Beyond These Walls (The Walls Duet #2)

by J. L. Berg

  It was all real and it was happening.

  Jude and I had been tiptoeing around this pregnancy, fearful of everything that went along with it. We both put on positive smiles and charged ahead, but I knew neither one of us was actually taking that fateful first step.

  That empty nursery proved just that.

  We were two people skating around a frozen pond, just waiting for the center to give in. Take one step too far, and everything would fall into the icy water below.

  I decided, in that moment, to be the one to take that first brave step.

  Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans.

  I was so excited in my planning that I hadn’t noticed the signs—the dizziness, the blurred vision.

  As I look back now, I probably should have, but when focused on a task, especially one that involves a credit card and online ordering, I tend to push other things aside.

  I finally owned up to what was going on internally when I stood and saw stars.

  I called my mom, and . . . well, the rest is history.

  Here we are.

  Sometimes, I feel like life is one giant stage. Just when I think I’m about to hit my high note—the big number that will make me a star—someone comes up behind me with one of those big stage hooks, ready to drag me away.

  “Lailah?” Jude burst through the door, his eyes wide and frantic.

  He looked like he’d been up all night, and judging by the state of his clothes and the wee hours of the morning, I guessed he probably had been.

  “Are you okay? I got here as soon as I could,” he rushed out the words. His legs carried him to my side.

  I wanted to cry. I wanted to sob, leaking every last tear my body could produce, but I didn’t.

  I couldn’t.

  Seeing his worry, his need for everything to be okay, I swallowed every last fear, keeping them at bay, squashing them down for another time.

  “I’m fine,” I responded. “High blood pressure, that’s all. They’re discharging me now.”

  He didn’t look convinced.

  “I swear, I’m fine.” I held my hands up in defense.

  “I shouldn’t have gone.”

  “It wouldn’t have made a difference. The doctor on call said high blood pressure is a perfectly normal thing for pregnant woman. See? I’m normal,” I encouraged.

  “I’m not traveling anymore,” he replied, completely ignoring my comments.

  “Good,” I said. “I like having you around.” I cupped his face with my hands.

  His eyes closed as he melted into my palm. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here.”

  “But you’re here now,” I reminded him. “Just in time to bust me out of this place.”

  “You got it. Let’s go home.”

  “Now, you’re talking.”

  “When you said you ordered a few things while I was gone, did you possibly underestimate that statement a bit?” Jude asked as he carried in what had to be the tenth box in the last two days.

  I gave him a sheepish grin. “Maybe?”

  “Do you even remember what you ordered?” he asked, looking down at the shipping label with an inquisitive stare.

  “Oh, yes,” I answered. “Definitely.”

  “Well, you want to give me a hand then?”

  I looked up from the book I was reading. “Right now?”

  “Yeah. Why not?” He grinned.

  A flutter of excitement mixed with nervousness rushed through my system as I followed him down the hall. I’d ordered every single item in those scattered boxes that lonely night last week with the intention of moving forward with this pregnancy—no more waiting, no more hiding behind fears.

  Then, I’d ended up in the hospital, and suddenly, I was back behind that line again, struggling to move past the point where I could tell myself that it was okay to decide on wall colors and baby names. Four months from now, this child growing in my stomach would become a reality.

  It wasn’t just a fantasy I was trying to will into existence. This was happening.

  And the strong-willed fighter I’d become after years and years of battling a diseased heart needed to step up to the plate and realize that.

  I placed a hesitant foot into the empty room, taking note of the many boxes neatly stacked in each corner.

  “So, where should we start?” I asked him, looking around from one end to the other, as I twisted my hands together.

  “Why don’t you just take a seat and let me see what we have?”

  “But I could help you—”

  “Nope,” he answered, cutting me off.

  “Not even for a little bit?”

  “Sorry.” He shook his head. “Ass on the floor, Lailah.”

  I pouted, slumping to the ground. “How am I supposed to help on the floor?”

  He took a wide step forward, bending down to capture my lips. “Well, sitting there is helpful on the eyes.”

  My head cocked to the side, and I gave him an amused stare.

  “And . . .” He paused. “You can direct with these lovely little arms of yours. Tell me where to put everything. I’m at your disposal. But no getting up. In fact . . .”

  He rushed out of the room and came back with two kitchen chairs. Helping me up, he sat me in one, and after positioning the other across from me, he raised my feet up on the other.

  “See? Comfy.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  Using a box cutter, he began pulling everything out.

  Okay, so maybe I had forgotten some of the things I’d ordered. That one-click feature should be outlawed.

  “So, it looks like I’ll be putting together a crib and whatever the hell this is,” he said, pointing to the large box in the corner.

  “It’s a glider,” I explained.

  “A what?”

  “A glider—kind of like a rocking chair but smoother. And it’s upholstered.”

  “So, the La-Z-Boy of baby furniture?” He grinned, looking at the picture on the side.

  “It’s supposed to be soothing.”

  “It looks great,” he encouraged sweetly, pushing up his sleeves to dive into the assembly. “We’re going to do this one first. It will give you a better place to sit.”

