The Mommy Miracle (13 page)

He said gently, “What, you think I didn't guess from the beginning that you were having problems?”

“I—I— Mom and Elin and Lisa keep telling me it's because of the rehab, because I get too tired.”

He made an impatient sound.

“But you don't buy that idea….”

“Maybe they really think that,” he said. “Or maybe they're in denial. Or maybe they want to go easy on you for the best reasons in the world.”

“That's pretty pointless, when I can't go easy on myself.”

“You have felt it, the love. You felt it on Thursday at Oakbank, when you had her sitting up in front of you.”

“I—I did. It was so wonderful. Such a relief. But it didn't survive Mom and Lisa showing up, and yesterday I struggled so hard, and that's crazy, for it to be so fragile.”

“So it's fragile, for now. Dressing yourself was fragile a few weeks ago. Before that, talking was fragile. Your brain and body got stronger.”

“It's not my brain. It's my heart.”

“Don't worry about your heart.”

“How can you say that, when for you it's so easy.”

He gave a snort of laughter. “Easy?”

“It is easy. You change her and feed her and bathe her and carry her around and all the time you just love her without even trying.”

It was true.

So help them both, it was true.

Dev fought to find an answer, a reassurance that wouldn't be glib and wrong, but he couldn't find one.
Jodie was right. Against everything he would have predicted about himself a year ago, he found it so easy to love DJ, and he couldn't just tell her mom how to do it, step-by-step, not when she was crying and crying like this, when the difficult words she spoke were just temporary lulls in the storm of sobbing and tears. He thought that the crying was vital and necessary, and it had been a long time coming, he guessed.

Tell her how to do it?

First, kiss her darling forehead and blow a raspberry on her tummy….

No. They were both out of their depth. Everything seemed like a platitude.

Relax. It will happen.

The only thing he could think of, the only thing that seemed to make sense at the moment, was to give love and reassurance to Jodie, and hope she'd be able to pass it on. Love worked that way, didn't it? The more you gave, the more there was. DJ had taught him that, just as Jodie had taught him that adventures could happen in the tiniest sparkling moments. He was still thinking about that.

“So maybe you shouldn't try, either,” he finally said. “Maybe you should let go, and forgive yourself, and have some trust.”

“Mmm.” She sniffed and he clapped a hand to the back pocket of his pants in search of the wad of clean tissues he kept in there for DJ's needs. Jodie mopped at her face and he led her back to the last bench they'd passed, about fifty yards along the track, and they sat.

Just sat.

Shoulders pressed together, bodies like magnets, hearts in tune.

She needed this.

“I think you've always worked for what you wanted, haven't you?” he said, after a while. “I remember when you were sixteen when we put on that play and you wanted to do the lighting. You didn't know anything about theater lighting, but you promised you'd learn, and you did. You worked so hard at it. You've worked so hard at your riding, worked to gain the management skills so you could run the whole stable.”

“You remember the lighting?”

“I wanted a red spotlight for my big speech and you wouldn't give me one because you thought it was melodramatic. You argued with the director—I've forgotten her name—until she saw your point.”

“And you've hated me for it ever since. I'm amazed you remember this.”

“Haven't hated you. Got over my ego, discovered you were right and admired you for fighting. But I don't think you can fight and work in that same way to learn love. Love just…happens.”

“How did it happen for you?”

“With DJ?”

“Yes. Tell me about it, Dev. You've told me about the birth and how much she weighed and how much oxygen she had to have and all of that. Tell me about you. Because you were there. And I wasn't.”

So he told her. Because she was right, she wasn't there, and
of course
he needed to tell her, and he should have realized it weeks ago. Just like her family, he'd protected her too much. While he spoke, DJ sat in her little pouch against his chest and listened to the sound of his voice coming through his shirt until she fell asleep.

“Well, after the first shock of the blood test showing you were pregnant, it was a while before anything happened,” he said. “They focused on getting you stable,
and I was pretty busy with getting the plates in my leg. Then they did an ultrasound and I saw her. Saw the beating of her heart.”

“Oh, wow.”

“I'm so stupid, they gave me pictures and I put them away and there was too much else to think about and I haven't shown them to you.”

“It's okay. I'm picturing it now. I can see the real pictures later. I want to.”

“They did another ultrasound at twenty weeks and I was so scared they'd find something was wrong with her because of the accident, but everything was normal and we could see she was a girl.”

“So you knew she was a girl three months before she was born.”

