Beyond Oblivion (The Maddox Brothers)

Chapter One

Trenton

“Can you just please, please stop? I love you so much, but please,” Camille called from the bathroom.

I skidded to a halt and then slowly leaned back to peek in, in case I’d missed anything in the last four seconds. My wife, my everything, was perched on the toilet lid, face-palming like she’d just sent a spicy text meant for me to the family group chat. The look on her face made me want to keep pacing until my feet wore a trail into the floor, but I channeled my inner Diane Maddox instead. The digital clock on Camille’s nightstand cast a sharp, glowing light in the dark. Any second now… she was going to tell me I was going to be a father. I could feel it in my underperforming testicles.

“Have you looked yet?” I asked from the far side of the bedroom, practically glued to the spot. Not because I wanted to be, but because the queen herself had just declared all movement illegal.

“No.”

“Can I look?”

“No,” she groaned, annoyed with me. Already has the preggo grumpies. This is it.

We were waiting for a little pink line to tell us if our whole lives were about to change… or a blue line… or that little digital screen that said Pregnant or a big Hey, Fuck You . I couldn’t remember, we’d tried them all.

A baby—literally the one thing she wanted more than me, besides maybe unlimited nachos, and I hadn’t exactly delivered yet. I squeezed my eyes shut, picturing her standing up, grabbing that little plastic pee stick from the sink, and then— boom —tears of joy, followed by me sprinting over like a dramatic rom-com hero. If I focused hard enough, maybe I could will it into existence. Because, hey, that works in the movies, right?

I’d tried it the old-fashioned way. The ol’ one-two, where I give Camille the best night of her life and as an extra you’re welcome , leaving behind a mini me inside her little oven.

God? It’s me, Trenton. Yeah, I know, I’m a dick, definitely not your favorite person and we don’t really talk that much, but please. Please let her see a line.

The toilet creaked when she stood. I waited for the gasp that would precede the happy tears I so desperately wanted to see running down her face, but there was just silence. My shoulders fell, and I walked over to the bathroom doorway, leaning my head against the door jamb. The emptiness in her eyes told me she was holding another negative test.

“Next time,” I said, standing behind her and wrapping her small frame in my arms.

She dropped the test into the sink and hugged my hands to her chest. “Next time.”

A year and a half post-wedding, Camille had ditched birth control. Back then, our next times were full of optimism. Now? Well, now we were running the baby-making Olympics—timing, tracking, testing. Scheduling sex like it was some weird fertility-themed advent calendar. IVF? Yeah, that was looming like Pizza the Hutt in Spaceballs , but we’d need second jobs just to afford it, and we were already working fifty, sometimes sixty hours a week.

Infertility: the gift that keeps on giving.

Camille looked up at me with her big, blue eyes and a sad smile, wiping a tear with her finger. “Happy anniversary.”

“I know,” I said. “A baby would’ve been way better than the stupid earrings I got you.”

“Hey. You outdid yourself. I looked it up. Year four is fruits or appliances. I wasn’t supposed to get diamonds until our 30 th .”

I pressed my forehead against the back of her dark hair. For a long time, I’d just tried to be strong but leaving her alone in her grief made things worse. We needed to mourn each new heartbreaking negative test together. Console each other. It wasn’t just the disappointment; it was the whole damn process. Lab work… check. Ovulation trackers… check. Every fertility tip, trick, and old wives’ tale… double check. The doc gave us a shiny diagnosis of “unexplained infertility,” which basically meant, everything looks good on paper, but I hope you like failure or this isn’t going to be one fucking bit enjoyable.

Her eggs? Golden. My swimmers? Michael Phelps could never. Hormones? Call ’em Goldilocks because they were just right. We even swapped out our old lives for new, ‘responsible’ ones. We quit smoking, quit drinking, bought matching black vehicles—one truck, one soccer mom SUV—and ate organic, rich people food. We were ready, damn it. Had been ready. But nope, nothing. And the real kicker? Watching my brothers crank out kids like their wives’ vaginas were clown cars was enough to make me wanna punch a nun selling Girl Scout cookies.

