“Nalani?” Dr. Chung’s voice is warm and soothing.
“Dr. Chung, I couldn’t get the MRI because I’m pregnant!”
“Okay. I’m sure that was a lot to take in. What did Ames say?”
At his name I break down again, sobbing while trying to answer. “He doesn’t know!” I manage between cries. “He got a phone call the other day and I heard him say he was planning on leaving for the mainland after October. I asked him about November, and everything came out wrong. And then he was yelling and I was yelling and I told him we should break up now since it was inevitable. And he left. He didn’t fight for me. He just left!” I now have the hiccups to go with the snot dripping from my nose.
“You didn’t tell him how you feel? Or ask him what the future would look like?”
“No, but he didn’t say he had feelings for me. He didn’t really say anything! He asked if I wanted him to leave and when I couldn’t answer he told me he would go.”
“Nalani, I don’t want to upset you more, but I didn’t hear anywhere in that story that Ames actually told you he doesn’t love you and he doesn’t want to be with you. It sounds like you lashed out at him, and he left because that’s what he felt you wanted.”
“No!” I sob. “Maybe. I didn’t mean to. I don’t even know what happened! It was such a mess! I made it such a mess! And now I’m all alone and I’m having a baby. Of all of the outcomes from this marriage contract, I never even considered this. What am I going to do?”
“Nalani,” she says gently, “I can’t enable this kind of behavior. You’re better than this. You’ve told me that Ames is good to you and hasn’t given you any reason not to trust him. You owe him a real, adult conversation, no matter how hard it may be. Especially now. This is bigger than just the two of you.”
I nod shakily, forgetting that she can’t see me. “You’re right.”
“Are you feeling calm enough to do that or do you need to talk more?” Dr. Chung asks.
“I don’t know about calm, but I need Ames.”
“Call me again if you need to.”
I text him and can’t manage more than three words before my eyes are too watery to see. I can’t talk anymore. I’m crying too hard, and I have to blow my nose. I stumble to the bathroom, bleary eyed. It takes me a few minutes to wash my face and get to a point where I can mostly breathe.
I come back out and lie on the couch, pulling a blanket over me, and doze off. A little while later I open my eyes and Ames is sitting on the floor next to the couch. My heart feels like it’s being squeezed by a vice. His handsome face looks pained. He has dark circles under his eyes, rivaling the blue of his irises. He looks exhausted. His bottom lip trembles as he opens his mouth to speak to me.
“Did you know?” He swallows loudly and tries again. “Did you know you were pregnant when you said you wanted out?”
“No,” I barely whisper.
Relief floods his eyes. Oh fuck, he thought I didn’t want him to be a part of this pregnancy. The mere idea of that is so cruel. Tears flood my eyes again. There’s no way he knows I love him, because if he did, he’d know I could never, ever do that to him.
“Why did you decide you wanted to go ahead with the double mastectomy on your own?” His jaw is clenched, but coupled with the look in his eyes, I don’t know if it’s to control his emotions or from anger.
“Why wouldn’t I?” I croak out. He stands up, pacing in front of the couch, fingers raking through his golden blond hair. “I just wanted to get it over with before I was alone and lost the insurance. And we said medical decisions were on me.”
“No!” He barely keeps his voice below a yell. “We said the ultimate decision was yours. We didn’t say I would be cut out completely. That you wouldn’t even talk to me about it. The plan was never for you to do it alone.”
I’m getting frustrated because I don’t understand his reaction. We were supposed to talk about what we expect the future looked like, but we’re just fighting again. Why are we even talking about the surgery? “I thought this was what we agreed on. Why would you need to be a part of that?”
“BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!” He yells, standing stock still, blue eyes blazing.
“What?” I squeak out.
He sinks to his knees in front of me. “I love you, Nalani! I care about what happens to you more than anything! I want to be a part of all of your decisions. It hurts so much that you want a divorce, that you don’t want me or the life we’ve been making together.” His voice cracks, overcome with emotion. “How can I love you this much when you don’t want me?”
