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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Disclaimer: See prior chapters.
-
Author’s Notes: Hold on Maggy, you’re about to get hit with another chronological leap forward. (Several months.) It is, admittedly, one of my faults as a writer. I do tend to skip large chunks of time, especially when I haven’t posted to a story in a while. And yes, toward the end of a Phenyx story, things do tend to speed up, rushing toward a finale. I have no excuse. It is a direct result of my eagerness to move on to another project.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Door of Memory
Part 14 – By Phenyx
01/29/05
“Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory. “
Susan B. Anthony
-
An odd sound woke Jarod. He blinked in the darkness, listening carefully. He didn’t move, but remained curled around the sleeping form of his wife. The house around Jarod sounded wrong to his ears. The night felt unfamiliar and strange.
Jarod felt a twinge of melancholy. There was a reason he felt out of place. This wasn’t his room anymore. This wasn’t his bed. Home was back in Blue Cove, Delaware, not here with his parents. Jarod and Parker had taken a late flight out of Dover, arriving at the farmhouse only a few hours ago.
There was a scraping noise that Jarod quickly identified as a branch rubbing against the window. The wind was blowing in frantic gusts and as Jarod watched, a flash of lightning brightened the sky. The rain had not started, but it would soon.
And yet, the restless branch had not woken Jarod. Nor had the faraway rumble of thunder. Something else had disturbed his slumber. When the soft sound repeated, Jarod sat up and cocked his head.
As awareness dawned on him, Jarod smiled. He turned toward Parker, tempted to rouse her so that she could share this moment with him. But Parker was so deeply asleep. She’d been working very hard over the last week, in preparation for their trip. Jarod had noticed how tired she’d been, how difficult it had been for her to get out of bed each morning.
Placing a tender kiss on his wife’s temple, Jarod slipped out of bed. He moved across the floor as silently as a wraith and eased his way out of the room. He crept through the darkened house, following the snippets of sound that lured him.
As Jarod came down the stairs, the gentle tone steadied. At a distance it had seemed to come and go in waves. But in truth, it had been differences in pitch that had made the sound seem softer at times.
Jarod peered around the doorframe into the kitchen. Barefoot, wearing nothing but silk pajama pants, Jarod felt a shiver as goose bumps rose on his flesh. It wasn’t fear or a chill that caused this reaction. It was one of those perfect moments, a perfect image imprinting itself on Jarod’s mind. He smiled, savoring the sight, drawing out the moment for as long as it would last.
Only the light above the sink was burning, giving the room a dim glow. Sitting in a chair beside the table was Jarod’s mother and in the crook of one arm she held a bundle of pink flannel. With her other hand, Margaret held a bottle, carefully tucked into the child’s mouth. Rocking side to side in a soothing motion, Jarod’s mother was singing to her grandchild.
One tiny foot flailed, kicking out in random. Jarod chuckled, causing his mother to look up at him.
“Did we wake you?” Margaret asked softly.
Jarod nodded as he stepped into the room and stood at his mother’s side. “I’m glad.” He looked down at the blond curls framing the baby’s face. “She’s so precious. The most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen.” With a shrug he added, “Of course, being my only niece, I may be a bit biased on the topic.”
Margaret smiled lovingly at the child. “Heather is so disappointed that her milk didn’t come properly. She feels like she’s failed somehow.” Caressing the baby’s cheek, Margaret continued. “But I love being able to share this closeness with my little Rose.”
The two adults were quiet for several minutes. Margaret set the half-empty bottle on the table and gently burped the little girl on one shoulder. When she would have resumed the feeding, Margaret looked up at her firstborn and asked, “Would like to give it a try?”
Jarod flashed her a smile. “I wouldn’t want to deprive you of your time with your granddaughter.”
“Nonsense,” Margaret chided. “I get to feed her every day. You’ll only be here for a week.”
Margaret changed places with Jarod and lifted the babe into his arms. As Jarod popped the bottle back into the small mouth, two wide blue eyes opened and looked up at him.
