I let out the breath I’d been holding. “As early as you need me to.”
Chapter 39: Matt
Okay, I was pissed off at Anna the other night.
No, “pissed off” isn’t strong enough a term. I was angry. I was really fucking angry.
But by the time I come to bed at around one in the morning, I’ve cooled off. I see her sound asleep in our bed, lying on her side because she can’t breathe on her back, her belly bulging out from her nightgown, and I feel that familiar rush of love for her. I know Anna can’t help the way she’s acting. She’s off all her medications, and she’s only off them because I begged her to have a baby with me. We’ve got two more months and then she can get back to normal. Or as close to normal as she ever is.
She made a lot of sacrifices for me. I have to be understanding. I have to be a good husband. She needs me now.
By the morning, Anna is acting weird. Or I should say, weirder than usual. On the plus side, she seems very anxious to please me, which I’m not going to complain about. As soon as I wake up, she races down to the kitchen to make us breakfast before work.
We had to buy another microwave after Anna made me get rid of all the knives and then became panicked about burning her stomach on the stove. The latter is actually not an unreasonable fear because she really did burn her stomach. It gets in her way.
So even though she hates them, we’re mostly eating stuff you can throw in the microwave or toaster. And only I operate the microwave. If Anna has to use it, she’ll press “Start” then race across the kitchen and hide in the living room until the food is done. It’s funny to watch.
Today we’re having frozen waffles so the toaster can take care of it. I wheel into the kitchen while Anna is babysitting the toaster, and she flashes a worried smile when she sees me.
“Frozen waffles,” she says. And adds, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.” Her face turns red, and for a moment, I’m worried she might cry. “I should be able to make you something better than frozen waffles.”
“I like frozen waffles.”
I do like frozen waffles. I was eating them for years before Anna came along. I mean, they’re not as good as Anna’s homemade pancakes, but they taste good. I don’t have a sophisticated palate.
Anna pulls a jar of maple syrup off the counter. I see her studying the ingredients, searching for anything that could be harmful to the baby. That’s why I bought 100% pure, all-natural, organic maple syrup, even though I personally couldn’t care less. I watch her nodding in approval before trying to wrench the jar open. Which, of course, she can’t do.
Anna smiles apologetically at me. “Could you get this open for me?”
She’s holding the jar of maple syrup out to me. There’s nothing unusual about this—Anna is frequently stymied by jars in our kitchen and has to enlist my help to get them open. I always thought it was cute. I liked being able to help her get jars open.
Except I don’t think I can do it anymore.
The grip strength in my right hand is noticeably weak. I don’t think I can get a good enough grip on the cap to unscrew it. I don’t have the strength in my hands anymore to open this fucking jar of maple syrup. I probably never will again.
And I don’t know how to explain this to my wife.
I have to tell Anna everything. The question mark of what’s going on with me is scaring the shit out of me, and I desperately need to talk to her about it. She’s the first person I told about my MS diagnosis. She’s my partner—I should be able to tell her anything.
“So here’s the thing,” I begin carefully. “I’m having this issue…”
Before I can even complete my sentence, Anna’s eyes fly open. The panic is mounting on her face. “Are you okay?” she asks. “What’s wrong?”
“Um,” I say. I’m having trouble finding the right words to tell her my hand isn’t strong enough to open a jar anymore.
“Matt.” Her eyes fill with tears. Oh no. “What’s going on?
Before I can get another word out, she sinks into a chair at our kitchen table. She’s breathing quickly and her face is several shades paler than her already fair complexion. She looks like she’s five seconds away from an all-out panic attack. And without her Xanax, I don’t know how to deal with that. We’ve gotten too reliant on medications.
It’s obvious I can’t tell her about my issues. She’s already freaked out enough over this baby. On top of that, she doesn’t need her husband saying to her, “Oh, by the way, my right hand doesn’t work right anymore, and it might just get worse.”
If I told her that, she might really lose it. I have to deal with this all on my own, at least until the baby comes.
