Chapter 149
Claire had
trouble sleeping again that night. She
and Jamie had slept together the last few nights, ever since they had finally
talked and come to the decision to go ahead with the reduction. But that night, he did not come up to bed,
and so Claire tossed and turned alone.
She lay in
bed for what seemed like hours, but sheer mental exhaustion finally caused her
to drift off. Her sleep was restless and
filled with dreams. In one dream, she
could hear a baby crying, just as she had a few nights ago. This time, she got up and out of bed and
padded down the hall to the nursery.
The room was beautiful, decorated in
cheerful shades of butter yellow. There
were three cribs made of white wood, sitting side by side beneath the
windows. Sheer white curtains billowed
gently over them in the soft, summer breeze, and the shapes dangling from the
mobiles swayed.
She hurried to the cribs, wondering
which of the triplets had awoken. But
when she looked inside, all three beds were empty. Her heart began to race, and she looked
around in a panic. Where were
they?! Where were her babies??
“Claire?” said a voice. “It’s okay, I’ve got them.”
She turned and relaxed when she saw
him, rocking gently back and forth in the wooden rocking chair in the corner, a
baby in each arm. They had stopped
crying, she realized, though when she came closer, she saw that tears still
clung to their wispy eyelashes, which fluttered at the bottom of closed lids as
they sucked contentedly on their pacifiers.
She smiled at Nick, who looked right
at home holding the two infants. “You
sure have a way with them.”
He smiled back, sheepishly. “Eh, it’s nothing.”
“You’re right. You’re just a natural.” She bent and kissed his cheek, feeling
peaceful once again. She was so lucky to
have him and the twins in her life.
Wait!
Not twins – triplets!
The peaceful feeling vanished at once,
as panic twisted her insides again.
Three! There were supposed to be
three babies, not two! Three babies, one
for each of the three cribs by the windows!
“Nick, wait – where is the
third?? Where is-“
“It’s alright,” Nick interrupted her,
smiling, still rocking as calmly as ever.
“Casey’s got him, in the other room.”
“What room? Casey’s got him??” she asked in confusion.
“You know… the white room. Casey took him there. Don’t worry; he’s fine. Casey’s good with him. He always said he wanted a little brother,
remember?”
“Oh…”
She started to relax. Nick was
right. Of course her son would be all
right, if he was with Casey. Casey would
take care of him.
“You should go back to bed, honey,”
Nick told her. “You need your rest. I’ll put these two down in a few minutes, and
then I’ll be back in.”
“Okay,” Claire said, though she was
reluctant to leave. She felt so content
in this room, with him and the babies.
“Don’t be too long, okay? I don’t
want to sleep alone.”
“I won’t be,” Nick promised. “C’mere.”
He tilted his chin up and puckered his lips. Smiling, she swooped down upon him and kissed
him, her insides warming with his taste.
“Goodnight,” she whispered to the two
sleeping infants, kissing them each on the forehead in turn. Then she padded back out of the room, knowing
that Nick would put them back to their cribs and follow her to bed in a few
minutes.
And sure
enough, before she knew it, the bedroom door was creaking open, and a dark
silhouette was tip-toeing in. “Nick?”
she murmured, lifting her head and squinting through the dim haze, her eyes
struggling to make out his features.
All of a
sudden, a bright light filled the room, and she sat bolt upright, instantly
wide awake. For a split second, she was
confused; then she looked over and saw Jamie, standing inside the doorway, his
hand on the light switch and an angry expression on his face.
“Nick??” he
said incredulously. “Did you just call
me Nick??”
Claire
blinked. “I…” Suddenly, she realized she’d been
dreaming. “Oh no, did I??”
Jamie’s ice
blue eyes narrowed into slits. “Yes, dear. You sure as hell did.”
She felt
her face growing hot. “Sorry,” she
mumbled lamely. “I just woke up from a
dream. I must have still been
half-asleep.”
“A dream
about Nick?”
She
shrugged. “I guess so.”
“You guess?”
“I don’t
know! I can’t even remember now. It was just one of those stupid, random
dreams; I don’t remember the details,” she lied. She didn’t think it would be a good idea to
tell him it had been the second dream that week in which she had kissed Nick,
and he had gone to comfort their babies, almost like he was her husband,
not Jamie…
Jamie
frowned, but didn’t say anything. He
walked to the closet, opening the doors loudly.
“What are
you doing?” she wondered. “What time is
it?”
“Time for
me to get ready for work. I don’t have
any work clothes in the basement,” Jamie replied, none-too-kindly, as he rooted
through the closet, pulling out a dress shirt and pair of slacks on
hangers. “Let me just find a tie, and
I’ll go get dressed in the other room so you can sleep.”
