It was less than a totally joyous homecoming. I was so glad to see her but knew she would continue to reach out to Jeff. Bittersweet comes to mind as a word to describe my emotions. Still, she was happy to see me, hugging me and shyly asking if she could sleep with me tonight. It was so cute, even beautiful. She had a glow to her which I attributed to her pregnancy. She said she was getting along OK as the days passed. She and Stephanie had been chattering away before I had arrived. As soon as I had walked in Amber and I had shared our own little world.
“Now I’m just ignored?” she said. “I went from hot date to totally ignored. I’m crushed. My fragile ego can’t take the rejection.”
I laughed, walked over to her and picked her up in my arms. “You are always a part of me.” Her ego was as about as fragile as Kevlar.
“I know, but I get to take a shot or two from time to time.”
We had dinner, cleaned up, and then moved in to watch a little TV. Amber curled up with me on one couch while Stephanie stretched out on the other. After an hour or so, I peeked over to see that Stephanie had fallen asleep. Amber and I got up and walked over to her.
“Come on, sleepyhead. Time for bedtime. You’ve been asleep for an hour.”
She got up and stretched, working the kinks out of her back from sleeping awkwardly. Within fifteen minutes, Amber and I were curled up naked. We talked softly as our hands touched.
“I missed you,” I told her.
“I missed you as well. It was actually kind of awkward sleeping with Jeff after time with you. It’s a different rhythm. We sleep in pajamas and after sleeping naked it feels confining. I realized that I held him more than he held me. It’s a role reversal from being with you. I would lay awake, listening to him breathing, thinking about the differences in my time with you and my life with him. I love him and want to remain married to him but there would need to be changes, not the least of which was having a child in the house.” She gently stroked my arm, leaving goose bumps in her trail. “It’s hard to explain in a way. I had a clear idea of what I wanted with you as we tried to conceive a child. We went way beyond my expectations. You touched me in a way I’ve never felt before. When I’m with you I can just relax and let it wash over me. It’s very special.”
I held her as she rolled over and we spooned. In a short time her breathing became regular and I could feel her twitch as she fell asleep. I just wanted to hold her all night and enjoy the feeling but I too fell asleep. Morning came all too quickly.
Amber talked about the nausea she felt from time to time. She also noted that her waist was thicker than before, her clothes felt just a little bit tighter. She also asked me to be very gentle with her breasts, as they were more tender than normal. I found her standing naked in front of the bathroom mirrors, turning this way and that.
“I’m beginning to show,” she said. She touched her abdomen. “See? This used to be flat, now it’s slightly rounded.” She turned and looked at me. “Will you still love me when I’m fat?”
I think she realized what she had said just a second after she said it.
She blushed.
Before she could say more, I said, “I will love you no matter what.”
She moved into my arms, her head against my chest. She cuddled in and said no more, then moved away to get dressed. She kept a robe in the room and went down the hall to get dressed, keeping a lot of her clothes there. She had some in my closet but they were primarily what she wore less often. She had just changed out a lot of things, saying the ones in my closet fix her better now. They were of a larger size when she had once weighed more.
Stephanie was long gone. She was an early riser and worked out daily at the gym in her office complex. I fixed us a light breakfast of toast and a smoothie. We sat and ate, then said our goodbyes and headed out. I treasured it all.
I came home to find the two ladies in the master bath. Amber was naked while Stephanie was fully dressed. They had a book describing what to expect week by week during pregnancy. They were reading it and then looking at Amber.
“Yep, look at those lines. Those are stretch marks. They’re tiny now but they’ll grow. And you can see the veins in my legs. I’m all blotchy. I want my clear skin back.”
“Honey, as white as you are we’ve seen your veins a long time. It’s the only color you’ve got.”
“Hi, Jeremy. We’re just comparing me to the book. Looks like I’m right on schedule.”
They were planning a shopping trip for maternity clothes. Sheila was to join them. Being the ever-thrifty shopper, Amber was checking out consignment maternity shops and used clothing stores.
“They’re hardly worn. Why buy new ones and wear them for so short a time, then give them away?”
Stephanie was going shopping, then was taking an overnight journey with a man she had met. They had dated a few times. This was their first scheduled overnight time alone.
The three of them returned. Amber wanted to show everything to me. She was so excited. Sheila helped her as Stephanie moved off to her room and returned with her bag.
