And the picture had certainly never had him winging it all on his own.
For the past four years, he had been caring for his and Jamie’s little girl solely on his own. He had stood in the delivery room, completely awed by what was taking place. Completely deaf to the curses and insults hurled his way. The nurses had told him not to take it personally, that Jamie didn’t mean anything she said. Wade knew otherwise…
“You sonovabitch! You did this me,” Jamie screeched, her face red and sweaty, lips dry and chapped. Hospital gown rucked up about her waist, skinny legs propped in stirrups, Jamie stared down at her bloated stomach in disgust.
“I never should have told you,” she whispered as her belly tightened in another contraction As the contraction ended, she stared up at him with bitter eyes. “I should have gotten rid of the damn baby.”
Jamie never once held Abby, falling into her own world, one of silence and anger. She refused all calls, all visitors as she retreated further and further inside herself.
Leaving Wade alone, as he fumbled through the first few weeks sleeping only while his newborn daughter slept. On his own, he learned how to prepare bottles of formula, had changed diaper after diaper, picked out clothes for the tiny little baby and awkwardly dressed her, his hands seeming huge and clumsy. Those clothes seemed to shrink overnight as Abby rapidly outgrew them almost faster than he could buy them.
Alone, Wade took her in for her first week’s check-up, embarrassed and awkward as he tried to explain why the baby’s mother wasn’t there. He had fought to keep from cringing from the sympathy he saw in Dr. Norland’s eyes.
“Is your wife still not feeling well?” Dr. Norland had asked, his pale blue eyes concerned.
“She, uh, well…” Wade’s words trailed into nothing and he turned his head, staring out the window with unseeing eyes.
Recognizing his discomfort, the pediatrician had quickly changed the subject.
By himself, while Jamie slid further into depression, he had sweated through Abby’s first cold, had practically camped out at the doctor’s when she was one, having caught the chicken pox from daycare.
He had searched out that perfect daycare, asking questions the pediatrician had sympathetically written down for him. Mistake after endless mistake, night after sleepless night, he had worried if was doing anything at all right.
While Abby sat on the floor, sounding out the ‘cat’ and ‘dog’ along with Elmo, Wade remembered how tense things had been when he had brought her home from the hospital. Jamie and he couldn’t speak a civil word after that. Horrible fights had been conducted in whispered tones, as their daughter slept next door.
Wade had whispered because he didn’t want to disturb Abby. Jamie had whispered because she couldn’t stand the thought of seeing the baby. Hell, she couldn’t stand the sight of her own daughter, had told him that, time after time.
Even before Abby was born, things were bad. Wade had slept in the living room until he had been able to buy an extra bed for the third bedroom. The first few nights after they had gotten married, Jamie had finally figured out just how little he wanted her.
“Can’t you even touch me, Wade?” she pleaded. “I’m your wife.” But nothing stirred inside him at her touch. He couldn’t make himself want her.
He had never been able to share a marriage bed with Jamie, and he knew that he carried as much blame for the failed marriage as Jamie had. But touching her only reminded him of what his mistake had cost him. Jamie had tried, night after night, and night after night, he had rejected her. His body went cold any time Jamie even came near. He had hurt her and he knew it, and despised himself for it, but he still was unable to bring himself to welcome her. And eventually she stopped trying, as her body grew large with child, and her face became more and more lifeless.
She quit bathing, quit wearing make up and quit fixing her hair.
By the time Abby was born, Jamie looked nothing like the girl she had been. And as Abby got older and older, she became more and more bitter, wanting nothing more than to be alone with her TV and her own anger for companionship.
Then the day came when he arrived home to find her laying peacefully on the huge four-poster oak bed he had bought for Nikki.
The silence should have warned him. The radio wasn’t blaring, the TV wasn’t on, not even a fan stirred the air. As he crossed over the threshold, his gut clenched.
