I Don't Want to Lose You (26 page)

             
From the wave of different facial expressions that crossed his face, I could tell he was having a variety of emotions.  “How?” he asked.  “I thought you were on the pill.”

             
I looked at the floor as I hated knowing that, here again, was another failure that I had to come clean about.  “I know, but I wasn't really good about taking them like I should have been.  I went to the doctor to get another form of birth control and that's when I found out.”

             
“This is great.  Why would you not tell me this?”

             
“Because I'm not sure what I'm going to do about it.”

             
He looked confused.  “What do you mean?  You have the baby and we raise our kid.”

             
“Really, Theo?  We'll raise it?”  There was so much I wanted to add to that, but I didn't want to hurt his feelings.  I just closed my eyes and cried while letting each tear take a piece of my anger.  “I'm sorry.”

             
He grabbed my hand and kissed it. “Don't be.”  He grabbed a tissue and cleaned my face.  “I'm glad you told me.  I'm really excited.  I feel like I have even more reason to fight.”  He caressed my cheek.  “As the father and your husband, I'd like you to keep it.  I know it won't be easy.  But it would be nice to know that a piece of me is still here even if I'm not.”

             
I think I might have misled him into thinking I had thoughts of getting rid of it.  That wasn't the case.  My thoughts were on how I was going to take care of it.  “Theo,” I said before taking a deep sigh, “I don't want to
not
have it.  It's a piece of both of us.  I'm just scared.”

             
He kissed my forehead.  “Then while I'm here, let me be here for you two.”

             
I nodded and took a deep breath.  I felt better for letting him know but it still didn't change anything.

             
He suddenly cocked his head to the side and pondered for a moment. He said, “I guess I can cross this off of the list.”

             
In my head I ran down what was left on the list.  “I don't remember seeing have a kid on there.”

             
“It wasn't, but what more of an awesome thing can I do with my wife?” he asked.  “I want to go with you to all of your appointments, even if I'm not feeling good so don't try to hide the dates and times from me.”

             
“Okay, if that's what you want.”

             
“What I really want is to tell everybody.”

             
Fear instantly struck me. “No, you can't do that.  You're not supposed to tell people until about three months because I can lose it.”

             
He looked disappointed.  “I don't know if I can hold out that long.”

             
I thought to myself how much of an understatement that was.

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

             
I took the day off from work to take him to have some tests done in the morning to see if the chemotherapy helped him any.  We stopped to get him something to eat but I didn't order anything, for I was too nervous, so I just picked off of his plate and drank lemonade. We were on our way to my first obstetrics appointment.  We got to hear the baby's heart beat, which made Theo put a big grin on his face since the doctor said that it was strong.  I was prescribed prenatal pills and it was estimated that I was seven weeks along. 

             
As we walked back to the car we discussed the due date and he expressed how he hoped that the baby would be born on his birthday, September 26
^th
.  On the way home we were listening to the radio.  When I heard the first note, I knew what song was coming on and I quickly pulled into the next parking lot, rolled down the windows, turned the volume up and got out of the car.  I walked around over to him and told him to get out and dance with me.  I didn't care who was watching or what they thought.  The song, “For You” by Kenny Lattimore, was how I was feeling at that moment about my husband.  I sang along with it when I wasn't giving him tender kisses. 

             
We got back into the car and he said, “That was a nice song.”

             
I smiled and drove us home as it occurred to me that we just had our first dance after getting married.               

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

             
The chemotherapy hadn't helped much to make any significant improvements and so radiation was started.  While he didn't always feel up to eating, he did.  He slept more to recover and it sometimes made it hard to stick to the schedule he had for taking his medication.

             
He had just finished playing music in the garage with his friends for a little while when he came in, realizing he hadn't taken his medicine.  They had decided to take a break and were watching television in the living room while eating a cake that I had made.  I was already in the bedroom and told him to wash his hands and get some water and I would bring him his pills.  I went over to his nightstand and opened the drawer.  I pulled out his container that had his pills separated by days and morning, afternoon and evening when I noticed there was a picture next to it.  I had never gone into his drawer before to know that the picture that I had demanded in our senior year was in there.  I picked it up and looked closer at it. 

