Back Forever

by Karen Booth

  The calendar. Here we were, less than six weeks until the baby was due. Crunch time. My inclination was to clear the decks for our new arrival, when Graham wanted me to do nothing but make plans. “Yeah, I don’t see why not. I mean, I haven’t done a damn thing to get things off the ground, hire a publicist so I can start bringing in some projects. I just haven’t had the time. Banks has carte blanche right now as far as I’m concerned.” I took another drink of my coffee. “You just need to remember that things are going to get crazy for me when the baby arrives.”

  “Chris. I’m a dad. I’ve done the baby routine. I get it.” He reached over and patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll make it work.”

  After breakfast, Graham and I headed back to the house. “Still pretty quiet,” I said, when we walked in the front door. “Richard and Claire must both still be asleep.” I looked at my watch. “Sam’s already out the door for school.”

  “The place looks great with all of the new furniture.” He strolled into the kitchen as if he owned the place, which wasn’t surprising since Graham acted like that wherever he went. “How’s the pool coming along?” He pulled the sliding glass door to the back yard open, to the sound of the dozens of birds that had begun frequenting our back yard since Richard had put up a feeder.

  “Almost done. They need to put in the patio and get the final inspection and we can fill her up with water. Just in time. I could really use the exercise.”

  Graham slapped my belly. “I didn’t want to say anything, P-man, but you need to get back into fighting shape for when we go back on the road.”

  “If we go back on the road. A lot of things have to fall into place before that happens.” I closed the door. “Suppose I should go see if Richard is up yet. We have a lot to squeeze in today.”

  Graham sat at the kitchen table. “Yeah, I’ll check email on my phone, send Angie a text and let her know I’ve arrived.”

  I headed upstairs and down the hall to Richard’s room, rapping quietly so as not to wake Claire. There was no answer, so I eased the door open. “Rich? You up yet?” I leaned against the doorframe when I saw that he was still asleep. “I hate to wake him,” I muttered, twisting my lips. There wasn’t much choice, we had a lot of things to accomplish with Graham in town for only one day and Richard had insisted on joining us when we went to the studio.

  I walked over to the side of the bed. “Richard? It’s about time to get up.” I knew the instant I touched his shoulder. Oh, no. My entire body froze, a stillness unlike anything I’d never experienced before. My heartbeat pounded in my ears. Good God, no. I sat on the edge of the bed, tears rolling down my cheeks. “It was time to go then, was it?” My hand returned to his shoulder and I rubbed it. His body was cold. There was a heaviness to it. His face was drawn, skin pale and thin, mouth open, but he was finally at peace. No more pain. No more suffering.

  I straightened the blanket that covered him, folded down the collar of his pajama shirt. He would never want to be seen unkempt, not even by a medic. With the most delicate touch I could muster, I swept back what little hair he had from his forehead. “There you go, old chap. Much better.”

  My shoulders drooped and I bent forward, resting my elbows on my knees. I wept for everything—Claire losing her dad, Sam losing her grandfather, the baby on the way who would never know him. Selfishly, I wept for me losing the closest thing I’d had to a father in a very long time. He’s gone. I love him and the stubborn old bastard is gone.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  As if it was any other day, my dad strolled into the kitchen, poured a cup of coffee and sat at the table to read the newspaper. The only difference was that he didn’t say, “good morning”, he didn’t look at me. He went about his business as if I didn’t exist, humming some terrible modern country song he always turned up on the radio. He flipped through the pages of the paper, scanning the columns. His right hand was no longer shaking. He looked healthier, more color to this face. Maybe he’s getting better. He turned the page again and placed his finger on a small photograph, now reading intently. I approached slowly, not wanting to disturb his reading. He turned to me when I reached the table. His eyes were soft and sweet. “Look, Ladybug. I’m in the newspaper.” Oh right. The obituaries.

  I woke to a damp pillow, just as I had every morning since my dad had died.