“And you weren't there to talk about names with me. And I didn't want to give her a name you turned out to hate. So she has the two initials on her birth certificate. We're allowed to change it officially later. The more I think about Dani Jane, the more I like it.”

“Thank you.”

“No, thank you. You gave her her name. That's important. Maybe if—”

“You're skipping ahead. Don't. Please.”

“I am. Sorry. The next thing that happened was seeing her move, watching your tummy rippling and kicking up. It was…hard…amazing. But hard.”

“Hard, why?”

“For your mom and dad and sisters. They laid their hands on your stomach and felt her kick, while you weren't moving at all and we didn't know if you ever would.”

“Oh.”

“It was… Yeah, the doctors weren't saying much
about your recovery at that point. Some encouraging signs with your scans and tests, but a long way to go.”

“And did you, too?”

“Did I, what?”

“Put your hand on my stomach.”

“Once. It seemed— I wasn't sure that I had the right to. But your mom wanted me to.”

They both sat and thought about this for a moment. Dev remembered it so vividly, but couldn't put it into words. Jodie with her eyes closed, never moving, with those high-tech mechanical guardians around her, the monitors and alarms and tubing. The cool weave of the white hospital sheet. It had grown warm to his touch. He'd thought the baby had stopped moving for the moment and that he was going to miss out. He couldn't feel anything. She was as still as her mom. But then…

A twitch. A flutter. And then an actual kick, two or three of them, hard little bumps against his hand.

And he believed that day, as they all did, that if the baby could move so vigorously then Jodie had to be functioning in there somewhere. She had to be making progress.

“Were Mom and Dad angry that I was pregnant?” she asked.

“Angry? Jodie, it was just about the only thing that got them through it. Something to hope for. A sign that your body was still working enough to grow a healthy new life. None of us ever once thought about the fact that it hadn't been planned. It felt as if it
was
planned, by something greater than ourselves.”

“And what happened next?”

“Well, you opened your eyes.” Could she hear the scratch in his voice? Could she see him blinking too much? “That was pretty exciting. We'd been talking to
you all along. We did tell you about the accident and the baby, but you don't remember.”

“Not at all. Not even an inkling.”

“We stopped talking about the baby at some point, because the doctors thought it might be too confusing for you, too stressful, if you kind of half understood in the coma but couldn't speak or react.”

“I don't remember opening my eyes.”

“No, well, it didn't last long, the first few times. That was hard for your mom. She expected too much, too quickly. She kind of nagged you about it and got very frustrated and upset and had to back off.”

“I can imagine.”

“Then DJ put on a growth spurt and they didn't like the fact that you couldn't move. They were afraid the blood supply would be compromised. They started talking about inducing labor early, but it happened on its own. Your mom was sitting with you and she could see the contractions, the tightening. You grimaced when they happened, and we all got pretty excited about that, too.”

“Were you there at the birth?”

“Yes, right there the whole time. It was a quick labor, only a few hours, I think I told you that. Dr. Forbes had me cut the cord. They had to get her stable, but within a few hours I was able to hold her. They had us skin-to-skin.”

“Skin—? Both of you? You and DJ? You mean you had your shirt off?”

“Yes, and she was just in a diaper. They do it a lot, now. It helps the baby's breathing and heart rate. They've done studies. Preemie babies gain weight faster if they can have skin-to-skin contact with their mom or dad.”

She was quiet for a little while, thinking about this, and then she asked, “Did I have her skin-to-skin with me?”

He had to clear his throat. “Yes, a couple of times, the first few days.”

“Oh. Oh, wow. I think— I think— No, for a moment I thought I could remember it. But no. I don't think it's a memory, I think it's just— Why didn't they keep doing it?”

“You got an infection and you were very sick for a while, and it wasn't safe for DJ to be with you. She went home, and that was when you started to wake up, and you were so confused.”

“Confused… Maybe I remember that, a little. I didn't like it.”

“You moaned a lot and seemed very distressed for several days. They didn't know at that point if you had permanent brain damage, and they decided it would be best to keep the baby away.”

“Oh, I wish that hadn't happened.”

“We just didn't know at that point, you see, if you'd ever be able to take care of her, or even take in that she was yours. It's been a miracle, really. It's so amazing to see you now, walking in the woods, talking and laughing, when a few months ago… Don't beat yourself up, Jodie. About anything. You're amazing.”

You're amazing….

Pull back, Dev. This is too strong. This isn't what she needs, or what you need, either.