             
There I was with his arms wrapped around my waist and my arms over his with his lips pressed against my cheek.  There was a smile on my face, making it look as though I had enjoyed it, but the truth was it hadn't registered that he was kissing me.  I stared at his profile, remembering the feel of his hair and running my fingers through it.  Recalling the many conversations we had over the different hair products that he could try to get his hair to stay the way he wanted.  Remembering the hair on his face and the feel of it on my fingers.  That young man had a bright outlook upon his life and his future and this, this medicine I had in my hand, was not a part of the plan. 

             
I put the picture back and wiped my eyes.  I got his pills out of the container and put it back into the drawer.  I was about to get up and take the pills to him but the river began to flow from my eyes and I stayed put because I didn't want him to see me that way. 

             
I loved him so much and had for so long that I was regretting things that I couldn't go back and change.  I had figured he had liked me back in our sophomore year in high school but I was no longer making assumptions about the feelings of boys towards me at that point.  I took the position of feigning ignorance until the fact was stated.  I had wished he had said something then I could have had more time to be with him and truly be his instead of just having a mock relationship with him in our senior year.

             
I opened the drawer again, took the picture out and stared at it.  It would have been a lie to say that I didn't have that moment replay in my mind since it happened.  How many times I had wished he would have kissed my lips rather than my cheek.  How I wished he would have said something to me to let me know he wanted me then.  I wished I knew something of the plan he and Ralph had schemed while walking behind me before the picture was taken so that I could have turned my head at the same time and kissed him back.  But it was no use crying over spilled milk.  Another moment in my life I couldn't change. 

             
I put the picture back and grabbed a tissue to dab my eyes.  As I went to get up I heard the door close and turned around to see him standing there just staring at me.  Inside I had hoped he hadn't been watching me.  I walked over to him and opened my hand for him to take the pills.  He did so one by one, swallowing them down with the bottle of water in his hand.  When he was done, he lifted my chin up and stared into my eyes and there was no hiding that I had cried. He kissed my forehead and then both of my cheeks.

             
He led me over to the bed and sat me down on my side of the bed then he went over to sit on his side.  He fixed the pillows so that we could be propped up on them.  We sat back and he put his arm around me while my head was on his shoulder.  He reached for my hand and kissed it.  We sat there soaking in each other's affection in peace until Edgar knocked on the door to say they were leaving.  We maintained our silence and waved goodbye to him and stayed in that position until I fell asleep.

             
When I woke up he was sitting up next to me reading War and Peace. 

             
“Hey,” I said.

             
“Hey.  Did you get a good nap?”

             
I stretched and replied, “Yeah.”

             
“I never watched you sleep before.  You're kind of cute when you're sleeping.”

             
I sat up and wiped around my mouth where I had obviously been drooling.  “Oh goodness, you think this drool is cute.”             

             
He shook his head no. “Notice I said 'kind of cute.'”

             
He smiled as I shoved him. 

             
“So how do I look when I'm awake?” I asked.

             
“Absolutely gorgeous,” he answered, “even with dried spit on your face.”  He leaned over to kiss me.

             
“Tengo mal aliento,” I said to him when I realized I still had a little bit of dragon breath.

             
“No me importa,” he said and he continued.

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

              I had spent yet another morning throwing up at work, making some co-workers suspicious, and had been eager to get home.  When I had thought about it, it had been gross at times with us sticking ourselves in his room after he went through radiation and with me having morning sickness.  It made it difficult for anyone outside the room to be able to tell that it wasn't always Theo, but it made a whole lot of clean up of that bucket for me.

             
I got home and saw that he was taking a nap in the bed.  I went into the refrigerator to pull out the pot of chicken soup that I had made a couple of days before and ate a bowl of it with the hope of keeping it down.  Soon after, I heard him vomiting and rushed to the bedroom.  He had the bucket on his lap and his face was in it.  I went over to him to collect the bucket.