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Erik took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. The things he did for love. Before Christine, he’d never seen the need to drive places or go shopping in person if he could help it. But this was an important trip that couldn’t be completed online, so he had cleaned up as best he could, gotten in Christine’s car, and driven to the party supply store.
He fished in his pocket for the envelope from the doctor, unbuckling his seatbelt and exiting the car. The few people in the parking lot around him glanced at him funny, wondering about the full-face mask he was wearing. He clutched the envelope a little tighter, the tangible proof that not everyone thought he was bizarre. That someone loved him.
He entered the store, heart beating fast, that familiar feeling of needing to flee rushing over him. But he marched up to the balloon counter, shoulders stiff, and thrust the envelope forward to the girl working there.
“Confetti,” he said awkwardly. “Inside the balloon. A gender reveal. The color is in the envelope.”
The girl took the envelope.
“Which balloon would you like? How many?”
“One. That one.” Erik pointed to a large black latex balloon on the wall.
“Okay. What’s your name? For the order?”
“Erik.”
“Last name?”
He narrowed his eyes.
“You don’t need it,” he bit out, slapping down a twenty dollar bill on the counter.
She shrugged, taking the money.
“Give us a couple minutes, okay?”
He nodded, turning on his heel and walking down one of the aisles, staring at various paper cups and paper plates as he waited for the balloon to be filled with confetti and helium.
The gender reveal had been Christine’s idea. She’d brought it up to him sheepishly one night, showing him some Instagram videos of her friends. Erik had never heard of it before.
His first thought—unspoken—was that it looked stupid. His silence had said enough.
“I know it’s silly,” Christine said, snuggling up to him in bed as he watched the videos on her phone. “I don’t want something huge. I don’t want to like, set something on fire. We can just do something little.”
Erik didn’t say that perhaps setting something on fire would have been the best part of it all.
“If… you want,” he had conceded.
“You don’t like it?”
“It’s a little… hmm.”
“Hmm?”
“Imagine the baby grows up and tells us that the doctor got it wrong?”
“Then we can have a second party for them when they tell us that. With whatever color they want.” She nuzzled her nose against his neck. “And like I said, it’s not going to be big or anything. Just you and me, and my Instagram is friends only, so. It’s not like we’re trying to go viral.”
“Okay. If you want to. I’ll do whatever you need me to.”
She squealed, hugging him tightly.
“Oh, Erik, thank you! I’m so excited.”
He ran a hand over her hair, giving her phone back to her.
“If you’re happy, I’m happy,” he told her.
“I only ask because, you know, with Gustave and Raoul,” she said, tucking her head against his shoulder. “Raoul was never really involved, much. He never made a big deal out of anything. He didn’t even come to most of the sonograms. So I thought… with this baby… maybe we could make everything into kind of a big deal.”
He kissed the top of her head, letting one hand slide around her to rest on the swell of her stomach.
Maybe they should make a big deal of as many things as they could. After all, who could have imagined they would be here now? He’d gone from perpetually single and living alone in a smelly apartment to marrying a beautiful girl and moving into a tiny house of their own with her son—his son, now that the adoption was final—and a second baby on the way. Every single part of that was worth celebrating.
“I know you’re not super comfortable being looked at,” she continued softly. “But all my friends have such elaborate gender reveal videos. I dunno. I guess a part of me wants to show you off a little, you know? I want to brag about you, about our family.”
He squeezed her a little closer, his heart feeling a similar squeeze. No one had ever wanted to show him off before. How could he say no to that?
“What kind of reveal do you want?” he asked around the lump in his throat. “I bet I could buy one of those confetti cannons online.”
“No! Just a balloon. No cannons. They backfire.”
“Backfire?”
“Uh huh. I saw a video where a guy accidentally shot himself in the crotch with one because he was holding it upside down. Your crotch is too important to me to risk that,” she said, pouting.
He chuckled.
“Well, thanks for looking out for it, I guess. It’s kind of important to me, too. You’re sure you’re good with just a balloon?”
“Absolutely.”
At her next sonogram they’d had the doctor print the results and seal it in an envelope, the same one Erik had given to the balloon girl.
“Balloon order ready for Erik,” said a voice over the store’s speaker system.
