Anna.
“How was being pregnant?” Henry asked, stroking my hair.
We’re both exhausted, cuddled on the couch. My head is resting on his chest, listening to the beats of his heart.
“Why do you ask?” I look at his face; he was gazing at the ceiling, gently stroking my arm and pulling me closer to him. I placed my leg between his, and he took a deep breath before releasing it.
“I wasn’t there. I want to know what it was like carrying that amazing child. And also… I want to know what it was like for you, having him inside your body for nine months.” I could see his eyes getting teary; he was distressed, probably with a lump in his throat.
I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to tell him how it was. I couldn’t tell him, knowing it would make him feel worse.
Five years ago.
My fourth month of pregnancy. The pain in my chest won’t stop. I don’t know what to do to make it stop. Well, I do know, but I can’t do it anymore, I shouldn’t do it. Alison saw me trying, and all she said was, “Think of the baby,” and when I did, I just burst into tears, dropped the glass from my hand, and crumpled on the kitchen floor to curl up and hope that everything would pass, dreaming that everything would go away… That every feeling of bitterness and agony would. They say time can heal it, but I’m dying because of it. I’m skinnier than ever, and I still don’t have an appetite. I can hardly move out of bed. I can barely walk. I can hardly speak. I do nothing but sleep and cry. I do nothing but want to end my constant suffering. Tear my heart out of my chest. I miss him. I want him with me. I can’t, I can’t, it hurts too much. For the first time in my life, I wish I had never met Henry.
“Anna, you have to eat. You have someone else inside you, remember,” Alison says as she enters the room.
“I don’t want to.”
“Anna, can you please react for once?!” Alison uncovers me from my sheets and holds my arm, making me sit. “You have a baby inside there, okay? It’s not the baby’s fault for what Henry did to you. It’s not to blame for your suffering. If you didn’t want it, you could have had an abortion or taken precautions so this wouldn’t be happening. I care about you, but I also care about him or her! You don’t even know what it is, and you don’t want to know! You’re only interested in yourself and the other jerk! Wake up, there’s a life inside you!” Alison yells in my face, repeating everything I already know. I want to move forward, I really do, but she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand that it hurts even to breathe, the weight on my chest every time I wake up… She doesn’t understand that I fell so deeply for Henry, and now that I don’t have him to lean on and promise to always be there, I’m falling; he simply let me fall.
“Can you please eat? Please, Anna…” Thinking only about the little thing growing inside me, I nodded, biting my lip to hold back the tears threatening to spill from my eyes.
Today.
“At first, it was horrible. I don’t want to talk about it,” I replied, swallowing the lump that formed in my throat from those terrible memories. How I wanted to let go of that child… how I could briefly entertain the thought of ending it all-was I so consumed by suffering that I would let my son go down with me?
“You had a tough time, didn’t you?” I could feel the tension in his voice as he asked me that.
“It wasn’t the best year of my life. At six months pregnant, I had to get up and keep going. I couldn’t let my son suffer, so I turned to my mother, and she… She kicked me out of the house as soon as she saw me with a giant belly. In fact, it was the worst year of my life. But, hey, she came back when she found out I was back with Dave. She’s a terrible mother, but after all, she’s my mother.”
“I’m sorry, Ann. If I could, I’d change everything that happened to you.”
“You can’t,” I replied instantly. Henry loosened his grip on me slightly. “It’s tough, but it’s the truth. What you can do is change my future. You can change the ending of the book we’ve been writing for years. If we play our cards right, we can be okay, I can replace the bad things with good ones. I love you, and I’m going to fight for it.”
“I love you, Ann. Very much.”
I held him closer, and I fell asleep on his chest.
“Mama…”
I slowly opened my eyes, and Jeremy was standing in front of me.
“Why is Henry hugging you?” he asked, and by the look on his face, he wasn’t very happy.
“I… I don’t know,” was the only thing that came to mind as I elbowed Henry in the stomach. The sound of pain indicated that he was already awake. I moved away from the sofa. Thankfully, I had put on some clothes before snuggling up, or this would have been much worse… for him.
I told him not to fall asleep and go back to bed again after we did it for the third time? Fourth? Well, after we finished. His “just a little longer” apparently lasted all night.
“Henry, he’s one of those people who sleepwalks at night and decided to walk with something much needed,” I told Jeremy and lifted him up in my arms. He squinted in Henry’s direction. So, he’s not just jealous of Dave.
“I’d comment on that, but it’s early, and my mind doesn’t work yet to respond to your hints, Ann,” he got up and rubbed his eyes with his hands.
I checked the time on the kitchen clock. It was 8 in the morning. I should have set an alarm on my phone to wake up earlier and take Jeremy to kindergarten, but my anger and then lust got the better of me. I forgot everything.
Henry stretched, and I still can’t help drooling every time I see him freshly awake. I love his tousled hair and his sleepy face.
He looks at both of us but pays more attention to Jeremy, and his “I’m going to kill you in your sleep” expression.
“What did I miss?” Henry asks, approaching cautiously.
“Don’t hug my mom anymore,” Jeremy simply replies before getting out of my arms and running into the kitchen.
Henry looks at me with wide-open eyes, runs his hands through his hair, and lets out a significant amount of air from his lungs. Our gazes tell each other everything. Telling him will be a problem, and the fear that he might not want to get used to us is scary. Jeremy adores Henry and me, but will he adore us together?
The front door started to be pounded, and our thoughts about our son faded. Who would come so early and with such aggressiveness?
Oh, damn, what day is it today?