by M. J. Fields
“I promise.” It is a promise filled with truths, a promise I know I will never take back. And in his eyes, I see acceptance of that promise.
I smile, he smiles, and we hug so tightly I am sure, if someone were to see us at this moment, we would be one person physically as well as spiritually and emotionally.
“Marry me,” he says, the words coming from somewhere so deep it’s like they are rooted there. They can and will never be taken back, and because of this, our love will never be taken away.
If we get married, his name will be mine; his name will be this baby’s; and everything will be as it should be, as I want so desperately for it to be.
“Yes.” I nod.
“Yes?” he asks, holding my face and looking into my eyes, searching, seeking, needing, wanting … me.
I nod again. “Yes.”
“Are you out of your damn mind!”
Both of our heads turn to the door we didn’t hear open because, well, our love is deafening, and there is my daddy.
I laugh, Dad scowls, and T puffs out his chest.
“There is way too much negative energy in this room,” I say, pushing myself up on my toes and kissing T’s lips. Then I walk over to Dad and kiss his cheek before looking toward the door where I see Tessa smiling. I look back at the men facing off.
“I love you both,” I tell them. “You both love me. Keep in mind that I am stubborn, determined, and that making me happy is important to both of you. Figure out how to make that continue, and please don’t kill each other.” With that, I walk out, and Tessa takes my hand.
I start to shut the door behind us, but she stops me. “You love him. Don’t shut the door.”
I laugh, and she sighs.
“You sure about this?” Tessa asks.
“One hundred percent,” I answer, smiling.
I look back to see T smiling at me.
He runs his hand through his hair then looks at my Dad. “Tell me what you need me to say to you, promise you, show you, and if it doesn’t involve taking my balls away and becoming a bitch, I’m sure you and I can come up with a way to put you at ease.”
“Swoon.” I smile, and Tessa wraps her arm around my shoulder and gives me a squeeze.
EIGHTEEN
* * *
Love doesn’t have conditions.
— A. Stockford
ONE MONTH LATER
The week after I made the sun return to T’s eyes, my life with him and love, even with nausea and the stress of work, became everything I could have imagined and more. The time I was away from him, I missed him more than I ever thought I could miss a person. But the case I was working on demanded everything I could give it.
It was heartbreaking, and poor T had to listen to me rant every night about the injustices that had been done to these women and their unborn children.
Each of the five days, I interviewed another woman who had miscarried late in their pregnancies due to taking a prescription medication that was deemed safe for pregnant women. One of them, Anna Thompson, started a thread on an online message board where people posted questions. She had a dozen women throughout the United States who had not miscarried but had given birth to children with birth defects and long-term health issues.
When I called Sandra to tell her of this finding, she told me I needed to interview them, too. I didn’t want to be away from T, but this was more than just a case. I felt like I was fighting a cause, that I was making a difference.
When I told T on Wednesday that I may be traveling more, he asked if I would be opposed to him coming with me and hanging out at the hotel. I didn’t even have to think about it; I simply told him yes.
That night, there was a knock at my hotel door, and when I opened it, he stood there, holding a beautiful bouquet of not flowers, but Snicker bars. We lay in bed, me babbling on and on as he fed me Snickers and, yes, made love to me.
When we come back to the loft on Friday, everything I own is there. He cleaned out my apartment in the first three days I was away.
He shrugs. “I was bored.”
I dive on him, and he laughs. I laugh, and we make love on the floor in the middle of the living room.
We’re lying there, breathless and panting, afterward when a thought hits me like a gut punch.
“What?” he asks, obviously sensing my head is in a far off place.
“You can’t take this the wrong way,” I say as a precursor to what’s to come.
“O … kay?”
“Sex before you …” I say slowly and cautiously as I watch for a reaction, sensing a little trepidation. “T, before you, I thought I had the best sex ever. Now I don’t know how I could have thought that.” When he doesn’t say anything, and I can’t read him, I ask, “Should I explain?”
He nods once.
“Well, I think, because sex was twice a year, maybe I kind of got off on the thought, and that’s why I thought it was”—I hold up my fingers to air quote—“‘Magical.’ ”
He sucks his lips in, trying not to laugh, which makes me laugh.
He nods again, telling me to continue, yet he doesn’t say a word. His big, plump pillow lips are all sucked in his mouth, and he looks ridiculous and sexy.
“Like my love for …” I pause.
“Your knight,” he finishes, not seeming angry.
“Sure, him. It was all up here.” I point to my head. “All a fairytale. And we all know fairytales are not real.”
“Are they not, Ava?” He takes my hand and covers his heart. “Mine feels real.”
I can’t help the smile that forms in my heart then spreads across my face.
I take his hand. “Dark fairytales aren’t real.”
He makes a silly face as if he’s terrified. “Grimm’s tales.”
“Those ones,” I agree and laugh as I place his hand over my heart. “But you, Thomas Hardy, are here and real and taking me for who I am, regardless of what I have done. And maybe I believe in sunshine and butterflies and happily ever afters, after all.”