I sob, crawling off of the couch and into his lap. I’m a snotty, tear covered mess, but I don’t care one bit. I clutch at him, kissing him through my tears. He’s kissing me back, fervently, his hands in my hair. “I don’t understand what’s going on,” he murmurs against my lips, “but please don’t stop.” He’s kissing away the streaks of tears on my cheeks. “I’ve missed you so much. This week has been absolute shit. I don’t want a life without you, Lani.”
I press my lips to his mouth, breathing him in. “You love me? How can that be? You never changed. Your actions and behavior were so consistent, I convinced myself you didn’t — couldn’t — have feelings for me!”
His bright blue eyes are shining with unshed tears. “I didn’t change because I’ve always loved you. From the very beginning. I was hoping, with a year together, I could take care of you and maybe you’d eventually feel the same way.”
I want this so badly I’m ready to ignore everything and jump him, but I still have questions that have to be answered and I can’t let myself screw things up again. “I love you too. So much. But…” I suck in a shaky breath, “I heard you on the phone. You said you were leaving in six months. That you couldn’t think of any reason to stay, that everything would be done for you after October. I tried to ask you about it, but my feelings were hurt, and I fucked everything up.”
He cradles my face in his warm hands. “Darlin', that was my detailer. He and the XO helped me work everything out to fleet up. I’m staying with the Chung-Hoon through my next set of orders. I’ll have to leave in October, to go to a school in Virginia, but I won’t need to stay after to do any follow-on schools. I was just confirming the details with him so that I could tell you, for sure, that we’re staying in Hawai‘i for a while.”
“You don’t want to leave me?”
“No, Lani. The opposite. I was planning on telling you that night that we’d be stationed here longer. We’re not going anywhere.”
This unleashes another sob from deep inside me. I could have ruined everything! “I love you so much, Ames. I’m sorry I made such a mess of things. I thought you didn’t love me, and I freaked out, trying to protect myself from getting my heart broken, but it just ended up breaking being apart from you anyway!”
“You really love me?” His smile hits me like the warm morning sun, breaking over the horizon. Everything is brighter in its glow. “Will you tell me what Maka means now?”
“I really and truly love you, my beloved.”
“Beloved? But you’ve been calling me that since our first time at home.” I smile, blushing a little “Whoa.” He lets that sink in for a minute. “You love me and we’re having a baby?” I feel all the ice that had been growing around my heart melting under the brightness of his joy.
I’m crying again, but small tears, from overwhelming happiness. “I love you. Forever. And we’re having a baby!” He kisses me hard, happy tears mingling with mine. He picks me up, twirling me around and hugging me tight.
He yells, “We’re having a baby!” Then he sets me down gently, cradling my face in his big hands, tenderly wiping the tears from my cheeks, and kisses me. “I love you, Lani.”
48
Ames
All I want to do is strip off her clothes, but more than anything, we need to talk. We curl up on the couch together and talk through every moment of that mess of a fight, from both perspectives. It’s easy to see, fro
m this side of it, where we went wrong. I’m sure we’ll have to battle those instincts to keep things to ourselves and protect our hearts over the course of our life together, but I’m glad we’ll have that chance. I’m so fucking glad.
A lot of the things we were worried about are no longer on the list of concerns now that Nalani is expecting. What an incredible, wonderful surprise. We didn’t know if she’d be able to have kids and now, here we are. I shared with her that I recently read a study showing that breastfeeding can reduce the risk of cancer in mutated gene carriers. She just shook her head at me, but I know she loves it. We’re growing our family and maybe that will bring her down a few more percentage points too! Down the line we’ll revisit the preventative measures. We’re still leaning towards the double mastectomy. Even with the worries and risks involved, studies show that of the women who go through with it and have their ovaries removed after 40, 83 out of 100 live to over 70. And that’s even ignoring the fact that we have years of medical advances ahead of us! I want as many years with Nalani as I can get. Those are all conversations for another time. Another year even.
We shower, letting the warm water ease the weariness that had built up over the days we spent apart, and caring for each other through actions. Then we crawl into bed. I pay her body every attention it deserves, showing her every way I know how that I love her and only her.
