Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Dennis
A vision of the next fifty years of his life shot through him like a comet streaking to hit Earth.
Ana. Love. Baby. Marriage. Living together. Having more kids. Sharing a life here in Luview.
Or–elsewhere?
Growing old. Growing together.
Growing a life.
“You’re officially invited on another date at Bilbee’s. My siblings hang out there a lot. They claim a big table and harass all the other customers with terrible pool techniques and dart skills that put out eyes.”
“Really?”
“Keeps the local medical center in business.”
“You Luviews have some very unique abilities.”
“We’re special.”
“I can see that.”
Davi appeared with a pitcher of water and two large dinner plates. As she poured, she nodded toward the buffet.
“Fresh tray of pakoras just went out.”
Ana was on her feet before Dennis could blink. As someone with a fast metabolism and a steady state of hunger, he understood wanting to eat.
But he’d never been pregnant.
No comparison.
What did it feel like, he wondered, as they selected their food, Ana oohing and ahhing over various dishes and sauces, eventually running out of room on her plate and returning to the table before he was ready. Did the baby roll around inside her like water in a balloon?
How did all that movement feel? When the baby kicked, did she get muscle spasms? Where did her organs relocate to? Her body really had changed since he met her in January.
So full.
So lush.
And so maternal.
Round in all the right places, rounder where the baby grew. A pang of sadness hit him out of nowhere as he finished spooning aloo gobi onto his rice.
He wished he’d been there from the start to watch her change. Feel her body as it shifted. Be there for her every step of the way.
By the time he returned to the booth, she was a quarter through her plate, a big grin on her face as he sat.
“I couldn’t wait, I’m sorry–the food is amazing! Even better than my favorite place in Cambridge.”
“You’ll have to bring me there sometime.”
“No way! I said this is better.”
“Then we’ll just have to come back here.”
“Promise?”
“If I say it, I do it.”
That made her pause, her fork in midair, her head tilting slightly.
“I’ve noticed.”
“Good.”
“We’re both talking about more dates.”
“We are.”
“Dennis?” She set her fork down and watched him.
“Yes?”
“This is different, isn’t it?”
The instinct to leap across the table and kiss her was hard to resist. He’d have to settle for holding her hand.
“Yes. It is. You feel it, too, don’t you?”
“I do. I’ve… I’ve read about people like–like us. The whole just…”
“Knowing?”
“Yes.”
“It feels right.”
“It feels weird, too. Right and weird.”
“But weird in a good way, right?”
“Weird in all the best ways.”
“I wouldn’t use those exact words, but yes. Same here.”
“Then, in some ways, this is all just a formality,” she said, letting go of his hand and picking up her fork, happily chomping away while he watched her, bewildered now.
“Formality?”
“I don’t have to wonder,” she said, cutting into a pakora, which she dipped in mint sauce. “We’re together. And that’s that.”
Now he wanted to jump across the table, scoop her up in his arms, and run away to their own private island where they could hide away forever.
Instead, he picked up his fork, speared a piece of chicken, and said, “I’ve done it. I’ve actually done it.”
“Done what?”
“Found someone as direct as I am.”
“Maybe?”
“What do you mean, maybe?”
“I think I’m following your lead.”
“My lead?”
“This,” she said, gesturing to her pregnant belly, “is anything but normal.”
“We already covered that. You don’t need to keep bringing it up as if it’s–”
“I know. I’m not. I’m stating a fact so I can move on to a deeper point.”
Another piece of him fell for her with those words.
“You’re a no-bullshit kind of guy. Very cut and dried. You see the world in black and white mostly, but in gray when needed.”
“Yes.”
“My entire world is gray.”
“Oof.”
“Right. It has to be. I’m a therapist. People aren’t checkboxes. They have conflicting feelings, overlapping struggles, joys that can be sorrows at times, and they’re messy. I’m messy. People are messy.”
“Of course they are,” he said, taking a bite, watching her.
“I love working with my patients. I like learning about people. Figuring out what makes them unique. Finding a way to help them see something through a different lens. I learn so much from them, too.”
“You work part-time, right?”
“I do. I’ve had a few students leave me.”
“You work with college students?”
“I work with a variety of people. Mostly older teens and women in their fifties.”
“Interesting split.”
“It is. But I’m not taking new patients. I’m down to only eleven now.”
“Why? Because of the baby?”
“Yes. I’ll take a four-month maternity leave, then go back to the office two days a week. Two of my clients want to switch to virtual, so that will make it easier.”
