“You should be happy today. Today is the day we find out the sex of our baby.”
“I am happy.”
He parked the car in the lot of Nashville OBGYN Associates and cut the engine. “We should make a bet. I think it’s a boy.”
I smirked. “What do you want to bet?”
“A kiss.”
“So either way we both win?”
He smiled. “I’ve already won.”
Chapter 33
Sage
I rolled over and kissed Kai’s shoulder. He scooted closer, throwing a leg over mine and made a startled noise when I put my cold foot in the crook of his knee.
“Ahhhhh!” he gasped. “What are you doing to me!”
I wheezed with laughter. “My feet are cold and you promised to take care of me forever, remember?”
“Yeah, but come on! Warn a guy first, huh?” He crawled out of bed, opened a dresser drawer and pulled out a pair of his wool socks. He came back, removed the comforter, and searched for my feet. He tucked me back into bed before slipping in next to me. He wormed his way under my t-shirt and rested a hand on the elegant swell of my stomach.
“You feeling okay?” he asked.
“Hmmm. Better now. Warmer.” My eyes closed, the feeling of Kai next to me making me drowsy.
“Should we talk about names?” he asked.
“Do we want to honor those we’ve lost?”
“There are so many of them,” he said.
“How do we decide?”
He was quiet for a long time, but I knew he hadn’t fallen asleep. Then he spoke, “Maybe we should name her in her own right then.”
“Are you sad we’re having a girl?” I asked. I knew what it meant for a man to yearn for a son. Or at least I could imagine it. I was a woman; I carried and brought forth life, I would know my child before the world did. It wasn’t the same for Kai. He was a man’s man—I couldn’t wait to see him cradle our daughter in his hands; hands that gutted fish, hands that stroked a stringed instrument and played the most beautiful songs that had ever been created, hands that made me cry out in longing.
“Sad?” He shook his head. “She’ll be like you.”
“You think?”
“Yeah, except I’m going to teaching her how to fish when she’s young,” he warned as he kissed my belly.
I’d felt her kick a few days ago, but she was quiet now. Maybe dreaming of eddies and rivers. Maybe dreaming of mornings with her father when it would just be the two of them. Even if she was like me, I had no doubt she would be a daddy’s girl. I had never known my own father, and with that thought I wondered how he would’ve shaped my life.
My chest rose as I breathed for myself, for my daughter—Kai’s daughter.
“A tiny you,” he whispered as he drifted off to sleep.
•••
The snow fell steadily, and Kai continued to write music. He wouldn’t play for anyone except me and the baby. Each night, I received a private show in front of the fire. He was stunning in his talent. The baby swam circles in my belly while we listened to Kai’s musical poetry.
Happiness was a greater inspiration than tragedy.
One late winter evening, Kai set down his mandolin and said, “Damn, you’re beautiful.”
I snorted with laughter. I rested on the couch, feeling bloated and fat. “I think you may be a bit biased,” I teased and then sang, “‘I know an old lady who swallowed a horse…’”
Kai laughed. His skin was streaked gold in firelight. I wanted to nibble him like a decadent caramel.
“I know that look,” he said, leaning in to me.
“Not my fault,” I joked. “Pregnancy hormones make me randy.”
“Who’s Randy?”
“You dork!” We laughed until we could hardly breathe.
“You were like this before the baby, don’t lie. You can’t get enough of me.” He stood and pulled me up like the twenty extra pounds I had gained were nothing.
“Well, that’s true.” We headed for the stairs.
“I can’t get enough of you, either,” he pointed out.
I removed my shirt, pushed down my sweats and stepped out of them, leaving a trail of clothing to the bedroom. His hands reached around to cup my roundness. I wanted him to seep into me like watercolors on a canvas. His fingers traced the seams of my stretch marks. They existed no matter how much he attended to them, no matter what lotion he rubbed onto my body. I didn’t like them, but Kai kissed each one in reverence.
“Some of us wear our battles on our skin, others on our hearts,” he said.
I touched his brand, a T&R for the friends he had lost. “Some of us have both.” I held out my arms to him and he hugged me tight, despite my belly between us.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said into my neck, “because you’re my salve.”
•••
“I swear to God, this baby is part fish!” I complained. “You’re the fish whisperer, do something!”
Kai grinned, like I’d given him a compliment, his teeth white against his handsome new beard.
“Your child is making me miserable!” My feet hurt, my clothes chafed my skin, and I was annoyed—all the time. Usually at my husband. The moments when rationality did make an appearance, I remembered how much I loved him, how much I loved our life together, how much I already loved his child.
I picked up my mug of ginger tea. The fresh flowers Kai had brought home from the grocery store were losing their potency. Maybe I was sick of winter, sick of being stuck inside. The weather was about to break, I could feel it, but it hadn’t come yet. Soon, I hoped.
“I have a surprise for you.”
“Me? Or the baby?”
Kai didn’t reply as he got up and went to the front closet. He came back with a large cardboard shoebox. I opened it and withdrew a pair of brown UGGS.
“Try them on,” he urged.
