Be My Baby Lite

by ANDREA SMITH

  I hoped that it wasn’t Amber checking on her leather jacket again. The thought brought a giggle to me. Gina and Tristan got up to dance. Finally Trey ended his call.

  “That was Mom,” he said. “Tess and Nigel welcomed their baby boy about an hour ago. Everything's fine. The baby's healthy and the family's ecstatic.”

  “Wow,” I said, “he has the same birthday as Tristan.”

  Somehow I hoped that was an omen of some sort. I was bothered more than ever that their baby would turn out to be Trey’s. It'd be difficult to tell though with the similarities between the brothers. I suppose that's why it was the perfect plan.

  “She wanted to wish Tristan a ‘Happy Birthday’ too. She wants him to call her when he gets back to the table.”

  “Did she say what the baby looks like?” I asked.

  Trey gave me a sidelong glance.

  “Didn’t you really mean who?”

  “What? That’s a typical question.”

  “She didn’t go into any details,” he replied, taking my hand. “You’re not going to get weird about this are you?”

  “No, Trey,” I said suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling of loss that I felt at not having Marley. I quickly pushed the feeling aside. Now was not the time or the place to grieve if that in fact was what that feeling signaled.

  Gina and Tristan returned to the table. Trey shared the good news with them. Tristan went outside to call his mother back.

  When he returned he told us she was staying with Nigel and Tess for the next couple of weeks. She said they'd be coming for Thanksgiving. She was looking forward to having all of her sons, wives, significant others and grandchildren in Bristol for Thanksgiving.

  I wasn’t sure if I'd be able to get through another Sinclair holiday this year.

  When Trey and I got home, I climbed the stairs to our suite. I was still feeling out of sorts with the birth of Tess’s and whoever’s son. I knew I couldn’t share this with Trey because that ship had sailed way back when he'd made the decision.

  I got into my nightgown and climbed into our bed. Trey came in a few minutes later and changed into his sweats and a tee shirt. He joined me in our bed, pulling me close.

  “Hey, is everything all right, sweetie?”

  I looked over at him and I knew that I couldn’t hide my sadness from him this time. I'd done it all those times before but it wouldn’t allow me to ignore it this time.

  “No, Trey. Everything's not okay.”

  “Tell me, baby. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “We lost our baby,” I moaned. “We lost our little Marley.”

  I dissolved into racking sobs with the realization I could no longer tuck this reality back into some abstract place in my mind to be dealt with in the future; or not to be dealt with at all.

  Trey was on his knees pulling me up to him. His arms encircled me as I continued to wail over our loss. I never knew that my body contained so many tears. They had been building up for a while. These tears were only for Marley; no one else.

  “There, baby,” he said to me soothingly. “Just let it out, sweetie. I know it hurts, doesn’t it?”

  I nodded into his shoulder still sobbing.

  “Why, Trey? Why'd she die?”

  “I don’t have the answer to that question. I just know it was nothing you did or didn’t do, okay?”

  “And it was nothing you did either,” I said. “How could I have said what I said to you?”

  “You were in shock, honey. You didn’t mean it.”

  By this time, Trey was sitting on the bed. He'd pulled me into his lap. His fingers brushed the tears from my face.

  “Trey?”

  “Yeah baby?”

  “I don’t want to have any more children.”

  “Sweetie,” he said, “right now the pain is too fresh. Give it some time. You may feel differently.”

  “I'll give it some time, but I don’t think I'll feel differently. I never want to feel this kind of loss again.”

  Trey held me all through the night. My tears and sobbing came in bits and pieces. He continued to soothe me, staying awake, holding me in his strong arms. I dozed off intermittently between the bouts of crying.

  Trey got up Sunday morning before I did. I knew he couldn’t have gotten much sleep if any at all. He brought Preston in once she was dressed. She crawled over next to me on the bed.

  “Mommie?”

  Aww, she's calling me 'Mommy' now.

  I opened my eyes feeling her closeness and hearing her sweet baby voice.

  “Hi baby,” I said to her smiling. A fresh tear rolled down my cheek.

  “Mommie sad?”

  “Yes, Preston. Mommy's feeling kind of sad today.”

  “Cancakes?”

  “No honey; Mommy doesn’t feel like making pancakes this morning. Daddy will make pancakes for you.”

  She was watching me with her big blue eyes. She didn’t understand my sadness. God willing she'd never have to experience this type of sadness in her life. She put her thumb in her mouth and nestled down next to me on the bed. She didn’t want to leave me. I fell back to sleep.

  Trey came back into our room at noon to wake me up.

  “Are you going to stay in bed all day sleepy-head?”