There she was, laying on the bed, clad in a set of expensive silk pajamas she’d received as a bridal gift from a friend. Spilled on the floor was what remained of a bottle of prescription sleeping pills. A half-empty bottle of Jose Cuervo sat on the night table.
“Oh, Jamie,” he whispered, lowering himself to the bed, sitting at her side. Her skin had already cooled and her features had taken on a waxy cast.
Wade waited for the grief to hit, the pain, the anger. But it never came. All he felt was regret, and guilt.
After burying Jamie, he had had his mother repaint the master bedroom, sold all the furniture and bought new. And still, he hadn’t been able to sleep in that bedroom. Jamie had slept in there, had died in there, that room that he was supposed to have shared with Nikki.
He hated himself because he hadn’t seen it earlier, hadn’t seen how desperately Jamie needed help, had needed him. He was just as much to blame for putting her in the coffin if he had forced the Ambien down her throat himself.
How had everything gotten so messed up?
Because you, Wade Lightfoot, are a total screw up, he told himself. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, forcing himself to look at the clock. He couldn’t do this just yet. It was time to get Abby in bed and himself as well. He was to be up again before five in order to make his shift.
He nudged Abby’s round belly with his foot as he shut off the VCR. She smiled up at him without griping as he told her, “Bedtime, brat.” He softened the words with a loud kiss to the side of her neck as he scooped her off the floor. She giggled and kissed his cheek noisily while he drew in the scent of her baby powdered skin and Mickey Mouse bubble bath.
She was so beautiful, this child of his. From the top of her shiny black hair to the bottom of her sneakered feet, she was perfect. She rarely fussed or cried, hadn’t even when she was a tiny baby; instead, she was unfailingly patient with her fumbling father. She was the only good thing he had in his life, but she was enough.
She was also the scariest thing.
Wade had never guessed that fatherhood would be so tough, but maybe if he had somebody there to help him, it would have been easier. And Wade knew he had himself to blame for that If he had been able to be a husband to Jamie, maybe Jamie would have been able to be a mom to her daughter.
By now, the bedtime ritual was easy for him, established over many nights over the past few years. Once Abby snug in her bed, the tried and true Tigger tucked into the crook of her arm, they read a story. As he perched precariously on the edge of the bed, he glanced at her often, smiling inside as her lids drooped heavier and heavier.
It wasn’t even page six and Abby was sound asleep.
After kissing her cheek, Wade left the room, leaving the door wide open. The hallway light was left on and his own door ajar. Wade had grown accustomed to sleeping with the lights on in the past few years, accustomed to awaken and find Abby snuggled in bed with him.
Briefly, he prayed for a dreamless night, knowing he was probably wasting his time. The dreams that chased him through the nights were his penance for all the mistakes he had made
But what he wouldn’t given for a one night that wasn’t plagued by blood, innocent lives lost. Or worse, him reliving his own mistakes.
* * *
Nikki’s own dreams were far from pleasant. She hadn’t slept in nearly three days. The last time she had slept, she had woken screaming, fighting She had been in her Blazer, Jason strapped securely in the back seat. It had tumbled down the embankment and once again, she had fought her way free to get to the baby seat. In the passenger seat
next to her, Shawn lay dead, the simple gash now a gaping wound that had laid his head open to the skull.
And the baby seat didn’t have the still body of her baby boy, but rather, the larger sturdier body of Abigail Lightfoot, Wade and Jamie’s little girl.
Now Nikki sat in a half daze, staring at her the monitor before her. Her hands rested beside the keyboard, for she was too tired to even try to work on her book. Involuntarily, one of those hands crept to her flat belly, her fingers searching.
And she wondered, unable to stop herself, if Jamie had felt that wonder when that tiny little baby had moved inside her for the first time. Had she cried when the ultrasound showed a healthy baby? Had she cried when she had learned she was pregnant, carrying the baby of the man she loved more than life itself?
Nikki hadn’t cried. She had been too stunned, too shocked.
