by Jessica Wood
“Well, uh,” I stumbled for words, “I’m actually…uh, still in the beginning stages of planning this surprise so I didn’t have any dates in mind, per se….” I cringed and hoped she didn’t hear the bullshit in my words. “I—uh—just wanted to see if you were okay with helping me out when the time came, when I have a more certain date for the surprise.”
“Oh, yes. Of course, sweetie. I’m happy to help.” I could hear the warm smile in her voice.
“Great. That’s great.” I purposely paused briefly before continuing. “Oh yeah, Jackson told me about this big meeting this morning…” I trailed off, hoping she would chime in.
“Yeah, it’s with this big new client and from what I’ve heard, it’s a pretty big deal that Jackson’s going to take lead on it. I sure hope this will get him that promotion. With how hard he works for this company, he deserves it.”
Intense relief and intense guilt washed over me simultaneously. Jackson hadn’t been lying to me. I had nothing to be paranoid about. He did have an important meeting with a new client. But I couldn’t believe how stupid I’d just acted, and the extreme I’d gone through to try to catch Jackson in a lie. Quickly, the guilt overtook the relief inside me.
I thanked Carol for her help and hung up. When I put the phone down, I realized I felt far worse now than I’d felt before making that phone call.
“I’m the worst wife ever,” I berated myself out loud. “Jackson deserves better.”
I jumped back into the shower and vowed to be a better wife to Jackson. This had been a rough year for him, with the passing of his mother and the long hours he’d put into his job so he could support us and our family. The least I could do was to support him and trust him.
***
A few hours later, Jackson arrived home, just before noon, with a small bouquet of lilac-colored tulips.
“What’s the flowers for?” I asked as he gave me a warm hug and kiss on the cheek.
“Just because.” He grinned down at me as he looked into my eyes and held them. My heart skipped a beat as I felt the warmth and love he had for me radiating out from his gaze.
That look, with the flowers, made me feel even more guilty for the way I behaved behind his back this morning.
“Thanks, Jax. You’re too sweet to me sometimes.” I kissed him and tried to push away my shame.
“You’re wrong, babe. I’m not sweet enough. I shouldn’t have broken my promise.”
“It’s really okay. Sometimes, work is more important. I know you’ve been working your ass off for me and our baby, so that we can have a comfortable life.”
“Well, I should have told you sooner.” He bowed his head and frowned. “I shouldn’t have waited until I had to leave to tell you. I had just found out the meeting time last night and you were already asleep. We had such a nice morning today, I just wanted to enjoy it with you a bit longer.”
Without saying a word, I pulled his face down and kissed him passionately, trying to express the depth of my love for this man through that kiss.
“You’re the best husband a girl can have, Jax,” I whispered when we pulled away. “I mean it.”
***
By the time we parked the car in the hospital parking lot, I could feel the excited anticipation buzzing in the air between us. We both shared only a few words to each other during the ride, both comfortable in our silence together and both consumed within our own excitement over our baby’s first ultrasound.
“Let me get the door for you,” Jackson said, stopping me as I was about to open my car door.
“I’m still fully capable, Jax,” I said through my laughter.
“I’m not saying you’re not, babe. Just let me take care of you,” he said, pleading me with his exaggerated puppy dog eyes.
I giggled and rolled my eyes. “Fine, have it your way.” But on the inside, I felt touched by his thoughtfulness and grinned to myself.
He jumped out of the car and went around the back and over to my side.
Just then, I heard his phone give a beep from the dashboard.
“Jax, you forgot your phone. I think I just heard it beep,” I said when he opened my door for me.
“Oh right, can you grab it for me, babe?”
“Sure.” I grabbed the phone.
When I got out of the car, I held the phone out in front of me for him. Before he took it, my eyes noticed a new text message displayed on the screen: “Can you talk tonight? Let’s book our trip!”
I frowned in confusion. I tried to look to see who sent it but noticed that only a number was displayed as the sender, and not a name. So it wasn’t someone that’d been added to the Contacts list.
“Who do you know from San Francisco?” I asked out of curiosity, trying my best to keep my tone from sounding accusatory.
“San Francisco? I don’t know anyone there.”
There was a genuine look of confusion on his face and I felt myself relax slightly.
“Sorry,” I said, once again feeling ashamed doubting him before hearing him out, “I didn’t mean to read your message but it was displayed on the screen when I handed your phone to you. It’s a 415 number, which is San Francisco, and the person wants to know if you can talk tonight and said something about booking a trip together. I just thought it was an odd message, so I was curious.”
“Babe, you don’t need to explain your reasons to me,” he reassured. “I’m not sure who that is. Let’s see.”
“Okay.” I handed him the phone.
He took it and read the message displayed on the screen. He frowned at it with a puzzled expression. Then I saw him pull up his work emails. Within a few moments, a look of understanding flashed across his face.
“Did you figure out who that was?” I asked.
He put his phone in his pocket and smiled up at me. “Yeah. It’s the new client. The project we’re working on is to look into some investments in Milan, Italy and it involves some time-sensitive ventures so we need to take a trip to Milan and meet with some people sometime in the next few months. Looks like the client wants to finalize the plans sooner than I thought.”
