“How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine. Seriously. The Tylenol worked, my head is better, and I don’t have any bruises or scratches or anything,” I say, holding up my arms for a display of all my scratch-less-ness.
“Good. That’s what I like to see. Now, eat your sandwich, and lie down.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re all seriously overreacting. The doctor said everything was fine.”
She rolls her eyes back at me. “I am not overreacting, nor is your husband. It is our job to treat you like a queen, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
“It was a tiny little fender bender. The doctors only checked me out because it’s standard, or something, for any pregnant patient to go to the ER after a car accident,” I say, repeating what the obstetrician told me.
“Standard, schmandard. I want you to take it easy. Why don’t you plan on watching a movie with me tomorrow? Something sweet and easy. A romantic comedy. Nothing that’s going to make you cry,” she adds.
“Will you make me popcorn?” I narrow my eyes, pretending I’m holding her hostage to my food demands.
“Whatever you wish, sweetie.”
“Popcorn it is then,” I say, and then eat more of the sandwich.
I let her take care of me, handing her the plate when I’m done, staying in bed. She leaves for her house, and Trey rejoins me, curling up next to me in bed.
“So, that was a fun evening,” he says, exhaling as he wraps his arms around me.
“I’ll say. Did you call that girl who hit us?”
“I was a little more concerned about you than the car,” he says. “I’ll call her tomorrow. I’m just glad you’re fine. How’s your head?”
“Better. Tylenol is like a miracle drug,” I joke.
“I gotta say, now that you’re here and safe and everything is fine, there was a moment there when I felt my heart stop. It was like all the air in the world was sucked out, and all I could feel was this terrible fucking sense of déjà vu,” he says, shaking his head, as if he can rid himself of whatever memories are lurking there. “Even though this never happened before. But still, I felt that way.”
“Me too. If that makes sense,” I whisper.
“But we’re here now, and you’re both good, and that’s all that matters. And hey, look on the bright side—we’ve had our big scare, right?” He smoothes my hair, runs his fingers through it, and then plants a kiss on my forehead. “Sure, it was scary for a bit, but it was minor, and now here we are. And you made it out all clear. We’re on the other side, and it’s all going to be fine now.”
“Yes. Everything is going to be fine,” I say.
“And I agree with Debbie. I want you to take it easy for the next few weeks.”
“You’re already plotting behind my back,” I tease.
He nods. “Yup. We are. You’re done with classes, and we want you to lie on the beach, read, play with the dog, watch movies—”
“Basically, stay away from cars?”
He smiles. “Exactly.”
“We’ll see,” I say with a yawn. “I think I just want to curl up to the ocean breeze and fall asleep.”
“Did you think I was going to try for a little action the night you’re all banged up from a car accident?”
I laugh. “Oddly enough, it hadn’t even occurred to me that you would put the moves on me right now.”
“I won’t. But if you want to sleep naked, I won’t complain.”
“The same goes for you,” I tell him, as I head to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. He does the same, then we return to the bedroom and I strip off my clothes, and pretend to do a sexy dance for him as he lies down on the covers. “Here’s that rain dance you said you wouldn’t mind.”
He laughs, and reaches out a hand to pull me into bed. “And I don’t mind at all,” he says then kisses my neck, my earlobe, my eyelids, soft, sweet fluttery kisses that make me feel warm and safe, the perfect antidote to a stressful day. I kiss him back once, lingering on his minty breath, before I shift to my side, and he spoons me.
Flesh to flesh, skin to skin, we drift off, and my head doesn’t hurt the next morning. As I stretch in bed, I feel back to normal, and a bit horny. Thanks to a full night’s sleep filled with incredibly dirty dreams, fueled by massive amounts of hormones cranking through my body, I am ready for a little something. Judging from the erection pressed against my back, Trey won’t need much convincing.
I reach my hand back and stroke him once, twice, three times till he stirs.
“Hmmm. Good morning to me,” he murmurs and kisses my neck, a sexy, sleepy morning kiss.