“Hi there, Rosie,” Jarod whispered with awe. “Remember me? I’m your Uncle Jarod. We met this afternoon.”
The infant answered with a rude slurping and another kick of her legs. Jarod laughed, mesmerized by the steady gaze of the child. “She seems so curious,” he said to his mother.
“Yes,” Margaret agreed. “She always wants to see what’s going on.” After a pause Margaret added. “You were even more so.”
“I was?”
Margaret sighed indulgently. “As an infant, you just weren’t happy unless you were in the middle of everything.” She caressed her son’s hair as she spoke. “You never wanted to sleep. You might miss something important.”
“I’m sorry,” Jarod said.
“Don’t be,” Margaret answered. “You were a special child. You still are,” she added with a smile.
Jarod swallowed. “When did you know?” he asked quietly, his eyes glued to the baby. “When did you realize that I was… different from other children?”
Margaret’s fingers continued their soothing strokes through Jarod’s hair. “I knew you were special the moment you were born.”
“All babies are special in their mothers’ eyes,” Jarod said. “When did you know that I was different?”
“When you were about three,” she admitted. Margaret sighed again. “You had walked a little early, talked sooner than most. But we thought nothing of it. We’d had no previous experience with children. We knew you were a bright and inquisitive child. We just hadn’t realized how bright.”
“What happened when I was three?” Jarod asked.
“We were in the car one day,” Margaret remembered. “You were in the back seat doing what preschoolers do.”
“Which is?”
“You were asking questions,” Margaret said. “Always. Drove your father and me up a wall with your nonstop questions. ‘Why do dogs have four legs instead of two? Why is a school bus orange? Why are green beans good for you? Why, why, why?’
And you were never satisfied with a simple answer either.” Margaret went on. “Your father had realized that he could stop the questions by answering in a way you couldn’t possibly understand. You’d go all quiet and thoughtful when you were trying to make sense of something. Confusion troubled you.”
“Still does,” Jarod replied with a nod.
“As a result,” Margaret continued. “When you asked about rainbows, your father bought you a prism and talked about the visible spectrum. When you asked why birds have feathers instead of fur, he told you about aerodynamics. When you asked about bubbles he explained surface tension. We thought that you just liked to hear your daddy’s voice. We never dreamed that you understood any of it.”
“But I did,” Jarod whispered.
“That day in the car,” Margaret said. “You asked what color the sky was in Florida. In your young mind, that was about as far from home as one could get. When we told you that the sky was blue even in Florida, you seemed very confused.”
“Then what happened?”
“You asked us where the other colors go.” Margaret shook her head at the memory. “You figured that if the blue is really scattered light from the sun, the other colors of the spectrum must be floating out there somewhere. I believe your exact words were, ‘Light from the sun has all the spectrum, where does the rest go?’”
Margaret shrugged. “The theory may have been a bit off course, but the point is no three-year-old should have been making those kinds of hypotheses.”
Jarod nodded.
“We had your I.Q. tested the following week,” Margaret told him.
“And I scored well,” Jarod said.
“You could say that,” Margaret nodded. “Blew the top off the scale.”
“And so it began,” Jarod murmured. He looked down at the child in his arms and realized that she had fallen asleep. “All the heartache, all those lost years.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Margaret said. “No one blames you for any of it.” Taking her son’s chin in the palm of her hand, Margaret tilted Jarod’s gaze to meet her own. “No one blames you,” she repeated.
Jarod swallowed. “I know, Mom.”
“Of course,” Margaret continued with a mischievous gleam in her eye. “I’ll never quite forgive you for eloping. A mother likes to see her children get married you know.”
“Mom!” Jarod exclaimed. He kept his voice low so as not to wake the infant in his arms. “I’ve told you a hundred times how sorry I am about that. Everything happened so fast there wasn’t time to fly you out.”
“It looked awfully well put together to me.” Margaret chided him.
“It’s astounding what you can accomplish when you go to the hotel manager and say ‘Money is no object.’” Jarod shook his head. “We had a very expensive cameraman with a live satellite feed. It may have been via long distance but you were there.”