“Oh. Why did the client text you? That’s kind of odd.” I knew I was probing and I wasn’t sure why.
He shrugged. “You know my cell phone number is on my business card. Most clients I’ve dealt with in the past just call or email, but I guess texting works for this one. To each their own.”
I felt myself relax at the sight of his nonchalant attitude over the text and reminded myself about how unreasonably paranoid I’d behaved this morning.
“Wow, Milan will be fun,” I said cheerfully, trying to be the supportive wife I had vowed to be just earlier today.
“Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that actually. I have a surprise for you that I think you’ll love. I wanted to wait until after the ultrasound though. Is that okay?”
“A surprise?” My eyes lit up and I beamed at him. “I love your surprises.”
He laughed. “I know.”
“Do I really have to wait?” I asked playfully.
“Yes. It’ll make it more special.” He smiled, giving me no additional information. “Now let’s go see our baby.”
I giggled as he grabbed my hand as we walked in a brisk, excited pace to the elevators that led to the hospital.
***
“Are you ready?” the ultrasound technician asked with a smile.
I looked over at Jackson, who met my gaze with an excited grin. He nodded in silent agreement.
We both turned to the ultrasound as the technician switched it on.
“Okay, first let me apply this gel on your stomach. It should be a little warm. This will help this transducer slide easily along your stomach and improves the transmission of sound waves from the transducer into your body.”
I drew in a deep inhale of breath and reached over to Jackson. His hands were sweaty as they clasped around mine and squeezed my hand. I smiled over at him, knowing he was feeling as nervous as I was.
“So the sound waves will bounce off various surfaces in your body as vibrations,” the ultrasound technician started to explain as she started to move the transducer along my abdomen, “and the echoes are translated into electrical signals that are then projected as pictures onto this monitor. Like we explained before, these sound waves pose no risk to you or your baby.”
Suddenly, a tiny gasp escaped my lips as the distinct shape of a baby appear on the monitor.
“There’s your baby,” the technician confirmed.
I heard Jackson let out a loud exhale. Our eyes met and I saw tears in his eyes as he leaned down to kiss me.
“That’s our baby,” I managed to say in my emotional state.
“Our beautiful baby,” he said.
The technician pointed at the monitor to show us our baby’s head, spine, heart, and limbs.
“Everything looks normal and on track. You’re about 18 weeks in, putting your baby’s due date on February 14, 2018.”
“On Valentine’s Day,” I said with amusement.
“How fitting,” Jackson said as he looked at me. “Made from love and coming on the day of love.”
“Sounds like you have a romantic husband there,” the technician said as she let out a warm laugh.
I smiled. “Yeah, I’m one of the lucky ones.”
The technician then smiled at us. “Did you guys decide whether or not you wanted to know the sex of the baby?”
I nodded and looked over at Jackson once more to confirm. He nodded.
“We want to know.”
She smiled. “You’re going to have a girl. Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Pierce.”
CHAPTER SIX
Jackson
“A girl,” I repeated the technician’s words. For a split second, I was completely dumbfounded, my emotions playing catch-up with my brain as the news flooded through my system. When I finally registered the news, a surge of emotions consumed me.
Chloe and I locked eyes, and the emotions painted across her face mirrored the intensity of feelings that coursed through me. I leaned down and kissed her, unable to express in words the happiness she’d given me.
The technician printed out a copy of the ultrasound and handed it to me.
“Do you mind printing out a duplicate copy for us?” I asked. “I want to put a copy on my desk in the office, right next to other most important woman in my life.”
From the corner of my eyes, I could see Chloe’s cheeks flushed a rosy pink hue.
“Not a problem.” The technician smiled at us warmly, a look of amusement visible across her face.
I took the photos and held them carefully as Chloe and I looked at the image of our baby in awe.
“We’re going to have a beautiful baby girl,” I said, letting the word “girl” sink in.
Chloe beamed at me and nodded. “It’s becoming so real, Jax. This is really happening.”
I smiled, knowing exactly what she meant by that. For the last few months, we’d been talking about the baby¸ reading baby books, getting advice from friends who had babies, and preparing for this child’s arrival. Even with the growing bump on Chloe’s stomach, the idea that we were going to have a baby had felt abstract, foreign, and something that would happen in the distant future. But as soon as our baby appeared on the ultrasound monitor, it finally hit home. This was real and it was going to happen before we knew it. It was an indescribable feeling that I’d never experienced before, and it felt incredible.
***
“Jax, where are you?” Chloe’s voice filtered through the dark hallway.
“Right here, baby.” I greeted her at the other end of the hallway.
“Did the electricity go out?” she asked as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes and looked around the living room. Besides the dozen candles that were lit around the room, it was completely dark.
“No.” I let out a small chuckle at how adorably confused she could be sometimes when she’s half-asleep. “It’s part of my surprise.”
“Surprise?” It took a few seconds before understanding flashed across her face. Then she looked around the room again, this time, seeing it in a completely different light.
“You ready?”
