Seasons (30 page)

A year and a half ago, Chris and I had decided it was time to start a family. After months of it not working, one morning, I peed on a stick and got two little lines.

Flying out of our master bath, I start jumping up and down on the bed waving the stick around. “Your boys did it, baby!” Chris stops me from jumping by pulling me down to him with a serious look I have never seen on his face before.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

He looks from me down to my stomach and reaches out a hand placing it just under my belly button. “My baby is in there?”

I just smile and nod yes.

He stares at my stomach and then finally looks up at me as a huge smile spreads across his face. He leans down so his mouth is near my belly. “Hi, little bean. I can’t wait to meet you.” He talks to the baby while I run my hands through his morning hair.

“Little bean?” I laugh.

“Well, we don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl.”

“I like it.”

I make an appointment with the doctor, who wants to see me in a few weeks, around when they believe I would be eight weeks along.

Chris is holding my hand as we watch them pull the baby up on the screen for the first time. We are both smiling like loons. We’re so excited. I’m the first to notice when the technician’s face turns down. “What’s wrong?”

“Just doing some measurements. It’s probably nothing. We likely just miscalculated conception.” She smiles at me reassuringly.

“What do you mean?”

“The baby measures much earlier than eight weeks. I would guess more like four weeks.”

My stomach falls right out of my body. “No, I know exactly when we got pregnant. I was doing ovulations tests.” I start to panic and look at Chris.

“The doctor will be in a moment and discuss it with you.”

“Relax,” he says reassuringly rubbing my hand. “I’m sure it’s fine. Just take a deep breath and wait to hear what the doctor says.”

When the technician leaves the room, I enter into full-on freak out mode. “Something is wrong. I just know it in my gut, Chris.”

The doctor walks in a moment later and has a seat. He looks at me with compassion in his eyes. “Ms. Madden, it’s early in the pregnancy. It could just be that we miscalculated conception. We drew blood earlier, so when we get the results of your hormone levels, we will give you a call. For now, I suggest you go home and try to relax.”

Try to relax? Yeah. Right.

The next day, I start having horrible pains, pains that I recognize. When I go to the bathroom, sure enough, I’m bleeding. It feels like the worst déjà vu imaginable.

Chris finds me an hour or so later hugging my knees on the floor. He pulls me to him in a panic. “What’s wrong? It’s okay. The doctor told you to relax, baby. The stress isn’t good for you or our little bean. I know you’re worried, but...”

I look at him, and I’m sure the mascara that is certain to be running down my face gives away that something is very wrong, because he stops talking immediately. “I’m so sorry.” I let out with a sob. “I’m so, so sorry. This is all my fault.”

“What are you talking about, Brynn?”

“I’m bleeding and having contractions. There is no little bean anymore, and it’s my fault.”

Chris says nothing for a long time. He just holds me. After a bit, he pushes me away from him holding onto my arms. “Brynn, look at me.” I do. “This is not your fault. Nothing you did caused this. After a while, we will try again, and you will see it was just a fluke.”

“No. I can’t do this a third time, Chris.”

Chris hadn’t mentioned it again after that. I think he thought time would heal my wounds. But I went back on birth control after that and really never planned to have a baby. “Chris, what if…what if I decide I don’t want to have a baby?”

“If that is really what you want, I will be okay with it just being us. Brynn, I see how you look at every baby we walk past. You’re just scared to try again, or in some warped way, you blame yourself still. I want a tiny version of you, of
us
,” he says almost begging me.

I want to tell him that he’s wrong, that I just don’t want a baby, but he’s right. I want a baby so badly that it hurts. I ache to hold my own child in my arms, but can I do this again? I don’t think I could take it if it didn’t work out again.

I take in the details of the room before me. Everything is neutral with every pastel color one can imagine incorporated into the room. The crib is white like the dresser. I walk over and run my hand along the side. “The guy at the store said that it turns into a bed too, for when the baby gets older,” Chris says in an uneven voice, and I can tell he’s unsure of how I’m receiving all of this. He just stands there with his hands in the pockets of his pajama pants shifting from foot to foot waiting on a verdict.

“It’s all beautiful, Chris. You did a great job. I need time, okay?” I say looking over at him.

“That’s better than a no. I’ll take it.” He walks over to me. “Do you remember when we met?”

“You mean when you forced me to have dinner with you?” I smile remembering the beginning of us.

He laughs. “Yeah, well, you were too stubborn to go on a normal date with me. You wouldn’t have given me the time of day otherwise.”

“True.”

“You wouldn’t go out with me because you were scared that I’d be just like the times before that didn’t work out. But it worked out, didn’t it?”

“I don’t know…I mean, you never put the toilet paper roll on, and you leave your underwear on the floor. But I guess your cooking makes up for it.”

“Just my cooking?”

“You’re not too harsh on the eyes either.”

“The point is, you wouldn’t date me because you were afraid, but look at us seven years later. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been happier than the last seven years I’ve spent loving you. I believe that it will work, and we’ll have the most perfect little baby that ever was. We could consider adopting a baby who needs a home if you prefer? All I know is you were made to be a mother, Brynn. I know that’s what you want in your heart of hearts, and I don’t want you to just let it go because you’re scared. If it ends up that our family is just going to be a family of two, I will be fine with that. But I want to at least try to give you the family I know you want.”

“You’re pretty incredible, you know that?” I say, running my hands through his locks on either side of his head.

“I’ve been told,” he says wrapping his arms around me.

“I’m a very lucky woman.”

“You are.” He rubs his nose to mine.

“Wanna practice making a baby, baby?”

“Yes, please.” He picks me up and kisses me all the way back to our bed.