Taylor and Falyn’s story could rival a soap opera. One-night stand, surprise kid, emotional reconciliation, followed by a miracle pregnancy. Falyn wasn’t even supposed to be able to have kids. But life said, Hold my beer, and boom—two babies, two moms, all in the same year. Fast-forward to Hollis and Hadley’s ninth birthdays, and while Falyn loves her children equally, it was no secret she still struggled with untangling the emotional spaghetti of knowing Taylor created a life with someone else while he swears he was grieving their relationship .

Travis and Abby, unlike Taylor, had actual twins—James and Jessica—and as of three or so months ago, another on the way. Tyler and Ellison had Gavin five years ago, the grandson of a billionaire being raised in a modest townhome in the woods of Colorado.

Then there was Shepley and America—married, normal pregnancy, normal kids, no drama. Ezra, the oldest, was six, Eli was barely in pre-school, and Emerson was potty training—and whether those boys were together or running solo, they somehow kept the same ear-splitting decibel level. America? She was made for chaos, a full-on no-nonsense boy mom. One second, she’d kiss their boo-boos with the tenderness of a Hallmark card, and the next, she’d morph into a drill instructor straight out of boot camp, barking orders like she had a whistle and a clipboard.

Including Shepley’s three boys and Olive as an honorary mention, there were nine mostly pint-sized hurricanes making up the next generation of Maddoxes—and not a single one was ours. Every new baby announcement felt like a cocktail of emotions, shaken, not stirred, and served with a side of guilt. The toughest to swallow? Thomas and Liis. They hadn’t even hinted at wanting kids. Hell, Liis had dragged her feet about marriage for so long that I half-expected her to send Thomas a rejection email. But then it happened—baby on board.

Camille tried to keep it together, wearing a supportive smile like it was armor, but she couldn’t hide from me. I knew those feelings too well, because they were mine. Jealousy wrapped in guilt, mixed with the ache of wanting something everyone else seemed to get so easily. Every announcement, every birth stat in the family group chat, was a reminder of what we didn’t have. We were happy for new babies in the family, obviously, but damn, that pain in Camille’s eyes? The dick kick of guilt and shame every month? It stuck around like a bad hangover.

I turned my wife around to face me, lifting her chin with my thumb so she’d meet my gaze. “It sucks. It fucking sucks, babe. But I still have hope.”

“What if it doesn’t happen for us?”

“It will.”

Her eyes filled with tears again. “But… what if it doesn’t?”

I crossed my arms and shifted my weight from one leg to the other, frowning. Most people might think a guy who looked like me would seem intimidating, but my wife knew better than to think I would be angry in that moment. “You… you think it’s time to start thinking about that? Like… adoption?”

She shook her head, then passed me to sit on the edge of the bed. Only the lamps were on, casting her shadow onto the hardwood floor.

“We bought this house four years ago. We’ve got two guest rooms. They’re supposed to be cluttered with toys and have a faint scent of dirty diapers. The reality is,” she sighed, then turned to look at me, “we can’t afford adoption any more than we can IVF.”

I sat next to her. “It varies, Cami. Look at Hazel’s family; they adopted a baker’s dozen or so.”

“Her dad is an electrical engineer. We don’t make his annual salary between the two of us.”

“Okay, so maybe it’s time to look into a loan?”

She cupped my face, hitting me with that look—the one she reserved for when I’d just said something sweet but also completely stupid. “If we borrow for IVF, there’s no guarantee I’ll get pregnant. If we borrow for adoption, we’re bringing home a baby and a mountain of debt.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes. Hell, I’ll get a second job.”

She smiled, soft but sad. “I know you would, and I love you for it. But you’d be working yourself to death, and I’d be home with a baby while you’re barely around. You already work crazy hours.”

“What about fostering? The state covers most of it. Hazel was a foster kid—she could give us the rundown.”

Camille started picking at her fingers, her signature stress move. “Maybe. I just... I don’t think I’m ready for that conversation yet. I’m not ready to give up. Where are you at?”

“I’m wherever you are,” I said, and I meant it.

She grinned, nudging my shoulder with hers as she rubbed my hand. “Can you even imagine us walking into an adoption agency? Both of us covered in tattoos? You’ve got ink up to your jawline now.”

I snorted. “Yeah, but just from the waist up, babe. Keeping it classy.”