So instead of telling her the truth, I force a smile. “Calm down—I’m fine. I just hurt my wrist yesterday and I don’t want to make it worse.”
Her brow crinkles, but what I’ve told her is clearly not as bad as she had feared. Her shoulders relax slightly. “You hurt your wrist?”
I nod. “Yeah. No big deal. Just a mild sprain.”
“Oh.” She lets out a slow breath between her lips. “How did you do that?”
I almost make a joke that injured it jerking off since my wife won’t sleep with me anymore. But no—too soon. “Just landed wrong doing a transfer.”
Anna is still frowning and I’m scared she knows. We know each other really well, and sometimes I think she can see right through me. If I ever cheated on her, I’d get caught in a nanosecond. Not that I’d ever cheat on Anna in a million years.
“Well, how do I get the jar open?” she asks.
Fuck if I know. Are we going to have to call Jake now to open the jars in our house? My sister? Speaking of emasculating…
“I’m sure you can do it,” I finally say. “Just… you know, put some muscle into it.”
She frowns. “You won’t even… try?”
I get a sharp pang in my chest. I want to do this for her so badly. But I know my strength isn’t there. “Better not.”
She nods and looks down at the jar with a sad expression on her face.
It turns out Anna’s able to get the jar open on her own. Just goes to show she didn’t really need me to open all those jars for her over the last few years. Although it kills me I can’t do it for her anymore.
Chapter 40: Anna
“I don’t know if I can go on like this much longer.”
It’s the first thing I say to Dr. Hayward when I walk into his office. Well, not the first thing. The first thing I say is, “When was the last time your couch was vacuumed?” Then I have to retrieve paper towels from the bathroom to spread along the couch before I can bear to sit on it. I haven’t done that in years. I see the horrified look on my psychiatrist’s face as I’m putting down the paper towels, but I can’t make myself stop.
“I take it the Zoloft isn’t controlling your symptoms,” he says.
My eyes fill with tears. I also haven’t cried in this office in years. But here I am.
“I need something else,” I tell him. “Something stronger.”
He shakes his head. “Anna, you only have two more months left to go, then we can get you back on your old regimen. At this point, I feel like it’s better to hang in there.”
He doesn’t understand. I can’t hang in there anymore. I can’t cook. I can’t ride in Matt’s car. I wash my hands so often, they bleed. I can’t have sex. And the truth is, even the thought of kissing my husband sends me into a tailspin of fear about the six billion bacteria in the mouth. I thought my love for Matt and the psychotherapy I’d done meant I was past feeling that way, but apparently not. Apparently, every improvement I’d experienced was chemically induced.
“Matt will leave me,” I say.
A smile touches Dr. Hayward’s lips. “Oh, Anna. He won’t leave you.”
“He will!” I insist. “You don’t know what I’ve been doing to him. You have no idea!”
“I have some idea.”
So I tell him. I go through everything I’ve done to Matt since I got off my medications, ending with my declaration last night that I would no longer have sex with him. I watch Dr. Hayward’s face, expecting to see disgust at my behavior. But he is impassive.
“None of this is unusual behavior for women with untreated OCD during pregnancy,” he says. “Fears about harming the baby are incredibly common.”
“It’s not just fears about harming the baby, though.” I take a deep breath. “I worry about things I know don’t make any sense. Like… I get scared the baby is stealing all my oxygen and I feel like… like I can’t breathe…”
I never voiced that fear aloud before. It sounds so silly when I say it, but in the moment, it seems very reasonable. After all, the baby is getting all his oxygen from me. What if there isn’t enough?
“These fears are from your OCD though,” the doctor says. “Just keep reminding yourself of that. You have only two months left to go.”
“No,” I whisper. “I can’t wait that long. Please, Dr. Hayward. Matt… he’s going to start hating me.”
“That won’t happen,” he insists. “He loves you so much. You’re having his baby.”