“It’s
okay,” Claire said, frowning. “It’s your
bedroom too; you can get dressed here.”
“That’s
alright.” Jamie pulled a tie from his
tie rack and added it to the pile of clothes draped over his arm. “Go back to sleep. The doctor said you needed to rest today.”
His words
brought back the memory of the night before, and as he walked out of the room,
shutting the door behind him, tears filled her eyes. Their baby was gone… She put her hand sadly on her growing
stomach. They would not need three cribs,
as there had been in her dream. Only
two.
With a
miserable feeling of guilt, she lay down again, pulled the covers up to her
chin, and cried herself back to sleep.
***
It had been
a long time since Claire had felt this depressed. The only time that compared, perhaps the
lowest point in her entire life, was when she found out her leukemia had
relapsed, just before Christmas almost six years ago. She’d thought she was past all of that, but
in a way, what she was going through now was a direct result of that
relapse. The treatment that had saved
her life by putting her cancer back into remission had also caused the problems
that had resulted in the abortion of one of her babies. And though she knew it wasn’t rational, it
was hard not to blame herself for it.
Even worse,
she was afraid that Jamie blamed her too.
He hadn’t come out and said that, of course, but from the way he had
been acting around her for the last week, she got the feeling that maybe he
resented her for all of this. Like she
was somehow inferior for not being able to get pregnant on her own, and for not
being able to carry all three of the babies they’d been blessed with. Other women did it all the time. Triplets were always riskier than a single
baby, sure, but there were plenty of triplets out there that were perfectly
normal and healthy, proof that it could be done.
In some
ways, she felt like a failure, like she’d let her husband and all three of the
babies down. One of them would never
have the chance to live. The other two
would never know their brother or sister.
And Jamie would never know his third child. Nor would she. And it was all because her body had failed
her, failed them all.
She spent
the day in bed, finding it hard to sleep with these thoughts on her mind. She took a leaf out of Jamie’s book and
flipped channels aimlessly, hardly paying attention to any of the shows she
stopped to watch. She couldn’t seem to
concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes without her thoughts
wandering to the baby, the unborn baby which would never get to live.
She
wondered often about what her children would be like once they were born and
started to grow up. But now, her
thoughts were occupied only by the one, the smallest, which would never be
born. Was it a boy or a girl? In her dream, it had been a boy, she
realized. When Nick talked about the
third baby, he said “he” and “him.” So
in her mind, it had been a boy, though she’d never know for sure.
What would
he have looked like? What would his name
have been? What would he have acted
like? Would he have taken after her or
Jamie? What would he have been
interested in? What would he have
become? What would he have done with his
life, which had been taken away from him before it could really begin, all
because of a cruel twist of fate?
She knew
she was only torturing herself by thinking all of these questions, but she
couldn’t help but wonder. What had she
deprived the world of by making this decision?
“I’m sure
it’s normal to wonder all of those things, honey,” her mother assured her when
Claire finally broke down and called home, desperate for someone to talk
to. “In that way, it’s no different from
any other big decision you make. You’ll
always wonder what would have happened if you’d chosen differently. But you can’t dwell on it. You just have to keep telling yourself, you
made the best decision for you and your family.”
“I’m not
sure Jamie would agree,” Claire said, and her voice trembled. “He’s back to barely speaking me to me. I think he blames me for it.”
“Oh,
sweetheart… don’t think that. I’m sure
it’s not true. Jamie loves you. He’s got to be grieving too. Just give him some space, if that’s what he
wants.”
Claire
nodded. Maybe that was all it was. Maybe Jamie just needed to deal with this on
his own before he could talk about it with her.
“That’s not
all that’s bugging me,” she spoke up after a pause. “I’ve been having dreams lately, about the
babies… and about… Nick.”
Her mother
laughed. “Pregnancy will do that to
you. I remember having crazy dreams when
I was expecting you. So what are yours
like?”
“Well,
they’re pretty normal, actually, for dreams.
They start out with me in bed, waking up… only I’m not really awake;
it’s all in my dream. But I wake up in
my dream, and I hear a baby crying…
It’s happened twice, and the first time, Nick was in bed with me, and he
got up and went to get the baby. The
second time, I got up, and Nick was already in the babies’ room. He was rocking two babies to sleep.”
“That’s
typical, honey; a lot of moms – or moms-to-be – have dreams about hearing their
babies crying. After Kyle was born, I
had nightmares for weeks that he was crying, but I didn’t know where he was. I looked everywhere, and I could still hear
him crying and crying, but I couldn’t find him.
I would wake up all upset and have to go check on him and make sure he
was okay. He always was, of course, but
the dreams were still traumatic.”
