“Of course,” the doctor said. “Congratulations again.”
“Thank you,” Ava said.
I took Ava home and walked her up to the door. I wanted to come inside, but she stopped at the door and turned to block the way.
“No,” she said.
“No?” I asked.
“No. You can’t come in. Do you have any idea how upset your behavior made me tonight?”
“My behavior?” I asked incredulously. “That guy knocked you over. What was I supposed to do? Just stand there and let it happen?”
“You didn’t have to beat him up,” she said. “I couldn’t believe how vicious and violent you were. It was terrifying.”
That hit me right in the gut. “I’m so sorry, Ava. I would never want to scare you. I just don’t know what to do anymore.”
I turned away to try to fight the tears trying to spill down my face. Ava wrapped her arms around me and kissed me in the center of the back. She took my hand and guided me inside. We sat down on the couch, and she held my hand.
“I’m here for you,” she said. “I will always be here for you. You can talk to me about anything. No matter how you’re feeling, I’m here to listen.”
“I’ve been feeling so out of control since Dad died. I’ve been trying to fight it, but as soon as I saw you land on the ground, there was nothing I could do. I was so scared something happened to our baby, and it just set me off. After watching Dad die, it snapped something inside me to see you on the ground like that, clutching your belly.”
“I’m always touching my belly,” Ava said. “It’s just something I like to do. And it startled me to get knocked over like that, but I wasn’t hurt. I was just so upset and terrified when you laid into that guy like that. I’ve never seen you that way, and I never want to see you that way again.”
“I’ve never felt that way,” I admitted. “I was just so angry. I can’t even describe it.”
Ava rubbed my back. “It’s okay to be angry. That’s a part of the grieving process. You don’t have to be able to explain it, or to justify it to anybody. Your feelings are yours, and they are valid. But you can’t take them out on other people.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
Ava wrapped her arms around me, and we slowly slid back to lay on the couch, tangled up together. I rested my hand on her belly and she put her hand on top of mine. I found strength in my little family, and I knew they were what would see me through.39AvaEverybody fawned on me when I went back to work the next day. It was all too much, and I wished they would just pretend the whole thing didn’t happen. It was terrifying to be sure, but I wasn’t hurt, and neither was the baby. In fact, we got a chance to get an unexpected glimpse at the little one, which was incredible.
My doctor told me she didn’t like performing too many ultrasounds throughout a pregnancy. Unless there was some reason to believe the baby might be in distress, or there could be something else serious going on, she limited ultrasounds to the anatomy scan around twenty weeks.
That sounded like forever away. When she told me that, I was just eight weeks pregnant. She told me she didn’t need to see me again for several weeks and we could get an ultrasound and find out the sex of the baby at twenty weeks. That meant I was looking at another three months before I could catch that first sweet look at my little one.
While I wouldn’t have chosen to be caught up in a barroom brawl and tossed to the ground, at least seeing the baby was a good consolation. And that’s what I tried to focus on when I got back to the bar and everyone wanted to fuss over me. I was a little sore, and there would definitely be a bruise on my hip where I hit the ground, but I didn’t want to dwell on it.
Unfortunately, it didn’t seem the universe shared that sentiment. The bar was barely open for the evening when I saw Mason tighten up and his jaw set. He looked away like he was struggling to control his emotions, and I looked in the direction he had been looking.
One of our regular customers had just come in and was coming toward the bar with a nervous expression on his face.
“What’s going on?” I asked Mason.
“Why don’t you ask him,” Mason said. “Maybe he’ll explain to you why he pushed that guy into you the other night.”
I was shocked by the revelation. This was one of the sweetest guys who came into the bar. He never caused any trouble or said anything even close to inappropriate to me or to Miranda. Now Mason was telling me he was the one responsible for me getting knocked over.