Chapter 13

Week 34

JACK couldn’t sit still. It was as if he’d developed a late in life hyperactivity disorder and had to engage in constant activity and movement.

They were a mere three weeks from the big day. D Day—as in delivery day. The day of the scheduled C-section. And Jack went back and forth between attempting to sit on his hands in an effort to calm down and taking on task after task, and project after project in a frenetic whirlwind to distract himself.

His daily routine went something like this:

Six a.m.

His eyes would shoot open without the aid of an alarm. Stay quiet. Notice she was still sleeping. Gingerly roll over; listen to her breathing; gently hold her wrist and count the light thumps of her pulse; climb out of bed; kiss her forehead.

The he’d go to the gym to kill time and attempt to relax.

Eight-thirty.

Poke his head in the door; find her still sleeping; check her pulse again; leave.

Nine a.m.

At exactly the top of the hour, he’d call the doctor. Sometimes, he’d have to call several times in a row. He briskly paced across the living area, tapping the side of his leg in double-time, while he waited for someone to pick up and while Aine eyeballed him in amusement from the kitchen. He’d finally be connected with Dr. Carroll to report his findings of her morning resting heart rate and her blood pressure from the night before. With every call, she’d tell him the same thing.

“No cause for concern, Jack,” Dr. Carroll would always say.

“Her blood pressure doesn’t seem high?”

“It’s a little elevated, but it’s not high enough to cause concern,” she’d say almost every single morning.

He knew it was probably getting old to the doctor to hear from him so often. His daily calls began around week twenty-two after he’d nearly passed out with relief from being informed that Shannon’s cardiomyopathy and pulmonary edema were under control as a result of the medications she’d been on. Which meant she wasn’t dying.

She wasn’t dying.

For two weeks, he’d believed they were really, truly getting close to the end. The end of her; the end of them; the end of everything that meant everything to him.

And after one check-up, that was no longer the case.

Still, he was constantly feeling quite nervous. So he checked her pulse every morning and checked her blood pressure every night, just to be sure.

Ten a.m.

Shannon was usually awake by then.

In a stark contrast to his hyperkinetic state, Shannon was silent and calm. Eerily quiet; oddly still. After sleeping in, she’d sit up in bed and work. She read manuscript after manuscript after manuscript, spent hours typing up notes and sending emails, all while staying bundled up in bed. He’d bring her hot tea and scrambled eggs, and then kiss her head and place his hand on the large, round bump, which made her look like she had small basketball stuffed under one of his white T-shirts.

“I love you both,” he’d tell her.

And she’d turn her gaze to meet his and smile while she squeezed his hand. “We love you.”

Eleven a.m.

That was usually when he attempted to work. When Aine usually forced him to leave the condo to distract him from his excitement-induced anxiety. So he’d drag Alicia to West 43rd to peek in on the progress at the restaurant.

Renovations were steadily being completed. A brand new, yet ancient-looking mahogany bar loomed and stretched across the entire length of one of the walls. Tables and chairs with the same old-fashioned styling of the bar were brought in, still covered in plastic and foam and pushed to one corner of the space as other various finishings were adjusted and completed.

Jack’s personal favorite addition to the space was the delicate etching on the glass front doors, which featured the name of the restaurant in elegant, sweeping filigree letters.

Genevieve’s.

It was the only name he’d had on his mind for weeks.

Alicia usually managed to keep him busy for the remainder of the afternoon. He gave lots of interviews for the purpose of garnering hype for the forthcoming opening. It was usually all the same questions he’d answered five hundred times already.

“What made you decide to make the leap from acting to the culinary arts?”

“Do you think you’ll ever make a return to the silver screen?”

“Why did you choose creole cuisine?”

And, of course, his favorite:

“How did you come up with the name Genevieve’s?”

