So Much It Hurts

by Dawn, Melanie

  “You bet, buddy,” Michael opened to the door to a sleepy-eyed little boy who stood in the hallway holding his stuffed T-Rex by one clawed foot.

  Immediately, Eli’s eyes perked up. “Daddy!” he squealed with delight. Eli dropped his T-Rex, ran toward us, and grabbed our legs, joining us in a group hug.

  Michael had been amazing throughout the entire pregnancy. From late night runs to the 24-hour drive thru to pick up my never ending craving for fast food French fries, to holding my hand through every ultrasound and medical test, he had been nothing short of wonderful. Every day I beat myself up internally for doubting our marriage and breaking our vows. But, Michael never brought it up again, never let me wallow in self-guilt, and never threw it in my face. With a lot of marriage counseling and many late night talks, we were able to put the past behind us. Our marriage had become stronger than ever, just like he promised.

  Michael even sent me flowers the day after we found out we were having another boy. I was in the closet, sorting through a box of maternity clothes, when I heard the doorbell ring. I wasn’t expecting anyone. I rushed to the door. Opening it, I saw a beautiful bouquet of roses hiding the face of the man delivering them.

  “Mrs. Kaitlyn Thomas?” the delivery guy asked.

  “That’s me.”

  “These are for you.”

  “Wow,” I said, taking the flowers from his hands. “They’re beautiful.”

  “Enjoy.” The flower delivery guy chuckled and bounded down the steps toward his white van parked in the driveway.

  “Who was it?” Eli asked at the top of the stairs.

  “Flowers for me.”

  Eli shrugged. “Oh, okay,” he said and traipsed back to his room. I guess flowers don’t really impress a five year old.

  I placed the flowers on the kitchen table and opened the envelope that had been pinned to one of the leaves. The card simply read,

  Hours were spent trying to come up with boy names since we had used our favorite boy name on Eli. Late one night we overheard Eli talking to his stuffed animals in his bedroom. He was explaining to them that he would have to share them with his baby brother, Ethan. Michael and I immediately looked at each other and said, “That’s it!” So, Eli’s brother finally had a name, and it couldn’t have been more perfect.

  “You’re beautiful, you know that?” Michael said one night as we were getting ready for bed.

  “Stop. You’re just saying that to make me feel better,” I said as I examined my stretch marks in the full length mirror.

  “There is nothing that would make you any less beautiful in my eyes.” He stared at me, enamored by my protruding belly. “This baby will be gorgeous, just like his mama. I can’t believe in less than two weeks we will have another new baby in our house.”

  “I can’t believe it either,” I agreed, rubbing my hand across my stomach to see if baby Ethan would kick me. “I don’t think I’m ready.”

  “You have been a wonderful mother so far to Eli. This baby just gives you, us, a chance to do it all over again.” He smiled at me and reached for my hand.

  “You will be a wonderful daddy to him too, even if he ends up not being your flesh and blood.”

  “He’s part of you, and you’re everything to me. He’s no less. I love you, Kaitlyn,” he said as he pulled me close to him, hugging me and my enormous belly against him.

  “I love you too,” I nuzzled into his chest.

  Just then, little Ethan kicked me hard, and Michael jumped.

  “Hey, little man.” Michael bent down and put his cheek against my stomach. “Don’t be jealous. I love you too!” Ethan gave Michael another kick on the cheek, and we both laughed.

  Neither of us realized that night as we went to bed that I would wake up, waddle my way to the bathroom, and barely make it in time before my water would break all over the freshly mopped tile floor.

  The nurse turned around and gently placed my little bundle of joy into my arms. I stared at the miniature picture of perfection as he blinked his eyes and rooted for me against the fuzzy blue blanket.

  “He’s perfect,” I whispered.

  “What are you going to name him?” the nurse asked as she checked my vitals.

  I looked at Michael. He nodded at me, knowingly.

  “Ethan Levi.” I smiled at precious little Ethan who was making his first sweet sounds in my arms.

