I Found You (44 page)
Right now, I stood next to him, holding his hand, our fingers woven together, and I hadn’t let go even when people had hugged me.
He’d already started setting up his magazine. He was going to focus on reviewing electronic games. But he was trying to bring together fan reviews and make the whole thing really interactive. I’d sat beside him, watching him build it all.
He was a genius, if only he’d believe it.
“I wish they hadn’t,” he whispered back, gripping my hand like it was a lifeline. The barely any distance of separation, thing, was mutual.
“It’s them saying sorry for Christmas, they want to make a fuss.”
“They’ve said sorry and we’ve accepted. That was enough.”
“Oh come on,” I laughed. “Stop moaning. Let’s dance.” I pulled him toward the floor. No one new had arrived for a bit anyway.
He laughed.
I pressed close and moved against him, teasing him into joining in. I wasn’t overly happy or sad today. I was in an odd place. I’d started taking a low dose of medication, so as not to harm the baby, but just to help my bipolar settle a little. It was taking me onto a weird plateau. I could view the world from it, but I didn’t feel quite in it. I wasn’t used to the feeling yet, but I was going to get used to it.
I smiled at Jason, looking into his beautiful brown eyes.
I couldn’t get quite so close now though because the baby had shifted in the last week and now my pregnancy showed as an obvious, neat, little bump. It had virtually shifted overnight. The nurse I’d seen at the hospital, before we’d flown out, had said it was the baby’s bottom and back, poking out.
I loved my bump.
Jason did too. He kept stroking his hand over my belly.
He kissed my lips.
“You make me sick!”
Oh Lord. We broke apart and turned to face Lindy, still holding hands. Others about us stopped dancing too.
It became Christmas all over again for me.
Billy stood behind her, and I looked at him, wondering why he’d slept with Lindy behind Jason’s back.
“You’ve forced me into resigning, did you know that? I’ve given your dad notice at the store. So thanks very much, you’ve lost me my job now, too.” She’d been drinking and her words were slurring.
I hadn’t thought about her working in the store. I’d shut that uncomfortable thought out. But Jason’s parents had been so encouraging, I’d just believed them when they’d said everything was okay. They hadn’t said Lindy had handed her notice in.
But when I looked at Jason, I saw they’d told him.
She moved to slap Jason, but Billy caught her hand. “Lindy, give it a rest. You’ve had too much to drink––”
“I bet she’s laughing at me behind that smile!”
“Lindy.”
Her hand pulled free of Billy’s grip and flailed around. “Well, she’s trash!”
“
Lindy
…” Jason stepped forward catching her attention. My defender. But then he stepped past me and gripped her arm. “For God’s sake, shut up. I know. So you can stop saying Rach is the bitch. You and Billy cheated on me, way before I met her.”
She went white and looked at me, opening her mouth to speak. But she said nothing, before pulling from Jason’s grip, and turning to slap Billy. “You told him! You promised you wouldn’t…”
Billy’s hands came up to defend himself, and he looked past Lindy at Jason, his eyes looking for Jason’s reaction before he looked back at Lindy and caught hold of her wrist. “I didn’t tell him…”
I looked from them to Jason, and gripping his hand, I pulled him away. “Let them deal with it, Jason.”
But as we moved away I heard Billy growl at her. “Oh for fuck’s sake, you slept with me. You came onto me. You forgot how much you loved him then…”
Jason’s hand tightened about mine as we turned away. “She seriously needs to get over herself.”
Behind us they kept arguing in harsh whispers.
When we got to the bar Jason grinned at me, and then laughed. “And I cried and felt like shit about letting her down.”
“Because you’re nice, Jason. She doesn’t know what she’s lost. I know what I’ve gained.”
“So do I.” He smiled broadly. “
You
, and…” His hand splayed across my stomach, embracing my bump. “…
him
.”
He ordered a beer and a soda for me.
~
Oh God, I couldn’t believe the level of pain, it was sharp and excruciating, and centering about my pelvic bone, as the baby tried to squeeze through.
“It’s crowning, hold steady and start panting now.” The midwife ordered as my fingernails dug into Jason’s hand.