“Oh. Right. Not the legs.”

My face twisted like I’d just tasted sour milk. “Hell no, not the legs.” Then I smiled and turned my arm over. “I kept a spot open,” I said, pointing to my right forearm. “Right here.”

She traced her fingers over the empty space, and her voice softened. “I want you to be able to fill it with our baby’s name so, so bad. I wish I could just get pregnant like everyone else.”

I kissed her forehead. “You heard the doc. It’s not just us. Sometimes, the universe just deals a shit hand. But hey,” I paused until she looked up at me. “We’re not at the end of the road yet. Not even close.”

She grinned, her big blue eyes catching the light. “Next time?”

“Next time.”

She stood, heading to her side of the bed, pulling back the covers. I crawled in next to her, switched off the lamps, and pulled her close. For a split second, I thought about how perfect it would be if our anniversary sex magically turned into a surprise pregnancy. The ultimate plot twist, right? But as much as I wanted it, we were both completely drained—mentally, emotionally, physically.

Still, something gnawed at me. I couldn’t shake it. “Cami?” I whispered.

“Yeah?”

“When you asked me what if it doesn’t happen, were you really asking if I’ll still love you?”

She paused longer than I expected. “No, I know you’ll love me.”

“Then… were you asking if I’ll still want to be with you?”

This time, her voice was barely a whisper. “Yeah.”

I hugged her to me and sighed. When I spoke, I said the words slowly. “There is nothing more I want in this life than you. The perfect combination of you and me running around in toddler size would be… it would be fucking fantastic. But without you…? You’re the absolute love of my life. I couldn’t be happy about anything unless you were there to share it with me.”

She hugged my arm to her again. “Thank you.” She took a deep breath and let it out, relieved. “The guilt is suffocating sometimes.”

I closed my eyes tight. “I hate that. You have nothing to feel guilty about, honey. Nothing. I’ve been in love with you since we were kids. Don’t ever let yourself think you’re not enough for me. You’re everything.”

She sniffed once, then buried her face in the crook of my arm, her breathing evening out within minutes. But sleep? Not for me. My brain was running a marathon. I’d spent the whole day working, rushed home, shaved, ironed my shirt for our anniversary dinner, and picked up flowers, a card, and the diamond earrings I’d saved half the year to get. After dinner, we swung by CVS for another round of pregnancy tests. And after all that buildup… nothing. Again.

I thought about the night I proposed in that stupid Britney Spears costume, waiting for what would be the longest two and a half years of my life for Camille to set a wedding date, booking a quaint venue right outside of town, and the way she kissed me right before the officiant declared us husband and wife. Spending the last seven years married to Camille had been the best of my life. Bishop’s stint on that reality show brought a ton of business to the shop, Camille was promoted to manager, and we saved for a bigger house for what we thought would be our quickly growing family. But month after month, her period came, and all the dreams of baby names, nursery décor, and Christmas mornings seemed to drift further out of reach.

The hardest part was watching the hope fade from her eyes. She thought she was failing me, like she was robbing me of some mythical ‘complete’ life. But it wasn’t true, not even close.

Too many nights I’d lie awake, hoping she’d find something new to believe in, that the guilt would stop eating at her. Tonight hit me like a truck. All she needed was reassurance—something so simple, and I’d been too much of a dumbass to say it out loud until now.

Damn it, Trent, you idiot.

I settled back against my pillow, mentally kicking myself. But hey, better late than never, right? She knows now. She knows I love her. She knows I’m not going anywhere. And she loves me just as much, or she wouldn’t even have been worried about it.

Self-talk, man. It’s one of the things I picked up from one of those marriage books. Cheaper than therapy, and sometimes, it actually works. I even taught Travis the trick. You need that kind of stuff when your mom dies and you have a constant, irrational fear of sudden abandonment. Especially if you’re a Maddox boy and your coping mechanism is basically just making things worse.

Some fucksticks in our town might say I’d been a failure at everything else in my life—not to my face, of course—but the one thing no one could deny was that I worked my ass off at being a good husband.

I squeezed my sleeping wife tighter to my chest and sighed. I couldn’t fix it, but I could fight. If that’s what it came down to, I knew I’d get us through it.

I had to.