I managed to pull on the boots, sinking my feet into soft wool. “Oh. My. God.” I sighed. “These are the most comfortable things I’ve ever put on my feet.”
He laughed. “Glad to hear that.”
“It makes winter almost worth it.”
“I can’t remember a winter this brutal or this long,” Kai said.
I gazed out the window; I was bombarded with beauty. It was all around me. Not just in my view of snow-capped peaks, but also in the man I had married, in the child I carried. There were so many blessings; I wondered how I’d become so fortunate.
“She still giving you trouble?” he asked.
I winced, trying to dislodge her foot from underneath my ribs. My insides felt like they were black and blue.
Kai pulled up my shirt and muttered nonsense syllables against my belly. The baby shifted, and he placed a cheek against my body. We were skin to skin.
Skin.
Nothing more than a thin veneer that held our child safe and warm.
•••
I buried my head in my hands and sobbed uncontrollably. The more I thought about it, the harder I cried.
“Sage? Darlin’? What’s the matter?” Kai asked as he shut the front door. He carried a hot pepper sandwich on a baguette, and the smell made me forget my sorrow.
“Is that my sandwich?” I reached for a tissue and blew my nose before crumbling it up in my fist. Kai sat down next to me and handed it over. I took a bite and moaned in pleasure. Nothing, I mean, nothing compared to satisfying a pregnancy food craving. I finished the sandwich, sipped on a ginger ale, and glanced at my husband.
He peered at me like I was an alien. “You okay?”
I put my hand on his leg, trying to reassure him that I wasn’t going to throw a vase at his head. I’d only done that once, a few weeks earlier. It hadn’t even hit him. He wasn’t one to hold grudges.
“There was a really sad commercial on television,” I explained.
Bless his heart, he didn’t even flinch. There was crazy, and then there was pregnancy crazy.
“I love you,” he said wi
th a charming grin. I stroked his beard and leaned into his body. His arm came around me, and I sighed.
“How much do you love me?”
“You want ice cream, don’t you?”
I nodded into his chest. “With extra sprinkles. Please?”
He brushed his lips across my forehead, then trailed down my nose and settled on my mouth. Before he could pull away, I reached for his belt and kissed him back, smelling of spicy peppers and desire.
“God, you’re perfect,” he said.
I cried again, only this time it wasn’t in sadness.
Chapter 34
Sage
Spring came, and it was wet with gloomy skies. A bout of massive hailstorms littered the countryside, laying waste to all that tried to bloom. But the mountains were green, and my body was round and ripe.
“I look big, don’t I? I mean, really big.”
Kai bit his lip, like he was debating on smiling. “Why do women do that?”
“Do what?”
“Ask questions they already know the answers to.”
I glared at him. “You could be a little more sensitive. I know I’m almost six months pregnant, but come on…people think I’m carrying twins. I’m huge!”
“That was one person, and she was a twenty-year-old cashier at the grocery store. She smacked her bubble gum for Christ’s sake. Who cares what she thought?”
“I don’t care what she thought,” I yelled. “I care that she said it out loud! Whatever happened to having a filter and not saying every single thing that comes to your mind?”
He rubbed a finger across his mouth. I knew he was smiling, the bastard. “It’s a generational thing.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Generational, huh? Okay, Grandpa.”
Kai sighed in mock defeat. “I miss my wife. She used to be so nice…”
I gnashed my teeth at him. “You’re lucky you’re cute, Ferris. That’s the only way I’d allow you to get away with teasing me.”
“Can I hug you? Or do you have a weapon I need to know about?”
Before I could answer, he came to me and I collapsed my bulk against him. He held me for a moment and said, “I think I have something that will cheer you up. Put on your shoes.”
“Why?” I asked. We walked to the front door, and I used his arm to steady myself while I slipped on the UGGS he had bought me. He grabbed my light jacket and helped me shrug into it.
We stepped outside, and I breathed in the fresh air. It was in the mid sixties, but the sky was clear. Perhaps it wouldn’t storm today. “Where are we going?” I asked as Kai took my hand and led me up the path.
He didn’t reply, and ten minutes later he stopped when we came to a cement spot surrounded by a small clearing with a panoramic view of the mountainside. “It’s not much to look at yet,” he said. “It’s just the foundation, but it’s solid enough to build the home of our dreams.”
I gripped his hand, letting my tears fall in the silent morning.
•••
“You have your wallet?” I asked Kai.
“Yep.”
“Got your ticket?”
He nodded.
“Lyrics?”
He pulled them out of his shirt pocket. They were hardly legible, and the papers were wrinkled.
“You ready?”
He grinned and kissed me. Dropping to his knees, he stroked my belly and kissed it. “I’ll see you soon,” he said to my stomach.
“I’m up here, buddy,” I said with a smile, my fingers toying with his beard.
He kissed me again, slower, almost endlessly. I sank into him. “Love you,” I whispered, pulling back.
Kai tugged on a strand of my hair. “Love you, too. I’ll call when I land.” He picked up his small travel bag and mandolin case. I opened the front door and stood on the porch, watching him depart.
I traipsed back into the house and settled myself on the couch.