They both knew it. Jodie eased away from the shoulder-to-shoulder contact, pressing her lips together, visibly fighting to steady her breath. “Thank you,” she said. “I've said that about five thousand times since I came home. But this is the biggest. Thank you. I needed
to hear all of that. It's hard. This dramatic life story that I don't remember. But it helps. It will help, I think.”

She stood up and walked to the nearest tree. Her movement was unsteady and lopsided and Dev wanted to jump up and give her his arm but he held himself in place, tried to watch her without it being too obvious that he was concerned. They both needed some space.

She leaned on the tree, her good hand running up and down the smooth trunk, then pressed her forehead against it as if it could infuse her with strength. She was thinking about something, wrestling with it, trying to decide what to say. He could see it, didn't know whether to prompt her.

“Need to head back?” he asked.

“We'd better.”

He checked his watch and found it was already five o'clock. DJ would be wanting another bottle soon, or a nap first if she wasn't hungry yet. Later they could give her a bath and put a blanket on the floor so she could have a kick and a play. He outlined the plan to Jodie. Would she leave it all to him? Maybe he shouldn't have responded so much to her fatigue last night.

She stood straight, and there were two bright spots of color in her cheeks. “I want to take care of her tonight,” she said. “By myself.”

Yes-ss!

But there was more, and it was important, he could see. The color flamed even higher and there was a glitter of courage and determination and stubbornness in her blue eyes, the same glitter he'd seen yesterday when she'd told Barb and Lisa that if she could never ride Irish again, then DJ would.

“Dev, I want to have her skin-to-skin, the way I did in the hospital but don't even remember. Could we do that?
There's a spa bath in the master bedroom. We could go in it together. I'd want you nearby in case I slipped. But when you said I'd had her against my bare stomach in the coma when I don't remember… I want to have that happen. Then maybe she'll— Maybe at last I'll get her to—” She stopped and took another shuddery breath. “I want to know how it feels.”

“O
f course we can do that.” His voice came out on a husky rasp. “Absolutely, we can do that. We'll put you both in the spa bath.”

“That would be perfect. I—I'd love it.”

Forget giving Jodie space, he couldn't help himself, he had to touch her. Because of the color in her cheeks and the brightness in her eyes. Because of the emotional roller coaster that was still taking her on the ride of both their lives. How could he not touch her?

Hand on her hair, brush of his mouth across her lips to say,
I'm proud of you, I know how hard all of this is, you're amazing.

She responded briefly to his kiss and the magnetism between them would have kicked in as strongly as ever, if there hadn't been this one thing that was even more important.

“Help me get back to the cabin?” Her left hand had
gone into its crab shape on his arm. He was coming to love Ole Lefty, as she often called it, because it tried so hard and was so brave when it failed, clawing and unable to let go, as if a victim of its own determination. Like Jodie herself. “I've done too much walking, Dev. Too much of everything.” She laughed. “Crying. Living.”

He put his arm around her waist and she leaned against him and they didn't need to speak anymore. It was a slow journey. He could have kept reassuring her, she could have kept apologizing, but they didn't. They didn't need to. The apologies and reassurances were understood between them without words. If he hadn't had the baby against his front, he would have offered to carry her, even though he knew she would have refused.

“So, did I win? Where's my gold medal?” she said as they came up the steps. “What, last place? Oh, well…”

“Last place? Of course you won,” he told her.

DJ had gone to sleep. He laid her in her bassinet in the living area, over near the kitchen area, with the curtains and slatted blinds pulled across to darken the room, and she didn't waken, just sighed and snuffled and went quiet. They both stood and watched her in the new dimness, her parents, tangled together by her very existence, helpless about it.

Suddenly, Jodie was crying again, apologizing for it. “I'm sorry. I don't know why.”

“It's okay. It's okay.” Dev felt a rush of very male inadequacy, coupled with an equally male need to make things okay.

Right now.

In one move.

But he'd already said everything he knew to say. Did she want words? What else was there?

Well, holding her. They were standing so close it would be very easy.

It
was
very easy. Just his arms and her shoulders, the bump of their hips, stillness as she sighed against him. It happened before he planned it, a familiar phenomenon where she was concerned.

And then it changed.

He couldn't have her in his arms like this without wanting her, no matter what his head told him about Elin's warning a few days ago and his own understanding of the emotional risk.

Risk? Wasn't everything already at risk? Would fighting this heat really help?

He couldn't see it, couldn't remember Elin's arguments, or his own. All he could think of was Jodie's sweet, fierce little body pressed against him, proving her womanhood. All he wanted to do was quiet those shaking shoulders with the touch of his mouth on hers.

