by L. D. Davis
I leaned back against the vanity and crossed my arms.
“Do you want to have another baby?” Luke asked, straightforward and to the point.
It took me a few beats to respond. It wasn’t an easy question to answer.
“It’s more complicated than a yes or no response,” I said.
“Then tell me.”
“I do want to have another baby because I love the idea of creating a new life with you. I love the anticipation leading up to the birth, wondering what he or she will look like and what kind of personality he or she will have. I love those first few weeks of life outside the womb and exploring every sound, every movement, and every expression on their tiny faces. I love those first couple years when they begin to explore the world and to learn who they are, what they like and don’t like. I love all that, Luke, but there’s so much more to it than that.”
I knew I could tell Luke anything; he was my best friend as well as my husband, but it was still hard for me to get the words out. He seemed to understand—at least in part—what I was trying to say, though.
“Are you afraid of getting postpartum depression again like you did with Grace?” he asked, his eyes gentle.
I had given my cousins a speech about not keeping secrets, but I had been a hypocrite. Tabitha and Mayson had no idea that I’d spent weeks in my bed after Grace was born, curled into a ball and sleeping and blocking out the world. I even blocked out my baby. It’s not that I didn’t love Grace, and I didn’t want to hurt her or anything like that, but I couldn’t find that new-baby excitement I told Luke about. It wasn’t just Grace I had been uninterested in. I wasn’t interested in any of my children, my husband, my friends, or my job.
After three weeks of being a shadow of my old self, Luke’s sister Lena literally yanked me out of bed by the collar of my robe.
“You have three children and a husband,” she had said assertively. “Your little mental and emotional vacation is over. If you don’t seek help immediately, you will irrevocably damage your children. I understand postpartum depression, Emmy, but if you’re unwilling to do anything about it, it becomes something else entirely.”
She threw around words like abuse and neglect and the dreaded words, “I’ll tell your mom to come.” I catapulted into action. Lena was able to get me a doctor’s appointment for that afternoon, and by that night, I was medicated.
It had taken a good week or so before I began to really feel any difference, but once I did, it was like waking up from a month long dream. I realized that I had slightly damaged my kids while I was gone. Lucas, who had always been an independent child, had become clingy, but angry. Kaitlyn had firmly attached herself to Donya, using her aunt as a surrogate mother. Grace had bonded with Luke, and it was as if she didn’t know me at all, even though I had spent some time with her when I was in my funk. We had spent nine months together before that, but she had nearly forgotten about me completely.
I was afraid of going through that again. Even more, I was afraid of putting my children and Luke through that again.
“I am afraid,” I admitted to him, my voice quiet and soft. “I still feel guilty about that. It took a long time for everything to smooth out.”
It had been over a year, but I still felt a twinge of jealousy whenever Kaitlyn showed any affection for Donya.
“But it did straighten out,” Luke insisted softly. “You got better.”
“It did, and I did,” I agreed. “But it doesn’t make me any less nervous about it happening again. And that’s not the only reason I don’t want to have another baby.”
Luke leaned against the dual vanity beside me. He crossed his arms and waited for my explanation.
“We’re not getting any younger,” I pointed out. “Especially you, old man.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m still a stud.”
I playfully bumped his arm with my shoulder. “You’re a total stud.”
He smiled, but it was brief.
“You’re not too old to have babies,” he said. “You have many years yet before that becomes an issue.”
“Yeah, but I don’t have the energy like I used to, Luke. At the end of the day, I am exhausted. Between working, cooking, cleaning, laundry, running errands, changing diapers, and finding time for you at night, I’m so tired. I would say I don’t know how my mom did it, but I do know how she did it. She let life drive her crazy…well…crazier.”
Luke held his hands up defensively.
“For the record, I am not making you work,” he said. “In fact, I’d prefer it if you didn’t work, but I am not going to stop you from doing it.”
“I like my job. My job isn’t the problem. The problem is, that with the culmination of all that I do in a day, that I am tired. If we have another baby, there will be more to do in a day and less time—not just with you at the end of the night, but with the other kids. There is so much that I want to do with our kids, places I want to take them. I don’t want to have to go through all the things we have to go through to take a baby along, and I’m so over having a kid attached to my nipples. You have no idea.”
Grudgingly, Luke shrugged a shoulder. “I am kind of happy that I have those to myself again.”
I gave him a little smile as I pushed away from the vanity and planted myself in front of him. I pushed my hands into the front pockets of his jeans and moved in closer.
“Do you want to know the biggest reason why I don’t want to have another baby?” I asked him in a whisper.
“Why?”
He tried to scowl at me, but he couldn’t quite pull it off. His eyes were softening second by second as he gazed down at me.
“Because as our kids get older and require a little less, I get to spend more time with you and do more with you.” I leaned in and left a soft kiss on his neck. “And there is a lot that I want to do with you,” I murmured against his skin.
His arms were still crossed defiantly, but I felt his breathing change with each touch of my lips.
“There is a lot we can do when we have more energy and fewer disruptions.”
