Baby Crazy (Matt & Anna Book 2)

by Annabelle Costa

  “But where will you go?” I ask.

  He jerks his head in the direction of the door. “Nicole from work is waiting outside. She’s going to let me stay at her place.”

  I bury my face in my hands as my body shakes with sobs. What am I going to do without him? I’m having a baby! How will I raise the baby without my husband?

  “What about the baby?” I murmur.

  “I don’t want it,” he says. “It probably isn’t even mine.”

  Isn’t his! How could he say that? He knows he’s the only man I’ve ever been with in my entire life. The only man I ever will be with. Without him, there can be no one else. He’ll be the only love I’ll ever have. Even if he doesn’t love me anymore.

  “Please, Matt!” My face is streaked with tears but he doesn’t care. He’s already moved on. “Please don’t do this!”

  Please…

  Please don’t…

  Oh.

  It was a dream.

  I touch my forehead, which is coated in a layer of cold sweat. I lie in bed, nearly giddy with relief that it was all a terrible dream. I’ve been having a lot of dreams like that lately. Dreams that Matt is leaving me. Or is telling me he doesn’t love me anymore. Or that we were never married in the first place and I’m just randomly, inexplicably pregnant. I always wake up shaking with fear, and the terror doesn’t entirely abate until I see my wonderful husband lying next to me in bed, sound asleep.

  Except when I roll my head to the side to look at Matt, his side of the bed is empty.

  I sit up straight in bed, my heart pounding. Where is he? We went to sleep at the same time together like we always do, but now he’s gone. Oh my God, are my dreams coming true? Is Matt secretly moving out during the night because I made him throw away all the knives?

  I climb out of bed quietly. I know the rule is I’m not supposed to come downstairs again after I come up here to go to sleep, but this is a special circumstance. Matt is missing. I must find him.

  I put on my slippers—the ones that can be worn outside the bedroom—and creep outside to the stairwell. I see Matt’s upstairs wheelchair at the top of the stairs, which means he must be downstairs. He never goes downstairs again after coming up because it’s such a hassle. If he went downstairs, he must have had an extremely good reason.

  I creep down the stairs quietly and feel comforted by the sound of the television. If the television is on, Matt must be here. He’s not throwing all his belongings into a duffel bag. He’s not moving out. He’s just watching TV.

  Finally, I spot him on the couch. His eyes are glued to the screen, where an old rerun of a sitcom is playing. There are some antics happening in the show, but Matt is watching without any expression on his face. He looks tired, but also something else. Something hard to identify.

  “Hey,” I say.

  He startles and turns his head to look at me. “Hey. Why are you up?”

  “Why are you up?” I retort.

  He shrugs. “I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t want to bother you, so I came down here. Except somehow you’re up anyway.”

  I squeeze my fists together. “I couldn’t sleep without you in the bed.”

  Matt’s eyes soften. “Oh, well… I’m sorry. I was just tossing and turning, so I figured…”

  He looks me over and I self-consciously touch my belly, which has really popped out in the last couple of weeks. None of my clothes fit me anymore. My legs have started to swell so that when I press my finger into my shin, it leaves behind an imprint. I’m getting to the stage where only the man who did this to me would find me attractive anymore.

  “Can I sit with you?” I ask in a tiny voice.

  “Of course.” He holds his arms out to me and I dart around the sofa to climb into them. He feels really warm. Nice. I could fall asleep here.

  “What are you watching?” I murmur.

  “Three’s Company.”

  “What’s that?”

  He grins. “It’s this show from the eighties. It’s pretty funny.”

  “What’s the plot?”

  “Well,” he says. “See that guy there? He’s roommates with two women, but he has to pretend he’s gay so the landlord will let him live there.”

  “And?”

  “And that’s it.”

  “That was a whole show?”

  “Yeah, but it’s really funny.”