He did it and her mouth was right there, seeking his, wanting it just as much. It began as a kiss, but they both knew it wouldn't stop there. He could feel her bare legs against his, sliding their warmth across the muscles of his thighs. Her collarbone was bare, too, and he kissed the little hollows above it, making her gasp.

They sank to the cool brown leather of the couch and she stretched her body out, her spine and shoulders against the couch back, her legs half beneath his. He tried to lift her top and she sat up again and peeled it off, her breasts pert and round in a coral-pink satin bra. “Can't manage the catch,” she said. “I always twist it around….”

But he'd already reached behind her and flicked the
hooks. You just needed the right angle, and the right movement with your thumb. The straps dropped from her shoulders, he tossed the bra out of the way, and there were those breasts he loved. He buried his face between them, lifted their tender weight with his hands and heard her breathing change. She'd forgotten about her tears.

I'll make you forget everything, sweetheart.

It seemed so simple. He forgot why he'd ever thought it wasn't.

It seemed like an adventure, a sparkling jewel of a moment, and those moments were the best adventures of all.

“Stand up,” he whispered.

“Can't. Remember that marathon I just ran?”

So he helped her, popped the fastening on her shorts, shimmied them down and then the scrap of cotton and lace beneath. He loved her hips, loved the way they rocked so neatly. He bracketed his hands at her waist, amazed by the shape of her, the curves and lines, that butt so soft and silky against his palms.

She tried to lift his shirt. “This is where it all comes apart, sadly. Ole Lefty doesn't want to do this.”

“Ole Lefty can have plenty of help. Don't even have to ask.” He pulled off his shirt and she sank her fingers into his chest, rougher than she'd intended, probably, but he didn't mind. Hell, he totally didn't mind. The roughness heightened the beautiful chaos of everything, the sense that he didn't know quite what would happen next, where she would touch him next, whether it would be light or hard, what her breathing might do.

He ripped at his jeans, took his briefs down with them and stepped out, his hardness blatantly apparent. She reached down and touched him there, cradled his
weight and he ached, just ached, and the ache radiated outward, up to his hairline and down to his toes.

“I never understand this,” she said. “Why it's so magical.”

“Just is.”

“For you, too?”

“Yes.”

How? Why?

Wanting her at eighteen but letting it go because he thought there must be a million women out there he'd want in the same way. Which had never really happened. There'd always been something missing. He'd put it down to his own naïveté. He didn't believe that anymore.

Discovering her last year, and then the accident cutting it all short, never letting him reach the usual moment with a woman where he began to think about how it should end. A final dinner out? Jewelry? A phone call? It could never have ended like that with Jodie.

Discovering her again three nights ago and finding that nothing had changed. If anything, had only grown stronger because of the complexity of what bound them together and pushed them apart.

He'd never known anything like this.

She pushed him onto the couch and sank on top of him, looking down into his face, those neat breasts grazing his chest and pushing higher, the softness at the apex of her thighs making a warm, perfect nest for his throbbing arousal. “You have to understand that this might not be pretty,” she said, echoing what he'd said to her the other night as they stood against the front of the car. She was more serious than he'd been with the words, shy and fierce at the same time. “You might have to—”

“I don't care what I have to do,” he interrupted. “Hold you, or guide myself. Start over. Shift. Anything. We managed fine the other night.”

“You had protection right there in your wallet, the other night.”

“Have it right there in my wallet now.”

“On the floor?”

“Let me get it.”

“I have it.” She stretched down, giving him the perfect opportunity to take in the shape of her butt, the delicious curvy paleness of it in the dim room. A minute—quite a long minute—later she slid higher on his body, wearing a triumphant grin, clutching a square packet.

“You do have it.”

“You have no idea. A wallet? Wasn't easy.”

“Proud of you.”

“Are you?”

“You're amazing.”

“You always say that….”

“Yeah, I do. Because it's true. But let's quit talking now….”

Oh, yeah, let's definitely quit talking. There's way too much else to do.

She was right, there were a couple of times when it wasn't pretty, but hell, as always it was beautiful, more beautiful than ever. She laughed when her body wouldn't cooperate, gasped and shuddered and sighed when it did. He held her, rolled her, eased her thighs apart, caressed the whole length of her as he heard the build and raggedness of her breathing.

Inside her, he almost let go within seconds, had to school himself back, let her catch up, and when she did
she took him over the edge so fast he lost all sense of time and space, could only feel and cry out and breathe.