Claire felt
impatient. Her mom was missing the
point. “It’s not just the babies… I get
why I’m dreaming of babies; that makes perfect sense. But why is it Nick in the dreams, and
not Jamie?”
It took a
few seconds for her mother to answer.
Finally, she said, “Well… it’s probably just because you’re worried about
you and Jamie, so your mind’s putting your ex-boyfriend in his place. Maybe… maybe, subconsciously, you wish Jamie
were more like Nick in some ways – I mean, Nick was always pretty good about
talking to you, right? Instead of just
avoiding you?”
Claire
smiled sadly. “Yeah… he would try
sometimes, but I could always get stuff out of Nick. Whereas talking to Jamie is like talking to a
brick wall when he gets like this.”
Her mother
chuckled. “Well, everyone handles things
differently. I’m sure things will get
better with Jamie. You haven’t been
married all that long yet; you probably just need to work on your
communication. It’ll get easier with
time.”
“I hope
so,” Claire sighed. “It really can’t get
much worse at this point. I hate it
here, Mom. I have no one to talk
to except him, and he barely talks to me.
I’m gonna go nuts just being in this house alone all day.”
“Oh,
honey… I’m so sorry. Do you want me to fly up? I can stay for a few days, a week, however
long you need me. You shouldn’t have to
be alone through all of this.”
The offer
was tempting… she sure could have used a hug right then… but Claire wasn’t a
little girl anymore; she couldn’t just make her mommy come running every time
she was hurting. “No,” she said reluctantly. “Save those flier miles, okay? I’ll need you more once I’m closer to my due
date.”
“Oh, you
bet I’ll be flying up for the birth of my grandbabies! I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” her mother
gushed excitedly. Then, sobering a bit,
she added, “Hang in there, sweetheart. I
know things will get better with time.
You’ll start to meet people and make friends, and Jamie will come
around. And I know you’re supposed to
rest for today, but if you’re feeling up to it tomorrow, you should get out of
that house. Explore the town; go
shopping. You’re going to need plenty of
maternity clothes before long; you can buy something new. Emotional shopping – that always makes me
feel a little better.”
Claire
smiled. “You sound like Dianna.”
“Have you
talked to Dianna? You should call
her. If you can’t talk to your husband,
there’s always your best friend.”
“I
know. I’ve talked to her a few times,
but not since… yesterday…” Claire
trailed off, finding it hard to put what had happened yesterday into words. It was almost too painful to say aloud.
And Dianna
wouldn’t understand. She was great to
talk to about guy problems and fashion decisions, but when it came to real
drama, Dianna had no firsthand advice to give, so she ended up trying too hard
to cheer everyone up. She was the kind
of person who used band-aids for bullet wounds, dragging Claire to a movie or
the mall every time there was a serious problem, in an attempt to “take her
mind off of it.” But Claire wasn’t
looking for a distraction, a shallow and temporary cover-up for a pain that was
much to deep to be cured by an Adam Sandler movie or a new pair of shoes.
All she
needed was someone to talk to, someone who could just listen and be there for
her without feeling the need to give her lots of advice or try to cheer her
up. She didn’t want to be cheered
up. She had just lost one of her babies;
she was supposed to be grieving.
She wanted to talk to someone who would just give her a hug and some
support and let her grieve.
In one of
those odd mother/daughter “think-alike” moments, the right “someone” came to
Claire’s mind seconds before her mother said it.
“I know it
might seem a little awkward, given the circumstances, but… there’s also
Nick. He’s always been there for you,
and you always used to tell me how easy he was to talk to, how well he
understood you. I’m sure that if you
called him, he would listen to you.”
Unexpectedly,
Claire’s eyes filled with tears. Damn
those hormones again. “He would,” she
sniffled, wiping her eyes. “He always
does.”
“Then call
him, sweetheart. You need all the
support you can get.”
Claire
nodded, and by the time she got off the phone with her mom, she felt a little
better. It always helped her to talk to
someone. Why couldn’t Jamie realize
that? Well, even if he couldn’t, Nick
would. He had vowed to be there for her
through this, no matter what choice she made, and she knew he was good on his
word. She would call him.
She checked
the time, but it was still early, especially on the West coast. He would probably be working; she knew he was
going to be busy until his album came out next month. Sighing, she turned the TV back on. For now, she would use Dianna’s remedy and
distract herself with mindless daytime programming. Later, she would call Nick, and maybe then,
the real healing would begin.
***
It was late
afternoon, and Claire had found “The Wedding Singer” on TV. She had smiled when she’d come across it,
remembering her earlier thought that not all problems could be cured by Adam
Sandler movies.