“It just isn’t the same watching it on a monitor.” Margaret added, “She would have waited, you know.”
“Maybe,” Jarod said. “But I didn’t want to give her the chance to change her mind.”
“You underestimate her.”
“Probably,” Jarod replied. “Things between us have always been complicated. There’s a lot of emotional baggage, insecurities that we both struggle to overcome.”
“You’re still bringing out the worst in each other?” Margaret asked.
Jarod thought about that for a moment. When he answered, it was slowly as if the words were forming even as he spoke them. “Yes. Yet somehow, the worst isn’t as frightening as it once was. It is what made us strong. It’s how we survived.”
“Jarod,” the firm tone in Margaret’s voice made Jarod look up at her. “Are you happy with your life in Delaware?”
There was no hesitation. Jarod’s smile was bright and honest. “Oh yes, Mother. Very.”
Bending down, Margaret placed an affectionate kiss on her son’s brow. “Then nothing else matters, does it?”
They sat in silence for a time, listening to the rain beat against the windows and admiring the newest addition to their family. Jarod eventually relinquished his hold on his little niece. He followed as his mother took the baby to the nursery and tucked her into her crib. After kissing his mother goodnight Jarod went to his room.
Silently lifting the blanket, Jarod slipped into bed beside his wife. As Parker snuggled against his chest she spoke in a sleepy voice. “Where were you?”
“Downstairs, talking to my mother,” Jarod answered. “She let me feed the baby.”
Parker opened her eyes. Jarod could see her gazing at him through the darkness. “You handle Rose like a pro,” she observed.
Jarod grinned. “You sound surprised.”
“I suppose I shouldn’t be,” Parker said. “But I’ve never seen you around a small child. I wasn’t sure how well you’d deal with one.”
“She’s awfully cute,” Jarod said. “Coping is much easier when they are cute.”
“I’m sure.” Parker agreed. Lightning flashed, brightening the room. In the moment of illumination, Jarod could see a loving smile on Parker’s face.
“Do you suppose we could take her home with us?” Jarod asked playfully. He weaved his fingers through Parker’s hair and absently began to massage the back of her head the way she liked.
“Hmm. Ethan might have something to say about that.”
Jarod heaved a dramatic sigh. “I suppose you’re right. But she really is adorable.” He kissed Parker on the lips. “I want one,” he murmured.
Parker’s laughter was like music in the dark room.
“What?” Jarod growled playfully. “You think that’s funny? Don’t you think we could make babies as beautiful as Rose?”
Parker kissed him back. “Nothing could be as perfect as the life you and I create together,” she whispered. When she kissed him again, it was a long lingering kiss that left Jarod breathless. “Your birthday,” Parker murmured against his lips.
“What?”
“Your birthday,” Parker grinned. “I’ll give you one for your birthday.”
Jarod hugged Parker close and laughed. “Parker, my birthday is in six months.”
“Closer to seven,” she corrected.
“Six, seven, it doesn’t matter,” Jarod said with a smile. “Biology dictates a nine month standard in this area.”
“Very good, Genius,” Parker said. “You are quite correct.” She kissed Jarod’s cheek and whispered into his ear. “I’m due on the tenth.”
“One week before my birthday,” Jarod said in dumbfounded wonder.
“My, but you are a smart boy.” Parker snickered. “I can see the wheels turning in your head, Jarod. Don’t hurt yourself. It really isn’t that difficult to connect these dots.”
“You’re pregnant.” Jarod’s voice was little more than harsh whisper.
“Brilliant my ass,” Parker giggled.
“You’re pregnant?” Jarod sat up, his voice stronger this time. “How long have you known?” He asked. Without giving Parker the chance to respond, he answered his own question. “You had an appointment in Dover the day before yesterday. It was with a doctor wasn’t it?” Jarod frowned and sprang from the bed. “You’ve known for two days and didn’t tell me?”