They went into a bit of role reversal after this. She was the one who fell asleep within seconds, while he lay there in her arms wondering how to make the universe stop right here in this moment forever. Wishing she would wake up so they could talk and kiss. Glad that she didn't, because it meant he could watch her sleeping with his hand resting across her breasts. Wondering what would happen next.

He was scared of how important this felt, of what an adventure it might be, scared of this strange, vulnerable feeling that he couldn't really find a name for, didn't know what to do about it.

DJ was waking up. He heard the creak of her bassinet, the sound of a snuffle and the beginning of a cry. If she woke Jodie…

He eased himself away from her and she didn't stir. In the bedroom, some of Bill's chaotic wardrobe decisions littered the bed after Jodie's attempts to find something to wear this morning. He swept them aside, back into the suitcase, folded the sheet and quilt aside, then went and gathered Jodie up from the couch.

She was so warm and relaxed. Would she stay asleep? She wanted to have her bath with DJ, her session of skin-to-skin, but she was too tired for that right now. She needed to stay asleep until her energy rebounded.

He caught this tiny moment in himself of wanting her to change her mind about the skin-to-skin idea. How much would it achieve, really? She'd seemed so hopeful about it, what if it ended up a huge disappointment? What if Jodie couldn't manage to hold the baby? What if DJ cried?

We can deal with all that,
he thought.
I'm making an issue out of nothing. What's wrong with me?

She murmured something and he told her, “Just carrying you to the bed.”

“Mmm.”

He tucked her beneath the sheet like a child, laid the gypsy shawl on top because the quilt would be too warm, then went to get DJ before she began to cry in earnest.

 

Jodie woke some time later to find Dev treading softly out of the bedroom. He turned when he heard her move. “Damn, I woke you up, coming to check on you.”

“You didn't. I was ready. How long did I sleep?” She felt a little self-conscious about it, and about what had led up to it. Her fierceness. His acceptance. The fact that it had happened at all. The fact that it had happened
again
.

Are we dating, Dev?

“A good hour,” he said. “DJ's had her bottle and she's raring to go.” He was silent for a moment, then said, “Shall I run the bath now? Do you still want—?”

“That would be great. Of course I still want.” Beneath the sheet she began some stretches and range of motion exercises to shake off the heavy blanket of sleep, while Dev made preparations. She could see him through the open bedroom door, adding a generous squirt of bath foam and a sachet of scented salts.

The spa bath sat in the corner of the master bathroom, directly beside the two huge windows. They were made of clear glass and looked onto a thick screen of greenery with a barely visible lattice screen beyond, so that in complete privacy and warmth you would
nevertheless feel as if you were bathing in the open forest.

When the water had been running in for several minutes, she levered herself off the bed, took the gypsy shawl he'd spread over her, wrapped it around her body, and went to the doorway. “How are we going to do this?”

“Can you get in by yourself?” He looked at her in the shawl, his gaze running down and up again, hard to read. “Do you need help?”

“It shouldn't be a problem.”

“It could be slippery,” he warned.

“There are steps and handholds.”

“So once you're in, I'll give her to you. I'll stay right close by.”

“That's safest, I think.”

He seemed relieved. “It'll only be lukewarm, so she doesn't overheat or burn. Might feel a little cool to you.”

“It's a warm day. Cool is good.” Funny, for a change she was the one reassuring him.

And yet they were both nervous. Or not so much nervous, but keyed up. Was that it?

It was a bath, she told herself. Just a bath. But it was important. Too important even to talk about, so they talked about the tiny practicalities. Did they have enough towels? Was there a diaper and a clean outfit ready for DJ when she came out? Did Jodie need a robe?
Were
there any robes? Ah, yes, thick luxurious ones made of white towelling, two of them, folded in a small closet tucked behind the bathroom door.

She still felt churned up over what they'd said to each other out in the woods. Her painful confession about the state of her love for DJ. His stories about the pregnancy and birth. Now, on top of their lovemaking, it was like
the aftermath of a storm, with a renewed sense of calm and a ton of work to do to deal with the litter of damage.

No,
damage
was wrong.

This wasn't about damage anymore, it was about healing.

Did Dev think so? “I'll give you a minute,” he said.

For her to let the gypsy shawl drop, he meant, and climb into the water.

She felt crazily self-conscious when he left the bathroom and closed the door, as self-conscious as if he'd just stood there watching. She'd put on some weight in the weeks since leaving the hospital. Her breasts and hips were a little rounder, which was good, as the enhanced curves masked movements that were clumsier and less gracefully athletic than they used to be.