Page 79 of This Love
I hurried over. I’d had trouble feeling much of anything, even when Ava insisted the baby was kicking. He was too small, and there was too much space.
She grabbed my hand and shifted it near her belly button. “Right here.” She held it still. “Wait. Wait. Yes. There!”
A tiny thump pushed against my palm. My eyes instantly felt sharp with tears. “I felt it!”
“He’s going at it!” She looked at the bed. “Maybe this firmer mattress has pushed him to one side.”
I kept my hand in place as I knocked off my shoes and slid in behind her. Tad was kicking nonstop.
He’d been like a ghost to us at the beginning, only an idea based on the “Pregnant” on the test. He’d become a little more real at the first sonogram, when we could see the lima bean shape of him on a sonogram, one that became more baby-like at five months.
But this. This was his actual foot connecting with my hand. Him. His movement. His way of communicating.
“He’s coming, isn’t he?” Ava said. “He’s going to be here in October.”
“He is.”
“We should finish the nursery.”
We had a crib and a swing and were slowly accumulating clothes from the gifts Marcus and Tina brought to us with every visit. But we had a long way to go moving Ava’s office to one side of the room to use the other half as Tad’s space.
“We should,” I said.
“I won’t forget him, will I? How could I possibly do that?” Ava sniffed.
I moved my hand from Tad’s kicks and smoothed back her hair. “Some part of him will always be inside you. He will be the first thing you recognize again as yours.”
“I hope you’re right.” She pressed her back against my chest.
I held her tightly as she fell asleep.
We had this conversation all the time. It was something we both had to believe.
Chapter 30
Ava
When we pulled up to the blue house after our trip to Dallas, I turned to the back seat. “Rosie! We’re home!”
Rosie lifted her red-gold head, her warm brown eyes on me.
I was definitely in love. Both Tucker and I were.
Glenda had shown us all the commands Rosie could do. She would sit and watch your face no matter what commotion was going on. No squirrel, cat, toy, or food could distract her.
She could open the fridge with a pull rope and extract a bottle of water to bring you. She jumped onto tall counters to bring medicine bottles.
When I pretended to fall, she dove beneath me, making sure I didn’t hit my head. Then she shoved her nose under my shoulder to roll me to my side, the proper position for someone seizing who might aspirate on their back.
But in addition to her skills, she was a lovable goof. One of the things that got her disqualified from K-9 duty was her incurable urge to lick people’s faces. When I sat on the ground, I got nonstop slobbery kisses until I laughed and pushed her nose away.
“Even I can’t break her of that,” Glenda had said, laughing. “Good thing it’s not going to hurt anything.”
“It might even make Ava laugh coming out of a seizure,” Tucker said. “That might be a good thing.”
He was right. I was always so angry and fearful after a reset. Maybe Rosie would be the trick to changing that. She made me giggle in ways I rarely ever felt.
I didn’t fool myself into thinking I would never have another memory loss. Life had a way of intervening in our careful routine. Wedding days. Stress. Med changes.