“It’s really romantic. How long did I sleep for? I thought you were going to wake me up after thirty minutes.”
I chuckled. “Not too long. Maybe two or three hours.”
“I napped for two or three hours? How come you didn’t wake me?”
"You just looked so peaceful, I couldn't bear to wake you. Plus,” I flashed her a smile, “I needed more time to prepare my surprise.”
“So what’s this surprise anyway?” She walked toward my direction, heading from the bottom of the staircase to the dining room.
When she saw everything, she gasped. “Jax, oh my God. How did you get this all done in two or three hours?”
“I had some help,” I said vaguely. I walked over to her and grabbed her hand. I smiled as I watched her eyes light up in delight as she took in the transformation of the living room. During the few hours that she was napping, I had put up a pink banner that said “It’s a Girl!” in a big, girly font across the front. The room was filled with several dozen pink and silver balloons floating in the air. This morning, I’d enlisted the help of Carol to find a caterer who could prepare a romantic dinner at the last minute.
“Come on,” I led her to the dining room table and pulled out a chair for her. “Sit down and let’s eat before the food gets cold.” I sat down at the table across from her.
“Everything’s so delicious, Jax,” Chloe said half an hour later as she helped herself to seconds.
“I’m glad you like it.”
“I love it, Jax. This is so sweet of you. But why did you go through all this trouble to do all of this?”
“I know it’s a little over the top. But, Clo, today was an amazing day for us and I want to celebrate it with you—the only person in the world who can make me this happy.”
Tears welled up in her eyes as our eyes met. “I love this surprise, Jax. Thank you.”
“Oh, this isn’t the surprise, babe.” I flashed her a coy smile.
“It’s not?”
“Well, it’s a part of it, but not the real surprise.”
“The real surprise? You’re getting a kick out of this, aren’t you?”
I laughed. “Maybe.”
“So what’s the surprise if this isn’t it?”
“Well, so you know how I have to go to Milan for work sometime soon?
“Sure. I remember that.”
“Well I figure since I was out there, I was thinking we could take a romantic getaway trip out to Positano, Italy.”
“Positano? Really?” She shrieked in delight.
I gave her an affirmative nod and smiled. “It’ll be your birthday during that time. We could celebrate your birthday and make the trip our babymoon before your due date. I know Positano is one of the places on your bucket list.”
“You remembered.” She smiled, her eyes filled with love.
“Yeah. I was able to finalize my business trip plans for Milan. It’s the week after Thanksgiving. You’ll be six months pregnant and I double-checked with our doctor and she confirmed that you can still safely travel at that point. And with Positano being only about an hour to Milan by plane, I was thinking we can fly to Positano the week before my trip to Milan and we can spend Thanksgiving week relaxing in Positano. Then I can take a quick two-day trip to Milan while you get a few extra days to relax in Positano before we head back home. What do you think?”
“Jax, that would be amazing! Thank you for being so thoughtful.”
“Clo, you’ve given me so much in this lifetime. You may not believe me, but I don’t think I could ever do enough to make you as happy as you’ve made me.”
As we enjoyed our romantic evening together, basking in our happiness together, I felt hopeful. I felt like everything was possible again in our future. All week I’d been worried that things at w
ork could go horribly wrong and backfire on me. I’d been worried that somehow it’d cause me to lose Chloe and our baby. But tonight, as I looked into her eyes and soaked in her warm smile and tender love for me, I was determined to make sure everything would turn out fine for us. As long as I get through this new project unscathed and get that promotion I’ve been working my ass off for, I will be able to provide the kind of life for my family they deserve.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Chloe
“Happy birthday, Clo.” Jackson leaned in for a tender kiss. As he pulled away, he brushed aside a loose strand of hair on my face.
“Early birthday,” I said, “Don’t make me a month older than I really am.” I gave him a teasing jab on the arm.
“Okay, you’re right. Happy early birthday, babe,” he corrected, humoring me.
“Thanks, Jax. Thank you for such a special surprise birthday, babe. I can’t believe Aunt Betty, Uncle Tom, Charlie, and Kendra all flew in to celebrate it with me.” I beamed at him.
Since Jackson and I were going to be abroad during my actual birthday, Jackson had planned a surprise birthday celebration a month early, during a weekend everyone was able to fly into town to celebrate.
“I’m glad you liked the surprise.”
“I loved it. It was so nice to see Aunt Betty and Uncle Tom. I really miss seeing them every day now that they live in Florida, but they do look happier and more carefree now, so I’m happy for them.”
“Yeah, they looked great. And I can’t believe Uncle Tom plays golf now. He refused to play when I used to invite him.” He paused and frowned. “I wonder if I should take that personally.”
I laughed, knowing Jackson wasn’t seriously thinking that. “You know Uncle Tom can be stubborn. He doesn’t like people pushing their agenda or interests on him. But if he discovers a new hobby on his own, then it’s a completely different story.”
Jackson laughed. “He’s definitely a character all right.”
“Oh and Charlie and Kendra,” I gushed. “They look so happy together. I can’t wait to see them get married next year.”