I don’t tell him about the dreams I’ve been having. Dreams that feel so real, they’re almost more like a premonition. If things continue as they are, he will get fed up with me. And nobody would blame him.
Chapter 41: Anna
I’ve noticed Matt has been working from home more lately. I can’t help but wonder if it has something to do with me. Ever since that night I refused to have sex with him, he and I have been distant. Matt is my best friend, and it pains me to feel like I can’t talk with him the way I used to. I try not to think about how much I miss him—I cry far too easily these days.
This morning, Jack Rogers came to Matt’s cubicle and looked perturbed not to find him there. Jack is our boss’s boss, and he’s the sort of person who’s adage is everyone should be working harder than they are right now. Matt has ranted about Jack before, especially how hard Jack has been riding him on the project he’s working on now. Jack keeps giving Matt impossible deadlines, then pushing him to get the work done even faster. Matt’s really good at what he does, so if he can’t get it done, it can’t be done.
Jack straightens out his bright red tie as he moves away from Matt’s cubicle to my own. He wears that tie a lot. I’ve heard him refer to it as his “power tie.”
“Anna.” He flashes me a toothy smile. Jack looks as though he may have been very handsome when he was fifteen years younger, but is now more on the side of distinguished. “Is Matt in today?”
“He’s working from home,” I say stiffly.
“So let me get this straight,” he says with that grin still plastered on his face. “You’re the one who’s pregnant, but he gets to work from home? Doesn’t seem fair to me.”
I stick out my chin, determined to defend my husband. “He worked out an arrangement with Peter.”
Jack leans over the side of my cubicle and I instinctively back up. I’m not certain to the extent Jack is aware of my issues. He’s only worked here for two years, before I did many of the things that used to threaten my job and earned me the nickname “Crazy Anna.” But he must know. Rumors are hard to control. Even those secretaries knew.
“Is Matt doing okay?” Jack presses me. “He’s not sick, is he?”
“No.”
“You sure about that?”
“He’s fine.”
He taps his fingers on the wall of my cubicle. “Because we’re on a tight deadline here. I just want to make sure he can cut it.”
“Matt is an excellent programmer,” I say stiffly. “There is no one here who is better.”
Jack grins and raises his eyebrows. “Even you?”
I hesitate. Years ago, I would have said I was the far stronger programmer. But the extra two years of experience under my belt has less meaning after all these years. On top of that, Matt is a much better team leader than I am. I have trouble delegating duties and getting people to follow through. I’m not a people person the way he is. As much pride as I take in my work, I must concede Matt is better at his job than I am.
“He’s the best,” I say.
Jack’s smile broadens. “I wish my wife were as loyal as you.”
He knocks on the wall of my cubicle one last time for good measure, then disappears down the aisle. I wait until he’s out of sight to grab my Lysol bottle to sterilize everything he’s touched.
Chapter 42: Matt
I’m working from home too much.
Peter doesn’t care, but I can tell Jack doesn’t like it. Whenever I work from home for a day, he makes a snarky comment about it the next day. Like, “Hey, Harper, enjoy your day off?” The truth is, I work better from home. I focus better and I don’t have to waste time on my commute. But Jack wants to see my face at work.
Today there wasn’t much of a choice though. I’ve got my follow-up appointment with Dr. Dunne, and I couldn’t explain to Anna where I’m going. So the only option was to stay home so she wouldn’t know.
As I wait in the examining room for Dr. Dunne to arrive, I’m so scared, I can barely breathe. Eight years ago, I walked in here with a weak ankle, and Dr. Dunne told me in five years, I’d be in a wheelchair. And he was right. Now I’m wheeling in with a weak hand, and I’m scared shitless to hear what he’s got to tell me this time.
It’s not going to be good news. I know that much. The best I could hope for is it isn’t awful news. Not Awful. That’s what I’m aiming for.
Except the second Dr. Dunne walks into the room, I see his face and Not Awful gets flushed right down the drain.