  He was trying to cheer me up. I didn’t deserve to be cheered up right now.

  “Where’s Preston?” I asked.

  “She's spending the day with her cousin, Reese. Jean dropped her on her way to visit her daughter. She'll bring her back this evening.”

  “You didn’t need to send the baby away. I can handle her.”

  “I know you can. I also know that you're feeling sad. I thought maybe you and I would spend a quiet day at home with just each other.”

  I moved over to where he was sitting on the bed. He pulled me into his lap; he gently stroked my hair with his hand.

  “I ran you a nice bubble bath,” he said nodding toward the bathroom. “When you're finished there, I'll have a special lunch made for you.”

  I relaxed in my bubble bath thinking how nice it would be to spend the day alone with Trey. Karla had alluded to the fact that Trey and I needed to make time for each other. That was why I wanted to surprise him with the cruise. I would need to get busy with those arrangements soon.

  I got dressed in jeans and a sweater and pulled my riding boots on. When I got downstairs I saw that Trey had set the dining room table for our lunch. He had our best china out, cloth napkins and candles lit even though it was sunny out. He'd poured us each a glass of white wine. It was very intimate.

  He was coming out of the kitchen with two salad plates full as I got to the dining room.

  “Perfect timing,” he said, setting the salads down on the table. He pulled a chair out for me to be seated. We sipped our wine and ate our salads talking about the upcoming holidays and what we wanted to do. I heard a timer go off in the kitchen. Trey disappeared through the door and returned with a warm quiche from the oven.

  “Okay,” I said, smiling for the first time. “I know you did not make that quiche.”

  “I didn’t claim that I did. I knew you liked it so I asked Jean to make it before she left.”

  “Trey, honestly,” I smiled, “Sunday's supposed to be her day off. You have her making quiche and shuttling Preston back and forth.”

  “She didn’t mind,” he replied watching me. “She wants you to feel better you know. I do too.”

  “I know that, honey,” I said. “I want to feel better.”

  We finished our lunch and Trey cleaned up the kitchen.

  “Do you want to take Derringer out on the trail?” he asked.

  “I don’t feel like going by myself,” I said.

  Trey rolled his eyes and smiled.

  “I meant both of us,” he replied. “I want both of us to take him out on the trail.”

  “Okay, let me get a jacket.”

  Trey and I spent a couple of hours on the horse trail with Derringer. We'd stop off at different places
on the trail to sit and talk in the crisp autumn sunshine.

  He held my hand when we were walking; his arms encircled me when we were on the horse, holding me close against his chest. I felt so safe and loved.

  When we got back to the stables, he and I unsaddled Derringer together. We worked as a team talking and laughing as we brushed and groomed him. When we finished, Trey pulled me down on a bale of straw to sit next to him.

  He was staring at me; his eyes were very serious and intense.

  “What, Trey?”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  Oh God, please don’t let this be about Danny Duvall.

  “Sure.”

  “When was the first time you knew you cared about me?”

  Thank God...

  “Hmm, well let’s see. I think it was the first time you got all strict with me over at the Belle. You ripped into me about ‘no one mounts Derringer but me’.” I tried to imitate his authoritative tone.

  “Really? I was a real ass to you that day.”

  “The day got better as I recall.”

  He smiled showing me his dimple. He pulled me against him.

  “Hey - what about you?” I asked.

  “It was the same day,” he replied, “just a little later.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. It was right after I hauled you out of the pool.”

  “Oh God, you mean when I had my ‘near-death experience’?”

  “After that,” he replied softly. “The paramedics had put you into the squad. They wouldn’t let me ride along with you to the hospital. I got into my car and sped like hell so I'd get to the hospital at the same time they did. I didn’t want you coming to and not knowing where you were or what had happened. I was so very scared that you wouldn’t make it.”

  Trey’s voice had gotten hoarse. I looked up at him and saw him brush a tear from his cheek with the palm of his hand. He was choked up. I wasn’t used to seeing him emotional.

  “Charlotte had tuned my car radio in to some ‘oldies’ station when we'd been out earlier that evening. As I finally caught up with the paramedics on the road to the hospital, a song came on that radio station that I’d heard before on television or maybe in a movie. It just seemed so on-target for what I felt at that exact moment.”

  “What song was it?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure of the title,” he said, “and you know I’m not a singer; but it starts out saying something about ‘the night we met I knew I needed you so.’ Do you know the song?”

  “Is the next line something like ‘And if I had the chance, I’d never let you go’?”

  “Yeah, that’s it,” he said smiling sheepishly.

  “Be My Baby,” I said softly, shaking my head in recognition.