  I giggled as I watched him pull out a million different parts and pieces, never once complaining that we could have easily paid someone to do this for us or just gone to some fancy furniture store where all of this would be preassembled. It felt like a rite of passage—something all parents must do before the birth of their children. For the first time during this pregnancy, I felt normal, extremely mundane and normal. It was as if the fear and anxiety of everything that could happen had been left at the threshold. This was our safe space—where life was planned, not feared.

  Eventually, I ordered a pizza and then turned on some music on my phone, and we sat around, eating, laughing and figuring out which side of part A fit into part B. Around two hours later, we had a glider.

  “Hey, look at that. It works!” I exclaimed, sitting in it for the first time.

  It moved back and forth with little to no effort, and as I perched my feet up onto the matching ottoman, I tried to picture myself here, late at night, with a tiny child in my arms, rocking him back and forth, back and forth.

  My eyes closed as the picture formed and blossomed in my head.

  Blue eyes to start, but eventually, as he grew, they’d fade into green, soft green eyes like his father.

  He’d have his compassion, too, his big heart.

  My eyes flashed open as a trickle of fear wormed its way back into my soul.

  Dear God, what if he got my heart? A weak, brittle broken little heart.

  Thump, thump.

  What was that?

  My hand flew to my stomach.

  “Lailah? What it is?”

  I chased the sensation, my hand racing everywhere, as if I were hunting a cell phone signal.

  “I think—I mean, I know”—I laughed—“the baby just kicked.”

 
; “Different from what you’ve been experiencing?”

  “Oh, yes,” I answered. “This wasn’t a flutter or a kind of whoosh. This was a solid kick. He—if he really is a he—is making his presence known.”

  Jude rushed to me, kneeling by my side, his eyes staring up at me with an intense sense of wonder on his face. I grabbed his hand, and together, we gripped my stomach, waiting for another moment.

  “What were you thinking of when it happened?” he asked, his fingers brushing tenderly along the curve of my belly.

  “What he’d look like, the color of his eyes, the—oh! There it is!”

  I looked up and knew he’d felt it. Maybe not as strongly as I had, but he’d definitely sensed the slightest bit of movement.

  His hand curled around me as he bent down closer. “He’s strong. Our little man is healthy and strong.”

  Tears formed in my eyes as I watched him stare down at my belly in amazement.

  Our child was indeed strong. I’d been so scared that I was passing on my diseased genes to him, and in that moment, he’d let us know that he was there, and he was fighting.

  Now, I just had to be strong enough to fight alongside him.

  “So, care to make a wager?” I challenged.

  Our joined hands swung back and forth as we walked down the long hallway.

  We’d just finished up another doctor’s appointment—twenty-six weeks. Thanks to proper medication and an overbearing husband, I had been given another clean bill of health. I still couldn’t believe it.

  We were halfway there. Another couple of months, and soon, we’d meet our child.

  He squeezed my hand as we made our way toward the ultrasound office.

  “A wager?” he asked, his interest piqued.

  “Well, we decided today would be the day, so I thought, before we go in there and discover whether this baby you are so determined to call a boy is in fact—”

  “In possession of a penis?”

  “Jude!” I blurted out, looking around, as my cheeks reddened.

  He laughed, “Would you rather me say franks and beans? Twigs and berries?”

  “Oh my gosh. You’re a child.”

  “You’re the one who cringed when I said penis,” he reminded me, making sure to say the P word loud and clear for anyone walking down the hall to hear.

  I shook my head, doing my best to ignore him. “Back to the wager.”

  “Right. So, what do I get when I win?” he asked, opening the glass door for me that led into the small waiting room.

  It was empty today, which meant we should hopefully be called back immediately. We’d had several ultrasounds now, due to the high risk of my pregnancy. We could have known the sex of the baby weeks ago, but I’d chosen to wait, wanting to find out around the time when other women did. The wait made everything feel much more normal, and any ounce of normalcy was treasured.

  Not that any of this mattered to my husband. He was convinced we were having a boy. There was no changing his mind.

  Now, he was eagerly waiting for the proof.

  “Who says you’re going to win?” I countered, taking a seat near the door.

  “You’ve already called it a boy on multiple occasions!” he exclaimed, crossing his arms in obvious victory.

  “Only because you do. And because I hate the idea of calling our child an it. That’s just wrong.”

  “So, why not say she?”

  “You’re changing the subject!” I snapped in frustration.

  He snorted loudly.

  Cocky jerk.

  “Okay, fine. If it’s a boy, you let me repaint the nursery blue and put up football jerseys.”

  My eyes narrowed. He knew I hated sports-themed anything.

  “Baseballs?”

  I gave him a blank stare.

  “Um, waves . . . surfers maybe?”

  “Better. Go to town with that if you like. Bring in a surfboard for the ceiling for all I care, but no jerseys of any kind—ever.”

  “Okay, deal.”

  “And if it’s a girl?” he asked, barely paying attention.

  So sure of himself.

  “I get to pick the name.”