The balloon was huge, the black latex opaque and obscuring the color of any confetti inside. He thanked the girl awkwardly and left, carefully putting it in the backseat of the car.
Despite his early misgivings, he was excited about the reveal video. Christine had a big dart she was going to pop the balloon with, and it was going to explode in a shower of confetti in either pink or blue, depending on what the baby was—neither of them knew yet. Having Gustave was great—Erik loved being his dad, and it was wonderful. But Gustave had already been a couple years old when he’d come into his life, and having a baby from the very beginning was a different kind of wonderful. He’d read all the books with Christine about pregnancy and raising a baby—most of them probably for his own benefit, seeing as how she’d already gone through this once before. Both of his kids had already brought so much joy into his life, he almost teared up on the drive back home thinking about it.
The tender mood didn’t last long, however, because as soon as he got out of the car and tried to remove the balloon, the ribbons slipped out of his fingers despite his best attempts and the balloon floated on its merry way, up into the sky, up into the atmosphere where it would eventually explode all on its own, no dart required, and would shower confetti on some poor unsuspecting sap a hundred miles away.
“Fuck,” he breathed, watching it rise into the sky. “Fuck!”
“Erik? Is that you?” Christine appeared on the porch, having heard the car pull up, too excited to stay in the house. “Where’s the ballon?” She asked, little Gustave trailing behind her, also excited to see the balloon.
Erik jogged up to the porch to grab her hand and pull her with him to the sidewalk, where he pointed up at the balloon as it escaped up ever higher. Her face fell as she watched it get smaller and smaller.
Gustave ran out to the sidewalk with them, staring up at where Erik was pointing. He shaded his eyes with one hand, using the other to enthusiastically wave goodbye to the balloon.
“Bye!” He said happily. “Bye balloon! Come back as a little brother! Or little sister! Bye! See you soon!”
Christine sighed heavily, leaning on Erik. They both decided now was not the time to explain to their six year old son that releasing a balloon in the air was not exactly what caused a baby to appear. She blinked forlornly at the little dot in the sky.
“I am so, so sorry, Christine,” Erik said. “I can go get another one.”
“Nah,” said, defeated. “It’s okay. I guess it wasn’t meant to be. Come on, let’s go inside.”
Erik couldn’t help but muse on the unfairness of it all. His poor Christine. She had only wanted a little video to post on her Instagram, something fun. Was that so much to ask? He had to make this up to her. If he wanted some of that sweet, sweet internet clout that he had knocked up a willing woman—and a beautiful one at that—well, could he be blamed for that? He’d had so few good things in his life but up until now.
Dinner was a muted affair, Christine’s deflated mood hanging on all of them.
“I’m really tired tonight,” she said halfway through the meal, picking at her food.
Erik studied her closely. As her pregnancy progressed she seemed to have less and less energy, tiring more quickly and getting easily fatigued.
“Why don’t you go on up to bed?” He offered. “I’ll put the dishes away and make sure Gustave gets ready for bed.”
“Thank you,” she said, relieved. She ate a few more bites of her dinner and excused herself, taking her plate to the kitchen despite Erik’s insistence that he could do it for her.
After he’d put all the dishes in the sink and took Gustave to his room where he made sure he’d brushed his teeth, read him a story, and tucked him in, Erik went back to the car and fished the envelope out of his hoodie pocket, taking it inside the house.
Everything was quiet inside the house, only amplifying the pounding in his ears of his heart. Christine had wanted it to be a surprise for both of them, but the balloon was long gone. She’d said she didn’t want another one, so presumably she’d given up on making a little video of a reveal.
He opened the envelope, his fingers trembling. He had to read it twice to be certain, a smile forming on thin lips. He folded the paper and put it back in the envelope, still smiling.
Erik was up late that night, researching online. It was late when at last he slid into bed next to Christine, setting an early alarm on his phone before wrapping his arms around his wife.
Christine didn’t hear his first alarm at five, or feel him quietly leave the bed. She didn’t wake until a little after seven, when Erik came back into the room, fully dressed, and kissed her cheek. She smiled, scrunching her eyes shut as he peppered her face with little kisses. She squirmed and giggled.
