore. "Tony Micelli."
"Oh," the young woman said, unperturbed. "I'm so sorry. I will correct it in our files."
Then she showed Tony into a dimly lit room that was set up with a cot, an instrument tray, and an ultrasound machine. Angela was already there, lying on her back in a hospital gown that was rolled up to her ribcage. Her legs were covered with a green sheet that came up to just below her hips.
When she saw him, she reached out her hand. "Tony."
"Hey." He took her hand and sat down on a little stool to the right of Angela's shoulders that a middle-aged nurse indicated.
The door opened, and Dr. Solomon came in. He walked straight to the other side of the cot and took a seat on a swivel chair there. "First we're going to take a look," he said and reached for the ultrasound probe.
"This is going to be a little cold." The nurse picked up a plastic bottle and squeezed large amounts of a clear gel onto Angela's bare stomach.
Tony looked on as the doctor used to probe to spread the gel around. Angela's smooth skin and the gentle, promising swell below her belly button stood in sharp contrast to the long, angry scars Tony remembered from Marie.
They had told them early on that there would not be any more children, not with a diagnosis like hers, and she had taken it much harder than him.
'I'm not even going to be a woman anymore,' she cried to him in her hospital room on the night before her surgery, and he didn't know what to say.
Instead, he held her. Just held her, for hours. Until a nurse came and gave her something so she could sleep. Then he slept, too. Fitfully, for no more than twenty minutes at a time, in a hard plastic chair pulled up to Marie's bedside.
To Tony, the only thing that mattered had been Marie's survival. They had Samantha already, the most beautiful and rambunctious little girl. She was more than enough for him.
ooooooooo
The idea of more kids had only really come back to him once he met Angela, and especially after baby Clint stayed with them for a few days. It had been so nice to have a baby around.
Once Clint's mother had agreed to let them take care of her son while she went to California to retrieve her wayward husband, the question of sleeping arrangements had come up.
"You need a good night's sleep," Tony made his argument. "I'm home all day, so if the kid keeps me up half the night, I can take a nap while he's down for his."
Angela couldn't argue with that, and so it was decided that Clint would sleep in Tony's room.
That evening, they went up to the attic together while Mona and Sam had an eye on little Clint. Together, they dug out Jonathan's old cradle that was covered in a large, dusty bedsheet.
"You hung on to this, huh?" Tony asked when the dust had settled and he noticed the reverent way in which Angela ran her hand along the basket-woven edge.
"Of course. You never know," she said softly, and he thought he heard a little sadness there, too.
"Guess not." Tony looked first at her and then away.
Predictably, never having been separated from his mother before, Clint had a hard time going to sleep that night. Eventually, Tony decided to take him downstairs so his fussing and crying wouldn't wake the whole house.
He was in the kitchen, warming up a bottle for Clint and boiling tea water for himself when the door opened.
"Tony?" It was Angela, clad in the pink bathrobe that he secretly loved to see her in.
"Hey, Angela. I'm sorry, did we wake you?"
She smiled. "Must be body memory. You know, the sound of a baby crying."
"Right." Having come into Angela's life when Jonathan was already seven years old, Tony had never really pictured her as the mother of a young child before. But of course Jonathan had been a baby and a toddler once, too, keeping his parents up at all hours.
"Do you want me to take him?" Angela asked as she came closer and reached for Clint, who sat balanced on Tony's hip while he fiddled with the bottle warmer with one hand.
"Would you?"
"Of course." She gathered Clint in her arms and began to walk around the kitchen, gently rocking him to quiet his whimpering. "We're going to let Tony take care of your food now, aren't we? Yes. And then you'll eat, and then you'll feel nice and tired."
Tony couldn't help but feel charmed by how sweet Angela was with the baby, and how much Clint seemed to like her. Whenever she spoke to him, he showed her his biggest toothless grin, and it was no different this time.
"Bottle is ready," Tony announced after he had checked the temperature on the inside of his wrist.
"Did you hear that?" Angela asked and came to the table with Clint. She sat in one of the chairs and accepted the bottle from Tony.
Clint eagerly took the teat in his mouth and began to drink, holding on to the bottle with both of his hands while Angela helped a little from below.
Tony filled two mugs with hot water and put tea bags in them before joining Angela and Clint at the table.
They sat together in the kitchen until long after Clint had emptied his bottle, drinking their tea and quietly talking while the baby fell asleep in Angela's arms.
When it was time to take Clint up to bed, Angela carried him up the stairs and into Tony's room before putting him down in Jonathan's white cradle.
Both unwilling to let the moment end, they stood a little too close to each other for a few more minutes, watching the sleeping baby. Like a memory of something that hadn't happened yet.
ooooooooo
"Here we are," said Dr. Solomon, back in the present.