Afterwards I leave Nalani to rest and make dinner. I turn on the record player and we listen while we eat. When we’re finished, I hold her close ,and we dance in the growing dark to one of the albums she bought me for Christmas. We sway and I sing softly to her, the lyrics to “You are Mine” saying everything for me.
Saturday is the kind of relaxing, quiet day we desperately needed. We sleep in, both exhausted after the week we had. We enjoy a quiet breakfast and talk through how we might make our apartment work with a baby. We can easily move but we don’t need to rush into anything. Now that we know we’ll be here a while, we might like to buy a little place. Something we can rent out when we have to move, but can return to when I retire. It’s all a ways down the line, but it’s exhilarating being able to make plans together, for our future. A future with a family and a home. I still can’t quite believe I got this lucky.
Under other circumstances we probably would have kept the pregnancy under wraps until Nalani was farther along. Except we feel like we’ve been keeping too much to ourselves for too long. No matter what happens, we want the support of our family and friends. We’ll be having dinner with most of them tonight, so at mid-day we drive over to her parents’ house to see them. After all of the cancer talks and health worries, it’s awesome to bring them good news.
It doesn’t go down the way I expect it to. Daniel bursts into tears and Connie whoops loudly, jumping up and down. I really, really like my in-laws. Nalani and Connie discuss OB’s and hospitals and by the time we need to leave for the Hammonds' they’ve decided we should switch her to our other insurance option that way she can pick her doctor and hospital. I don’t know why we didn’t consider it before. Connie is excited that our baby can be born in Kailua, like Nalani was. It makes sense for cancer screenings and things too. It’s much more convenient to drive to Kailua than Tripler. Nalani spends our whole drive holding my hand, excitedly telling me about the birthing center at Castle Hospital and the awesome OB/GYN she’s been seeing for years. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that we’re having a baby and she’s already making plans for the birth. I’m just happy to see her happy.
Issa has gone all out on a secret, theme dinner. Knowing the secret makes it hilarious and the fact that everyone but the three of us is in the dark makes it even more so. Issa has been grinning like a crazed clown since everyone arrived. They know something is up, but they can’t figure it out. She keeps cackling which gives Nalani the giggles and that sets me off. The more we laugh, the more pissed off Norah gets. It’s awesome. We’re eating sliders (Issa kept insisting to us via text that they were “baby burgers” and she would not be dissuaded), baby carrots, baby red potatoes and for dessert she made baby cheesecakes. The single guys don’t care one way or another, they’re just happy to be fed. I think Ka‘eo is starting to get concerned about how worked up Norah is getting because he has his hands out like a hostage negotiator and is talking to us like we’re small children with tiny vocabularies.
“Guys. Let’s be done. Ok? Sharing time.”
That makes us laugh harder.
“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON YOU GUYS?” Norah is straight up yelling now. She takes a deep breath and tries to calm herself down. “Why,” she speaks through gritted teeth, “are we eating tiny food and why are you all laughing at me? You know how much I hate to be left out!”
Nalani tries to answer, I knew she’d be the first to break, she’s far too kind to keep this up, but she chokes and has to stop to cough. She holds her hand up, motioning for Norah to wait. “Sorry, Norah! I promise we weren’t trying to be mean. But once I got the giggles I couldn’t stop! And, I mean, look at Issa’s face! How can you not laugh at how crazy she looks?”
“Hey!” Issa yells. She can’t pretend to be mad though.
K clears his throat. “Anyone going to clue us in?”
Issa’s smile falters. “You really can’t figure it out? I thought I was being so clever.”
“I get it, Issa,” Jameson chimes in. “I think you did a great job!” He winks at Nalani, shooting her a thumbs up and making her grin.
Norah frowns. She and Issa are close, I’m sure she doesn’t want to hurt her feelings.
“Oh, we can try harder! Um, what does tiny food have to do with anything? Sliders…baby carrots, baby potatoes…”
Ka‘eo's head jerks up. He looks at Issa, who shakes her head no. Then he turns to look at us. I can’t keep the grin from taking over my face, I’m too happy.