Once the interviewer asked that, his stomach always did a small flip and he’d involuntarily perch forward in his chair while he grinned so wide his cheeks would ache. “That’s my baby girl’s name,” he’d tell them proudly. “She’ll be arriving on the scene shortly after we open.” And once he mentioned that, the conversation always shifted to his impending fatherhood.

“Are you nervous?”

He’d give an easy shrug. “Absolutely.” And then he’d chuckle. “But I’m more excited than anything else. This is definitely the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me, so I’m okay with being totally nervous.”

“It’s getting pretty close. How’s your wife doing?”

“Oh, she’s…” He’d pull his lips between his teeth and tilt his head. “She’s taking it easy. I never realized how much work it is for someone to grow a tiny human.”

He’d pause as he’d sigh with admiration for everything Shannon had overcome, not just with the pregnancy and the not-so-little rift between them, but everything. Her entire life was one long series of hardships and setbacks and things from which she’d had to fight her way back. “She’s inspiring. I used to think I was pretty tough, but after seeing everything she’s done, I’ll never feel tough again. She possesses strength that I’ll never even approach being able to have.”

“You’re pretty proud of her.”

He’d nod assertively. “She’s amazing. Changed my life in every possible way for the better.”

Four p.m.

After returning to the condo, he’d crawl into bed with Shannon and rub her aching hips while she lay on her side. He’d talk to her quietly about this and that, to which she’d respond with “mm-hmm” and “yeah” and “not really” and “okay.” Or subtle nods or shakes of her head. Always the atypical quiet that made him wonder about her emotional state.

“Are you doing okay, sweetheart?” he couldn’t help asking from time to time.

And she’d simply squeeze his hand and nod again.

After a few minutes of snuggling her, it would be time to go on their walk. Just a short walk around one of the city blocks. Sometimes, they’d take a cab and stroll through Central Park. Never for longer than about twenty minutes. Just a little light exercise to keep her circulation moving and ease the ache of her hips.

She didn’t complain, but she mentioned her soreness often enough that he could tell she was in constant pain. He’d read about this in the pregnancy books too. The shifting and loosening of her bones and joints to accommodate the growing baby and prepare for the impending delivery.

So after the walk, he’d fill the tub with hot water and peppermint-scented bubbles. The smell of peppermint was supposed to help with nausea, and Shannon still seemed to be struggling with feeling sick. Although, lately she’d been saying things that indicated the nausea had more to do with her nervousness than pregnancy sickness.

The peppermint bubble baths seemed to help, because after he set her down in the water, she usually dozed off briefly while he sat next to the tub and rubbed her shoulders.

One particular evening during week thirty-four, he noticed she didn’t doze off, and instead appeared to simply stare ahead pensively. Even more pensive than usual.

“What’s on your mind, babe?”

She kept the stone expression on her face and didn’t respond.

“Shannon?”

Still nothing, so he reached around her face and held the base of her chin, turning it so that she was forced to look at him. Her eyes were droopy and tinged with red.

“Babe. What’s wrong?”

She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “Will you help me out?”

He immediately stood, pulled the plug and then grabbed her robe. He steadied her as she stepped out and held the small of her back while she slowly ambled into the bedroom.

She turned to glance at him and gestured at the bed. “Have a seat. I need to talk to you.”

She was so somber and ruminative that he was instantly gripped with intense trepidation. His mind reeled at what she may need to tell him and he noticed his mind immediately went to the separation from months prior. As he lowered himself to the edge of the bed, he steeled himself for whatever she was about to confess, deciding that, no matter what it was, nothing would change.

She disappeared into the walk-in closet for a moment, and reemerged holding two spiral bound books. One he clearly recognized as their book, and another that looked newer and thicker. He held her hand while she eased onto the mattress and propped herself up against the pillows at the head of the bed.

After drawing in a deep breath and exhaling a long, quiet sigh, she handed their book to him. “Part one.” She handed him the other spiral-bound book. “Part two.”

He furrowed his brow as he flipped the second book open and skimmed one of the pages.

