I’m not sure why that bothered me. Harper and Drew had a connection and anyone could see how strong it was. But me? I didn’t have a connection with anyone. No one looked at me like I was the one person they needed in their life more than air. Well, not anymore. Todd had been that person to me and I had been that to him. When he was discharged from the military, he tried his best to fit back into society. He hid his reactions well, but I saw when anxiety was creeping up on him. I did my best to divert his attention to something else and for the most part it worked.
After a few days of letting my anxiety over the situation stew, I walked over to Drew’s with a casserole. I didn’t know how else to break the ice with him and thought maybe dinner would be a nice thank you for all his work the previous weekend. Walking up his front steps, my nerves took over and I started to wonder if this was really a good idea. I knocked on his door, but when he didn’t answer right away, I set the casserole down and quickly turned to head back home. I was on the bottom step when I heard his door swing open.
“Sarah? Everything okay?”
I turned to look at him and for some reason couldn’t find the words and fumbled over everything. “Yeah, I made food… dinner, I mean… casserole. It’s there.” I pointed at his feet like an idiot. “On the ground. Just… ya know..thank you for everything and….”
“Thank you. That was very nice of you. Have you already eaten?”
“Me? No I…at home…I was going to..”
God, I sounded like such an idiot, stuttering and stammering over all my words. I couldn’t figure out what my malfunction was tonight. I had to clear my throat several times so that sounds would actually leave my throat. Though, grunting and throwing out word vomit wasn’t exactly making me all that attractive at the moment. Attractive? Was that what I was hoping I would be?
“Why don’t you come in and join me?”
He turned and walked inside with the casserole, leaving the door open. I didn’t really have a choice but to follow. I walked inside fidgeting with my summer dress and running my fingers through my hair. I had no idea why I was primping for Drew. He was my neighbor and most of the time didn’t like me. Still, I found myself wanting to look presentable to him.
When I finally reached the kitchen, Drew already had plates and silverware out and was serving both of us. I sat down at the table and fumbled my fork twice before I was finally able to take a bite of food. I caught him looking at me out of the corner of his eye with a confused look on his face. Why wouldn’t he be confused? I was acting like an idiot.
“Is there something you want to tell me? You’re acting a little strange.”
“No, of course not. I’m just…well I…I mean.” I stopped and took a deep breath. Maybe I just needed to clear the air with him and then everything would go back to normal. “I’m sorry about the other night. I feel like maybe I crossed a line and I don’t know what that line was, but I’m sorry. I want to be your friend, but I don’t know what things will make you mad and I feel like I make you mad a lot.”
“You didn’t do anything.” I gave him a look that said I was calling bullshit.
“It’s not you, it’s just, when you came over…” He blew out a harsh breath and looked away in irritation.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come over.” I stood to leave because I had never felt more like an intruder in my life. It felt like I was always barging in on him and I knew at any moment he would get tired of me and tell me to leave him alone for good. I couldn’t stand to lose the only friend I had made, so leaving him alone would be best for now.
“No, wait. Don’t go.”
“Drew, I really like you, as a friend, and I don’t want to push you. If you ever want to talk, I’ll listen, but I shouldn’t be insinuating myself into your life, especially when you don’t want me there.”
He grabbed onto my arm, stopping me from leaving the house. He looked really irritated or angry, I wasn’t sure which, but I didn’t like that I was the one doing that to him.
“I don’t want you to go. There are just things that I haven’t told anyone and I don’t know how to even begin to talk about it. Just sit down and finish your meal. We can talk about it after dinner. I’m gonna need something stronger for this conversation.”
“Okay.”
I returned to the table and sat down, picking up my fork once more. We continued eating in uncomfortable silence for the next ten minutes. I wracked my brain trying to figure out what he could possibly need to say that was so difficult. Yeah, like I couldn’t think of anything that would be difficult to tell another person. I almost snorted to myself, but stopped myself in time.
After we finished eating, we brought our plates over to the sink and Drew grabbed a water bottle for me and a glass of whiskey for himself. He ushered me outside and we sat on the deck chairs for several minutes before he finally spoke.
“I haven’t told anyone this, not even Harper.” He was quiet for a minute and I almost told him to forget about it. It was obviously painful for him to talk about. “I used to be married. She was beautiful and the most special person I’ve ever met. She could light up a room just walking in. She was everything to me.” My eyes were riveted on him. I saw his throat work as he fought to keep control of his emotions as he told me the story. “She died about a year and a half after we were married. She got pregnant after we were married for a year and that’s when she felt the lump. The doctor’s said that it was probably a clogged milk duct, but testing showed that she’d had a slow growing cancer for a long time. For some reason, the cancer took off when she got pregnant. She had to either keep the baby and wait for treatment or terminate the pregnancy. The doctors didn’t give her very good odds if she kept the baby.”
“What did she do?”