“Erik, what are you doing?”
“You are so beautiful,” he murmured, the nose of his mask nuzzling against her cheek. “Wake up, sweetheart.”
“I’m awake, I’m awake,” she yawned and stretched.
“Here—“ he took her chin in his hand, steadying her face as he pulled out her eyeliner pencil. “Hold still,” he said, beginning to draw a smoky line around her eyes like she did every day.
“What on earth,” she said, giggling a little. “Honey, what are you doing?”
“Hush,” he told her.
He thought she was the most beautiful woman on earth even without makeup, and he knew she had no problem with her own bare face, but he also knew that eyeliner and blush were how she liked to present her face, and that was her choice.
She blinked up at him with so much love in her eyes, trusting him to do whatever he was trying to do.
Her eyeliner finished, he took the big brush she usually used and dipped it in her blush powered, sweeping it across her cheeks. He’d watched her do her makeup enough times to know just how she liked it.
“Erik—?”
“I want to make you breakfast in bed,” he said softly. “And I want to record you eating it. What do you say?”
“Anything, my love,” she sighed, closing her eyes as Erik put the makeup away in her vanity drawer.
“Good,” he said, tugging nervously at the hem of his black hoodie. “I made pancakes. Don’t move.”
She propped herself up on the bed, fluffing her pillows behind her as she waited for Erik to return. He arrived quickly enough, and she beamed at him, raising her eyebrow a little as she saw that he was already holding the phone and presumably recording her.
He placed the breakfast tray next to her—it no longer fit across her lap like it was meant to be used. Christine giggled at the giant stack of pancakes on the plate.
“Erik, how am I supposed to eat all these?”
“Just try,” he said, making sure it was filming. “Cut into them. Like a cake.”
She shook her head mirthfully, pickling up her knife and fork. There were at least ten pancakes stacked up on the plate. She steadied the one on the top with her fork, biting her lip as she sliced the knife into the stack. She frowned a little—there was something off about these pancakes. She looked to Erik for an explanation, but he only grinned.
“Cut a slice out,” he urged.
She did as he said, slicing a triangle piece out of the stack and pulling it away. The pancakes were hollow inside, and once a piece was removed, an enormous amount of sprinkles and colored sugar poured out onto the plate.
She stilled, her eyes widening. Her plate was full of blue sprinkles and sugar. Was this—?
“Erik?” She looked up at him, surprised.
“It’s a boy!” Erik said, and at this cue Gustave burst into the room, carrying a blue balloon with him. He jumped onto the bed next to his mother, who had covered her mouth with her hands as tears of joy leaked from the corners of her eyes. Erik followed suit, getting in the bed on the other side of her, turning the camera around at them as they crowded close together. He grinned as he pulled out a pin from his pocket, popping the balloon above them and showering them all in blue sparkles and confetti.
Christine squealed and threw back her head, laughing.
“Erik! I can’t believe it!”
“Believe it,” he said, putting his arm around her as Gustave snuggled up to her other side.
“I’m so happy!” She laughed, on the verge of tears. “I love you both—I love you three!”
Erik kissed her cheek and pressed the button to end the recording.
“You can watch it and decide if you want to post it,” he said awkwardly. “You can edit it, too. I didn’t know if maybe you wanted me in it or—“
“Of course! Of course I wanted you in it!” She hugged him tightly.
“Oh.” He wasn’t overly eager to be plastered online, but he was happy to be included in this, that Christine loved him enough to want him to be a part of this all. And he knew that her account was fairly private—just family and friends.
“We’re gonna have to start thinking up names!” She said, throwing her arm around Gustave and hugging him. “What do you think, hon? What should we name him?”
“Name him Gustave!” Gustave said earnestly. “Gustave Two!”
They laughed.
“We’ll workshop that one,” Erik said, ruffling his hair.
Christine bit her lip, watching the video replay on Erik’s phone.
“Now,” Erik continued. “If you get dressed we can all go out for real pancakes.”
Gustave cheered and jumped off the bed, running to get ready for breakfast out. Erik helped Christine out of bed, and once she was up she handed him his phone back, beaming.
“Babe, we are gonna have so much Insta clout!” She said happily.