  “Hmm.” I lean my head against Matt’s shoulder. He puts his hand on my belly and even though his hand is heavy, I don’t allow it to bother me. I quietly tell myself he isn’t going to harm the baby by touching my belly. The baby is bigger now and probably not as easy to crush. “I guess I can give it a try.”

  But I’m too tired to watch and immediately sleep pulls me in. As my eyes drift closed, I get a sudden flashback to my dream from only minutes earlier: I can’t live here another second. Not with you. I snuggle closer to Matt. He would never say something like that. Never. I don’t know why I’d ever dream it.

  But I can’t shake this nagging feeling there’s something going on with my husband that he’s not telling me about.

  Chapter 37: Matt

  My handwriting is different.

  I notice it while I’m filling out the paperwork to get my MRI. I look at my scribbled lettering on the page of information and I feel sick. I can write without a problem, but I’m clearly holding the pen differently and it looks weird. On the bright side, I manage not to drop the pen. I can’t believe the bright side is being able to keep a pen in my hand while filling out a few pages of paperwork.

  I already told them in advance that I’m in a wheelchair because I’m going to need help getting on the table to have the study. That table is high. And narrow. The last thing I need is to fall while trying to get up there.

  I’ve been waiting twenty minutes when a middle-aged woman in scrubs peeks her head into the waiting room and calls, “Matthew Harper?”

  I raise my hand to show it’s me, then start wheeling towards her. She smiles pleasantly at me. “I heard there was a patient in a wheelchair, but I didn’t think it would be someone so young. Usually it’s an elderly person.”

  “Yeah,” I say, because what am I supposed to say to that?

  “How much help do you need?” she asks me.

  “Uh, not that much,” I say. “Just one person could do it.”

  “Can you change into a gown on your own?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you sure? Because I could help you.”

  “No, I’m good.”

  The gown part is easy. I can change into a gown no problem—at least, now I can. But if my arm weakness gets worse…

  Shit, I can’t even think about it.

  I change into my gown in a little private, curtained area and store my clothes in a locker before heading over to the MRI room. As promised, there’s one guy in scrubs waiting for me there to help with the transfer. He’s about my age and looks muscular, which is good. He won’t drop me. I can’t deal with any problems today.

  “Mr. Harper?” The man in scrubs smiles at me as I wheel in. “I’m Doug. I’m going to help you get up on the table.”

  I pull up beside the table and lock the wheels in my chair. “Great.”

  “Can you stand at all?” he asks me.

  I shake my head no. “The easiest way to do this is a pivot transfer. Can you… do you know how to do that?”

  Doug nods eagerly and holds up a white belt. “I brought a transfer belt because I knew you wouldn’t be wearing your actual belt.”

  Thank God… it seems like the guy has done this before. I let him help me tie the belt around my waist so that he can use it to grab onto me. When we’re all set with that, I lean into him and grab him around the neck while he hangs onto the belt.

  “One, two, three…” Doug counts, then heaves my butt onto the table in one swift movement. And then it’s done. I’m on the table. Doug pulls my legs up onto the table and I lie down. “You need earplugs?”

  I pull a couple ou
t of the front pocket of my gown. “Got ‘em.”

  “Ha. You’re an expert at this, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah. Unfortunately.”

  Doug takes my wheelchair out of the room so it doesn’t go flying into the magnet and kill me. As soon as he’s out of the room, the table I’m on starts moving and then I’m inside the magnet.

  I close my eyes when I’m inside because otherwise I get too claustrophobic. Like Doug pointed out, I’m an expert at this by now. I still remember the first time I got in an MRI—about eight years ago now. I hopped up on the table back then like it was nothing. All I could focus on while I was inside was trying not to panic about the tiny space I was in. I kept thinking how uncomfortable I was and how stupid it was that I was having an MRI of my spine when it was just my ankle bothering me.

  A lot has changed in eight years.

  Now I keep thinking about the images showing up on the computer screen in the adjoining room. They’ll send everything to Dr. Dunne and then he’ll tell me my fate. This magnet is going to determine the rest of my life. Maybe.