Maybe not,
but it was the only thing on TV that had held her attention for more than two
minutes, so she watched it anyway. She
had seen this movie many, many times; it was one of her favorites. But as the final commercial break ended, she
remembered distinctly watching it with Nick.
“Aww, I love this part,” sighed
Claire. “I think that’s the sweetest
thing ever, writing a song for the person you love… not to mention singing it
over the intercom on an airplane.”
Nick laughed. “Yeah…” he said. Claire had come over a couple hours earlier,
and for lack of anything better to do, they’d found “The Wedding Singer”
playing on TBS and decided to watch it.
Nick had
always liked this movie too. He’d said
it was one of the only romances he could tolerate because it had Adam Sander
and lots of eighties music in it. She
wasn’t sure why or how she could still remember such a trivial thing, as it had
happened over four years ago, but she did.
She
remembered that night quite vividly, now that she thought of it. It had taken place not long after Nick had
lost his leg; he had only been home from the hospital for a couple of weeks,
and she had come over to keep him company while AJ and Howie went out. Nick had been downright pissy, frustrated
because he had been cooped up in his house, unable to walk except for to hobble
around on crutches. He had gotten even
more annoyed with her when she suggested going swimming, but somehow, they had
both ended up in his pool with all of their clothes on. It had perked him up to realize that he could
still swim, and she had been pleased to see him looking truly happy for the
first time in a month.
The night
had ended with them laying together in his bed, both dressed in his dry clothes
and listening to Journey. She remembered
feeling so content and comfortable, lying there with him, the smell of chlorine
from their bodies mixing with the faint scent of his soap that lingered on his
clothes, his sweet voice singing softly in her ear as she dozed. “Open Arms,” she remembered with a nostalgic
smile. That was the night it had become
“their song.” She had liked that song
long before she met Nick, but from then on, she would forever associate it with
him. Inspired by the intimacy of the
moment, she had just worked up the nerve to do what she had been wanting to do
for a year and kiss him, when AJ had walked in on them, embarrassing Nick and
killing her chance, though it had come again two weeks later, when they’d
finally kissed at The Empress theater.
Momentarily
lost in the memory, she wasn’t even paying attention when Adam Sandler and Drew
Barrymore finally came together on the TV screen, and before she knew it, the
movie was over. There was a faint smile
on her lips as the credits rolled, but it quickly faded. It was bad enough that she was kissing Nick
in her dreams now; she shouldn’t be sitting here smiling as she reminisced on
doing it for real.
But as sad
as it was, the memories of kissing Nick years ago were more vivid than the last
real kiss her husband had given her. She
couldn’t even remember for sure when Jamie had last kissed her, a real kiss,
not just a peck on the forehead or cheek.
It had probably been the day they’d moved into this house. Less than two weeks ago, though it seemed
like it had been much longer. So much
had happened after that day, and he hadn’t acted the same around her
since. That was the last time things had
actually seemed normal between them, though the world had been spinning out
from under her even then.
She
sighed. What was happening between Jamie
and her? Why did it have to be this
way? They had seemed so right together
back in high school, and when they’d gotten back together, after years of
managing a friendship in between, she had taken it as a sign that they were
meant to be all along. But now a part of
her wasn’t sure, and that scared her to death.
Though he hadn’t been acting like it, he was her husband, and she was
three months pregnant with his children.
Now was the absolute worst time to start questioning her marriage.
But she
was, and she couldn’t decide what exactly had prompted it. Was it Jamie’s behavior, or was it that she’d
been dreaming about Nick lately and now couldn’t stop thinking about him? Was it because Jamie had been so distant
through the reduction ordeal, or because Nick had been so supportive?
She wasn’t
sure; probably, it was a combination of everything. But one thing was painfully clear: Nick, though he was halfway across the
country from her, had been there for her, not in person, but in spirit. And Jamie, though he’d been physically near
her, had not.
So it
really came as no surprise that when she turned off the TV and reached for the
phone, she took her mother’s advice and called Nick.
In a time when the sun descends alone
I ran a long, long way from home
To find a heart that’s made of stone
I will try; I just need a little time
To get your face right out of my mind
To see the world through different eyes
Every time I see you, oh I try to hide away
But when we meet, it seems I can’t let go
Every time you leave the room
I feel I’m fading like a flower
Tell me why, when I scream, there’s no reply
When I reach out, there’s nothing to find
When I sleep, I break down and cry
Every time I see you, oh I try to hide away
But when we meet, it seems I can’t let go
Every time you leave the room
I feel I’m fading like a flower
Fading like a rose
Fading like a rose
Beaten by the storm
Talking to myself
Getting washed by the rain
It’s such a cold, cold town
It’s such a cold town…
- “Fading Like a Flower” by Roxette
***