Chapter Thirty-Nine
FEARS
-- June --
“I’m back, Amy!” Matthew called as he entered the kitchen, placing the multiple shopping bags on the bench and unpacking them. “I have TimTams.”
Matthew expected to hear Amy’s hurried footsteps – TimTams were her favourite biscuit treat – but he heard nothing, not even a called reply. He finished unpacking the groceries before searching the house for his wife.
“Amy?” he called as he began climbing the stairs, unable to find her on the first storey. “Where are you?” He checked each of the rooms, but they were all empty. He saved their bathroom for last, praying that he would not find the same scene from over a year ago… the blood, her body submerged in the bath, her open wrists…
“Amy, are you in there?” he knocked on the bathroom door.
There was no verbal reply, but he heard a choking sob and immediately opened the door.
Amy was in the bathtub, a glass of Ribena in her hand, crying miserably.
“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Matthew asked as he rushed to kneel down on the floor beside Amy, taking her free hand, thanking God that there was no blood.
Amy’s cries increased, and she did not reply.
“Are – Are you hurt? Are you in pain?” Matthew asked, searching her teary eyes for the answer. “Have you gone into labour?”
Amy shook her head in answer.
“Then why are you crying? Tell me, please,” he traced his thumb across her trembling bottom lip before kissing her softly. His eyes bore into hers, pleading with love.
“I’m scared,” she eventually choked out.
“What are you scared for?”
“This,” Amy said, indicating her belly that was peeking above the waterline. “That something will go wrong at the birth, that all of this would have been for nothing.”
“Don’t think like that, Amy,” Matthew admonished sadly. “Everything’s healthy. The doctors will be there to make sure everything’s okay. You have nothing to worry about.” He kissed her forehead in reassurance.
“Except for the pain of giving birth,” Amy muttered.
An automatic smile reached Matthew’s lips. “I can’t give you advice there. Obviously I’ve never been through it myself.”
Amy smiled, her tears ceasing.
“And I can’t promise much there,” Matthew continued. “Because it’s going to hurt, it’s going to be painful, it’s going to make you scream and writhe and call me every name in the book,” Matthew smiled, and kissed Amy’s nose. “But I can promise that it will all be worth it in the end.”
Amy looked into her husband’s eyes with wonder, her lip trembling.
“Any day now, you and I will be blessed with a beautiful daughter. That’s worth more than anything right now.”
“Oh, Matt,” Amy mumbled, throwing her arms around her husband, hugging him tightly, yet awkwardly, given their positions. “I love you so much. I hope I can be a good mother.”
“I won’t let you be anything but the best mother,” Matthew promised.
“I just get so scared sometimes… thinking about it all,” Amy confessed. “I have no idea how to be a parent.”
Matthew pulled back to look at Amy, a bemused smile on his lips. “None of us do, Amy. Nobody knows how to be a parent before they become a parent. We’ll figure it out as we go. Then, in twenty years, we’ll look back and laugh at ourselves. Please don’t worry about it – I’ll be right beside you, stumbling through parenthood with you.”
Amy breathed a sigh of relief, but this subsided when her bigger fear came back to haunt her. “I’m also scared that our daughter will be too much like me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t want her to become me – the emotionally messed-up person I am. I don’t want her to be that. I don’t want her to go through what I went through… I don’t want her to lose her dad, like me.”
“Oh, Amy,” Matthew said, hugging Amy tightly again as she resumed her crying. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I know… I’m just scared that something might happen, though. To either one of us.”
“We can’t live our lives in fear, Amy. The possibility of death hangs over all of us every day. You can either live a bubble-wrapped life in fear of it, or you can live your life to the fullest every day, accepting that death will come at some time or another. I plan to live a long life with you. I plan to be grey-haired and with grandchildren, with you by my side, before I even think about death.”
Amy smiled. “I hope so.”
“I know so,” Matthew implored, pulling away to look into Amy’s eyes. “Now, enough of the sad. Let me make you some lunch.”
“Thank you… but can you help me out?”
Matthew laughed, but helped Amy lift herself out of the bath.
“Look at all those stretchmarks,” Amy noted sadly as Matthew handed her a towel. “They’ll never go away.”
“They’re beautiful,” Matthew countered, kissing her affectionately. “Like you.”
Amy rolled her eyes but let the subject drop.
After their lunch, Matthew went upstairs to their daughter’s bedroom, and Amy followed curiously.
“What are you doing?”
“Packing your bag,” he answered simply.
“Oh?”
He smiled teasingly. “For when the time comes, just to make sure we’re ready. I thought I’d pack some blankets, diapers, clothes, pacifiers… you know, that sort of stuff.”
“You’re so smart sometimes,” Amy said goofily. “I’m already getting my baby brain!”
She left the room to retrieve some of her clothes from her wardrobe – loose-fitting tracksuit pants, loose-fitting shirts and pyjamas. She returned to Matthew and handed him her clothes. He put them in the bag, grinning.
“What are you so happy about?” Amy laughed.
“I’m excited, that’s all. We’re having a baby any day now.”
“In three days,” Amy corrected. “June tenth, remember?”
“Only five per cent of babies are born on their due date, Amy. It could happen this evening.”
“No, not tonight,” Amy said with mock horror. “There’s a Harry Potter special on tonight.”
Matthew rolled his eyes. “Of course. Now, which clothes should we pack for Gracelyn?”
Recovering Amy
stephii
JE LEEST
Recovering Amy (Amy, #2)
Romantiek“You’re mine,” it told her in her dreams, “you don’t deserve happiness”. She would wake up screaming most nights, crying, begging for forgiveness that no one dared to offer her. She was sorry – she didn’t mean for anything quite so terrible to happe...