  “Ethan Levi,” the nurse repeated. “Are those family names?”

  Michael reached out and scooped little Ethan into his arms. “You could say that, I guess,” he said as he nuzzled the newborn and kissed him on the forehead.

  I smiled lovingly at Michael while he cuddled Ethan in his arms. “Both names have Hebrew origins. Ethan means ‘strength,’ and Levi means ‘unity.’ I’d like to think this sweet boy has joined us together, stronger than ever,” I told the nurse.

  “I see,” the nurse said as she jotted something on her clipboard. “Well, the name suits him well, then.” She grinned, erased something on the whiteboard above my bed, and walked briskly out the door.

  “I think it’s time to feed this little guy,” Michael said as he placed a grunting Ethan back into my arms.

  Unwrapping Ethan’s blankets and adjusting my hospital gown, I got myself ready to nurse him. “He’s just so perfect,” I cooed. Dark fluffy hair poked out from under his tiny hospital cap. Ethan’s dark gray-blue eyes blinked through the greasy ointment the doctor had put in them shortly after birth.

  “He has your nose,” Michael chuckled.

  I giggled, “I think so too.”

  “Kaitlyn,” Michael’s deep, gravelly voice sent shivers down my spine, an indication this conversation was about to get serious. “I love you. You know that?” I looked up at him from my hospital bed. Tears glossed his eyes. His hand reached for mine.

  “I know. I love you too,” I said as I clasped his strong, capable hand against the stark white hospital blanket.

  “I have always loved you. From the moment I met you by the punch bowl, I knew you were the woman of my dreams. I know we’ve had our share of ups and downs. I’m sorry if I wasn’t always the husband you needed me to be.”

  “Don’t say that, Michael. You are a wonderful husband. I’m the one who messed up. It was my fault. I should have been a better wife. I never should have—”

  “Shhhh.” He looked down with adoration at Ethan eagerly nursing like a champ. Then, he caught my gaze, his ice blue eyes piercing mine. “All is forgiven. All,” he repeated, “is forgiven.” Tears spilled down my cheeks. “You know I love you,” he continued, “and I want you to be happy. You deserve to be happy, Kaitlyn. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”

  “You do make me happy, Michael. You have made me happy during times I wanted to give up. You have given me a life I could never dream for myself. You loved me when I was unlovable. You forgave me when I was unforgivable. Thank you so much for fighting to save our family.”

  A wide grin spread across his lips. “I’ll always love you, sweetheart,” he whispered and bent down to kiss my forehead.

  I had Ethan on my shoulder, gently patting him on the back when Eli burst through the door with his Nana, his happy little voice barreling into the room.

  “Mommy!” Eli shouted. “I got the highest score of the day on Race City!”

  “That’s wonderful, baby,” I whispered excitedly, hoping not to wake Ethan who was sleeping soundly.

  “Yeah,” Eli smiled, “and, I got two hundred tickets!” He proudly handed me a handful of wadded up tickets.

  “Why didn’t you cash these in?”

  “I was going to pay them to the doctor so we can take my baby brother home now.”

  I grinned and looked up at my mom walking toward me. “Thanks for taking him to the arcade for a little while. I got to take a little nap while you were gone.”

  “I’m glad, hon’,” she smiled. “You need all the rest you can get now that you have two little ones.”

  “Oh, and I colored ba
by Ethan a picture!” Eli proudly held out a picture of a big lollipop and a little lollipop that looked like they were tied together.

  “What a beautiful picture, Eli! Your lollipops are perfect,” I told him.

  “They’re not lollipops. The big one is me and the little one is my baby brother; I am holding his hand,” he said emphatically.

  “Aww, how sweet. I will hang it up in his nursery when we get home.”

  “Can I see him?” Eli asked curiously.

  “Of course.”

  I laid Ethan across my legs and let Eli climb up on my hospital bed to get a better look.

  “Hey baby Ethan,” Eli patted his blanket gently. “I’m your big brother.”

  Eli waited, expectantly. “He’s not saying anything, Mommy.”