A few hours later, my buzzing phone jarred me awake. It made a loud rattle across the coffee table.
“Just wanted to tell you that I landed, and I’m about to get into a cab and head to the hotel,” Kai said.
“That’s nice,” I mumbled.
“You were asleep, weren’t you?”
“No…”
He laughed. “Liar. Go back to bed you little incubator. I’ll talk to you later.”
I made myself a sandwich and went upstairs to the nursery. Keith had come over a few weeks ago and dropped off the crib. It was pushed against the far green wall. Kai hadn’t let me climb the ladder to stencil the dandelions, so he’d asked Alice to do it. They dotted the trim in pale yellow. I sat in the comfortable rocking chair and ate my meal, content that our daughter would grow up in a room full of dreams.
After taking some time in the nursery, I headed out to the front porch, wanting to catch the last of the afternoon sun, and maybe the sunset. George’s car pulled into the driveway, and even though he hadn’t called, I wasn’t surprised by his appearance.
“Hi,” he greeted, trudging up the porch steps.
I stood and hugged him. “Hi.”
“I’m on my way to the country club, but thought I’d swing by and check in on you.”
“Can I get you something to drink? I have some freshly brewed iced tea in the fridge.”
He smiled. “Thanks.”
We walked inside and into the kitchen. “Ice?”
“Please.”
I dropped some cubes into a glass, added a slice of lemon and the tea.
He took a sip. “Peach?”
I nodded.
“It’s good.”
“Thanks.”
“Sorry I didn’t call first.”
“It’s okay. I kind of like you showing up unannounced. It has a very intrusive family feel,” I teased.
He laughed. “There’s a purpose to my visit, not just to surprise you. I was wondering if you’d like to spend a few days with us? You know, while Kai is gone?”
I opened my mouth to refuse, not wanting to be a burden, but I found myself saying, “That sounds really nice.”
He looked pleased. “Really?”
“Yeah, it can get kind of lonely up here. Thanks for the offer, George. It was very thoughtful of you.”
“It was Claire’s idea,” he admitted.
“Was it? Well, that’s a bit of a surprise.”
He nodded. “For you and me both. I can swing by and pick you up on my way home from the club. Give you a chance to pack a few days worth of clothes.”
“Perfect.”
•••
“You’re never going to guess where I am,” I said to Kai over the phone.
“I love guessing games. What are you wearing?”
“Don’t make this dirty,” I teased. “I’m in your parents’ house—in your childhood bed.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your father invited me to stay over for a few days, but it was your mother’s idea.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“I think she’s finally coming around to the idea of me.”
“You’re my wife and the mother of my child. It’s about time.”
I laughed. “Hey, she’s trying to make peace. Anger is exhausting.”
“Damn straight.”
A patch of silence fell between us, and then I asked, “How’s New York?”
“Loud, dirty and expensive. I don’t know how you ever lived here. On the upside, though, Jules is driving down tomorrow and we’re having lunch. I’ll show her the studio.”
“Not fair.”
He sighed. “It’s not too late you know, for you to join me up here.”
“I—can’t.” I hadn’t been back since my mother had died. I’d never seen her headstone. I wasn’t ready.
We were silent again before he said, “Listen, I should get some sleep. I’ve got an early morning. And the sooner I go, the sooner this is done, and I can get back to my girls.”
I patted my stomach. “We’ll be waiti
ng.”
I attempted to fall asleep, but I was restless. I got out of bed and quietly crept downstairs to the kitchen. I was rummaging through the freezer for the carton of vanilla bean ice cream when the kitchen light turned on.
“Gotcha,” George said with a grin.
I smiled back. “Sorry, did I wake you?”
He shook his head. “Nah, just had a hankering for something sweet.”
“Me too.”
“You were going to take that last piece of strawberry rhubarb pie, weren’t you?”
“Maybe.”
“I’ll fight you for it.”
“I’m carrying your granddaughter.”
He laughed. “Trump card. You win.”
“Let’s share it.”
“Better idea. That way Claire can’t yell at me about my cholesterol.”
“She loves you. Wants you to be around for a while.” I opened the drawer and pulled out two spoons and the ice cream scooper. The last piece of pie was on the cake stand underneath a glass lid. George went to the cupboard and withdrew a plate. I placed two huge scoops on top of the pie and stuck the tub back in the freezer. We settled at the informal kitchen table, but before I took a bite I snapped a photo on my cell phone and sent it to Kai saying, “Wish you were here”.
“Trying to make him jealous?” George teased.
“Alice will bake him a welcome home cobbler. He’s got nothing to be jealous about.”
“Hmm. Hopefully it’ll be peach. Alice makes a damn good peach cobbler.” He licked his spoon before diving back into the ice cream. “So why are you awake?”
“Late night call with Kai,” I explained. “Plus I’m pregnant. I’m asleep and awake at the oddest hours.”
He chuckled.
“Why are you awake?” I demanded.
“Age. Can’t sleep through the night.”
I snorted with humor. “I don’t buy that excuse.”
“No?” He looked thoughtful. He pushed the plate towards me and set his spoon down. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”
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