I shook him violently, but he continued to sleep. My eyes instinctively darted to the road to check for other cars, only to see a rapidly approaching stop light and a large farm truck speeding toward the intersection from the right side. My mind did a very quick, very basic geometric calculation, and I knew immediately what was about to happen—

Jack slapped the book shut and jerked his head up to stare at her. “What the hell is this?”

“Part two,” she said again, using a monotone voice and wearing a pair of sullen eyes.

His gaze shifted to the right and then the left, before meeting her gaze again. “On that first page…is that the accident?”

She nodded.

“You remember the accident?”

“I remember a lot of stuff now, Jack.”

He sucked in his breath and shuddered at the thought. Maybe that’s why she’d been so quiet for the past few weeks. He imagined it was probably a terrifying thing to recall. The three sentences he’d read made it sound as horrifying as every hypothetical situation suggested to them by her neurologists and psychologists throughout her initial treatments for the memory loss. And the idea that she actually remembered it now…

He reached across to hold her hand. “Are you all right? Is this what’s been bothering you lately? It looks like you’ve got a pretty vivid recollection of something pretty heinous.”

She jostled her head and one shoulder lifted and dropped dismissively. “No, I remembered that a while ago. Probably closer to the end of summer last year. I had a dream about it.”

“So what do you think has been going on lately?” he inquired cautiously. “And what did you need to talk about?”

She chewed her bottom lip for a second and she stroked her thumb over the top of his. “I guess it’s less that I need to talk about something than I needed to give you that.” She paused, flipped to the back of the second book, and pulled out a letter encased in a sealed envelope. “And this. I need you to have this.”

He eyeballed the envelope. “What is it?”

She turned it over to show him her sweeping cursive on the front of it.

For Genevieve, it read.

He started to open his mouth to ask what was inside, but she spoke before he did.

“I need you to hang on to this,” she explained. “It’s really important, so I think the safest place for it is inside here since I know you’ll never lose these.”

He opened his mouth a second time, only for her to cut him off again.

“Jack,” she stated in a grave tone that matched her grave expression. “The only way I’m ever going to be okay with what is going to happen is if I’m absolutely sure that Ginny knows how much I—”

She stopped abruptly and covered her mouth with one of her hands, which caused him to peer at her in confusion.

“Shannon—”

“I mean, I know you’ll always tell her,” she interjected and wiped one of her eyes. “I just need her to have this so she can read it in my own words.”

She held the envelope out to him, but he could only stare at it with an utterly appalled expression. She still believed she was going to die. Regardless of the fact that they’d repeatedly been told everything was fine. That was why she’d been acting so strange.

He had no idea what it must feel like to believe the end of your life was approaching, but he imagined it probably made a person introspective and solemn while they took stock of their lives and prepared to leave. That must have been what she’d been doing all these weeks when she’d gone suddenly and eerily quiet.

He pressed his finger onto the second book as a silent directive for her to put it away and spoke gently. “Why don’t you plan to give that to her yourself? Maybe save it for her wedding day or when she graduates from college or something like that. I think that would be far more appropriate than me giving it to her.”

She tilted her head and she knitted her eyebrows. “Baby…I won’t be here for any of that.”

He gave a single reassuring nod. “Yes, you will.”

She huffed, slumping backward into the pillows, and shook her head. She appeared to clench her jaw for a few seconds before her chin began to tremble.

“Jack, you don’t under—”

“Sweetheart, you’re going to be fine. The medication has been working. We’ve been monitoring your blood pressure and heart rate, and you’ve been taking it easy. Everything is fine. You’re not going to die.”

She simply huffed again in response.

“Shannon,” he said firmly. “You’re going to be fine. You are going to be here. We are going to do this together.”

She sniffled. “How can you be so sure of that?”

He managed not to give her an incredulous look. “Because your doctors have all said you’re in the clear. You have been for weeks.”

She stared at him for a moment before climbing under the comforter and pulling it tight around her. “Just don’t lose the letter, Jack.”