  “That’s when I knew I loved you, Tylar. That’s when I knew I wanted you to be my baby forever. I didn't even know you but I loved you - crazy stuff, huh?"

  He lowered his head raking his hands through his thick hair. He was so sad. Had I made him sorry for that?

  “What about now? What do you feel now?”

  I was almost afraid to hear his answer, but I knew that I needed to ask the question. He turned to me and I saw the tears of pain in his eyes; I was afraid that I'd put that anguish there.

  “I lost her too, Tylar. I loved that baby just like I loved Preston before she was born; I lost her too, you know?”

  “Oh, Trey,” I said, wrapping my arms around him tightly. I kissed his tears and buried my face into his chest.

  “But you didn’t grieve, Tylar. I wanted - I needed to grieve, but I couldn’t, because I was waiting for you. So, I held it inside of me all this time thinking maybe it was natural for you to feel the way you felt; maybe I was expecting you to feel the way I did and you simply didn’t. I felt it was wrong for me to resent you for not grieving.”

  “You resented me?”

  “I did,” he said nodding his head. “I resented the hell out of you. I should have known though.”

  “Should have known what?”

  “I should have known something was wrong; that you were holding it in all of this time. I should have known you weren't allowing yourself to grieve for our baby girl.”

  “How could you have known? I didn’t even know it myself.”

  “Because I’m your husband, damn it! I'm supposed to know you better than you know yourself. And because I do know the person that you are and your behavior was totally out of character for that person.”

  “Trey please - “

  “No, Tylar. This needs to be said. It was my responsibility to see that your needs - whether physical or emotional - were being met. I didn’t do that. I chose to hide behind my resentment. I buried myself in my work; I mentored Amber."

  I leaned in to him closer, taking his hand into mine.

  "I spent more time with her than I did with you or Preston. I'm the one that carries the guilt for this. Last night you finally let loose with your grief after all of this time. I should have never let you go on for so long like that. Look what we’ve done to each other.”

  “Stop please. You're my husband. You're not my keeper. You're not taking the blame for this. I'm responsible for myself. The healing has started now. I realize its several months late, but it's finally started.”

  “I can see that, Tylar; your healing started after one session with Dr. Hunter! How the fuck should I feel about that?”

  I wasn’t following Trey’s line of thinking. I hoped he intended to clue me in.

  “I should've forced you to see Dr. Hunter way before now. Don’t you see that? If I'd insisted you see her for counseling, we might not have had to go through all the shit we’ve gone through.”

  “You know as well as I do "making" me do something almost never works out, right?”

  He looked over at me with a hint of a smile on his face.

  “Besides I don’t know that my one visit with Karla is what prompted my grieving process. I think it had more to do with Nigel and Tess’s baby being born.”

  “Why would that trigger it?”

  “Because from the minute that baby was born, it will now be a reminder to us at every holiday get together or family celebration we attend that you and I should be raising a child that age. There'll always be one empty seat at the dinner table, one unworn party hat, one less child’s worth of gifts Santa puts under our tree.”

  Trey pulled me over onto his lap. He wrapped his arms around me.

  “Doesn’t Reese offer that same reminder?”

  “No,” I said simply shaking my head.

  “Why?”

  “It’s just different,” I said shrugging. “He was already here.”

  “By just a couple of days. Is it because Tess’s son may be mine?”

  I cringed when he said it but I couldn’t deny the truth.

  “Yes,” I answered him honestly. “If you want to know the truth that's part of it.”

  “We can have more children, Tylar. We never planned for Preston to be an only child.”

  “I know; but what if it happens again?”

  “Honey, do you remember what the doctor said about the rarity of what happened?”

  “Yeah, it was something like one in a million chances that the same thing would happen to the same mother.”

  “It was actually 1.2 million,” he said, correcting me.

  “Remember Dr. Addison saying it wasn’t just one thing that caused Marley’s death, but a rare series of events that each played a part in this particular tragedy?”

  I nodded.

  “I don’t want us to be afraid of odds like that baby.”

  “Trey, you and I need time to heal before we consider having another child.”

  “I know baby. Just please don’t say ‘never’ okay?”

  “Okay,” I replied snuggling against him.

  It was starting to get dark as Trey and I walked hand-in- hand through the field to our home. The sun was going down making the air much chillier.

&nb
sp; Once inside, Trey got a fire going in the fireplace. He poured us each a glass of wine and we relaxed on the thick rug in front of the fire. I grabbed a couple of pillows from the couch and we lay on our sides sipping wine and watching the flames flickering. They made different shadowy shapes on the walls.