I looked at him, pleading for help. Like he could climb into my body and just take over the task.
“Do you want more gas and air?” he whispered.
“No, it makes me vomit.”
I’d been sick through most of the labor, and I couldn’t believe how long it had gone on for; hours. I’d been in hospital all night, ever since my water had broken at his parents’ house at about six p.m. the night before.
I was exhausted. I just wanted it over now.
“Come to the edge of the bed.” The midwife urged. “You can sit up more easily then.”
Jason helped me move. It was so uncomfortable, so painful, and my body was swollen and awkward.
Another contraction came, and I watched the muscles in my stomach instinctively clenching tight and pushing down, like my body belonged to some birthing robot.
“Jason?” I needed to see his face, and gripped his hand hard, clenching my teeth too as agony braced my body.
“Breathe don’t push, just wait a moment.” The midwife said, gripping my arm to capture my attention over the pain.
She moved me into a position to support the baby. “Right okay, now push.”
I did, crying out and putting what little strength I had left into it.
“That’s nearly the head out, catch your breath.” The midwife pressed as the contraction subsided.
I looked at Jason. “What if it’s a girl? We haven’t even thought of a name for a girl.”
We’d never asked to know the sex, we’d just kept assuming it was going to be a boy; we’d had a name for a boy for weeks, and I’d been calling the baby by that name. He’d know that name.
What if it wasn’t a him?
Jason’s eyes passed over the pictures on the wall of the labor room. There was a picture of some roses.
“We’ll call her Rose.”
I laughed. But then my next contraction came. I screamed and gripped his hand, and felt my fingernails cutting into his skin.
“Nearly there,” the midwife said.
“I can see his head,” Jason said looking down.
“Just breathe again now,” the midwife urged as the contraction ebbed.
I did, though it was through sobs and tears and cries of pain.
The midwife looked up. “You’re doing well, we just have to get the shoulders through and then baby will be out in moments.”
The next contraction came. “Push, Push.”
Jason was watching. I screamed and in the next moment the baby was screaming too, and the nurse was wiping him off. If it
was
a him.
The baby was placed on my stomach for me to hold, only for a moment. Then he was lifted again.
“Would you like to cut the cord?” I heard her say to Jason.
He nodded and let go of my hand, and I could see he was awed.
He looked back at me.
“We’re okay honey, it’s a boy.”
“Our boy. Our boy for you to play football and baseball with…”
He smiled.
I watched him while he cut the cord, feeling disorientated, I was so exhausted, and then the midwife helped him wrap the baby up and carry him back to me.
“He’s so beautiful.”
“Isn’t he?” Jason smiled.
“Jason, you are beautiful, too.”
“And you’re still high on that gas.”
I laughed. Oh I loved him. I loved him so much, and now we had the baby to love too. Our son was going to have a wonderful life, nothing like the one I’d left and everything like the one I’d found.
I looked at Rachel and our baby, the perfect sight, and possession and protection swelled in my blood. Those emotions had constantly burned inside me since the last night we’d spent in my apartment in New York, when those guys had come to get her. God, even now the thought of that night sent chills through me.
I knew she thought I’d saved her. She’d said it often enough in the months since we’d come here, speaking of the night I’d taken her in, and the day I’d taken her away from New York after that incident; to escape a life fate had dragged her into––a life she’d despised. But she’d helped me escape too, I hadn’t been happy there. I would never have had the guts to leave the magazine and admit my error unless I’d met her.
My attention focused on her again as the baby cried. My family; my son, and my wife.
People in my old school year had told me I should’ve lived a little more, done this, done that, before I’d taken on a wife and kid.
This was doing.
This was the biggest and the best adventure, I could ever have.
Thank God I’d found Rach.
I kissed her forehead, and then our son’s.
“I love you,” she said looking up at me.
“I love you too.”
Jason’s and Rachel’s story continues on Twitter …
@JasonMacinley
&
@RachelMacinley
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Buy Confessions of a Chalet Girl
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First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2013
Copyright © Jane Lark
Cover Images © Shutterstock.com
Jane Lark asserts the moral right
to be identified as the author of this work.