He slid the envelope into the book, stacked both, crossed the room, and placed them on one of the top shelves inside the closet. He returned to the bed and lay down behind Shannon. He wrapped his arm around her and pressed his chest against her back, interlacing their fingers and resting their hands on her belly.

“I won’t.” He kissed the side of her neck. “But I’m not going to be the one who gives it to her.”

* * * *

Week thirty-six.

“Are you guys sure this is a good idea?” Cat asked Aine while they attached a small bunch of pink balloons to a corner of the windows in the main room.

“Oh yes,” Aine assured her. “She needs some cheerin’ up. She’s been mopin’ fer weeks and this’ll help ’er feel excited.”

“But be prepared for her to continue to mope all afternoon,” Jack added from the kitchen where he and Alec were using a small helium tank to inflate more pink balloons. Aiden sat on the floor next to their feet with Adrian while he sucked helium from a balloon and made high-pitched snorting noises, which caused Adrian to giggle uncontrollably.

Cat crossed the room and stood close to Alec, placing a hand on the small of his back. “Why is she so upset? Is she really, really done with being pregnant? I know I was miserable the last few weeks.”

Jack pressed his lips together and tied a few of the balloons. “She’s um…” He paused, weighing his next statement cautiously. “I think she’s stressed. And a little scared. It hasn’t exactly been an easy experience, so now she’s giving a little too much consideration to all the worst case scenarios.”

Cat tilted her head to rest on Alec’s shoulder and frowned. “Poor Shannon. It’s just been one thing after another these past couple of years.”

Alec gave a sympathetic look and slapped a palm on Jack’s back. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said assertively. “All of this is going to be okay once the baby’s here. It’s the pregnancy that exacerbated everything. That’s what her doctor said. Once she’s not pregnant anymore, she’ll be back to normal.”

“That is so crazy to me that a pregnancy can wreak so much havoc on a person,” Cat went on, gathering the balloons into a bundle. “It was nothing like that for me.”

“Well…” Jack chuckled casually. “I would guess you didn’t have any pre-existing heart conditions.”

Cat cocked her head and started to head over to the windows. “That’s true.”

“You know,” Alec added after Cat left the kitchen. “If she and I had dealt with the stuff you guys are dealing with, I probably would have curled up into a fetal position and stayed that way.” He slapped Jack on the back again. “So I think you’re doing really well.”

Jack snorted. “I don’t have a choice but to do well. But she really is fine. She just thinks she’s not.”

He scanned the room and assessed the decorations. “I think that’s good, you guys. I’m going to go wake her up.”

He headed down the hall and poked his head into the room to see Shannon sleeping peacefully, so he sat on the edge of the bed next to her and picked up her hand, while he stroked her hair.

“Shannon,” he said quietly.

Her eyelids flinched and squeezed together.

“Shaaa-nnon,” he said again in a slightly singsongy voice. “Wake up, sweetheart.”

With that, her eyelids squeezed again, before she gasped as her eyes shot open. Her glassy-eyed gaze darted around the room for a moment before it landed on his face.

“Oh my God,” she wheezed, causing him to rub her arm firmly.

“You okay, babe?” He held her wrist between his thumb and index finger, briefly checking her pulse. “Another bad dream?”

She nodded and shifted upward to sitting. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said, pulling the blood pressure cuff out of the nightstand and strapping it to her wrist. He waited a moment for the digital numbers to register. “One-ten over sixty-eight. That’s good, babe.”

She sighed listlessly and forced a smile.

He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “So,” he began dramatically, “I’ve got a little surprise for you.”

She smirked. “What on earth did you do now?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Just a little something fun.” He stood up to retrieve her robe and draped it over her shoulders before helping her to stand. She smirked again.

“I hear a bit of commotion out there,” she mentioned. “It sounds like you’re throwing a party.”

He simpered. “Well I am. Are you up for a little company?”

She tittered. “Oh, baby. You’re so bad. But yes, I’d love a little company.”

