Until My Last Breath

by Tiffany Patterson

  “We’re a little concerned with Baby A’s heartbeat. Every time you have a contraction, it slows down a little bit. We’re just going to keep an eye on it,” my doctor stated calmly.

  But something was wrong. I knew it.

  The face she put on to disguise her worry wasn’t fooling me.

  “What do you mean keep an eye on it?” Robert demanded.

  Reaching for his hand, I pulled him back toward me and the bed. “Robert, the last thing I need right now is for you to lose it on the woman who’s delivering our boys, okay?”

  I tried to say more but another contraction hit me, and I tightened my hold on his hand, grimacing as the pain felt unbearable.

  “Owww! Shit!” I yelled.

  “Why the hell haven’t you given her an epidural yet?”

  Now that, I wasn’t about to chastise Robert for yelling about. Where the hell was the anesthesiologist?

  “The only available anesthesiologist is tied up in surgery right now. Deborah, I need you to hold on for a little while longer, okay? Just remember to breathe, in through your nose and out through your mouth.”

  I swear if I could’ve kicked the woman, I would’ve. But I was in too much pain.

  It went on like that for another hour until the anesthesiologist finally arrived and gave me the epidural I’d been waiting on. I thought Robert was going to kill the man before he could deliver the numbing drug. Thankfully, he didn’t.

  Although the epidural had kicked in, I still felt like something was wrong. I watched the heartbeat monitor for the babies, throughout my contractions. I also noticed the drop in heartbeat of Baby A every time I contracted. But to me, he wasn’t Baby A. He was Travis.

  “Did my water break?” I questioned out loud, feeling a warm liquid in between my legs. I pulled back the blanket, and to my horror I found crimson-colored blood. “Robert!” I called. He’d stepped into the bathroom but quickly exited when he heard the terror in my voice. “I’m bleeding!”

  His face turned white as a ghost and he ran to the doorway, shouting for a nurse and doctor. Within minutes my hospital room was filled with an array of hospital staff. They were all telling me to calm down but I had no idea how to do that. What really set me off was the worry that was written across Robert’s face. My husband wasn’t a worrier. He had the power to move mountains, and yet, he looked as helpless as I felt.

  “Mrs. Townsend, we’re going to have to take you into surgery.”

  “No, no.” I began shaking my head, gripping the railings of the bed. Surgery had a higher chance of mortality, for the mother and babies. I’d read the statistics.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Townsend, but we have to.”

  “Where the hell are you taking my wife?” I heard Robert screaming behind me as they rolled me out.

  There was a flurry of motion. I recalled the doctor telling me something about there not being enough time, and that the epidural would suffice. I was going to be awake during the C-section but wouldn’t feel anything. I didn’t know if that was better or worse. What I did know is that what scared me the most was when they refused to let Robert in during the surgery.

  I laid there, still feeling the pressure as the doctors tugged and pulled, opening up my body to get the two babies inside. For the first time in a very long time, I prayed for two safe, healthy babies.

  I cried tears of joy when the first baby came out and I heard the loud shrill of his cries. One out, one to go, I thought. But I waited and waited. The second cry never came.

  “What’s happening?” I asked, looking around the room at the faces covered in surgical masks.

  “The umbilical cord …” I heard the first half of the sentence, but not the second.

  I began feeling dizzy and lightheaded. “I-I think I n-need to lie d-down.”

  “Mrs. Townsend? Deborah? She’s losing too much blood.”

  Those were the last words I remembered before passing out.

  A few hours later, I woke up in the hospital room I’d been rolled out of for surgery. Robert’s back was to me.

  “H-hey,” I called in a strained voice due to my extremely dry throat.

  He turned from the window, cradling a baby in his arms, but there were tears in his eyes. My entire my chest caved in as the weight of what those tears meant settled down around me.

  I began shaking my head. “No, no, no,” I repeated over and over as he slowly approached the bed.

  “Travis … he didn’t make it. He died.” His voice was so strangled.

  I couldn’t form any words, just tears; grief and sorrow filled the room.

  “Deb …”

  I began shaking my head even more. Robert only called me Deb when he had bad news, but what could be worse than losing our child?

  “There was too much bleeding. They had to perform a hysterectomy to save your life.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Then

  Robert

  Grief is supposed to get better with time. At least, that’s what everyone keeps fucking saying. But they’re all fucking liars. It’s been six months. Six months since my baby boy died on what should’ve been the first day of his life. Days after bringing our youngest son, Tyler, home from the hospital, we had to bury his twin, Travis.

  How the fuck is that supposed to be fair?

  I get it. Life isn’t fair. No one ever said it was going to be, blah, blah, fucking, blah! But I am supposed to have four sons. Fours boys who would carry on the Townsend legacy in their own right. Yes, I was grateful for the three boys I had, and the fact that I still had my wife with me. But she’d fallen into a deep depression after we lost Travis and had her entire womb removed. The fact that she couldn’t carry anymore children, even if she wanted, hit her hard. For the last six months it’d felt like we were just keeping our heads above water.

  Thankfully, Deborah had relented and let me hire additional help with the children and to clean our home. Although she’d taken a leave of absence from her job, there were days she could barely get out of bed.