  In the past six months I’d planned both a wedding and a funeral. Didn’t they make a movie about that? I might have been a bit shy on the correct number of weddings and this one didn’t star Hugh Grant, but it didn’t change the fact that life right now was a drama, continually unfolding. Sometimes, it felt as though I was sitting there and watching it all happen to me, every recent minute of it unbelievably sad. I only wished our movie had come with good popcorn and would ultimately have a happy ending.

  My dad’s memorial ceremony had been a sparsely attended affair—Chris, Sam, and I, plus my sister Julie, Matt, and her two kids, and my dad’s friend Marty, the electrician. Rosie had stayed away. She wasn’t a spiteful person, but my dad wasn’t her favorite person after he’d been so brusque with her.

  Julie and Matt didn’t stay long, they had to turn around and drive back to Virginia. Matt’s new job didn’t allow him to be away for more than a day and Julie was a complete wreck. I’d told her she would regret not taking the time to say goodbye to him before he died and that was exactly what happened. Not that I took any consolation in being right. She was suffering enough for the both of us.

  “Every time I get back in this stupid bed, I feel like I’m returning to the roost,” I mumbled to Chris after returning from that morning’s tenth trip to the bathroom. He helped me adjust the pillows, but I was well beyond the point of deriving comfort from Fiberfil or feathers. As far as I was concerned, the bed rest order was silly at this point. I hadn’t had a spotting incident in more than two months. Unfortunately, the doctor had pulled out the dreaded advanced maternal age when I argued with her about it.

  “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t your preference, but we’re so close now. Less than a month until your due date.”

  Twenty-seven days, but who’s counting? “Yep. All that time to sit in this bed.” I looked out the bedroom window. Such a beautiful spring day. It would’ve been so wonderful to work outside, till up that old vegetable garden, run out and shop for seeds—do anything productive. “Plenty of time to stew and get more and more fat and think about my dad.”

  “You aren’t fat.”

  “You’re sweet, but we both know I’m huge.” I pushed up the sleeves of my dad’s fuzzy gray cardigan, feeling like the hormonal love child of The Hindenberg and Mr. Rogers. I could remember him having the sweater forever, since I’d been in middle school. The man never threw anything away. I’d worn it every day since he’d died, to keep my arms warm when the air conditioning got to be too much and my heart pumping when the sadness got to be suffocating. “You know I have to call Laura.” To say that I dreaded this would have suggested that I had strong feelings about my job, when the truth was that I was really only hoping that my passion for it would return once I had a better handle on having lost my dad.

  “This is the last call until the baby arrives, right?”

  “Yes. I told her email only until two weeks after delivery. She isn’t happy about it though. She hates the inefficiency of email.” I rolled my eyes. Chris merely shook his head. I pressed the speed dial for Laura, keenly aware that Chris would not leave the room during these conversations. As irked as I’d been by his decision to swipe the phone out of my hand that day, I loved the way he made me feel protected. He always had my back. “Hey Carolyn, it’s Claire calling for Laura.” I waited. Chris grabbed a magazine from his bedside table and sprawled out on the bed next to me.

  “Claire, hi,” Laura said. “Where are we at with the story about the casting controversy on the Black Beauty remake?”

  Hello to you, too. “I should be able to finish the final edit today. I’m a little behind after everythi
ng with my dad.” I scribbled down a note to remind myself to follow up with the pain-in-the-ass writer for that story, another task I’d been delaying.

  “Don’t you think we’re cutting it a little close? The clock is ticking if you haven’t noticed. We’re close to launch and I don’t have everything I need from you.”

  I took a deep breath. This conversation was doubly difficult—with Chris right next to me, I had to word my responses to Laura very carefully when I didn’t have the energy. “I hear what you’re saying. Don’t worry. I’ll get everything to you. The deadline for that hasn’t officially passed yet.” Although it is coming up really fast.

