Jackson
I stroll into the kitchen shortly after seven a.m., eager to see Kate. Seeing her smile is like feeling the warmth of the sun on your face. More energizing than a cup of coffee, and without the migraine caffeine tends to give me.
Despite the progress we’ve been making since Odessa’s birthday last month—movie nights with the kids, family dinners every night, and talking on the porch swing until the night air has us both shivering so hard we can’t form sentences—she’s been back in the guest room since the night of our kitchen date, and I fucking hate every second of it.
Two whole weeks of sleepless nights. An insatiable urge to defile every pair of underwear in her drawer.
An almost empty bottle of her shampoo because I’ve taken to using it instead of my own.
The one thing getting me through this is knowing we’ll be on a road trip to the hot springs in a matter of days and somehow, someway, I’m going to fix things.
I look around the kitchen, confused. She’s not here. Kate is always here before me—getting breakfast for the kids, sipping coffee as she talks to Cecily or Beryl, meeting my eyes with an adorable smirk. But not today.
One hand cradling her pregnancy bump, Cecily loads the coffee machine with spoonfuls of coffee grounds.
The aroma pleasantly mingles with Beryl’s morning scones—the fact that this woman sets out fresh baked goods daily and we aren’t all seven hundred pounds is astonishing.
One thing’s for certain, my jeans aren’t hanging off my hips the way they were when I first came home from the hospital.
Soon I’ll be punching a new hole in my belt.
At the long antique table, the kids are both deep in bowls of cereal, Austin’s glaring at papers spread in front of him, and Dad’s sipping coffee while flipping through a newspaper.
Rhett’s the first one who notices my presence.
With a mouthful of Rice Krispies, he grins at me.
A small dribble of milk escapes the corner of his lips and trickles down his chin, but he’s quick to wipe it away with the sleeve of his favorite Spider-Man pajamas—I know they’re his favorite because he wears them damn near every night.
“Morning,” I say, so I’m not the weird guy standing quietly in the doorway.
Cecily punches a few buttons on the machine and looks up at me. “Morning. We’ll have fresh coffee in a couple minutes.”
“I’m all good, thanks. Where’s Kate?” I ask nobody in particular.
And because I ask nobody in particular, I get nothing in return. To be fair to them, I don’t expect Dad or Austin to know, but I’d love it if somebody could at least give me a shrug to confirm they heard me.
“Nobody knows then?” I grab a blueberry scone and hover above the sink to take a bite. It’s flaky and buttery and I’m so glad I’m not feeling nauseous today so I can fully enjoy it.
“Oh.” Odessa spins in her chair, running a hand over the plaits in her chocolate-brown hair. “She’s sick. Auntie Cecily braided my hair for me today.”
“Your hair looks beautiful, Princess.”
“Thanks,” she says, fingers fanning out the hair at the end of her braid. My words glow on her freckled face, and I make a mental note to compliment her more often.
I’ve been attentive and rapt during story time each night, receiving secondhand memories from the kids that I later piece together with Kate so I have the full picture.
I feel closer to them now than I did weeks ago.
Not quite there, but trying. Learning little things about my children that other people might never notice—despite spending all her free time playing in the dirt, Odessa loves anything that makes her feel pretty, and whenever Rhett’s bored for even the slightest moment, he whips his wrist forward to check if he has Spider-Man powers yet.
I look to Cecily, who offers, “I didn’t know she was sick. Odessa asked me to braid her hair, and I assumed Kate was helping you with something…I’ll go check on her.”
I shake my head, setting my half-eaten scone on the counter. “I’ll go.”
Glass of water for Kate in hand, I head upstairs and, through process of elimination—I know which one is Odessa’s room, the bathroom door’s wide open, and a third door has the letter R on it—I find the guest room.
My knock’s gentle at first, then a little louder, and when Kate’s weary voice beckons me in, I slip into the darkened room.
“Hey.” I keep my voice soft. I know all too well what it’s like to have people barging into your space, causing a ruckus, when your head feels on the verge of explosion. “Odessa told me you aren’t feeling well.”
“Oh…hey.” She sniffs. “I’m okay.”
Her voice sounds like she’s been crying.
My eyes slowly adjust to the dark, and I head for her bedside, setting the water down on a small table. She shuffles away from the edge of the mattress, making room for me to sit beside her.