“I will until my last breath, my goddess Ava,” he says, smiling.
“I promise the same. As long as you promise.” I pause and smirk.
“Do go on.” He rolls me to my back and hovers over me.
“I just want to say, for the record, we better be making lots and lots and lots of babies.”
He presses his forehead against mine. “I plan on it.” He reaches between us and adjusts himself against me. Then he pushes in slowly.
I moan, “Good, because sex with you is better than … Snickers … every time.”
“Better than Snickers, huh?”
“Yes, it really satisfies me.”
He laughs, smiles, and makes love to me for hours.
When we finish, I go in search of my journal, the one Jade gave me, but I can’t find it anywhere.
He is at the stove, cooking pasta, when I come out and look over his shoulder.
“Do you think you’ve made enough?”
He nods. “We can throw it out if it doesn’t get used.”
I bite my tongue instead of scolding him. I understand that he was hungry once. I understand it, but I can’t imagine it.
I kiss his cheek then ask, “Have you seen my journal?”
He glances quickly at me then away, looking very suspicious. “Um …”
“T, did you read it?”
“Not much to read.” He sets the wooden spoon on the spoon rest and turns, crossing his arms as he scowls at me. “It was one of those Grimm’s tales. We are past that, Ava. If you are mad at me, you have to get over it, because our love is not dark or hidden. It’s bright and …” He stops as he walks away, waving me off dismissively.
I follow him into one of the spare bedrooms that has an entire wall of bookshelves and his desk. He sits down and opens the drawer, pulling out a new journal and handing it to me.
The cover is a picture of us kissing at Maddox and Harper’s wedding.
“This is love, Ava.” He stands
up and pulls the chair back. “Sit and read while I make you dinner.”
I can’t stop staring at the cover. We both look so incredibly happy.
I nod as he walks out the door. Then I open the book and look at his handwriting, which is elegant and beautiful.
Page 1
Love is love.
There is a hand-drawn picture of two hearts—his and mine.
Page 2
Love is her feet that brought her to me.
Another picture of feet.
Page 3
Love is her smile and the way in which it effortlessly makes mine feel whole for the first time in my life.
A picture of a smile.
Page 4
Love is the pain you feel when their heart is aching.
Another heart.
Page 5
Love is the sun breaking through the rain and clouds and storms, giving you strength to carry on.
There is a heart with sunbeams shining from it.
Page 6
Love is the clarity you receive in even the worst moments.
There are two hearts under the word Love that is drawn in the shape of an umbrella.
Page 7
Love is in the kindness she shows others.
There are hands linked together with hearts surrounding them.
Tears spill from my eyes again, and I wipe them away.
“Ava,” T says, walking toward me.
“These are the best kinds of tears.” I laugh. “I’m okay.”
“Yes, you are, Ava. And you are loved.” He hugs me.
“You’ll never stop being loved. God, T, why did this whole thing not start back when we met? I feel like we wasted so much time.”
He kisses my head and lets go of me to grab a pen and the journal.
“Page eight. Love is timeless,” he says as he writes it out, and then he draws a clock with no hands. He then closes the book, opens the drawer, and takes out a small, shiny metal box. He pushes the chair back and kneels in front of me, “Ava Links …”
“Yes,” I say with conviction, making him smile more brightly than I have ever seen.
“So, you’ll marry me?”
“Yes!” I laugh and hold my left hand out. “Yes. Yes. Yes!”
He slides it on my finger, and I don’t even look. When he stands, I can’t keep my hands off of him long enough to register that I have a rock on my hand because the man, the one who loves me, is my everything now and forever, because our love is … timeless.
“I’m not broken anymore,” he whispers so softly I am not sure I was supposed to hear him.
“I love you,” I tell him as he lifts me up, and I wrap my legs around him.
***
After cleaning up the mess we made by ignoring the boiling pasta on the stove, we order pizza.
He sits on the floor, his back against the couch, my back against his chest, and his arms wrapped around me as he literally shoves pizza into my mouth.
“Monday …” he sighs, and immediately, the carefree mood I was engulfed in is gone. He senses it, leans forward, and kisses my shoulder. “I planned to ask you Monday after we go to the doctors to prove to you that, if there were any doubt in your head, there is none in mine.”
“But you said, ‘What am I going to do with her?’ You said it, and I thought—”
“You thought wrong. Now you know better. We both know better. Fuck, Ava, I just listened to you talking about fucking another man.” I start to object, but he doesn’t allow it. “I didn’t get upset, Ava. It was you telling me something real, and for that, I am grateful. For you loving me, I am even more in love with you.”
I relax, believing everything he’s saying. I believe it, feel it. The feeling is emanating from him to me and back again.
I stand up quickly before he has the chance to stop me and run into the room where the journal was left. I take it out and grab a pen.
“Page nine. Love is at its truest when it is mirrored: his to hers and hers to his, theirs together.”
I look up when he walks closer.