“When do you go on maternity leave?”
“At thirty weeks.”
“Isn’t that early?”
“I’ll likely have a c-section at thirty-two weeks.”
“Whoa. You said you’re at twenty-seven now?”
She nodded. He did the math, fast.
“That’s only five more weeks!”
Her left hand drifted to her belly as she used the other to put more food in her mouth. She nodded again.
He reeled.
Five weeks? He had only five more weeks to get to know her before she had her baby? Before she had abdominal surgery and an infant to take care of?
“I guess we’ll have to spend as much time together as we can before the baby’s born, then,” he said. “And after, of course.”
She made a strange face and took a sip of water.
“What’s that face for?”
“Um, well… two of those weeks are taken.”
“Taken?”
“My mother scheduled a special trip for us. Our last hurrah, she calls it. We’ll be in New York and D.C. Train travel. No flying for me.”
“What?”
“She has tickets for every Broadway show you could imagine. Some gallery openings. Shopping trips. You know.”
“Two weeks? Forty percent of what’s left?”
Ana’s eyes flared. “I don’t turn into a pumpkin after the baby is born.”
“No, no–of course not. Sorry.”
She ate while he thought, trying to calm his racing brain. Her wan smile made him feel like he’d screwed up.
“Cards on the table, Ana: I want more of you. And once you have the baby, everything in your life changes. I respect that very much. Your focus will be on your son. I understand that. Your priority needs to be him. But I want to be a part of your life, too.”
“I have room for both.” The way she blinked, looking away, made fear spike through his spine.
“So do I.”
“What do you mean?”
“Room for you and the baby.”
“Have you–do you want kids?” She smiled and pointed at her stomach. “Because I’m a package deal.”
“That’s what I’m trying to say, Ana–”
A squeal, the kind from a small child being chased during play, ripped through the air, Davi’s little boy running down the length of the booths.
He couldn’t have been more than four. As he laughed again, looking behind him as if being pursued, he tripped and flew through the air, arms outstretched like Superman for a split second before landing on the carpet.
And letting out a huge wail.
Ice water shot through Dennis’s entire body at the same time his heart rate zoomed, the contradiction freezing him in place, the ringing in his ears so overpowering, he lost vision.
Ana turned to watch while Meera scooped the boy up and comforted him, but Dennis was worlds away.
An ocean away, with sand in his hair, his body in fire, the sound of bullets whizzing past him as if they took off pieces of his ear with each shot.
“Dennis?” Ana asked from underwater, her voice muffled and thick. Licking his lips, he felt parched, his tongue the size of a cow, his body nothing but flesh-covered air.
“Dennis,” she whispered more intently, her hand going across the table to touch his. The shock of connection made him twitch, every inch of skin a raw nerve, his chest tight.
A sense of shame drove every electrical impulse that kept his body going.
Using her whole hand, she began brushing the back of his, going up his forearm, the touch making his legs tingle, shins like armies of ants, his throat an impenetrable door.
“It’s okay. You’re here with me. You can breathe,” she told him, but could he? How? He was moving in quarter time, back in the heat across the world, the little boy’s screams cut off suddenly as–
The squeeze she gave his forearm was hard, firm, the kind you administer more as medicine than as caring. Like a slap, it pulled him out of his flashback and into the present.
Barely.
Her eyes were like gemstones as he caught her gaze, his brain shrinking back from what he saw, his body in two places at once.
There and Not There.
“Take a sip of your tea,” she commanded, sliding out of the booth with effort, reaching for the mug and pressing it into his open hand. The order, perfectly worded, got through the trance he was in.
He did as told.
Drinking the tepid tea fit a pattern he knew well. His fingers, arm, lips, and throat worked through muscle memory, and that was enough to help the ringing abate, the fear to crawl back into a tiny cave inside him, the shame to wash off.
Sort of.
“There you are,” she said, moving into his side of the booth, so calm, so peaceful. “How about I sit here next to you? We can be one of those annoyingly romantic couples. If my neck starts to ache, I’ll go back to my original seat.”
Her words were calculated, meant to soothe as much as to engage him, not just to distract him from the inner horror he was living but to rewire what he saw in his mind’s eye.
It was one thing to understand PTSD intellectually, which he did–in full–and another to know how to use techniques to lessen it.
And leave the patient better equipped to reduce its grip in the future.
“Thank you,” he said, hoarse now, emotion living at the base of his throat.
“You did that in January.”
“Yeah.”
“Happen a lot?”
“Only around small kids who get hurt.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“No.”