He turned and looked at me with sad eyes. “I begged her to terminate the pregnancy. They said the pregnancy would probably kill her. I didn’t want to lose her.” He looked off into the distance and stared at the setting sun for a long time. I didn’t want to interrupt him because he looked like he was finally at peace. He closed his eyes and a smile touched his lips. I wanted to know so badly what caused him to get that look on his face. I sat in silence for the better part of an hour, not sure if I should stay or go, but he wasn’t asking me to leave and I didn’t want to intrude on his thoughts.
As I waited for him, the breeze picked up and despite the cooling temperature, I felt warmth wrap around me. It was a strange, yet peaceful feeling.
“Can you feel her?”
I looked over to see Drew looking at me curiously. I crinkled my eyebrows, not understanding what he was saying. “What do you mean?”
“She was here. Could you feel her? It was like..” He closed his eyes as he tried to figure out how to describe her.
“Warmth,” I said and he snapped his head back to me. “I felt her. It was like peace was settling inside me.”
His eyes held an understanding and I could swear I saw a tear slip from his eye in the darkness. “That’s why you wanted me to leave the other night.”
He nodded. I needed to tell him something. He had shared so much with me and I needed him to know that I understood.
“My babies’ father is dead. He died right before I moved here. He talks to me sometimes, like when I had the accident. He kept telling me to get out of the car, that it wasn’t safe to stay there. He urged me to keep moving. When I got home, he told me to sleep, that he would watch over me.” I looked over at him and saw no judgement on his face. “It’s the best and the worst gift, isn’t it? I can hear his voice and it brings me peace, but it doesn’t make it any easier to move on. At the same time, I can’t imagine what it would be like if I no longer heard him, you know? How long ago did your wife die?”
“Almost seven years ago.”
I nodded thoughtfully. “You’ve been lucky, I mean, to have her with you for so long.”
“She fades a little more each day. I think the more I
move on, the less I feel her. Maybe that’s why I refuse to make too many changes. I mean, I settled here and bought a house. I made friends, but I haven’t moved on from her. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to date someone else.”
We sat for a few minutes in the dark in silence. It was nice to know that I wasn’t the only one going through this. I was about ready to head home when Drew asked me something I couldn’t answer.
“The father, was he your husband?”
My breath caught in my chest as I contemplated my answer. I couldn’t bring myself to lie, but I also knew I couldn’t tell Drew the truth. There was nothing in my new identity about being married, so I couldn’t tell him that Todd was my husband, but the thought of denying it was like a knife to my chest. Instead of answering, I sat there in the dark and wallowed in the reality of my new life.
Drew didn’t ask any more questions after that and neither did I. We sat in silence for so long that I dozed off, only waking when the babies started kicking me. The urge to use the bathroom was strong, so I got up and walked over to Drew, placed a kiss on his cheek and headed home.
✯✯✯✯✯
The next weekend brought more of the same around my house. I spent most nights curled up on the couch watching cooking shows and reading books. After many months of not having a TV, I finally broke down and got myself a small one.
My weekends were spent in the garden and finding little things that needed to be done around the house before the babies came. I had painted the babies room white with an accent wall in a pretty blue. Most of the decorations were wild animals. I wasn’t much of a decorator unless there was expensive art involved, so the room didn’t look like much. Overall, it was pretty plain, but that was okay. I didn’t need the room to look like something out of a Martha Stewart catalogue.
I still needed to buy all the furniture for the babies’ room and, well, everything else. I was probably the least prepared mother in the history of the world. I had eight weeks until the babies were considered full term. The doctor told me that most twins were born around 36 weeks, but they considered twins full term at 38 weeks. She said that if I didn’t deliver by then, they would induce because of additional risks that could present at that point. I was doing well though and aside from some braxton hicks contractions, everything was going great.
I was still searching for a daycare provider for the twins, though I didn’t really want to do that. Ideally, I would like to find someone that could come to my house and take care of the twins during the day, but I wasn’t sure if I could afford that. Harper said she had heard of someone that could potentially be a live in nanny, but I wasn’t sure I was okay with that and I didn’t have the space either. She was going to get me the information so I could contact the woman.
My little basketball stomach had gotten quite large over the past month and I now looked like I was about to pop any day. I had gone shopping after work one day this week because all my clothes were too tight on me. I now had a new wardrobe of summer maternity dresses that I absolutely loved. Most of them were more form fitting because I found that I didn’t like the way I looked in a flowy dress. They made me feel twice as large and I also worried about my dress flying up with a strong breeze.
I had asked Drew if he would take me shopping this weekend for the furniture I would need. I would have gone by myself, but I wouldn’t be able to lift the boxes or get them home in my little car. Drew said he would pick me up after lunch to go shopping, which I was fine with because I enjoyed sleeping in as much as I could before the babies came. Most nights I would wake up to go to the bathroom and then be up for hours afterwards. I didn’t have the luxury of sleeping in during the week because I was the day manager at The Pub, but the weekends were all mine for the next two months.