“It will be soon,” I tell him.
“Lucky me,” he says, looping his arm around me and cupping my breasts, squeezing them softly, then playing with my nipples.
I moan lightly and wriggle against him. “I’m ready,” I whisper.
“But how do you feel? After yesterday?”
“Totally fine. Like new.”
“Do you really think it’s a good idea to have sex after the car accident?”
I roll my eyes. “It was a tiny fender bender, and I’m all good. I feel fabulous. Here, let me show you.” I take his hand and slide it between my legs. He groans as he feels how ready I am for him. “See? I am one hundred percent normal and fine. I am your standard order thirty-six-week pregnant woman who still wants to have sex with her husband. And the doctor said I’m allowed. So count your blessings.”
“One,” he says, as if he’s counting. Then he strokes me more, making me gasp as his fingers draw delicious lines across me. “I’ve lost count,” he whispers sexily, working me where I’m hot for him. “But that’s only because you distracted me with your trick to have sex with me.”
I laugh. “Yes, I tricked you by dreaming about you doing naughty things to me last night.”
“Naughty things. Tell me more.”
“Trey,” I begin.
“Yeah?”
“Can we do it from behind?”
His hand freezes on my breast, and he tenses. “Really?”
“Yes,” I say, and I know he’s thinking of that time in the kitchen at his apartment. And he’s worried. But I’m not. I trust him completely. I trust him with my whole entire heart. “I want to. Besides, I’m pretty sure it’s the only position that’ll work right now.”
“Are you totally sure?”
I turn to look him in the eyes. “So sure. I want this. I want you like this.”
“I want you,” he says, “any way I can have you.”
We get out of bed only for him to line me up on the edge of the bed, my hands pressed against the mattress. He brushes my hair over my shoulder so he can kiss my neck as he edges his erection between my legs. I watch him as he enters me.
“Mmm. This is the perfect wake-up call from my wife.”
“I agree,” I say softly as he fills me up, and I shut my eyes, savoring the sensations, reveling in my need for him, my deep and hungry desire to be close to him right now, to feel him all the way inside me.
He makes love to me like that, slow at first, then faster, his hands on my breasts, then between my legs. He kisses my shoulders, keeps me close, whispers my name, telling me he loves me, he wants me, he will always want to touch me. I lift my butt higher, giving him more room to rock into me, to drive deeper, and he does, bringing me closer with each thrust. All the while he’s here with me, nowhere else, and it feels fantastic. Like we’ve come full circle.
And then we do.
* * *
I spend the day doing nothing but lying on the beach with The Sheriff, and it’s blissful, watching kids build sandcastles, and dogs chase Frisbees, and women set up under umbrellas to read their paperback beach reads. Trey’s at work, my semester is over, and I want to enjoy this free time while I can.
Besides, he and Debbie made it pretty clear they want me to do as little as possible. As the sun beats down on me, I can honestly say I don’t mind their directive. I don’t mind
basking in the rays.
I even fall asleep on a blanket with the dog next to me, but when I wake up under the hot afternoon sun, there’s a dull throb in my forehead again, a reminder that Tylenol will be my best friend for a few days. As I stand up to collect my blanket and beach bag, the ground tilts momentarily, and my vision goes fuzzy. But within seconds, the dark stars in front of my eyes fade and I’m fine. Must have been from the sun blaring at me, blinding me momentarily when I opened my eyes after napping.
“Let’s head inside,” I say to The Sheriff. He stretches in that downward dog style that only canines can truly master, then trots beside me through the sand as we head inside.
I drop my bag at the kitchen table, and take two Tylenol. Then I root around in the fridge for a snack. I find an orange, grab a bowl, and return to the deck. As I peel it, I’m reminded that I’m sharing space with someone else, and that someone must have been kicking my ribs while I slept, because my side is killing me. I drop the orange peels in the bowl for a minute to rub the right side of my abdomen.
