It felt like half a lifetime had passed before I could say anything. “I’m scared.”
Rowen lowered her head to my chest. My hand skimmed up her back and settled into the bend of her neck, holding her so close to my chest.
“I am too,” she whispered into my shirt. “It’s okay. Be scared with me. But don’t forget to be happy too.”
Happy? How could I be happy when I knew what this meant? Rowen. Her heart. It might not be able to handle the stresses of pregnancy. Rowen . . . was asking me to be happy with her. She was asking me to be happy with her for her. At the same time I knew that was impossible, I knew it was impossible not to give her what she needed.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I forced all remnants of worry and images of death aside. She was waiting for my response, so I nodded. I would try to be happy too. No guarantees, but I’d try.
“You’re going to be a dad.” Her words were muffled against my chest, but I heard the smile in her voice. I felt her smile in the air.
I wanted to return the sentiment. You’re going to be a mom. But the first word stuck in my throat, making it impossible for the rest to follow. Instead, I somehow managed to pull her closer, trying to silence the question cycling through my head. Will that baby ever get a chance to know its mom?
Three Months Later
I’D BEEN STARING at her for so long, my eyes felt as if they were about to start watering. Blink, Jesse, I had to say to myself. It was all kinds of ridiculous that I had to remind myself to blink, but I’d found things that used to come instinctually weren’t so natural anymore and things that hadn’t come naturally were now hard-wired into my instincts.
Things like sleeping, reaching for a bottle of water when my throat had turned into a cylinder of sandpaper, putting on a jacket when it was cold, taking off a layer when it was hot, reaching for something to eat when my stomach was about to stage a revolt, changing the position I was sitting in when my leg fell asleep . . . kind of like it was at that very moment. Oh, and of course, blinking, because why would that come naturally?
Shifting my position on the overstuffed chair that had been dragged into the middle of the condo, I shook my so-numb-it-was-bordering-on-painful leg and tried not to let it reflect in my expression.
“If I wanted you to move, I’d be over there, crawling into your lap and making you move.” Rowen stuck her head out from behind the giant canvas propped up on an easel, brow raised and brush pointed my way. “Now, for the five hundredth time, hold still please.”
“Sorry,” I mouthed, careful to move as few facial muscles as possible.
Keeping her warning look aimed my way for a moment more, she relented with a wink before disappearing behind the canvas again. Instantly, my stare dropped to the wood floor, where I could see her feet and up to her knees before the bottom of the canvas hid the rest of her from view.
I’d developed a nifty new tick since Rowen had flashed two pink lines in my face a few months earlier: the inability to not keep her in my sights when we were together. It didn’t matter if we were two feet apart or if she was doing nothing more ambitious than snoozing on the sofa—if she was in view, she was in my view at all times. I didn’t know where it had come from or how I’d let it develop to the extreme it had without catching it first, but my best guess was that my mind had somehow rationalized that if I could see her, then she couldn’t disappear. If I was watching her, nothing could tear her away from me. If I kept her in my sights, nothing would happen to her.
It wasn’t logical or rational or something I could explain without feeling like I’d just escaped from a straitjacket, but it wasn’t exactly like love fell into any of those categories either. So I accepted it. I accepted what I felt and how it had manifested in the form of instinct and habit.
Old programmed responses became replaced with new ones. The new ones consisted of resting my hand flat against her back every night I crawled in beside her and concentrating on the beat thrumming against her bone and muscle and skin. The sun rose more often with my eyes still open, hand still in place, than ones where my body had found the refuge of sleep.
Phone calls had become another fun experiment in torture. If my phone rang when I wasn’t with Rowen, my world would blur and my heart would stop, sure the caller was waiting to reveal to me that my wife’s heart had done just that. Stopped. Given out. Given up.
Those examples just barely scraped the surface of what sorts of new habits I’d developed as a result of Rowen’s pregnancy, but God only knew how many more would crop up in the last few months leading up to the delivery.
“This is like the best dinner ever.” From behind the canvas, Rowen’s arm popped out. Her hand curled around the fork propped on the plate on the stool, holding a stack of pancakes. She cut a wedge off from the quickly diminishing tower, stabbed all six layers, and her arm, hand, and fork disappeared behind the canvas. “You can cook for me anytime you want. You know, for future reference,” she said through a mouthful of pancake.
I wasn’t supposed to move, but a smile twitched at the corners of my mouth. Thankfully, she hadn’t popped her head back out to notice. “That’s because it’s not dinner. It’s dessert.”
Her hand reappeared to drop the fork back on the plate before slipping behind the canvas. The smile kept tugging at the corners of my mouth when I noticed the smears of paint streaked along her hands and forearms. Rowen always told me you could tell how good a piece of art would turn out based on how messy you got creating it. From the looks of just her left arm and hand, she was creating a masterpiece. Monet, watch your back—Rowen Sterling-Walker’s coming to get you.