  Everyone in the room giggled.

  “He will, in time. He’s just too little to talk right now.”

  “Okay,” Eli nodded. “I will just give him kisses then.”

  “Good idea,” I agreed.

  “Don’t worry, Ethan. I’m going to be the best big brother ever,” he said proudly. With that, Eli leaned down and left a wet, sloppy kiss on his baby brother’s tiny cheek.

  Three weeks later, I was sitting on the recliner, rocking Ethan. It was late at night and Michael was stretched out on the sofa, surfing the internet on his iPad. Eli had long since been in bed. I was trying to hold Ethan off, hoping he’d let me sneak in a few extra hours of sleep by skipping his usual 2am snack.

  “Do you think we should just go ahead and do it?”

  Michael looked at me, mischievously waggling his eyebrows, “Hubba, hubba,” he teased.

  I threw a pillow at him, laughing. “Hush. I was talking about the DNA test, silly.”

  Michael placed his iPad on the sofa beside him and clasped his hands in front of him. “Oh,” he said with a more serious tone. “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Does that mean, no, you don’t want to do it right now, or no, not ever?”

  “It means, no, not ever.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, think about it Kaitlyn. What’s that DNA test really going to prove? I already love Ethan enough for any father. He doesn’t have to have my DNA to prove that. What if we take the test, and it turns out he is Chris’s baby? What then? Are we just going to invite Chris into our lives? Is Chris gonna drop what he’s doing and move here to be the kind of father Ethan needs? If not, are you willing to ship Ethan off, as often as a judge determines in a custody agreement, so he can spend time with a man you barely know? It’s ludicrous, Kaitlyn. The possibilities are endless. I am Ethan’s daddy. A DNA test doesn’t prove anything. Taking that test will just complicate things.”

  I considered what Michael was telling me. It’s true; taking the test could surely complicate our lives. And yet, at the same time, knowing the truth would put our (my) mind at ease. Ethan had my nose, for sure. Michael said he had my mother’s dark brown eyes. Everyone said he had my father’s dimpled chin. I looked at my sweet, sleepy boy and considered the possibility of shipping him off to visit Chris. While I may have been in love with Chris at some point, Michael was right; I didn’t really know Chris well enough to ship my son off to live with him for indefinite periods of time. Why did the decision have to be so difficult? Why did there have to be so much gray area in this black and white equation?

  I looked at Michael, the picture perfect dad. And for all we knew, Michael could truly be Ethan’s biological father. If not, I knew he would love Ethan just as much as any father would love a son. One of Chris’s comments at the beach echoed in my mind—the comment about not wanting a child anytime soon because he wasn’t ready to sacrifice his time and energy to have one. Michael was right; we didn’t need a DNA test to prove anything. All that we needed was each other—our little family. I hugged my precious angel closer and knew, in my heart, that not taking the test was the best thing for all of us.

  As they say, the days were long, but the years were short. Eli had grown like a weed the last five years and was nearly as tall, if not taller, than me. And Ethan…well, I cried all the way home the day he started Kindergarten. By that point, I had been a stay-at-home mom for eleven years. I hardly knew what to do that first full day by myself. After a few days, I learned to appreciate the peace and quiet. But after several boring weeks, I decided to fill the void by returning to college to work on a Master’s degree in Social Work. Still in the application process, I hoped I would be accepted so I could start classes the following semester.

  I’d like to say our lives were perfect from the moment Michael told me he forgave me. They weren’t—not by a long shot—but we made it. We were still making it. After that summer, we resumed our normal everyday lives. Michael focused on his accounting work, while I stayed home to raise our children. However, I guess I could say we lived our lives with a whole new perspective. We loved more, forgave more, and talked more in general. Michael started making a conscious effort to spend more time with us and less time in his home office. However, he still managed to eat the occasional dinner in front of his computer, coming to bed well after midnight. He even missed the boys’ ball games from time to time due to working late on a project, but for the most part, he made every effort to be there for them—for us.