  Christ, I wish I’d taken one of Anna’s Xanax before I got in here.

  Chapter 38: Anna

  “Are you okay?”

  I find Matt lying in our bed when I get out of the shower. He’s not messing around with his phone or doing anything in particular. He’s just staring up at the ceiling. It’s making me anxious, especially when he doesn’t answer my question.

  “Matt?” I say.

  He rolls his head to look at me. His eyes are cloudy, but the cloud lifts slightly when he sees me in my housecoat, which can barely wrap around me anymore. It’s embarrassing.

  “You’re getting so big,” he comments.

  I feel suddenly self-conscious. I always took it for granted that I’ve been slim. But lately, I’ve been seeing numbers on the scale higher than anything I’ve ever seen before. I wonder if I’ll be able to lose this extra weight. I wonder if my skin will contract back to its former state or if it will hang loose on my abdomen. I never took pride in my body until it stretched out of recognition.

  “I know,” I say, hanging my head.

  “Hey,” he says, “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, you look… like you’ve got my baby inside of you. Our baby.” He grins. “It’s sexy.”

  I roll my eyes. “Sexy?”

  He nods. “Yeah, we made a baby together. That’s pretty incredible, isn’t it?”

  “Not really. It’s simple biology. Every species does it.”

  “But this is the first time we’ve done it.”

  I pull off my housecoat, revealing my nightgown underneath. It’s far from a risqué nightgown, but Matt always says he likes the way it shows off my legs. It shows off even more legs now that my belly hoists the hem higher in the air.

  “Come to bed, Anna,” he says. The look in his eyes is unmistakable.

  My shoulders tense. I’ve been avoiding sex with him the last few weeks. I’ve always loved having sex with Matt, but the last time we did it, I had blood on my underwear. Spots of dark red blood that spun me into a panic. I called Dr. Reid, who had me come in for an exam. She patiently explained that my vaginal cavity was very friable, and that’s where the blood came from. She swore the baby was okay, but it took me hours to stop shaking.

  I dutifully crawl into bed beside my husband. He rolls on his side, giving his left leg some help by pulling it along with his hand. He starts kissing me, which is lovely. Matt is a very, very good kisser. Admittedly, I have no basis for comparison, but I don’t think you need comparison to realize something is enjoyable.

  As usual, his hand goes south, sliding into my panties, which now ride below my belly. In another minute (or less), his fingers will be inside me. Usually, this thought makes me tingle all over my body. But now all I can think of is the blood on my underwear. And the fact that Matt’s fingers will be inches away from the baby’s head.

  “Matt?” I murmur.

  He’s kissing my neck now. “Mmm?”

  “Did you wash your hands?”

  He lifts his lips from my neck and stares at me. “Yes.”

  “With soap?”

  “No, with horse manure.”

  I’m getting him angry. But clearly he must see that if he’s going to put his fingers inside me, they must be optimally clean. “You didn’t really.”

  He sighs. “Anna, come on…”

  “I just think…” I take a deep breath. “We both want the baby to be safe, so we have to be careful what goes inside me.”

  “Right.” He narrows his eyes at me. “So what, exactly, is allowed to go inside you?”

  I bite my lip, not wanting to express the thoughts in my head, but unwilling to put my baby at risk. “Well, the doctor can do her exam and… well, that’s it.”

  Matt rolls off me. He doesn’t look happy. “So you’re saying we can’t have sex until you have the baby?”

  I want to tell him it’s okay. That we can still have sex. I know it’s what he wants to hear, and maybe now it’s what he needs to hear. But right now, I can’t give him that. All I can think of is his penis sliding in and out of me, pounding at the fetus’s soft spot in his skull. I think of blood—this time bright red splotches—drenching my underwear.

  “I just think it isn’t safe,” I say softly.

  “Fuck.” He rakes a hand through his hair. I hold my breath, waiting to see how angry he’s going to get over the whole thing. “Can I at least… can I go down on you?”