“So, Matt,” he begins, “I reviewed your MRI…”
With impeccable timing, my phone starts ringing. I dig it out of my pocket and see Anna’s name on the screen. I turn the ringer off. If she’s in labor, that’s just going to have to wait five minutes.
“Sorry,” I mumble. “Go ahead.”
Dr. Dunne seems miffed that I touched my phone in his presence, but he manages to get over it. This is the twenty-first century and I have a cell phone—get over it.
“So I looked at the MRI,” he continues, “and unfortunately…”
Here it comes.
“Unfortunately, there is a new lesion in your neck consistent with multiple sclerosis.” His expression is grave. “It seems the disease has advanced after a long period of indolence.”
Up until now, the lesions have all been in my lower spine, affecting only my legs. And now it’s in my neck.
Fuck.
“So…” I try to swallow. I feel like I’m choking. It’s hard to get any words out. Is that from the MS too? “What does that mean? Am I going to get… worse?”
It means in five years, you won’t be able to move your arms.
“I won’t lie to you, Matt,” Dr. Dunne says. “You may very well get weaker in your arms.”
The choking sensation is getting worse. I feel dizzy.
“Please, Doc.” I hear my voice crack on the words. “What can I do? My wife is going to have a baby…”
I’m supposed to be able to help Anna. She’s going to need help changing diapers. Feeding the baby. Waking up at night when the baby cries. If my arms get weaker, how will I help her?
Christ, what if I can’t hold my own son?
A ridge forms between the doctor’s graying eyebrows. He sighs. “I’m sorry, Matt. I really am. It could just be the stress of the pregnancy that caused your new lesion, you know. Have you been under a lot of stress?”
I snort. “You’ve got no idea.”
“Right.” He nods. “Your wife… she has… you told me she has obsessive compulsive disorder? Likes to keep everything clean all the time?”
I nod, even though it’s a very sanitized version of what Anna’s problem really is.
Dr. Dunne smiles. “I wish my wife had some of that.” He doesn’t really. “But I’m sure it’s stressful for her,
knowing how disorganized life can be after a baby comes.”
I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. I can’t let myself panic. I have to be strong. “You think… maybe if I can reduce my stress, there won’t be any more lesions?”
“I don’t know, Matt,” he says. “It’s hard to say at this point. You could get much worse or you could stay the same.”
Great. Well, at least he didn’t tell me I’m definitely going to get worse.
“The nerve damage you already have is unlikely to improve,” he says. “However, I could send you to occupational therapy to work on some exercises to try to improve your hand strength, if you’d like. You’re right handed, aren’t you?”
I nod.
“So it’s probably really affecting you to be weak in that hand, isn’t it?”
Fucking A.
I haven’t been to therapy in years, but I let Dr. Dunne write out the prescription for me. Now the trick is to actually go to the sessions without Anna finding out about it.
After Dr. Dunne leaves the room, I grab my phone from my pocket. I look at the screen and see that in addition to the call I didn’t take from Anna, she’s called ten more times. My blood runs cold. Oh Christ, what’s going on?
Chapter 43: Anna
The other bad thing about Matt working from home is I must eat lunch by myself. I used to enjoy eating alone—in fact, I intentionally went to the break room prior to anyone else’s arrival so I could have it to myself. But when Matt started joining me, I discovered I enjoyed his company more than my lonesome. It got so I missed him desperately on the days he wasn’t at work.
Things have been tense between me and Matt lately, and as I settle down in the break room with my turkey and Swiss cheese sandwich, I feel very sad about his absence. I wish he were here. I wish he could smile at me across the table, reassuring me he still loves me, even though I’ve been so difficult lately.
Maybe I should call him.
Yes, I’m going to call him. Even if we can’t eat together, we can talk on the phone. I can tell him about Jack showing up to my cubicle this morning. Or perhaps I shouldn’t tell him that. I don’t want to worry him. Still, we can have a nice conversation. We can talk about things we need to buy for the baby. There’s still so much left to do.
Baby Crazy (Matt & Anna Book 2) Page 15