Luke groaned lightly as his hands dropped down to my hips.
“Do you think that we can do any of those things now without any disruptions?” he asked, and ground his hips into mine.
“We can try.”
With a growl of approval, he cupped my jaw with one hand and kissed me savagely. Without taking his mouth from mine, he turned us around and lifted me onto the vanity. The long T-shirt I had worn to bed last night rode up, revealing my bare thighs and basic pink cotton panties. His hands caressed my legs as he continued to kiss me and steal away every breath.
I pushed his shirt up and ran my fingers over his stomach. Luke had gotten a little soft over the years, but his body was still hot, incredible, and in shape. There was still muscle definition there that I loved to touch, lick, and bite. I’ve gotten softer, too, especially after having another baby, but he seemed to enjoy my body as much as I enjoyed his.
We stopped kissing long enough to remove our shirts, but when our mouths met again, our bare chests pressed together. He was so warm and strong. After all the time we’d been together, I never got tired of being in his arms and kissing him.
He reached down between us and released that monster from his boxers. I never got tired of that, either.
He pulled my panties to the side. I mentally braced myself for the invasion but still felt that same old shock I always felt when he entered me. I groaned into his mouth as he pulled me to the edge of the vanity and buried himself inside me.
I threw my head back to let out a breathy moan of desire. Luke’s tongue stroked the skin of my neck.
“Have I told you how much I love your mom panties?” he asked in a husky voice as he thrust gently inside me.
I giggled and gasped and giggled again. Then I moaned as he swiveled his hips.
A sudden and insistent knock on the bathroom door startled us and made us freeze instantly. Even though the
door was locked, we looked at it like deer caught headlights, as if we could be seen from the other side.
“Mom?” Lucas called, his small voice uncertain.
I cleared my throat. “Yes?”
“Where’s Dad?”
“What’s up, little man?” Luke called.
There was a moment of silence, and then, “Why are you guys in the bathroom together?”
I sighed and dropped my head against Luke’s chest.
“Lucas,” his father said, a little exasperated. “What do you want?”
He paused again before responding. “Gracie is awake. She pooped. A lot. It came out of her diaper and everything. It’s soooo gross.”
At that, I felt Luke softening inside me.
So, it does go down.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” I called and sighed again.
Luke touched my cheek and tucked my hair behind my ear.
“I’ll go take care of Gracie. You do whatever you have to do to get us out of here on time.”
“And Kaitlyn spilled the whole gallon of milk,” Lucas added from the other side of the door. “Instead of cleaning it up, she’s being a butt cheek and just sitting in it and crying. She is crying over spilled milk!”
“Ughhhh,” I groaned.
Luke tried unsuccessfully not to smile.
“I’ll take care of Gracie, and you can take care of our little drama queen,” he said. “When I’m done, I’ll help you get packed.”
I was grateful for his super-dad calmness, and his ability to keep me calm as well. I kissed him softly. “Thank you.”
He pulled out of me and tucked himself back into his boxers. We put our shirts back on and he lifted me off the vanity and put me back on my feet.
When we exited the bathroom, Lucas was gone, but our bedroom door was wide open. We could hear Kaitlyn’s dramatic cries from the first floor and Grace’s tiny voice calling for her brother.
“Cuss!” she shouted.
“No, Grace! You stink!” Lucas called from his room.
“Hey,” I said to Luke, grabbing his arm before leaving the bedroom.
He looked down at me curiously. “What’s up, babe?”
“Are you…are you okay with everything I said?”
He put his hands on my waist and gazed down at me with an intensity that made my heart skip beat after beat as I waited for his response.
“Emmy, you have given me three beautiful, perfect children and a beautiful, perfect life. I am more delirious with happiness with each day that passes by. I could not ask you for anything more.”
Despite all that awaited us outside our bedroom, Luke kissed me with such passion, that my knees threatened to buckle. I felt every ounce of his love in that kiss.
“Besides,” he whispered in my ear, after releasing me from the kiss. “I am really excited to learn about all those things we can do with more time and fewer disruptions.”
I laughed and hugged him. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, baby,” he murmured and kissed the side of my head.
We walked out of the room, hand in hand, with our hearts full and overflowing with love.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Emmet
Brown skin the color of dark caramel. Light, golden brown eyes. Jet black hair. A frown on her pretty face that instantly broke my heart.
I didn’t even know my little feet were carrying me across the yard until my sister Emmy was yelling, “Emmet! Push Donya on the swing! She doesn’t know how to swing by herself!”
I stopped a couple feet away from her. She ducked her head and peered up at me through her long lashes as her fingers moved restlessly along the chains holding the swing she sat on.
Donya. Her name was Donya and she couldn’t swing by herself. I wondered if she would smile if she were able to fly. I wanted to see her smile. I wanted to do anything to see her smile. I felt as chained to her as the seat was to the steel above. I had never felt anything like it before, a yearning, pulling, and heart-throbbing feeling inside my chest.
“You don’t know how to swing?” I asked her, what felt like hours later, but it was merely a few seconds.