“You’re going to have to start charging me rent, Jeremy.”
She had approached me about continuing to live at the house. “I’m comfortable here. I don’t really want a place to myself. I’d be bored and alone. I’m too hyper to just sit.” The place was immaculate as we shared in cleaning and other chores. She had fired the lawn service and was out mowing the lawn in her shorts and midriff top. The neighbors must be scandalized by all of this.
“You’re doing most of the work of the cleaning and fired the lawn services. How can I charge you on top of that?”
She laughed, said her goodbyes and set out to meet Carson. She had yet to have him over at the house. “I don’t want him weirded out before I really get to know him,” had been her comment after we asked when we would meet him. “Trying to describe this place takes too much time and energy.”
After show and tell, Sheila and Amber carried her new clothes upstairs. She put them in my closet. “I sleep here, I might as well dress here.” She had the beginnings of a new wardrobe. They fussed around, moving clothes back and forth based on whether or not they still fit Amber. She walked around half-dressed, trying on this and that and giving thumbs up or thumbs down. Sheila stayed for dinner and regaled us with horror stories of dating. We laughed at her stories and her animated storytelling style. I told them how I had met Christie. Amber told us about meeting and marrying Jeff. After that, she launched into a discussion of how people grow and how they grow apart.
“Jeff and I are missing so much together right now. I’m changing as my pregnancy progresses. I could have shared this with him. Instead, I’m sharing it with you guys, especially Jeremy.” She reached and held my hand. “I can feel the two of us growing together while I grow more and more apart from Jeff. It creates a gulf that I wonder if we would ever be able to bridge.”
We were all quiet after that. I felt for her. I was happy she was here. I enjoyed every day. She was still trying to bridge two worlds, wondering what would happen.
That night, in bed, she asked how I felt about the subject.
“I feel for you. You know I love you and that there’s a place for you
here if you choose. That said, I know you’re trying to bridge two worlds, keeping a path open to going back to being with Jeff. That’s hard to do.”
She rolled over on top of me. “I love you, too.” She rolled back off and cuddled against me. I won’t be able to do that much longer. Laying on my tummy is just coming to an end.”
We had framed the color ultrasound picture. It was beside the bed. We had not really talked about names. I told her that was left to her, if that was what she wanted. She was partial to A’s: Alex and Angelica were the first two she thought of. Her sister had been Abagail, forever known as Abbi. Abbi knew the whole story about us. She had known even before we had first tried to have a baby.
She promised to come out when it was time for the baby to be born. Amber asked her to instead come a few weeks afterward, as that when everyone else who was involved started fading away, leaving a mother with a first-born and postpartum depression. Her parents were struggling with what was going on. They had raised the girls in a religious environment and they had strong feelings on what was and was not right. To them, having a baby with another man was way out of their comfort zone. She had tried to explain that this only came about because Jeff refused to have a child at this time.
They felt she should have waited until he was ready. “Lots of “Father Knows Best”, male-dominated family ingrained in there,” she had commented after one particularly difficult call. She just went on to say she wanted to live with Jeff but his attitudes precluded her being able to do so. She left unsaid that she was living with me, in the same house as my former lover. That would have left a small crater in her hometown. She told them she wanted them to come out after the baby was born. The grandmother instinct was strong, but her father was adamantly against it, though he was weakening as the weeks progressed. Amber said her mom was working on dad.
“Feel that one?” She was lying naked on the bed, shortly after we finished satisfying each other sexually. She moved her hand over mine on her stomach. “It feels like a butterfly sometimes, just these little flutters.”
Sure enough, I felt it. I smiled and kissed her. “Incredible. There’s a part of us growing in there.” I gently kissed her stomach, then her swollen breasts. Her tummy was enlarging and she was slowly gaining weight. Her metabolism made it difficult to gain weight. Her previous weight gain had been due to medications that she no longer took. We were taking things a little slower now. She took naps on weekend days. She put her feet up when she had the opportunity. At work they had moved her desk to the side and she talked to clients in a chair with her feet up on a stool. Everything was progressing as expected. She was already beginning to tire of pregnancy. There was lots of good news on that front. A baby shower was scheduled soon. They had taken a big room at Charlie’s for the shower. Her former room was being slowly filled with baby materials.