Page 8 of The Baby
“You knewthis whole time and didn’ttellme?”
I winced. I knew this was coming. My husband was not a dumb man. It took him about five minutes to get over the shock of the news, another five to kiss me into oblivion—which I knew had a pretty amazing effect on him as I was sitting on his ragingboner.
Raging boners aside though, he realized I had been keeping something from him. I knew he wasn’t going tolikethat.
“I…did.” I wasn’t sure where else to gowiththat.
“Ellie? Why didn’t youtellme?”
“Youknowwhy.”
“No, I obviously don’t or I wouldn’t beasking.”
“Because of… last time,” Istuttered.
He frowned. “Ellie just because you hadamisc—”
“Stop!” I said, interrupting him by putting my palm over his mouth. “That word is banned from here on out. Nojinxingus.”
He scowled at me. “You know that’sridiculous.”
“I do and I don’t care. In fact, let’s add some more banned words to the list right now. No saying the ‘p’ word, the ‘b’ word, or the ‘n’word.”
“The ‘n’word?”
“Names… I don’t want to talk about that kind of stuff. Not until we know for sure everything is going tobeokay.”
“Babe…”
“No, I mean it. I didn’t tell you because I was afraid something might happen. I know how excited you were the last time and then how devastated you were. I knew you were going to be just as excited this time, and the truth is it all scares me. That something might happen again, then you’ll be crushed again, and I… I don’t know. I just wasn’t ready to say anything. To make itrealyet.”
“Okay, that’s fair. I’ll respect your crazy jinx words if you think that will help withthefear.”
I doubted it, but I was happy he was willing tocomply.
“Thankyou.”
“You should see Dr. Jenkins right away,” hetoldme.
Another wince. “I sort ofalreadydid.”
“Ellie! You’re saying Dr. Jenkins knew about my… b word beforeIdid?”
“And Mary. But just today. I promise. I came right home to tell you once they confirmedeverything.”
He grumbled but didn’t kick me off his lap, which I figured was a goodthing.
“I don’t want to tell anyone, Jake. Absolutely no one until… well, wehaveto.”
He ran his hand down my hair. He did that when he knew I was super stressed because it alwayscalmedme.
“You’re really thatscared?”
Inodded.
“Okay. Can I ask how you’re feeling? Is that allowed? Have you been sick? Is that why you haven’twantedsex?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. Although sometimes I do get queasy. I wasn’t sure if that was the fear or the guilt from not telling you. We’ll see now I suppose. The sex thing… well that’s because I didn’t want to… you know… chance anything. We had sex the last time and then I started tospotand…”
