Dear Emmett

Chapter Twenty Seven - [The Call.]

The tears were falling freely from my eyes.

I had my hands covering my face, absolutely balling. I was overwhelmed emotionally, the revealing of the gender causing the realness of it all to sink in even more than it had before. Before it was "the baby this" and "the baby that." In a way, it had been abstract. Now the baby was he. It was a boy.

I was having a boy.

The blue goo was wiped off of me and the paper sheets untucked from my clothing. I wiped the tears off of my face, putting my shirt back in place. I sat up, turning to Emmett and hugging him from where I sat.

I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his chest. Carla murmured something about printing the ultrasound and slipped out of the room. It was my guess that she wanted to give us some space. Emmett put his hands on either side of his face and gently made me look at him.

"Darlin, are you alright?" He asked.

"I'm perfect," I said, hiccuping as I used the back of my hand to wipe away the last of my tears. "I'm just o-overwhelmed. I'm so...so happy."

"Me too, baby. Me too."

He kissed me, and then helped me off of the table as Carla came back into the room. She handed me the envelope with the ultrasound pictures in them and the prescription for new vitamins and we made our date for the sixth month check up.

When Emmett and I got back into the truck, I pulled one of the ultrasound pictures out of the envelope and looked at it. Really looked at it. I ran my fingers over the picture of the little baby, feeling in love. This was my baby. This was my son.

Looking over at Emmett while we were at a stoplight, I reached over and ran my thumb along his jaw line.

"He's going to look like you, you know," I said, picturing a lively little boy running after Emmett on the ranch. "He's going to be just like you. I can see it now. Strong, respectful and smart and a real southern gentleman."

He stared at me for a long moment, grabbing my hand and kissing it.

"Thank you, baby. I appreciate that."

He was about to say something else, when the people behind us honked. We shared a laugh before he returned his eyes to the road, but kept his hand in mine on his lap. He was silent for a moment before speaking again.

"We'll raise him right, you and I. He won't be like those disrespectful boys they got runnin' around here now. He's going to have good morals and work ethic. But you know between the both of us, he'll definitely be hard headed."

We laughed about that, and continued our conversation on what our son might be like in the future. What kind of goals and aspirations that he would have. Who he would look like and who he would look up to. What kind of music would he like? What would he want to do when he grew up?

Before heading back to the house, Emmett and I grabbed lunch in town. He'd done what he had to do before the appointment, so he could take the rest of the day off. After lunch, we visited with his parents.

"Good afternoon, honey," Rebecca said, hugging Emmett first and kissing him on the cheek. She turned to me and gave me the same treatment. "How are you feeling, Charlotte?"

"I'm great, thank you," I answered, smiling. Daniel shook Emmett's hand and hugged me, and we walked into the living room to sit around the coffee table, and Rebecca went into the kitchen to grab Emmett and I glasses of sweet tea.

"How did the appointment go?" Rebecca asked, clearly on the edge of her seat to find out what the sex of the baby is.

"The baby and Charlotte are both doing well," Emmett said, putting his hand on my knee and smiling at me. I nodded at him because I knew that he wanted to break the happy news to them himself.