“You have strong feet,” I say to my belly as I rub. “Because you made your mama really sore.”
When Debbie stops by later, we sit on the couch and chat about her day and mine, then she cues up a romantic comedy. “It’s more like an anti romantic-comedy, but it’s still funny and still romantic,” she explains as the title credits for a little indie flick I Give It a Year flash across the TV screen. And she’s right; the film is laugh-out-loud funny, a cheeky reversal of the popular genre, but after a while I can barely keep my eyes open. “I’m so tired,” I murmur, as I try to shift into a more comfortable position on my left side because the right still hurts.
“The last few weeks are like that,” Debbie says, and turns the volume down as I doze off.
The next couple of days continue in that same rhythm. I’m more tired than I’ve ever been, and my ribs are still so sore. My headache wakes me up each morning, and each time I down a few red pills. I must have whacked my head harder than I’d thought on the headrest. My naps turn epic, the heavy kind that last for hours, and when I wake up from them I feel sludgy and sleepier than when I started, a bone-heavy sort of fatigue.
When Trey returns from walking The Sheriff on Sunday morning, he finds me in front of the bathroom mirror rooting around for the Tylenol, with a hand on my forehead, the other one on my ribs, and he asks what’s going on.
“Stupid fender bender. My headache won’t go away,” I mutter. I start to return to bed, but the floor is coming at my face, and I grab onto his shoulder, gripping him hard. He’s so fuzzy, all black and hazy, like a TV on the fritz, and if I let go I might fall because everything around me is bobbing up and down. He grabs me firmly, but carefully, and guides me back to bed.
“I’m calling the doctor,” he says. “This isn’t normal for a minor car accident.”
Two hours later, I’m diagnosed with severe preeclampsia.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Trey
“But how does this happen?” I ask again, standing outside the ER room with the doctor. I’m stuck on repeat¸ asking for the fiftieth time how Harley has high blood pressure in her pregnancy. He’s already told me how, but I refuse to accept the answer.
“Some things just happen,” he says one more time, crisply enunciating each word.
No. No. No. That’s what doctors say to explain all the bad shit in the world. That’s their reasoning for death, and pain, and heartbreak. Things happen. When I used to say things happened to my shrink, she called me on it. She practically smacked me, and told me to take responsibility for my actions. Why can’t doctors do the same? Things happen is a euphemism for people die.
I hold my hands out wide, as if that will transform the information into something that makes sense. “How does she have preeclampsia?”
“It happens to some women,” the doctor says calmly. The OB on call with the practice, he’s a tiny guy and he has a baby face, as if he’s never shaved and never had to. He wears glasses and looks like he aced all his classes in school.
Admittedly, that’s a good look for a doctor. But still . . .
“She’s fucking twenty. How does it happen to a twenty-year-old? Her doc in New York said her being young was the best thing she had going for her.”
“And it still is,” he says.
“Then why does she have this preeclampsia thing?”
“Because one of the risk factors is being young. The risk of preeclampsia is higher for pregnant women who are younger than twenty, and for women in their first pregnancy. Both of which apply to your wife.”
“My wife isn’t younger than twenty. She is twenty,” I point out, as if this fact will suddenly clear up Harley’s health. She’ll sit up in bed, he’ll detach her from the machines, and he’ll send her home.
But that’s not what he’s saying.
“I understand,” he says calmly, nodding. “Even so, this is what we are dealing with. And technically, she has advancing preeclampsia.”
“So, what’s next?”
“She’s getting magnesium sulfate right now,” he says.
“Right. I know. And then after that?”
“My recommendation is that as soon as we stabilize her with the mag sulfate, which should be within a few hours, that we deliver the baby then. That’s the only treatment for preeclampsia.”
I shudder. “Is that safe?”
“She’s nearly thirty-seven-weeks pregnant, and that’s essentially full-term. When patients present with preeclampsia earlier in their pregnancies, this is about the gestational age we try to get them to. In her case, she’s there, so that’s very good. And at nearly thirty-seven weeks, the baby isn’t considered premature, so won’t need to be admitted to the NICU. You should be able to take the baby home with you.”
