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.
The bad news was that Jeff had filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. She had been devastated by that. Part of her had held on to the hope that they would work it out. She had been served at work, had broke down and left early. She called me to tell me the news. I left early as well and came home to hold her as she cried. “Seven years of time together, wiped out by one piece of paper,” she said softly. Daniel, Claudette’s husband, had kept in touch with him and had provided some insight into what had happened. He had told a few of his friends. To a man they had told him to move on, find a woman who would be faithful and also listen to her man. “He stopped thinking about what was best between him and Amber and instead starting thinking about how he looked in front of his friends,” was one succinct summation.
It certainly eased the tension between her and her parents. They rallied behind her as she mourned. I think they finally got it that she genuinely had wanted to go home to him and be his wife, even if she had a baby by another man. They said they would be there shortly after the birth, whenever it would be. We knew the approximate date, but better they were there late rather than early, in my mind.
She just wanted it over at this point. She had developed nasal congestion and had nose bleeds from time to time. She was starting to think about sleeping with her head elevated to reduce the pressure on her stomach. She hated sleeping on her back but it was becoming more necessary as time went by. I went out and bought an adjustable bed with dual controls so she could control her half. She was also getting up to use the bathroom more and more often, cutting into her sleep. It was difficult to get a good night’s sleep on a consistent basis. None of her close friends had yet had a child. Faith was the only mother and hers was adopted when she was two years old. They all crowded around to get to know what it was like. She said she would gladly share her back pain, achy legs and feet, and nose bleeds with them any time.
Oddly enough, at least to me, she became quite peaceful and calm as her due date approached. I had expected the opposite, of having more and more anxiety. She took time off from her work and stayed home. Faith spent more and more time with her as the others were all working, as was I. She liked having Yukio there from time to time. She was set as far as what she needed for the first year. The baby shower had literally been a shower of gifts, Stephanie having coordinated the shopping lists so everyone got something that was needed instead of a solid silver teething ring. She even had roped in Charlie and some of the regular guys there. They all brought gifts as well. I gave Stephanie a well done. I would not have expected anything less than perfection from her hyper personality and analytical mind.