Then…
“Nikki, I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation here,” Dr. Graves said, his eyes kind. “You almost waited too long to come in here. You’re in bad shape. We can help you, but the baby…”
Logically, Nikki knew he was only telling her what was best for her.
“No,” she repeated for the third time, her voice shaky, practically soundless. She sat motionless on the exam table, clad once again in a shirt that reeked from being worn day after day against an unwashed body. Her limp, greasy hair hung in her eyes, eyes that she couldn’t seem to take off the floor. Her father had literally carried her into this office against her will, bound and determined to do something about her.
“Nikki, listen to me. You have developed an irregular heartbeat, something that’s due to your malnourished state. In a matter of weeks, if you hadn’t come here, you would be dead. Your heart would fail. The human heart cannot function if it’s not given the nutrients it needs.
“Now, you are well over three months pregnant by my estimation. You are severely underweight, badly malnourished. I imagine the blood work will show that you have all sorts of electrolyte imbalances and vitamin and mineral deficiencies.
“If this was just you we were talking about, the problem would be fixed easily enough. We can get you healthy again, but it’s too late for that little baby. The first three months are critical. I seriously doubt you could even carry it to full term, but if you did, it could have numerous problems, mental and physical handicaps. The first trimester is the most important time for a fetus, development wise. That is when the groundwork for a healthy baby takes place. Your baby’s groundwork is…precarious. It probably wouldn’t live very long”
Her father stood staring out the window, hands buried deep in his pockets while they listened to the doctor. And as he reached up, patting his pocket, she knew he was craving a cigarette, that he could practically feel the smoke burning its way down his throat, soothing his shaking hands.
And a drink, he probably wanted a drink. She wanted to feel angry about that, but she couldn’t. She just couldn’t.
Nikki stared at her stomach, one thin frail hand resting against it. Wade’s baby was in there, struggling to live, despite her not taking better care.
She couldn’t get rid of it.
“But, more serious than that, is the fact that this pregnancy could very easily kill you. You are not healthy Your body has probably forgotten what it’s supposed to do” He paused, looking at her, wondering if he was getting through to her. “Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”
“Yes.” And she did understand. She had completed two years of nursing school, had taken advanced courses of anatomy and physiology in high school. She had studied up on obstetrics quite a bit; she’d intended to go into that area after graduating.
Oh, yeah. Nikki understood very well what he was telling her. This would very likely kill her baby, and quite possibly her. “But I won’t kill my baby,” she said, her voice hoarse from disuse.
“Mr. Kline,” he said, trying a different tactic, turning beseeching eyes to the man who seemed to have aged ten years since stepping into the office. Jack turned around and met the doctor’s eyes, but the look he saw in those eyes was no different. “She’s made her choice, Dr. Graves. I’ll support her, regardless of the outcome,” he said quietly, his voice gravelly and rough from the years of abuse he had heaped on it.
Sighing, the doctor rubbed the back of his neck before saying, “Very well. It’s your choice. I’m going to refer you to Dr. Gray. He’s new in Somerset, practiced in Louisville for quite some time…”
“…I completely agree with Dr. Graves,” Dr. Gray was saying as he sat, poring over the blood work and ultrasounds he had been sent. Wire rimmed glasses perched on a thin blade of a nose, wide, intelligent blue eyes poring over the records and lab results.
“This is going to be extremely risky. Nikki, he wasn’t lying when he said this pregnancy could kill you. You have some serious electrolyte imbalances, which have caused you develop an arrhythmia in your heart.
“Do you understand what that means?” he asked, studying her with intense eyes.
Nikki sat on the table, her chin tucked against her chest. Dull stringy brown hair framed a face so thin and pale, her own father barely recognized her. Weak and tired, all she wanted to do was find some place quiet and just sleep. But that was what had led here. What would probably kill Wade’s baby.