  “You know I don’t like working like this, Claire. I feel like I’m nagging you for every last thing. I understand that things have been busy for you, but you can’t allow your personal life to get in the way of your job.”

  This time, I didn’t think before I replied. “Personal life. Interesting way of putting it.” It’s not my personal life, it’s my life. Period. Chris. The baby. Sam. Dad. “I’m sorry to hear you feel like that.” What I’d really wanted to say was, “fuck off”.

  Chris perked up, rolling to his side and looking at me quizzically. He was so handsome in the ethereal morning light streaming through our bedroom window. “I love you,” I mouthed to him, silently. He is my rock. If he hadn’t been there, I would’ve been falling apart, completely. He kept my head above water, kept me from slipping below the surface, a place I readily sank to after my mom had died.

  “We’re both adults here, Claire. This isn’t about how I feel and I’m not trying to be a hard ass. This is about facts. You need to do the job I hired you to do.”

  I listened, but Laura’s voice was buzzing around somewhere in the back of my head. All I could do was look at Chris. I’d waited my entire life for him. My partner. My love. I’m wasting time with this miserable job.

  “Claire, are you there?” The annoyance in Laura’s voice was plain.

  “I’m here.”

  “Are you going to say anything?”

  I nodded. Tears welled in my eyes.

  Chris sat up and placed his hand on my arm. “Are you okay?” he whispered.

  “Yes, Laura. I am going to say something. I’m going to have to say that I quit.”

  Chris’s eyes grew wide, but the relief and happiness on his face was unmistakable.

  “You what?” Laura asked, her voice cold and hard. “You can’t be serious. You’re quitting? I’m launching a magazine in six weeks.”

  “I know. That kind of sucks, doesn’t it? Sorry about that.”

  “It sucks? You’re sorry?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll send you everything I have. You’ll find somebody to get it all into shape.”

  “Do you realize how fucking unprofessional this is on your part?”

  “Maybe.” I shrugged. “Or maybe it’s really fucking smart on my part. See, I have this thing. It’s called a life. You should try it some time. It’s awesome.”

  Chris leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead, lingering for a few seconds.

  “Nice,” Laura said. “Is this when you remind me that you’re married to the hunky rock star?”

  “Nope. This is when I remind you that I’m thankful for the opportunity and I’ll email you everything I have. Good luck.” I ended the call and held the phone high above my head by two fingers before allowing it to fall on to the mattress. “Wow. That felt really good.”

  “It may have been good for you, but it was spectacular for me.”

  “I like how you can make a normal conversation sound like sex talk.”

  “I’m brilliant at that.” He scooted closer to me and took my hand. “Are you okay? Are you sure about this?”

  My heart hadn’t felt so untroubled in months. It felt like I was finally making room for everything important, even if some of what I’d made room for was quite sad. It felt right. I hadn’t felt that way since I’d said “yes” to Chris’s bathroom floor proposal. “I’m sure. It was coming. I knew deep-down that it wasn’t going to work, I was just being stubborn.”

  “Imagine that.”

  “Funny.” I squeezed his hand. “Of course, I have no idea what I’m going to do for a job anymore.”

  “You’ll figure something out.”

  Huh. Or we could do that. “Actually, with the job thing out of the way, that means we can go to Asheville.”

  “Absolutely.” He nodded. “A month or so after the baby is born.”

  “Nope. Before the baby is born. I want to go tomorrow.”

  Chris looked me as if I was nuts, but it made perfect sense to me. “No way. It’s too much for you. We’ll wait until the baby is here. Then we can take a weekend and it’ll be a getaway.”

  “Penman, I just quit my damn job. I have to sit in this bed for another four weeks. I need something to do. You can’t deny me that.”

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

  “You know I’ll pester you about it until you give in.” I grabbed my water bottle from the bedside table and took a long drink.

  “Claire, come on.”

  “Look, I just quit my job. I think you need to do that husband thing where you smile and nod at me and say, “yes” even if I’m being ever so slightly irrational.”