I was just sitting down for a second helping of lunch when Drew knocked on my door. Holding my sandwich, I walked to the door and pulled it open as I took a huge bite.
“Did I miss lunch?”
“Come on in. I’m just eating my second helping.”
“Second helping? I thought you weren’t supposed to take that whole ‘eating for two’ thing literally?”
“I’m not eating for two. I’m eating for three. I think my son is taking after his daddy in the eating department.”
“How do you know it’s not your daughter?”
“Because she’s sitting lower and he’s higher. All the kicks are up in my ribs. Every time I’m hungry, he starts kicking me, which leads me to believe that he’s hungry too.”
Ever since I told Drew about the twins’ father, I had felt more comfortable mentioning him in conversation. I never gave away anything that happened, but over the last week I had opened up to him a little more about general things. Drew had made it a habit to stop by and see how I was when he got home from work and make sure there was nothing I needed. It was a relief to know that someone cared enough to stop in.
“Have you thought about names yet? Maybe some family names?”
“I don’t have any family that I would name them after.”
“What about your son? He could take his dad’s name.”
How did I explain that I couldn’t give my son his father’s name? Everyone would question why.
“No. I think I’ll give him something that’s all for him.”
In truth, Todd and I had talked for a long time about giving our future son his grandfather’s name. He was a great man that Todd admired and loved very much.
“When we have kids, if we have a girl, I want to name her Charlotte.”
Todd quirked his eyebrows at me. “Where does Charlotte come from?”
“I just like the name. I’ve always liked it, but now that we’re thinking about having a baby, I’m putting my request in now so that you don’t override my decision when I’m pregnant and can be swayed with food.”
“Really? You think I could sway you with food?”
“You do it now, so what would make me think I could resist if I was pregnant?”
“Fine. I accept your choice if you accept mine.”
“That depends. What’s your choice?”
“Alastair. We could call him Ally for short.”
I scrunched my nose in distaste. Ally? That kid would be teased as a child and an adult.
“I’m sorry. I can’t accept that name. Ally? Really? Are you asking for your child to be bullied?”
“It was my grandfather’s name. It would mean a lot to me if we named our son after him. My grandfather was a great man. My parents used to drop me off at my grandparents house and go to parties and go on vacation. The man practically raised me until I was seventeen and he died. He taught me everything I know about honor and respect. He taught me survival skills and how to shoot. The man guided me toward the future I had. It was a blessing because my parents would have sent me off to boarding school and washed their hands of me. I owe everything to him.”
Well, how could I say no to that? “Alright. We can name him Alastair, but can we come up with a different nickname for him?”
Todd threw his head back in laughter. “I was just joking. We won’t name our kid Alastair. That wasn’t even his name.”
“You made that all up? That’s horrible!”
“No. I didn’t make it all up. My grandfather really did do all that for me, but his name was Henry.”
“Henry.” I tested it on my lips and decided it wasn’t that bad. “Alright, but under one condition. We make his middle name Jones.”
“Really? We’re going to name our kid after Indiana Jones?”
“Well, only partly. Henry for your grandfather and Jones just fits.”
He gave a sigh, but agreed. “Fine. If we have a girl, we’ll name her Charlotte and if we have a boy, we’ll name him Henry Jones.”
I smiled at him, not expecting him to actually name our son Henry Jones.
“Sarah. Sarah. Is everything okay?”
I finally pulled myself from the memory and looked up at Drew. His face was
pinched in concern.
“I’m sorry. I was just thinking about something. I didn’t hear what you were saying.”
“It must have been painful.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you’re crying.”
I reached up and felt the wetness on my cheeks, quickly wiping the tears away and pulling myself together. “I’m fine. Let’s go get this shopping done or you’re gonna have to take me to dinner too.”
He smiled and pulled me in close. “Well, you’d probably spend more on dinner than you would on all the baby furniture, so let’s get going.”
We walked to his truck, but he stopped me when we got to the passenger side. “You know you can talk to me, right? I’m here if you need to vent or talk about anything.”
“Thanks, Drew. I appreciate that.”
I climbed into his truck and shut the door, effectively ending the conversation.
✯✯✯✯✯
“Drew, where are we going? This isn’t the way to Target.”
“We’re stopping by Jack’s house on the way. Harper wanted to have you look at a few baby items that she has first.”
“Oh, that’s nice of her. She doesn’t need them anymore?”
“I don’t know. I don’t really know anything about baby stuff, so you’ll have to ask her.”
We pulled into Jack’s house a few minutes later and I got out, curious as to why there were so many vehicles there.
“Are they having a party or something?”
“I think they’re having a barbecue this afternoon. You know, summer is coming to an end and they want to get as much grilling in as possible before the cold weather starts moving in.”
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