“You sure?” The details of her face are too obscure to pick out, but I sweep a tendril of hair from in front of her eyes, tucking it behind her ear, as if it’ll help me see her clearer. “This is the first time I’ve been out of bed before you.”
“I needed my beauty sleep,” she says with the faintest laugh.
“I’m using that excuse the next time you barge in demanding I take my medications at a specific time. In fact…” I reach for the glass of water and wobble it in front of her face until she reluctantly sits up. “It’s now my turn to bully you into staying hydrated and taking meds and whatever else.”
She mutters “How the tables have turned” into the cup before gulping half the water in one go.
“What can I get you? Is it a headache? Stomachache?” I take the glass back from her.
“I have my period.” She cozies back down in the bed so the pillows nearly envelop her head entirely and the comforter’s pulled to her chin. “I already have tampons, enough drugs to knock out a horse, and a heating pad. I’m all set.”
Well…surely there’s something I could do—should do—as her husband.
“Beryl made some really good scones.” I’m immediately embarrassed by my offer. A scone made by somebody else? That is the best I can do? “I mean…shit. What did I do for you before?”
“Cuddled, usually…But you don’t have—”
Her sentence hangs incomplete. I have a fistful of blankets in my hand, and I’m shoving my way into the bed with her. Kate doesn’t fight it. She simply rolls onto her side to make room for me.
It takes a minute to figure out how I should lie—more accurately, where the hell to put my right arm so it’s not interfering with either of our comfort.
I breathe heavily against her hair, reveling in the way her body naturally molds around mine.
She’s small in all the places I’m big. Neither of us has to work to make things fit.
She’s slipping into a space she belongs in, and a contented warmth melts over me.
We shared a bed for a few nights before, but we didn’t cuddle quite like this.
Now I’m even more pissed off at myself for letting her move out of our room.
Kate seems to be wearing nothing but underwear and an oversized T-shirt, and I try not to think too hard about that.
Even as her ass presses to my lap, and I can feel the heat radiating from her back against my chest. She takes hold of my hand, drawing it around her waist, and my fingers spread wide over the heating pad on her lower stomach.
After a minute or two with only her and I and the whir of the ceiling fan, she’s been so quiet and still I wonder if she’s fallen asleep.
Until a silent sob racks Kate, making the entire bed shake slightly, and she fights to catch her breath.
Unsure how to handle this, I stay quiet and weather the blunt force of her heaving breath against my ribs.
I didn’t know someone could cry so hard without making a noise.
With both my hands incapacitated, I smooth my lips over her shoulder and make gentle shushing sounds. “You gotta stop crying, Kit. Stop and tell me what you need. More drugs? I got some of the good painkillers downstairs.”
Her laugh is wet and half-hearted, driving a sharp edge between my ribs. I’ve never seen her cry like this before, and I hope I never do again.
“Ice cream? Chocolate? I don’t know if we have either of those things, but I’ll learn how to make ice cream, if it’ll make you stop crying.”
“No…just hold me. That’s all I want.”
My hand moves with the gentle rise and fall of her stomach, and her breathing slowly returns to near normal. Kate momentarily releases her hold on me to aggressively rub away the tears, even though I can tell by her constant sniffling that more are falling faster than she can wipe them away.
Outside the room, Odessa yells something about heading to school, and Kate musters up the energy to fake a cheerful, “Have a good day!”
Inside the room, it’s still dark with the curtains drawn shut, and she’s falling apart in my arms.
“I’m such a wreck for no good reason,” she mumbles. “I swear I’m not usually like this when I get my period.”
“Bleeding, in pain, hormonal. Feels like good reasons to cry, to me. I wish I could be of more use to you.”
“It’s only—back when it was happening, I thought…
I was alone—” Another silent sob cuts her off, and she presses our joined hands hard into her abdomen.
“Goddamn it.” A forceful exhalation makes her stomach quickly press inward.
“Life is really nothing more than a bunch of fucked-up moments one after another. Hurt and hurt and hurt, forever and ever.”
I don’t have the faintest clue what she’s on about, and I say as much. “Can you tell me what we’re crying about?”
I say we, because my eyes are burning from the simple act of holding her in the dark as she weeps, without any idea how to fix it.
Déjà vu pokes and prods at my brain, making me think we’ve held each other this way and cried before.
I blink up at the ceiling, eyes tracing a narrow beam of light from a tiny gap in the curtains, trying to tease specifics from my tangled, matted mess of a brain.