Tony blinked. On the screen, black and white shapes were coming into view.
At first, he couldn't make out anything. But then there it was: a head in profile, a round belly. Arms jerking, little legs kicking. Vertebrae like pearls on a necklace. The nurse explained it all to them while the doctor worked to get all the necessary measurements.
The baby kept twisting and turning as if specifically for their benefit. Showing off some moves, Tony thought and stroked the back of Angela's hand with his thumb. No wonder she could feel it already, it appeared to be pretty active.
Tony remembered the little jellybean from eight weeks ago and found it surprising how much had changed in only two months. The baby was no bigger than a pear, but already fully formed. How could that be?
Angela seemed to be a million miles away, watching the screen. He felt such admiration for her, and a touch of shame on his own account. She worked a demanding job that put food on the table for their family of five, she had healed from a painful injury and put up with his stupid insecurities – all while this was going on inside of her.
"Look who's sucking on his or her thumb," the nurse said with a smile in her voice, pointing a finger at the screen. "I was thinking we might be able to find out who's in there, but I'm afraid it's not letting us sneak a peek today."
Indeed, for all the movements it made, the baby kept its legs closed.
"That's okay," Angela breathed, "we don't really care. We've got one of each already."
Tony nodded. She was right.
Next, Dr. Solomon switched on the sound and Tony recognized the strong, fast heartbeat. He raised his and Angela's joined hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles. At the sensation, she tore her eyes away from the screen and looked up and over at him with the most serene expression.
"Alright," Dr. Solomon said. "We will print you a picture if you would like one."
"Please," they said in unison. Tony needed to update the one on the fridge.
Then the doctor continued, "Everything looks very good and healthy. The fetus measures on time, and the heartbeat is in the expected range. I didn't see anything that would be cause for concern."
Relieved, Tony squeezed Angela's hand while she exhaled audibly. "That's good."
Dr. Solomon smiled at them while he reached for a little lamp to his right, then switched it on and pointed the bright cone of light at Angela's stomach.
"Now for the amniocentesis. We're going to prepare everything, and the whole thing shouldn't take more than a few minutes, okay?"
Angela nodded and glanced up at Tony, now clearly anxious.
"Would you mind moving over here?" the nurse asked Tony, gesturing for him to slide his stool towards the top of the cot.
"Oh, yeah, sure." Because he couldn't comfortably reach Angela's hand anymore, he rested his hands on her shoulders instead, and she looked up at him gratefully, just as glad for the contact.
The nurse got a handful of paper towels from a dispenser and wiped the remainders of the gel off Angela's stomach. Then she wheeled the instrument tray closer to the cot and began to sort through its contents.
Tony tried to remind himself what this was. A simple precaution. What was best for their baby.
His stomach pain returned all the same as he watched Dr. Solomon snap on a pair of latex gloves and then drench a cotton wool wad in iodine solution. In broad strokes, he wiped Angela's entire stomach with the orange-red liquid, causing it to run away to the sides and onto the paper covering of the cot.
The nurse, meanwhile, produced a long needle from her tray and put it down on the green sheet covering Angela's lap where the doctor would be able to reach it easily.
After also applying the disinfectant to the ultrasound probe, Dr. Solomon looked at Angela.
"We're getting started now, okay? Try to continue breathing normally. You may feel a sting, or some pressure."
With her lips tightly closed, Angela nodded. Tony gently rubbed her shoulders, and he felt her take a deep breath in through her nose when the doctor pressed the ultrasound probe onto her abdomen as he began to search for the optimal spot. Angela's hands were clenched in tight fists on her chest.
"Very good," Dr. Solomon said, narrating his process, "we've got a nice pocket of amniotic fluid right here, while baby is all the way over there."
Briefly, Tony looked at the screen, trying to follow what the doctor was saying, but he couldn't make sense of what he was seeing.
Holding on to the ultrasound probe with one hand, Dr. Solomon reached for the needle with the other. "You're doing great. Just keep breathing."
Tony knew that it would be wiser not to look. But he did it anyway, the sound of Angela's shallow breathing in his ears. Then the needle went in, fast and deep.
With practiced movements, the nurse attached some kind of contraption to the back end of the needle and slowly drew up a tube full of pale-yellow liquid.
"Almost done," the doctor said, and Tony wondered why his voice sounded so far away suddenly.
He looked at Angela, whose hands were still clenched, knuckles white from the tension, then at his own hands on her shoulders, and finally back at the needle – just as Dr. Solomon pulled it out.
Tony heard Angela give a tiny gasp. Then the lights went out around him.