“No fucking way! Are you serious?!” He jumps up, coming around the table to us.
“Babe? What?! I feel like a moron here, somebody tell me already!”
Ka‘eo turns back to his wife. “Nani, think about what you just said. Baby carrots, baby potatoes…”
She jumps up too. “NO FUCKING WAY!” They’re both jumping up and down, hugging. “You’re really having a baby, Cabot?”
“We are!”
Norah is crying — NORAH IS CRYING — and that starts a chain reaction with Nalani and Issa. I bring the dessert over while they hop around in a hugging, crying mass. Dawes tries to give K a high five only to get dragged into a tight hug. Is it awful that I love how much he hates it? Issa squeezes Jameson who assures her that it was a fun and creative baby themed dinner. I look around at all the joy and chaos and I’m unbelievably grateful for this life. Our baby is going to be surrounded by crazy, awesome people who love loudly and care with actions. I couldn’t ask for anything more. I look at my wife, my Nalani, her face radiating joy and I’m overwhelmed by how much I love her. I may have convinced her to marry me by offering her my Navy health benefits, but from where I’m standing, I’m the one that got all of the benefits.
49
Epilogue: Ames
I walk quietly up to the front door, hoping to sneak in the house before they know I’m here. It feels like that first time I came home, almost two years ago. Nalani is sitting at the piano bench, playing and singing. She’s a knockout, her dark hair falling in loose waves down her back, and her warm voice gives me goosebumps, like always. Perched on her lap is our son. At 8 months old, Harrison doesn’t like to sit still, unless his Mama is playing piano. His dark, wavy hair is sticking out everywhere and he’s bouncing in time to the music. Nalani is singing The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” with some exciting, extra notes thrown in by Harrison’s chubby little fingers. I stand for a moment, listening to the two of them. I still have those moments where I can’t believe this is my life. My whole world, on a piano bench in the front room of our little Hawaiian cottage, all because of a Death Cab for Cutie song in an empty church sanctuary, an in
sane invitation up to my hotel room for the weekend, and a crazy marriage contract.
I slip onto the bench next to her, kissing her neck as my son launches himself into my arms, his squeal of “Dada” melting my heart. I hug him, making him giggle with wild kisses on his belly, and suck in a deep lungful of his sweet baby scent. He has my eyes and his mama’s smile with a wild and joyful personality. My Nalani plays through the instrumental section and I snuggle our boy, taking in the photos adorning the top. Our wedding kiss, the first sonogram, in the birth room at Castle with tears on our faces as we saw Harrison for the first time, celebrating Connie’s cancer-free results, the two of us with our couple crew on a sunset cruise. So many awesome memories and we’re only getting started. We finish the song, singing together as Harrison bounces on my lap. I hope this kid is excited about future family sing-alongs. It’s happening.
Harrison wiggles down off of my lap, scooting and crawling all over the floor, always on the go. I take the opportunity to kiss Nalani, tasting her until she’s clutching my shirt in her fists.
“How many hours until bedtime?” she whispers against my lips. I laugh, knowing she’d never give up a second of time with Harrison, but happy she wants me as much as I want her.
We spend our evening the only way I’d want to: together. We make and eat dinner, Harrison gets a bath and bedtime story, then I get Nalani all to myself. I take my time with her, exploring all the new, soft curves on her body. She hasn’t felt as confident in her skin since Harrison was born and I try my best to show her, every chance I get, how much I love her body. Every line is part of our story together. She’s softer now, fuller, but every inch is as sexy as our first time together. I tell her as much as I’m caressing her skin with my mouth. I bring her to release, lapping and sucking until she’s crying out, and then join us together. She was made for me and when we’re together I feel most complete. We find our rhythm easily, knowing even better now what the other needs. We’re rising together, every touch and kiss and affectionate word bringing us closer to the brink. I roll onto my back, bringing Nalani with me. I love watching her on top of me, everything right there for me to see and taste and touch. She brings her chest down to mine, tangling our tongues together as she takes me deeper. I tip my head back with a groan.
Like a Good Wife (Oahu Naval Officers Book 2) Page 25