  Sighing, I turned from the window where I could see the sun was setting. I looked across the room toward Deborah who was just sitting on the side of the bed, Tyler next to her in his crib. My chest ached.

  Deborah had even the most difficult time picking Tyler up some days. Every time she looked at him it was as if she saw the baby we lost.

  “Princess,” I said low, moving by her side, and pushing a few strands of her brown locks over her shoulders. “They will be here soon. We should finish getting dressed.”

  Deborah’s big, blue eyes, full of sadness, peered up at me, blinking, as if trying to remember what I was referring to.

  “Oh,” she suddenly said. “Aaron’s birthday.” A smile touched her lips. “We’ve barely seen him since …” She trailed off, her gaze drifting toward Tyler’s crib.

  I swallowed, feeling guilty. My relationship with my brother had always been strained, but we tried to treat Aaron like he was one of our own, although Jason had made that difficult over the years. Tonight was his eighth birthday, and Deb and I had decided to host a birthday dinner for him tonight at our home. Jason, as usual, had been reluctant, but eventually agreed.

  “You go and finish getting dressed. I’ll take care of Tyler,” I stated as he began waking in his crib.

  Rising, Deborah nodded. I watched as she inhaled and pasted on a happy expression. She, too, wanted to make this evening special for Aaron. We didn’t want the night overshadowed by our grief.

  “Hey, baby boy,” I murmured as I plucked Tyler from his crib. I ran my hand through his auburn hair, somewhat still in awe at the red color. Each one of my sons had their own distinctive looks, but they’d all inherited the signature Townsend freckles. “Didn’t feel like sleeping, huh?” Tyler was a terrible sleeper. Sometimes I thought he missed his twin almost more than we did, causing him to remain awake as if searching for him.

  I shook my head, pushing those silly thoughts from my mind.

  Deborah emerge
d from her walk-in closet, dressed in a pair of dark jeans, a purple top, and with her hair pulled back in a chignon bun. She’d put on a light coating of makeup that made her eyes pop, and for the first time in a long time she was wearing a genuine smile.

  Moving closer to me, she placed her hand on my shoulder. “Thank you for convincing me to do this for Aaron. He deserves it.” She pressed a kiss to my lips.

  The doorbell rang.

  “That’s them. You stay. I’ll go get it, if Carter and Joshua don’t beat me to it.” She started to head off, but then backtracked and pressed a quick kiss to Tyler’s cheek before exiting to get the door.

  I stood there for a while, still feeling the grief of our lost son but, with Tyler in my arms, hearing the foot stomps of my other two boys as they rushed down the stairs to meet their cousin, and hearing Aaron’s voice as Deborah greeted them, something inside of me started to feel lighter again.

  “Let’s go meet the rest of the family,” I said to Tyler while bouncing him on my hip before leaving the bedroom to head down to the front entranceway.

  I had no idea then, that that would be the night that changed everything. The fight which broke out between my brother and I after I discovered that he’d been beating his son. The subsequent car accident that killed both Jason and Jesse. And the days and weeks afterward that saw Deborah and I become Aaron’s official guardians and then adopted parents.

  ****

  Present

  Aaron

  “You were never a consolation prize, son,” my father stated firmly as he rounded his desk, to stand in front of me while I remained seated. “You were always meant to be our son. Carter, You, Joshua, and Tyler. Our four boys. Just as it was always meant to be.”

  Pushing out a breath, I glanced up at the man who raised me. The man I wanted to make proud my whole life. I didn’t give a shit what anyone else thought, so long as I could look him in the eye at the end of the day.

  “You never made me feel like a consolation prize.”

  “Good. Now let’s get this over with so you can get home to apologize to your wife and grovel so she doesn’t throw your ass out of the house.”

  I scowled at my father.

  “I taught you that damn expression. It doesn’t frighten me. Listen, I told you these stories tonight to tell you one thing. Your wife loves you. Loves you deeply. But there is one thing you don’t cross her about. Her children. Deborah didn’t speak to me for almost a week after the lake incident with Carter, and when we lost Travis …” He broke off, shaking his head. “I didn’t know if we’d ever find our way back. And then you came to be ours and we had to let our pain go to be there for you because you needed us in ways Carter and Joshua didn’t. Even Tyler, and he wasn’t one yet. We both knew something had happened after that accident. You changed. Some for the better, some for the worse. But it was our love for you that brought us back onto one accord after Travis died. Now, you have to figure out how to get over your fear of losing your wife because she’s pregnant with your fifth child and they both need you. I didn’t raise any fucking cowards.”

  He gave me one last look, before pushing off the edge of his desk and moving to the door of his office, holding it open.

  I glanced over my shoulder. “You’re kicking me out.”

  His nod was instantaneous. “My wife will be home soon and we don’t need you crimping our style. Besides, you need to go figure out how best to grovel to your own wife.”

  I narrowed my gaze. “I don’t grovel.”

  He chuckled. “You say that now.”

  I embraced my father in a hug, something I was still getting used to doing after not liking being touched for years. This, I had learned how to do from my wife. How to be affectionate with others.