So he held the small of her back while she held his hand and shuffled toward the main room.

“Surprise!” Aiden hollered when they entered the room. “Happy birthday, Aunt Shannie!”

Deb chuckled and patted his shoulders. “It’s not her birthday, dear. This is a baby shower.”

“Oh,” he uttered, crinkling his brow slightly for a second, then sucked some helium from a balloon. “Happy baby shower!” he squeaked through a high-pitched voice.

Shannon laughed a genuinely amused laugh before sighing. “Awww…Y’all are so wonderful.” She sniffled and demurely wiped her eye before turning to Jack. “Are you responsible for this?”

Before Jack could answer, Aine stepped close to them and squeezed Shannon’s shoulders. “Of course he is.” She paused to grip Jack’s chin. “He’s wonderful.”

Shannon nodded and kissed his cheek. “He is.”

Aine tugged Shannon by the arm and ushered her to sit down on the couch. Cat placed a pink sash over her shoulder that featured the words Mommy to be, and set a plastic tiara on her head, which caused Shannon to giggle and wipe her eyes again.

“You are too much,” she murmured through a teary voice.

“We couldn’t not have a baby shower, honey,” Cat informed her, gesturing at the room. “The boys did all the decorations.”

Shannon chortled and flashed a smile at Jack, who had joined Alec in the kitchen. “Y’all did a beautiful job.”

Jack winked at her. “Love you.”

Her eyes grew misty a third time. “I love you too.”

“That is enough crying, child,” Aine asserted. “Open a gift and eat a cupcake.”

Jack chuckled and poured a cup of coffee, while he continued to hang in the kitchen away from all the frilly, girly activities.

“Next week,” Alec interjected with a clink of his coffee mug against Jack’s.

Jack managed to not groan with apprehension. “Yep. Next week.”

“You’re going to be drinking more coffee than you ever have in your life,” Alec informed him. “You won’t get a decent night’s sleep for at least three months, and you won’t have sex for even longer than that. So brace yourself.”

Jack had to laugh. “I’ll manage.”

“Have you watched any birth videos?”

Jack made a face. “Uhhh…no.”

“Oh man,” Alec said, pulling out his phone and furiously tapping the screen. “You’ve gotta see this. You need to be prepared so you don’t pass out or something.”

Jack grimaced and he glanced at the screen of the phone. His jaw fell open. The video was essentially a flurried mass of blood and chaos and screaming.

“Holy shit,” Jack muttered.

“I know, right?” Alec added.

Whoa!” Aiden gasped, having appeared in the kitchen from out of nowhere. “What is that?”

Jack hastily covered the screen and pushed it out of Aiden’s line of sight. “What are you doing in here? Go help your mom gather wrapping paper.”

Aiden groaned in protest. “Ugh. This is a girl party.”

Alec shrugged and waved his phone. “Might be good for him to see this. He’s about the age for the talk. If you know what I mean.”

Jack scoffed. “Dude. No.”

“What’s the talk?” Aiden demanded, causing Jack to shoot Alec an exasperated look.

“I am not giving him the talk today,” Jack stated firmly.

“What’s the talk?” Aiden hollered over the commotion.

“Jack,” Deb called from the living area. “It might not be a bad idea. I’m sure he has a lot of questions.”

Aiden raised his eyebrows. “I have a lot of questions, Uncle Jack.”

Jack gaped at his sister. “Seriously?

Deb flicked her wrist at him in a go ahead gesture. “As the man in his life, this is your job.”

Jack clutched his temples and groaned, which caused all the women in the room to chortle and Alec to stifle a laugh from behind his fist.

Jack shot Alec a look of death and shoved him out of the kitchen. “You brought it up, so you have to do this with me.” He placed a hand on Aiden’s shoulder and guided him to follow them. “Let’s go play some video games, Aiden.”

He drew in a deep breath and exhaled in exasperation as he mentally prepared himself for a very important conversation with his nephew.