“T, I love this book,” I say like it’s a surprise.
He grabs me, pulls me into a tight hug, and laughs.
He gets me.
***
We sit in the doctor’s office, me on the exam table and him on the chair he has pulled up next to me. I look down, focusing on his hand holding mine. It is tight and fills me with tension. When I look in his eyes, I see they are soft and accepting, as well as full of love and understanding.
He leans forward and kisses me softly, sweetly, and then whispers, “I love you.”
As I am about to say the same in return, the doctor walks in.
“Good morning, Ava. I’m Dr. Kennedy,” she says, looking down at my chart. “The urine test came back positive, so you’re pregnant. The first day of your last period was on the twelfth of December. It says you have a normal twenty-eight-day cycle, and that”—she pauses and looks up at me—“we’ve drawn blood from both you and Mr. Hardy to do the paternity test. It should be back”—she looks again—“in twenty-four hours since you paid for rush.”
We both say yes, our tones mimicking those of teenagers who have been called into the principal’s office.
She starts to ready her things for the exam, and I look over at T, who’s wide-eyed.
He looks back at me and whispers, “Is she going to—”
“I’m going to do an internal exam.” Dr. Kennedy nods. “I’ll check her uterus and take a few samples.”
“Thank you,” I say as she pulls out the stirrups.
I look at T again. He is now looking intently at every tool she picks up from the tray of sterile instruments.
“Relax your knees,” she says, and I about die.
What was I thinking to let him be in here?
He looks at me, his brows furrowed, and nods once. “You okay?”
I nod, and he looks away.
He’s like a watch dog. He is hardly blinking, as if he’s afraid he will miss something.
I wiggle my toes, and he looks back at me.
I smirk. “Are you okay?”
His mouth drops open as if to say, I can’t believe you just asked that, and it makes me giggle.
He doesn’t look at me, fixated on her movements and the damn tools of her trade.
Dr. Kennedy glances up at me, and I straighten my smile. I swear she wants to smirk, but she doesn’t. She is very professional.
“Ovulation is dependent on the woman’s cycle. From the length of it and because you were on the pill, the computation says that ovulation should have occurred anywhere between the twenty-third and the twenty-eighth.” She glances up as if that may help answer the awkward question looming over our heads, but we don’t say anything, and she continues, “The male sperm can live for up to three days, and the female egg is fertile between twelve and twenty-four hours.”
She glances up again, and I see T nod in my peripheral.
When she is done with the exam, she sits back, pulls her gloves off and quickly tosses them, and then washes her hands. Then she turns around and looks at us.
“There is only a twenty percent chance that a woman becomes pregnant in any given month, and only twenty percent of those pregnancies are viable past twelve weeks. You’re at nine weeks. Congratulations, you are almost at the safe—”
“What do you mean almost at the safe?” T asks worriedly.
“Mr. Hardy, there is no need to worry. Just…” She looks at me as if she is questioning his involvement. I hold up my ring finger, and she nods. “Enjoy life as usual with your fiancée and try not to stress anything.”
She focuses back on me. “Another thing you should know is your HCG levels are very high, which means there is a possibility of twins, but it could just be how your body reacts to pregnancy. Oh, and your due date is September 17th.”
The word “twins” makes my heart leap in my chest. All I can think about is how Luke had uncles who were twins. They died in a c
ar accident when they were young. It was tragic.
I look at her, and she seems to know what I am concerned with.
“Twins are determined by the female.”
I take a deep breath and nod.
Thank God, I think. Thank God.
NINETEEN
* * *
It’s never cut and dry.
— J. Ingrid Espino
In our bedroom, I begin to pack. Tomorrow, we fly to Chicago where I will meet seven women whose children have disabilities that will forever affect them.
“Why?” I ask myself out loud.
An arm snakes around my waist and pulls me back until I hit a warm hard body. “Why what?”
I turn and hug him. “Those poor women.”
“Page ten, Love shows in her empathy.”
I look up at him and smile slightly.
“Page eleven, Love is in the compassion she carries.” He smiles, making me smile.
“Page twelve,” I tell him, “her love is because of his. Thank you. Thank you for today, thank you for yesterday, and thank you for tomorrow.”
He cups the side of my face and kisses my forehead. “No, Ava, thank you.”
“Are you scared?” I whisper.
“No. Things won’t change, Ava. We won’t let it. Regardless.”
“When are we going to get married?” I ask as quickly as I feel it. It sounds needy, and honestly, it is. I need to be his wife.
His smile … God, his smile makes me love him even more.
“Tonight,” he answers, and I laugh. His eyes widen. “We can.”
I look at him, hoping he sees the thoughts and words I can’t even begin to put into a sentence, because it wouldn’t make sense. It’s yes. It’s I want my family to be present. It’s I don’t care if they are if it will make him at all uncomfortable. It’s all weighted down by the doom and hope that hovers over both of us.
“Let’s get packed and get through this week,” he says. “Then maybe we can take a trip upstate.”