42. Claire
42
CLAIRE
“You know, you could start calling before you just come over.”
Sav smirks as she and Mabel push past Jonah into the house. Jonah sighs and follows them, but he can’t hide the small smile on his face. He likes to act as if he doesn’t like having his bandmates show up unannounced, but he’s not fooling anyone. He loves it, and so do I.
“How you feeling, mama?” Sav grins, dropping onto the couch beside me and putting a gift bag at her feet.
“I’m feeling large,” I say honestly.
I do feel very large. And as uncomfortable as I am, I smile. The statement doesn’t impact me the way it once would have. No shame. No self-loathing. No anxiety. Just large , and that means I’m healing.
Mabel laughs. “I hear that’s what happens when you’re over nine months pregnant.”
She grabs my almost empty glass of lemonade and takes it into the kitchen to refill it without my having to ask.
I arch a brow at the gift bag they brought.
“What’s that?”
Sav shrugs. “You wouldn’t let us throw you a baby shower.”
“Savannah. One of you has brought a gift every day for the last four months.”
She arches a brow back. “She’s our first niece. What else would you expect? ”
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly, laughing it off like it doesn’t make me want to cry.
It happens every time one of them calls this baby their niece or refers to themselves as her aunt or uncle. The first time it happened, I was so shocked that I didn’t process it until later. When it finally sunk in, I sobbed.
My daughter is going to have a family. She’s going to have aunts and uncles. A cousin. Even potential grandparents, since Sav has started referring to both Red and Hammond as Gramps. Neither has objected. Even Sav’s mother has offered to babysit anytime she visits from North Carolina. I’ve met her twice now, and she’s wonderful.
My own mom has started calling me every week. She heard about my pregnancy in the media, and she and my stepfather have been supportive from afar. I’ve gotten a few texts from Macon and Lennon, and I try not to overthink them. I try not to spiral on the lack of them in this huge part of my life, nor obsess over the hope that I might have redeemed myself enough to earn a spot in theirs.
The important thing is that I’ve redeemed myself in my own eyes. I’ve earned a spot in my own happiness, and that’s more than I could have ever hoped for. There’s a chance that family will start feeling like my own again someday, but if it doesn’t, I know I have one here that I can rely on.
I replay Sav’s words from all those months ago often.
You have to forgive yourself, even if they can’t.
She was right. Even my therapist agrees. Regret was eating at me, destroying me from the inside out, to the point where I wasn’t living. I wasn’t growing. I wasn’t allowing myself to. I had to move on. I owed it to Jonah and to our baby. I owed it to myself.
Mabel hands me a fresh glass of lemonade, and then wiggles her fingers at me.
“May I?”
“Of course.”
She kneels in front of me and puts her hands on my stomach.
“Hey there, Teddy girl. I know I said this yesterday, but you’re late, and we’d love it if you could stop dillydallying and grace us with your presence now.”
The baby kicks right at Mabel’s hand, and I gasp just as Mabel laughs. She lifts her eyes to mine with a smirk. “She’s going to be sassy.”
“Trouble.” Jonah bends down and kisses the top of my head. “She’s going to be trouble for sure.”
“Well, she’s got four more days to show up on her own before they’re going to induce me.” I look down at my stomach. “I’d really like to avoid that, so anytime is a good time for me.”
“That kid is going to do what she wants, when she wants,” Sav adds with a laugh. “I have a feeling our world is about to become Teddy’s world, and we’ll all just be existing in it.”
I laugh with her, and I don’t miss that she said our . Our world. So loved. This baby is already so loved. I glance up at Jonah, and the way he looks at me...
I feel loved, too.
He reaches down and pulls on one of my curls before letting it spring back, then he winks and moves to one of the overstuffed chairs. Out of habit, I drop my eyes to his thumbs. They’re healed. He still picks at them, but he hasn’t done it recently, and that brings a smile to my face.
“So what kind of things are supposed to bring on a pregnancy?” I open my mouth to answer Mabel, but she’s already scrolling her phone looking for the answer. “It says here that long walks could do it.”
“I’ve taken two already today.”
“Sex.”
“Did that already, too,” Jonah adds with a smirk. Mabel rolls her eyes but keeps reading.
“Oh, what about spicy foods?”
“That’s the plan for dinner.”
“The rest of this stuff is weird.” She drops her phone back on the cushion beside her. “Fingers crossed the spicy food does the trick.”
I cross my fingers and hold them up.
Fingers crossed.