I exhale, and push my hand through my hair. “Whew,” I say, then breathe out hard again. “Thank god. I thought you were going to say . . .” But I trail off, because I don’t know what I thought he was going to say. I just assumed the worst, because that’s what I do. But this isn’t so bad, right? “Does any of this have to do with the accident, though? The car accident,” I add, and then quickly explain what happened a week ago.
“Hmm,” he says, tapping a pencil against his chin, as he considers. “I don’t think so. This is entirely separate. But it sounds as if her symptoms—headaches, dizziness, and tiredness—could easily be confused with the minor trauma from a fender bender. And the pain she said she was feeling in her abdomen was likely epigastric pain from her liver, since preeclampsia can impact that organ.” Then he points his pencil high in the air. “It’s a good thing she almost fainted, then. If she hadn’t, we might have thought it was all accident trauma. You caught it in the nick of time. I’ll be back shortly to see how she’s responding. And to get the results of some other routine tests we need to run for preeclamptic patients.”
He heads off, and I’m left scratching my head over his chipper attitude. But cheery is better than the alternative, I reason, as I return to the room where Harley’s nurse has started the mag sulfate drip, and is recording some information on the chart. Harley’s lying on the hospital bed, a flimsy blue gown tied at her back, her hair pulled into a ponytail. She turns her gaze to me, and smiles weakly, and then lifts her hand to wave. “Hi.”
I close the distance between us quickly. “Hi,” I say softly, standing by her side, taking her hand in mine. “How do you feel?”
“Well, the nurse said the side effects of mag sulfate include headaches and blurry vision . . . so about the same,” she says, her voice slow and sluggish, the sound of it digging hard into my heart. I wish I could take the pain away from her, bear it myself so she wouldn’t have to go through any of this.
“This should kick in soon, and reduce the risk of seizure,” the nurse says, flashing a business-like smile as she drops the chart in the holder at the end of the bed with a clang. But all I hear is that last word. Seizure. Sharp, like a nail in my back.
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“What? Nobody said anything about seizures? Is this from the medicine?”
The nurse shakes her head. “It’s one of the possible side effects of severe preeclampsia. That’s why we’re doing the mag. To reduce the risk of seizure.”
Holy shit. “The doctor didn’t say anything about seizures,” I say, in a voice coated with nerves.
The nurse pats me on the arm. “That’s what preeclampsia can lead to. That’s why we need to deliver her, sweetie. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
She leaves and I turn to Harley, and it nearly breaks me as I see the rabbit fear in her eyes. But I push aside my worry because I have to be strong for her. She’s the one who has to go through this. She’s the one whose body is taking a pounding. All I have to do is be here for her, and that’s easy, and I have to show her how easy it is. I can’t let on that my heart is running the one-hundred meter dash. I squeeze her hand. “Did the doc tell you they want you to deliver today?”
She nods, her eyelids fluttering with sleepiness. I have no clue how she’s going to have the energy to handle labor. This high blood pressure is sapping all her strength.
“I guess we really better come up with a name soon,” I tease.
She nods. “Fred.”
“Barney.”
“Wilma.”
“Betty.”
“Bonnie.”
“Clyde.”
“Calvin,” she says.
“Hobbes.”
“Batman.”
“Robin.”
“Starsky.”
“Worst name ever.”
“Then you’re nixing Hutch too?”
“Yes.”
We toss out names for the next several minutes, none of them serious, all of them a Band-Aid to pass the time.
When the nurse returns, her first task is to recheck Harley’s blood pressure. We both stare hard at the cuff as it puffs up on her arm, and expands, with a tick, tick, tick. The nurse keeps her eyes trained on the readout on the machine. Then she tsks once, shakes her head, and turns to Harley. She clasps her hands together. “I need to get the doctor.”
Every Second With You Page 19