  “That? I have to do that?”

  “Yes. We need to go to Asheville.”

  “I’m not agreeing to any of this until we talk to the doctor.”

  “Fine, but I want to talk to her if she says no.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Five days later than Claire would’ve liked, I unlocked the door to Richard’s Asheville house and held it open for her. “After you, M’ lady.” I would never, ever, want to compare my wife to a duck or give in to bad stereotypes of pregnant women, but as I followed her inside, the reality stared me in the face. Claire waddled. Poor thing—she had a ten-pound watermelon strapped to her and by all reports, much of it rested squarely on her bladder.

  She placed one hand on top of her belly, one hand beneath it. “If I could just put this baby down for half an hour, I would be so happy.”

  “And if I could make that happen, I would.” I watched as she wandered into what was apparently the living room, past a blue and tan plaid couch and brown leather recliner to the back of the house and a pair of small, curtained windows overlooking a wooded lot.

  “It’s sort of weird to think about him puttering around here. I haven’t been to this house in a while. He almost always came to visit us. Now it feels like a lifetime ago.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m a little sad. Stuff brings back memories.” Her left hand swirled in a circle on her belly. Light glinted off her engagement ring and wedding band. “But, honestly, I thought it would upset me a lot more. Maybe I just needed to get out of the house.” She walked over to the recliner, rubbing the back of the worn leather. A breathy laugh left her lips. “He’s had this chair forever. I used to give him shit about never throwing things out, but now I’m glad he kept this old stuff.”

  There was a cluster of photos on the stark white wall, some in black and white, some in color. The frames were a mishmash—displaying a revolving cast of characters, a wide array of settings—her parents ice skating on a frozen pond, a family vacation to what looked the Grand Canyon, the girls and their mother outside on a summer day. “These are amazing.”

  She walked over in a bit of a daze, as if she was being drawn forth by some imaginary power the photographs contained. “They are, aren’t they?” She shook her head and I watched her in profile as her lower lip began to tremble. “Me and Julie in the back yard. We were probably three and four in this picture. We used to run in the sprinkler with just shorts on. Look at my mom. What in the world is going on with her hair?” She shook her head. “She said I always sat on the sprinkler.” She gasped for air, tears streaming down her face, smiling at the same time.

  I pulled her into a hug, delivered from the side now t
hat her belly otherwise got in the way. “Is this too much? Don’t feel like we have to do this today just because we made the drive. We can get you some rest, try tomorrow.”

  She wiped her cheek on my shoulder. “No. It’s okay. This is good. I have to let it out, right?” Her shoulders quaked. “I miss them both so much.”

  I rubbed her back, wishing I could make it all go away. Watching anyone you love cry is difficult. When it’s the person you love the most on the entire planet, it’s torture. “Yes, darling. Let it out.”

  Her hands grasped my back, the sobs became deeper and her body went limp. I didn’t say a thing, I only held on to her, kept her up. Nothing I could say would ever fill the hole that resided in her right now. There was no way to make that better. I could only endure it with her.

  Eventually, her body quieted and I sensed the relief that follows the release. I cupped the back of her head and kissed her cheek. “I love you. I promise you that this will all get better.”

  She turned her face into my neck. “I love you too. Thank you.”

  “You don’t need to thank me. This is what I signed up for. I want to be here for you.”

  “I bet you got a lot more than you thought you would.”

  “You’ve gone through a lot for me, too. I’m only holding up my end of the bargain.”

  She eased back and wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. “I’m a total disaster right now, aren’t I?”

  I pecked the end of her puffy red nose. “You’re perfect.”

  “I suppose we should go hunting for the box that holds the mysterious project.”

  We headed up a rickety flight of steps covered with linoleum. At the end of the hall, I found a wooden ceiling hatch and a pull-down ladder. “There’s no way I’m letting you go up there eight months pregnant. I’m going to have to look for it and tell you what I see.”