Mabel and Sav stay for a few more hours before putting their newest gift in the nursery and heading home. They’ve gone a little overboard since we found out the sex. We have a closet full of outfits, another closet full of diapers, a bookshelf teeming with books, and every developmental toy a baby could want for their first year of life .
I’ve found myself frequently hoping that Macon and Lennon have people like this around them. Friends and family who love their babies like their own. They deserve it.
Jonah makes Jamaican curry chicken for dinner, and despite ramping up the spice level, I don’t go straight into labor. We had unrealistic expectations, I know, but my false hope is fueled by my growing discomfort.
“She’s just taking her time,” Jonah muses as he washes dishes.
“Yes, well, I’ve served her an eviction notice. Her time is up.”
He spins and leans back on the sink, folding his arms against his naked chest. His tattooed biceps bulge as he shrugs, then hits me with a suggestive smirk.
“I stay inside you for as long as possible, too.”
I tip my head to the ceiling with a laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”
He crosses the floor and wraps his arms around me, then presses a soft kiss to my lips.
“I know this hasn’t been easy, and it’s come with a lot of changes that you probably never wanted, but I’m grateful every day that you’re doing it with me. I love you. I love this baby. I love the life we’re building. Thank you.”
I run my eyes over his face. His eyes are so much brighter blue than they were when we first met almost a year ago. He’s cut his hair, getting rid of the bleached blond and returning to his natural dark brown. He’s even sporting a bit of a tan thanks to our pool. Jonah Hendrix looks healthier and happier than I’ve ever seen him, and it brings me happiness in return.
“I love you,” I say honestly. “But I should be thanking you. What you’ve done...what you’ve accomplished in such a short time. I know it was hard...” I shake my head. “My brother said that the act of getting sober felt like being skinned alive. He said it was a physical, mental, and emotional pain that he thought would never end.”
Jonah huffs a small laugh and jerks out a nod in agreement.
“To see you now, to know what you went through...I’m so proud of you, Jonah. I’m so grateful for your strength and bravery. We’re here because of you. I wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else.”
“You’ve been strong and brave, too, Claire. Your recovery hasn’t been easy, either. Be proud of yourself. I am. ”
I smile. “We’re earning it together, right?”
“Together. One day at a time.”
I wake from a pain in my lower back.
It happens all the time now. One of the joys of late-stage pregnancy. I stand and stretch, and it lessens the pain, but it doesn’t subside. Quietly, I walk from one side of the room to the other and breathe through the aches. At times like this, I find Jonah’s deep, undisturbed sleep almost annoying. I haven’t been able to sleep through the night for weeks, and here he is, slumbering away without a tiny human beating him up from the inside.
I put a hand on my stomach and exhale slowly as another pain tightens in my abdomen. Braxton-Hicks contractions are no joke. There’s been more than one time where I thought I might be in active labor, but nope. It was just “practice contractions.”
For practice, though, they really fucking suck.
When walking the room doesn’t work, I move quietly into the en suite to draw a bath. I turn on the tap, sprinkle in some bath salts, and then shrug out of my clothes. I’m dropping my shirt into the hamper when another cramp hits in my abdomen that’s so sharp, my body bows and I gasp.
“Ow, fuck,” I grumble. “Take it easy.”
I brace myself on the bathroom counter with one hand while the other rests on my lower stomach, and another sharp pain shoots through me. I hiss through my teeth and exhale slowly.
Fuck me. I’ll be glad when this is all over.
I stand back up and walk toward the tub, but halfway there, water trickles down my inner thigh. I stop walking and look down. When tightening my muscles doesn’t stop the trickle, my pulse starts to race, and I call for Jonah.
“Hey, babe?”
To his credit, I don’t have to call for him twice. I hear the blankets rustle and the bed shift, and almost immediately he appears in the bathroom doorway. He drags concerned eyes down my naked body, surveying me for harm.
“Is everything okay? What can I do? ”
“Well,” I say with a forced smile. “I think my water broke.”
His brows shoot to his hairline. “Your water broke?”
“That or I peed myself, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t pee myself.”
“Your water broke.” He drops his eyes to the tile floor under my feet. “Your water broke.”
“Yes. It did.”
“She’s coming?” He looks back at me with wide, excited eyes and a smile blooming across his beautiful face. “Our daughter is coming?”
Love and adoration pour from him in waves. Anything else I might have felt, any fear or anxiety that was building inside me, is diluted enough that his love is all I can focus on. He’s been an amazing partner, but I think he’s going to be an even more amazing father. I am so lucky that I get to witness it play out in real time.
I nod and smile back.
“Yeah, Jonah. Our daughter is coming.”