I'm not quite sure what time it was, somewhere in the gap where it's difficult to determine if it's morning or night, I suppose. The moon had set but the sun wasn't yet up- and neither was I. I never heard the front door open. I never heard him sit down his bags or carefully walk into the bedroom. The first thing I noticed was when his arms wrapped around me in my sleep. I felt him briefly nuzzle into the crook of my neck and one of his hands made its way to rest on my stomach.
As soon as my mind was able to wake up enough to comprehend his presence, I was angry. Where had he been all this time? I had been short with him on the phone but nineteen days later, when he had finally returned, I look over at him, intending to brush him off, and saw him sleeping so peacefully. He looked awful. His eyes were swollen and I could read the exhaustion on the fine lines in his face. I decided our conversation could wait a few hours and I moved closer to him, taking in his scent and falling back to sleep myself for a couple of hours.
I awoke again around noon, starving and needing to stretch my back. My little boys were definitely growing which meant I needed to get up before I woke Lindsey. I slipped out of bed and quietly closed the door, knowing that he badly needed the rest. I made myself something to eat and then saw his oversized bag by the front door. I assumed it was filled with as much dirty laundry as clean and I pulled into the wash room to get started on things. Motherhood, I decided, was changing me already. I sorted through a few wadded up v-neck tshirts when I came across a folded piece of paper. I knew whatever it said was none of my business, but I opened it to read it anyway.
I was stunned at the scathing remarks over his work that I saw scribbled in his own handwriting- it was obviously a critique of his new work, and it wasn't very nice. My heart broke for him. We had all gotten bad reviews before, but Lindsey was always his own toughest critic. I had thought that his new album was amazing, that he had truly created a masterpiece, but I realized I hadn't said that to him.
Continuing to flip through the documents I saw schedules, revised press releases and interviews. It was apparent that he had been overbooked, and I could tell just from the brief amount of reading that I had done that he had worked very hard to get back to me even now. There was a folder full of interview requests, filled out completely, less the questions about me. Why did there always have to be questions about me, I thought. I'm sure he didn't know how to answer, and truthfully neither did I. At least he didn't do anything before asking me. It was a definite step in the right direction.
I decided to ease up on him. It didn't excuse his absence but it did somewhat explain it.
I neatly placed the folder aside and continued to sort his dirty clothes, thinking that I wanted to start working on the nursery while Lindsey was home. Home. Hmmm. I wondered if he thought of this as home. I was sure he didn't, at least at this point, but it just felt so right to have him here.
I felt him kiss me on top of the head, turning me around and pulling me from my thoughts.
"Hey you," he greeted me somewhat groggily, turning me around to face him as he kissed me on the lips and wrapped his arms around my shoulders embrace me.
"Hi," I embraced him back, my growing midsection preventing him from getting too close.
"You've really grown while I was gone," he beamed, "you look great." I knew he was complementing me, so I just took it at face value.
He stepped away a little bit and looked at me, bending down to kiss my stomach and talk to the babies. "Hi in there you two, Daddy's back. You're getting so big! I brought you something," he beamed, turning to walk back to the entry area and returning with two soft stuffed toys, a giraffe and an elephant.