  Matt is so good at that. Beyond good. On days when he has trouble getting an erection and even on days when he doesn’t, he loves spreading my legs and going to town until he makes me scream with pleasure. We haven’t done it in weeks. We’ve both been so tired and out of sorts lately. I miss it desperately, but at the same time…

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” I mumble.

  “But I won’t be inside you.”

  “Yes, but…” I bite my lip. “You know, the mouth is the dirtiest part of the body. There are as many bacteria in the mouth as there are people living on the planet.”

  He stares at me, just shaking his head. “Fuck,” he says again. “That’s just great.”

  I hang my head again. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

  “So we can’t have sex…” He ticks it off on his fingers. “I can’t go down on you. I can’t even touch your pussy. What’s left, Anna? Am I still allowed to kiss you?”

  “Yes,” I say defensively.

  “Are you sure?” His voice has risen several notches. “Because, like you said, the mouth is the dirtiest part of the body.”

  “You can kiss me,” I whisper.

  “Well, truthfully,” he says, “I don’t really feel like kissing you right now.”

  A lump forms in my throat as we stare at each other. I knew this wasn’t going to be an easy conversation to have, but what could I do? I can’t have sex with him knowing it could hurt our baby.

  He struggles into a sitting position in bed. “You know what? I think I’m going downstairs. I don’t feel like going to sleep right now.”

  “What?” I sit up too, my heart pounding. “But I need you here to sleep.”

  “Well, I’m not tired.”

  My eyes fill with tears. He’s really angry with me. He doesn’t understand at all. “Matt, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” he mutters, but he won’t look at me. “I’m just going downstairs for a while.”

  “But you’ll come back up later?”

  He nods. “Yeah, probably.”

  I watch him transfer back into his wheelchair. He’s wearing only a T-shirt and boxers so it’s obvious he’s not leaving the house. He might not be in the bedroom with me, but he’ll be here. He’s not leaving me.

  Not yet, anyway.

  “Matt?” I say as he adjusts his legs in the footrests. Jake fixed the bum footrest on the left, but it still isn’t perfect. His foot still slides off it slightly, but not as much as before.

&nb
sp; “What?” he mutters.

  I swallow hard. “Can I have a kiss before you go?”

  At first I think he’s going to refuse. But instead, he wheels closer to the bed, bends down his head, and brushes his lips against my forehead. It’s almost but not quite a kiss.

  “Good night,” he says in a monotone as he wheels out of the room and shuts the door behind him.

  I sit up in bed again right after he leaves. My heart is pounding so hard, my chest aches. After a moment, I reach for my cell phone on the nightstand. My hands are shaking too much to enter the passcode to unlock the screen, so I try taking deep breaths to calm myself. It takes a good minute before I’m able to get into my phone and select the number of the person I need to reach.

  “Hello?”

  “Dr. Hayward.” I grip the phone in my sweaty palm. Many years ago, my psychiatrist gave me a cell phone number in case I needed to reach him urgently. He doesn’t usually pick up—it almost always goes to voicemail and I have to leave a message. I try not to use the number unless it’s an absolute emergency. “It’s Anna Flint.”

  I hardly even notice I gave him my maiden name, which I haven’t used since I got married nearly three years ago. The first two years of which were the happiest of my life.

  “What’s wrong, Anna?” Dr. Hayward asks me. “Is everything all right?”

  “I need an appointment,” I whisper.

  I hear shuffling in the background. “I’ve got you down for an appointment next Friday.”

  “No.” I grip the phone tighter. “I need an appointment tomorrow.”

  “I’ve got an opening on—”

  “Tomorrow, please.”

  I wait, holding my breath. I don’t want to tell him over the phone how I forced my wonderful husband to throw out every knife in the house because I became convinced I would stab myself in the belly. Or how I won’t let him touch my stomach because I’m terrified he’ll crush the baby. Or how the thought of having sex with him frightens me beyond capacity for rational thought.

  “How early can you come in?”