“I have to try,” Nikki said softly. “I can’t just go and kill this baby. It’s not his fault I wasn’t taking care of myself. I was taking the pill and I never even thought…I didn’t know” Tears welled in her eyes, remorse and grief filling her chest. “I didn’t know…”
Gently, the doctor took her hand. “Nikki, I understand. And I believe you. You’ve obviously had a rough time lately and I’m not blaming you. Nobody is. I’m just trying to make certain you understand what we are up against. I can’t guarantee anything. I can’t even guarantee your own safety, should you continue with this pregnancy.”
“Dr. Gray, we have to try,” Jack said. “We will do whatever it takes.”
He sat in the seat next to Nikki, holding his daughter’s hand tightly. He had let her down so many times. She had already lost so much, her mother to depression, her father to the bottle, and Wade to another woman. And now possibly the baby.
But they couldn’t change the past. This baby was Nikki’s best hope for a future. Maybe her only chance. The air of desolation that hung around her was palpable. She didn’t really want to keep on living. He had seen such a look before, on his wife’s face, in the months before she had taken her own life. He hadn’t saved her, hadn’t even tried.
Nikki would not end up that way.
“Whatever it takes,” he repeated.
And the doctor smiled. “I certainly hope so. The first thing we have to do is get her to the hospital. I’m going to put her on an IV to get fluids into her. We have to put her on a heart monitor to see how severe this arrhythmia is.”
It was worse than Nikki had thought, but the doctor didn’t seem surprised. Her blood pressure was low, dangerously so. The heart arrhythmia was critical, but he said medicine would help that.
“But won’t that hurt the baby?” she asked, her hand on her belly, wondering about the little life inside.
Dr. Gray had smiled and gently said, “Nikki, if that heart of yours stops beating that will be bad for the baby.”
On top of all of that, her stomach had started to atrophy and she had to learn to eat all over again. Small meals, mainly broth and jello, the first week. Fives times a day, she had the pleasure of eating the typical sick person’s menu and for the first few days, she hadn’t been able to eat more than two or three bites.
By the end of the first week, she was starving.
But Nikki remained in the hospital another week, until her heart rate had regulated and her blood pressure wasn’t so low. She had gained two pounds in that time, but still wasn’t anywhere close to what she should be.
Nikki was well into her sixth month before the obstetrician was able to
detect a heartbeat. The size of the baby then was what it should have been at three months.
Nikki felt him kick when at the end of her sixth month.
When she was seven months, she awoke in a pool of blood. There was no pain, but there was a lot of panic. While she sat there, shaking with fear, her father had gathered her up and put her in the truck, drove her to the hospital, all the while crooning quietly to her.
After a week in the hospital, she was allowed to go home but Nikki was now on partial bed rest. On top of her numerous other problems, she had a condition called placenta previa. The placenta had settled in the lower part of her uterus,—that was what caused the bleeding. Scary as hell, but nothing that would harm the baby.
And when he was born nearly a month overdue more than three months later, Nikki realized that God had given her another chance. Another miracle.
In a hospital room bright with sunlight, she sat on the bed, head elevated while her tiny son nursed awkwardly. He felt fragile in her arms, so tiny, so little. He didn’t even weight six pounds. But bright curious eyes stared at her out of Wade’s face and beneath her questing fingers, she felt his little heart thumping strongly against his chest.
Jason was alive and he was healthy.
His head fell away from her breast, his Cupid’s bow mouth wet with milk, slack from exhaustion. Lowering her head, she pressed a kiss to that tiny little damp mouth, then pressed her lips to his brow, rocking him back and forth as she absently patted his narrow little back. She could feel the tiny bumps of his spine as she soothed and stroked him into sleep.
She settled back, stiff, unbelievably sore.
Unbelievably happy. As she cuddled him closer to her chest, she stroked a finger down his soft satiny cheek His head was perfect, not the least bit marred from the easy birth. He was so little, he had practically slid into the world all on his own. Staring down at his sleeping face, she wondered out loud, “How did we do that?” The love she already felt for this tiny little being was so great, she feared her heart would burst from it.
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