*   *   *

I’ve been working on a huge case for the past few months at work. I was the underdog up against a heavy hitter prosecutor, but I pulled it out and landed myself a huge promotion at the firm. It has been a few months since we decided to try again, and it hasn’t worked thus far. Unfortunately, when you are trying to have a baby, it changes sex a bit. It should be fun, but at times, it tends to be more stressful.

Chris planned a ‘congratulations on the promotion’ trip. He thought it’d help if we both took a week away from work to just relax and have fun. Somehow, he even got Mel, Austin, Trevor, and Adam to come along. I haven’t seen any of them as much as I would like the past few years. They’re all busy raising kids and we all have careers. Sometimes, life just happens.

We take off for a week to the white sand beaches where we spent our honeymoon. We get to our beautiful little bungalow on the beach where there is a pier with a row of bungalows identical to ours looking over the white sand beach and clearest of blue water. We are staying in the exact same room we stayed in for our honeymoon–Chris booked it. He can be so romantic. There are flower petals leading from the doorway to the bed and he carries me over the threshold just like the first time we stayed here.

I really don’t know how I got so lucky. I have been thanking my lucky stars for him the past seven years. When I come home from work stressed over a case, he will pour me a glass of wine and rub my feet while I hash my thoughts out with him. When I’m sad or broken, he wipes my tears and picks up the pieces. There is nothing he won’t do to make me smile. He truly is my other half. There were other loves before him that taught me lessons about love and life, but Chris? He
is
love, and he’s my whole life.

The bungalow has a retractable wall in our room that faces the water. The wall is open with beautiful drapes hanging down that shimmer as the small breeze blows through our room. Chris lays me down on the bed and then disappears over to the side of the room. He’s fumbling with something in the corner, and a moment later, the sound of our song fills the air. This is lovemaking Chris. I like fuck you until you’re blue in the face Chris too, but love making Chris takes his time and makes it oh, so sweet. Slowly strutting back over to the bed, I hear his baritone voice caressing the words to ‘Making Memories of Us’ like velvet. I can’t carry a tune, but between his good looks, voice and swagger, he should have been a singer. He would have been a star.

As he walks toward me, he’s subtly removing his shirt and slipping out of his pants, all the while continuing to sing. I notice he was going commando when his pants fall and little Chris springs free from his pants. I lay there admiring his…well, everything. Broad, muscular shoulders block the sunlight from my eyes when he stands there over me. I run my eyes down to his perfectly sculpted arms and torso. Chris is just the right amount of muscular—he’s ripped but not bulky. Also, he has just enough of a sprinkling of soft hair to make him a man without being a yeti. My eyes travel down to his pleasure stick, as he calls it. He has a pretty penis, I think, which makes me giggle. I didn’t think that was possible, but his is just…perfect.

“You’re looking at me naked and giggling?”

“I was just thinking you have a pretty penis.”

“Well, it isn’t half as nice as its home. Speaking of, why is she still all covered up?” he asks reaching for one of my hands. As I sit up, he further lifts me so I’m standing and then spins me so my back is to his front. He kisses my neck before pulling the tie around my neck, releasing my halter type summer dress, which falls pooling at my feet. Running his hands up my inner arms, he brings them so they are wrapped backwards around his neck before he continues kissing my neck. When he runs both hands back down from my hands trailing my inner arm, a delicious shiver runs through me. He smoothly unsnaps my strapless bra letting it skim down my stomach and thighs as it falls.

Lovemaking Chris takes time to admire and worship every inch of my body. The anticipation alone of lovemaking Chris has desire already pooling in my panties and all he’s done is kiss my neck. Chris cups my breasts and then rolls both nipples simultaneously, eliciting a whimper and causing me to arch my back at the pleasure coursing through me. I feel the smile that crosses his face at my neck. Toying with me further, he takes my hands down from his neck, using one of them to spin me so I’m facing him.

“You get more gorgeous every year. How is that possible?”

“They say couples start to look alike after so many years together. Maybe I’m feeding off the Adonis I’m married to.”

Without warning, Chris slips his hand into my panties. “You’re always ready for me.”

“Ha, have you seen you?” The next instant, in a blur, my panties are gone. Chris picks me up wrapping my legs around him. He’s pressed along my folds, and it is torture to be that close to him, but not actually connected. Chris carries me to the bed type couch that is under the sheer drapes hanging down in place of the missing wall. He lays me out on the white, pillow soft chaise and proceeds to make me feel cherished by kissing every inch of my bare skin from my forehead all the way down to the pads on each toe.

Breaking away from a passionate kiss, he trails more kisses down my neck, between my breasts, past my navel until he lands in the sweetest spot of all. I arch in ecstasy, moaning freely as he brings me to explosive heights over and over. Just when I think my body can’t handle anymore, he kisses his way back up my body and sinks into me. He glides right in with the slickness of my arousal making me like an amusement park waterslide. And play he does. Starting slowly, he gradually gets faster, plunging so deep inside of me, I cry out on the fine line of pain and pleasure. Pleasure wins out every time. My orgasm slams into me, and I cling to his body, slick with sweat while I ride out the waves of an earth shattering orgasm. He growls as he finds his own release. The combination of that and the feel of his hot seed spurting against my walls sends me spiraling once more. We are both so spent and sated, we fall asleep still connected, clinging to each other.

*   *   *

After a shower the next morning, I’m just slipping into a fresh dress when I hear a knock at the door. “That must be Mel or Trevor!” I practically squeal, bolting for the door. I open the door and find my Mom and Hank standing on the other side. “Mom? Hank?” I say confused looking between them. “Oh, my God. What are you doing here?” I throw my arms around both of their necks. “I’m so glad to see you. I’ve missed you so much!” I look over to Chris, who has a pleased grin on his face.