She shook her head and blinked rapidly as if the admission would make her cry. I didn’t know what she and Emmy had been playing, but her fingernails were caked with dry mud and there was a muddy handprint across her shirt where she had probably wiped her hand. She had a little bit of mud on her face and I imagined that if she cried, her tears would leave streaks through the mud as they made their way to the earth.
“You have dirt on your face,” I told her. I reached out to wipe it away and that feeling in my chest grew until it became painful. My fingers that had just touched her soft cheek burned and tingled. I wanted to touch her again to make sure that what I felt was real, but I didn’t.
I walked around her and began to instruct her on how to pump her legs.
“Make sure you hold the chains no matter what,” I told her. “I’m going to push you for a little while until you get it.”
I did what I would have done for Emmy or any other little girl. I put my hands on her tiny waist to balance her and my hands burned and tingled again. I didn’t understand it. I couldn’t comprehend it at all. My hands were so hot, I was tempted to lift her shirt to see if I had burned her, but I knew better than that. My mom would have knocked my head right off my shoulders if I lifted up a girl’s shirt.
I moved my hands down to her back and gave her a gentle push. I pushed her again and again, over and over, even when it was clear that she was getting it on her own. I couldn’t stop touching her because I was afraid my hands would freeze and fall off, dead and blackened.
“You’re doing it, you’re doing it!” Emmy squealed with delight, and she was right. Donya was doing it! She was flying! Soaring! Like an angel against the blue sky. She was so, so beautiful, and I realized then that I had never thought that about a girl, not even my mom, but Donya was beautiful!
I stepped away from her and watched her swing for a moment before taking the swing beside her. I kicked my legs until I was flying just as high as Donya and Emmy, but it was Donya I watched the entire time. Her face was lit up with joy. Her hair broke free of her ponytail as the wind pulled at it, and she kicked her little legs with determination.
Eventually, I stopped swinging just so I could watch her. It became evident pretty quickly that she didn’t know exactly how to stop. I was about to tell her how to stop safely when she did the most unexpected thing. She let go and fell to the grass. My heart was ready to burst into a million pieces as I rushed over to her, but when I got there and saw that she wasn’t hurt, I reached out my hand to her.
“I told you not to let go of the chains,” I told her.
She looked down at the ground, embarrassed and sad again. I hated that she was frowning again.
“I didn’t know how to stop,” she said so softly, I almost didn’t hear her.
“Well, that’s one way of stopping.”
Then I did what any boy would do when he likes a girl. I plucked her in the forehead and walked away.
Maybe that wasn’t the best thing to do. I mean, I was trying to let her know that we were friends, but maybe I should have just said it instead of plucking her.
As I got closer to the house and farther away from Donya, I felt as if I was leaving part of myself back there with her. It felt like something stretched inside and it was excruciating. I stopped, turned around, and looked at her. She stood there, rubbing her forehead where I had flicked her, but her lovely eyes were on me. That burning sensation that had been in my hands now started in my eyes and moved through my whole body. I felt dazed looking at her. I felt like there was no one else in the universe but me and her.
Then I saw my sister move out of the corner of my eye and snapped out of it. I shook my head to clear it and went inside.
That was the day I began to fall in love with Donya Stewart.
I watched her from across the room as she laughed
at something Felix said. I used to hate to watch someone else make her laugh or make her happy, especially Felix Hunter. A long time ago, I considered the man to be a thief. He pilfered from her smiles and laughter—and a few times, kisses—that should have belonged to me alone. I hated him for often jumping into action first and becoming her hero on numerous occasions while I stood on the sidelines. I had despised their friendship and their ease with one another. It hadn’t mattered that she didn’t love him in the same way that she’d loved me. I knew I had her heart and together we shared a soul. No one could ever touch that, but it didn’t stop me from hating Felix for caring about and loving my girl. My Donya.
Those envious and insecure feelings had been gone for ages. I no longer looked at the man with hatred when he made her laugh, or when he swept her into his arms to embrace her. She may have gifted people with her beauty, her talent, and her laughter and smiles, but as a whole, she was mine and I was hers. What the rest of the world got from her was barely a fraction of what I had with her twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, no matter the distance that sometimes came between us.
Sensing my gaze on her, Donya turned her head and met my eyes. Without words, she asked the question, “Is it time to go?”
I nodded once and gave her an apologetic smile. I knew that even though we had spent several days in New York with Felix and his family, she wasn’t ready to leave. It wasn’t just him that she regretted leaving behind, but the city itself, the east coast, and all of the various places we had shared memories of.
While Donya said her goodbyes to Felix and his wife Ginny, I gathered Rosa, Emmet Jr., and Emily, who were playing with Felix’s children. Owen, unfortunately, could not accompany us on the trip. Casey didn’t want him to miss any school. Donya and I wanted him with us as usual, but in all the years that I’d been divorced from Casey, we never disagreed about Owen. I didn’t want to start.
“We better get on the road,” I said to Donya when she was still wrapped in conversation with Felix a few minutes later. “Traffic is going to be a beast, and we don’t want to be late.”