  His eyes flew up to mine. “But I’m so good at picking names,” he reminded me with a wicked grin.

  “Ah, yes, I remember. But this is my condition. How sure are you that this is a boy?” I asked, rubbing my belly.

  The door creaked open, and my name was called.

  We both stood, his hand grasping mine.

  As we followed the tech down the hall, I felt his hot breath tickle my ear as he leaned forward to whisper, “You’re on.”

  I smiled, my stomach a flutter of anticipation, as we were escorted to the small room we’d become well acquainted with over the last several months. Luckily, the ultrasounds had become less evasive. No wardrobe changes had been required for some time now.

  The technician helped me onto the examination table. Lifting my shirt, she placed white towels at the top and bottom of my clothes. Warm goo was spread across my tummy, and soon, the screen was alive with pictures of our tiny child.

  “Do we want to know the sex today?” the technician asked as she plugged away on her keyboard, checking measurements and recording information.

  “Yes,” we answered in unison.

  “Okay, I’ll do my best,” she replied.

  She continued to do her thing, freezing frames as she moved the wand around my growing belly. Lying in the position in this same room several times now, it was easy to see the progression week after week. The first time, it had been hard to believe anything was really different. My stomach had been smooth and flat. Now, there was evidence. Anyone who looked at me could see I was carrying precious cargo, and any second now, I’d know if that tiny kicker I’d grown to love was a boy or a girl.

  Each new image the technician showed gave us another glimpse. It was no longer a little lima bean but rather a small baby-shaped blob. She pointed out feet and legs, arms and head. It was crystal clear, but I could see just the outline of everything.

  “Okay, are you ready? I’m going to see if I can get a peek between those legs.”

  Jude gave me a quick glance, his lip turned up in amusement.

  “Well . . .” She pondered over that word for a moment or two.

  We waited in anticipation.

  “Looks like you’ve got a very unlucky boy or a little girl on your hands!”

  “A girl?” Jude said, completely stunned.

  “A girl? Really?” I echoed, the words coming out soft and strained.

  I looked at the image again—the rounded belly, the two perfect arms, and the beautiful head.

  Of course it was a girl.

  Jude looked over at me, his eyes brimming with tears, as he mouthed the word, Angel.

  He squeezed my hand, holding it to his lips, and he placed a gentle kiss in the center.

  “Guess I owe you a name?” he said.

  “Meara,” I simply stated.

  He let it hang in the air before smiling. “It’s beautiful.”

  “I remembered seeing it somewhere when we were in Ireland. Maybe a waitress, for all I know, but I looked up the name last week in our baby book because I just couldn’t stop thinking about it.”

  The technician finished up and promised to send everything to the doctor. After I cleaned the goo off my belly and readjusted my shirt, I caught Jude’s gaze.

  He asked, “And what does it mean? The name?”

  “Sea. It means the sea. I thought it was perfect.”

  He helped me off the table and pulled me into his arms.

  “It is. Perfect and beautiful, just like you.”

  My smiling eyes lifted to his.

  “You’re going to make me repaint the nursery anyway, aren’t you?” he asked, knowing it was coming.

  “Well, I mean, a girl does deserve more than just plain old yellow.” I shrugged, laughing.

  “Slave driver.”

  “Oh, good. Now tha
t we’re talking about it, those curtains really need to be changed, too. I don’t know what I was thinking and—”

  He just chuckled under his breath the entire way home as I mentally redecorated the entire room we’d just completed.

  It didn’t matter though because she was healthy. Meara was healthy, and life was perfect.

  AS THE WEATHER grew hot and spring turned to summer, we settled into our quiet new life on the coast of California. Long gone were the bright lights of the city, now replaced by lazy evenings nestled around the deck, watching sunsets night after night.

  We knew it was temporary. We knew we’d eventually have to go back to a life filled with more—more responsibility, more to do, and more required of both of us.

  But for now, we simply just enjoyed each other.

  Finally, it wasn’t about making up for time lost or trying to cram in as much as possible before some inevitable doomsday occurred. It was only about the present, living in the moment.

  Seeing Meara for the first time in that ultrasound, giving her a name after all those weeks of looking at grainy photos up on the screen, had suddenly made something click for both of us.

  We were having a child, and yes, a million and a half things could go wrong between now and then. But did either of us want to look back and regret the moments we’d lost while worrying about it? No, we’d want to know we had spent every second making the most of our time together.

  So, that was exactly what we’d done over the last few months. We’d slowed down and remembered, rekindling the honeymoon lifestyle we’d fallen in love with before this all began—lazy days on the beach, long nights wrapped in each other by the fire. It was time we would have never gotten otherwise, and we relished in it, drinking in every ounce of each other until there was no beginning and no end. It was one never-ending baby moon, as our family called it.

  Whatever it was called, it worked. I could see a marked change in Lailah. Her stress level had lessened. Her blood pressure had improved, and so far, everything seemed to be going well.

  At least, it had been—until last night.

  Just when I’d finally believed we could make it through to the other side without complications, the floor had caved in.

  We always knew there was a chance things could go bad.