  I headed out to the awaiting town car, waving the driver off when he went to open the back door for me.

  As soon as I closed the door, I heard, “So what are you going to do?”

  I glanced to my right, again finding Emma staring at me with those big, brown eyes, questioning.

  I didn’t say anything directly to her. Instead, I pressed the button to let the partition window down. “We need to stop at a grocery store before you take me home.”

  “Is there any particular store you’d like me to stop at, si—”

  “I don’t give a damn which store. As long as it sells those damn Hostess cupcakes,” I grunted before rolling up the partition again.

  “You know, you could still work on that attitude of yours.”

  I cut my eyes toward Emma.

  She shrugged. “One day, maybe. But for now, my work here is done!” she said giddily, clapping her hands.

  I frowned but didn’t bother asking her why. If she knew what I had in mind, why did she begin by asking me what I was going to do? I knew she’d respond with some sort of cryptic response. And I didn’t fucking like riddles.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Patience

  I sighed in relief as I laid back on the couch in the den of our home. Though the huge, flat screen television stared back at me, I had no desire to turn it on. I was enjoying the quiet, for the first time in a very long time. Everyone was out. Kennedy was spending the night over Joshua and Kayla’s. Kyle was spending the night with a friend from school, and Thiers was bravely taken by Destiny and Tyler for the night. Thiers, Travis, and Tristan had developed a cute, special little bond, even though he was older than they were by nearly a year. The only one of my four children that were home that evening was Andreas, who just did not do well with sleepovers. I wouldn’t dare ask anyone to take him for the evening. But even he must’ve sensed I needed a break because he’d fallen asleep early. If I was lucky, he’d sleep for a few more hours, allowing me some more quiet time.

  As for my biggest baby, my husband, he was working late, and since I had no desire to see him, that was a good thing. Well, scratch that, I did have a desire to see him but I was still angry at him, so I was unwilling to give in to said desire.

  I pushed out a heavy breath as I thought about my unbendable husband. He still hadn’t come around about the baby, after three weeks. Three weeks of me barely speaking to him. And it’d been a week since we’d had sex. He’d only slept in his office that first night after he found out, and try as I might, I was extra horny while pregnant, so saying no when his arms were wrapped around my waist and his deep, gruff voice whispered in my ear was damn near impossible.

  “Shit!” I cursed, the sensation my nipples pressing against my cotton bra getting to me. Lifting my head, I peered down at my still flat belly. “Could you cool it in there? We’re still mad at Daddy, remember?”

  I plopped my head back against the pillow and scrolled through my Kindle library, bringing up Michelle Obama’s Becoming. I’d heard it was best to listen to the audiobook, but I’d wanted to read it before listening, and now that I had time, that’s what I planned to do.

  I was about ten minutes into reading when I heard the code for the front door beep, a second before the door opened. I could sense his presence as soon as he stepped over the threshold. My entire body felt like it was waking up and my instincts made me want jump up and meet him at the door, but I refrained. I chose to continue reading.

  A minute later, the light from the foyer dimmed as his body darkened the doorway. I never took my eyes from the screen of my Kindle.

  “Where’re the kids?”

  I kept reading.

  He waited for a heartbeat before moving closer.

  I didn’t move, reading the same sentence over and over as he strode closer. Soon enough, he pulled the Kindle from my hands.

  “I asked you a question.”

  “Thiers is with Ty and Destiny. Kennedy is over Josh and Kayla’s, Kyle is spending the night with his friend, Stevie, and Andreas is upstairs, sleeping.”

  Snatching my Kindle from him, I went back to reading, still not looking at Aaron.

  “Of course Andreas is home. He’s stubborn.”

  I snorted. “
Takes after you,” I mumbled.

  “What was that?”

  I didn’t answer.

  Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw him removing his tie as he stood over me, observing me. I swallowed, hating and loving the heated sensations that began coursing through my body, from just knowing I was under his gaze. At this point, I was used to the way my body betrayed me whenever my husband was around.

  I merely sighed and continued reading.

  “You’re still not talking.”

  I swiped to the next page.

  “Patience.”

  My stomach growled and I was overtaken by my cravings for a Hostess cupcake. Standing, I moved around Aaron to head to the kitchen. He wasn’t even a half a step behind me.

  “Patience.” The growl in his voice had me shivering, nearly tripping over my own feet as I padded my way toward the kitchen. But I didn’t even make it halfway.

  I was pulled by the arm, spinning me around until I came chest to chest with Aaron.

  “You can’t keep ignoring me. We’re married!”

  My mouth fell open and I shoved out of his embrace. “Are we? Are we married, Aaron?”

  His brow furrowed in confusion. “Of course, we are.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know. Because I was under the distinct delusion that a marriage is a partnership. You know? Where two people make decisions together. Not one person, in this case you, barking orders at the other person, me!” I planted my palms on my hips, throwing daggers at my husband. I had wanted to relax that night, to have a little bit of quiet time to myself, but if a fight was what he wanted then so be it!

  “You’re right.”

  Those two words completely deflated my anger.

  “What?”

  “I said, you’re right.”