  I learned to tolerate Michael’s personal assistant, Bridget, and eventually grew to love her. A recent college graduate, she was in the process of dropping that stereotypical sorority girl image, and trying to make her way in the business world. Bridget became Michael’s biggest asset in his workplace, helping him earn a promotion and a three percent raise that first year. I met Bridget, in person, at a company picnic that same summer five years ago. Surprisingly, we hit it off immediately. Turns out, she was just one of those sweet southern girls you wanted to hate, and couldn’t help but like. She has since moved on to a corporate accounting job in another city, and Michael has had countless other interns as assistants. However, our argument over Bridget and his newfound respect for our marriage has kept Michael from blurring the personal and professional lines again with anyone at his workplace.

  Our marriage was a constant work in progress—something I wish we had figured out years ago. But, the last five years had been the best years of our marriage, and we were about two months away from celebrating our twelfth wedding anniversary. So I guess, all in all, we had made a pretty good run of it.

  “We’ll need milk, too,” I said absently as we stood in front of the cereal aisle at the grocery store one day.

  Turning to Michael, I asked, “Would you mind going to grab some milk and eggs? Oh yeah, you might as well grab butter and cheese while you’re over there, too.”

  “At your service, ma’am,” he laughed, while giving me his best military salute.

  “Very funny,” I said with a straight face. Hoping to get this trip to the store over with as quickly as possible, I ordered, “Milk, eggs, butter, and cheese. Got that?”

  “Got it, Sarge,” he teased as he clicked his heels, maintaining his salute. The boys giggled beside me.

  “Daddy’s silly!” Ethan exclaimed.

  I rolled my eyes and despite my efforts not to, I grinned at Michael. His sense of humor reminded me of why I fell in love with him in the first place. Michael took off toward the dairy section in the back corner of the grocery store, while I turned my attention back to the boys.

  “Can I get that box?” Ethan asked as he pointed to a colorful box of sugar laden corn cereal.

  I sighed. “Sure, why not?”

  I looked at Eli, who at the age of eleven was a half inch taller than me now, which isn’t saying much considering I’m only five feet tall on a good day. I asked him to reach the fiber concentrated cereal on the top shelf—the cereal that resembled miniscule bales of hay—while Ethan happily selected the bright and colorful box with the cartoon rabbit on the front that was strategically placed at his eye level.

  “Thanks, sweetie,” I said as Eli handed the box to me. I placed it into my
cart and continued to push my way toward the next aisle.

  Eli grabbed one of the tabloid magazines near the register as we passed by the rack. “Look, mom.” He held the cover of the magazine in front of my face so I could read the words in the headline.

  A collage of several photos of him with a different girl every night glared up at me from the cover.

  “Isn’t that the guy from our hometown?” Eli asked as he pointed to a picture of Chris with some large breasted, blonde bombshell sitting on his lap at a party.

  “Humph,” I grunted. “Yeah, put that back. We’ve got to finish getting what’s on my list,” I said, trying to downplay Chris’s fame and hide my anguish.

  I usually tried to avoid any press coverage of Chris King. Just seeing his picture on the cover of the tabloids messed with my head. Mr. ChrisRocknRollKing became a sensation overnight, and by the looks of those photos, he seemingly forgot just as quickly his father’s advice to stay on the right track. Chris King was no longer a priority in my heart. He had his life, and I had mine. My boys were my life.

  “Mommy?”

  I looked down at Ethan as he tugged on my pants leg.

  “What sweetheart?”

  Only Ethan didn’t answer. He just stood there, staring.

  “What is it?” I asked again.

  Ethan still only stood there, staring straight ahead. I shook my head and glanced back down to see the next item written on my grocery list. Dragging two children around at the grocery store, my patience wore very thin. I was just trying to concentrate on getting in, getting my groceries, and getting out, with very few distractions.

  “Mom,” Eli said in a hushed tone.

  “What now?” In that moment, I looked up to see someone walking toward us, smiling.

  Although he was still twenty feet away, I knew it was him. It had been six long years, but you don’t forget a face that easily.