“I wasn’t sure what you’d think of the idea,” Parker admitted. “We’ve never talked about it. And, well, I didn’t exactly mention that I had stopped taking the contraceptives.”
“What!”
Parker shrugged. “I wanted to do this for you while there was still time,” she told him in a quivering voice. “And let’s face it Jarod, you really tend to talk things to death before you finally act on a decision.”
Emotions were rushing over Jarod in rapid succession. He felt as though he was on a tilt-a-whirl ride at a carnival. The world around him was spinning. In a valiant attempt to regain his senses, he focused on two words. “Still time?” he repeated. “What do you mean ‘while there was still time’?”
“I’m not a young woman, Jarod.” Parker replied. “The biological clock is ticking its last few ticks. Simply because of my age, this is considered a high-risk pregnancy.”
Jarod felt his knees buckle. He sat heavily on the edge of the bed, catching himself before he fell down. “God,” he gasped. “We flew halfway across the country today. Should you have been traveling?”
“The doctor said it wasn’t a problem,” Parker reassured him.
“But what if,” Jarod began.
Parker cut him off with a kiss. “I’m fine.”
“You’re pregnant,” Jarod sighed.
“I’m fine.”
Jarod blinked in the darkness. With both hands he took Parker’s face and pulled her close, kissing her tenderly. “You’re pregnant,” he said again.
“You keep saying that,” Parker noticed.
“Trying to internalize the fact,” Jarod said. “It’s a little hard to believe. You don’t seem any different.”
Parker smiled. “I feel different,” she told him.
“You’ve been tired,” Jarod noted.
“Exhausted,” Parker agreed. “But I’ve had no nausea worth mentioning so I can’t really complain.”
Taking his wife in his arms Jarod eased her down onto the pillows. He lifted Parker’s nightshirt and splayed one large hand across her abdomen. Caressing little circles on her flesh Jarod said, “Do you suppose it’s a boy or a girl?”
“Too soon to tell,” Parker answered. “Does it matter?”
Jarod smiled. “Not really. Hey, it could be both. One of each.” At Parker’s startled gasp Jarod laughed. “Don’t blame me, twins run on your side of the family remember?”
“Oh lord,” Parker groaned. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”
“This was a great idea.” Jarod kissed her. “Best birthday present I could ever imagine.”
With a shrug Parker said, “What else do you get for the guy who has everything?”
Laying his head over Parker’s heart, Jarod snuggled down for the night. “I do have everything,” he said softly. “Everything I’ve ever wanted, everything I ever dreamed of.” He felt Parker’s soft arms tighten around him.
“Same here,” she whispered.
-
The end
-
Author’s Notes: There you have it. A happy ending as promised with plenty of sap to go around. I apologize for taking so long with these last few chapters. But we all know that real life tends to rise up and bite us in the butt once in a while. I want to thank you all for reading and I especially want to thank those of you who dropped me a note to tell me what you thought. 200+ reviews is a truly flattering number. Thank you.
-
Author’s Notes: Hold on Maggy, you’re about to get hit with another chronological leap forward. (Several months.) It is, admittedly, one of my faults as a writer. I do tend to skip large chunks of time, especially when I haven’t posted to a story in a while. And yes, toward the end of a Phenyx story, things do tend to speed up, rushing toward a finale. I have no excuse. It is a direct result of my eagerness to move on to another project.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Door of Memory
Part 14 – By Phenyx
01/29/05
“Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory. “
Susan B. Anthony
-
An odd sound woke Jarod. He blinked in the darkness, listening carefully. He didn’t move, but remained curled around the sleeping form of his wife. The house around Jarod sounded wrong to his ears. The night felt unfamiliar and strange.
Jarod felt a twinge of melancholy. There was a reason he felt out of place. This wasn’t his room anymore. This wasn’t his bed. Home was back in Blue Cove, Delaware, not here with his parents. Jarod and Parker had taken a late flight out of Dover, arriving at the farmhouse only a few hours ago.
There was a scraping noise that Jarod quickly identified as a branch rubbing against the window. The wind was blowing in frantic gusts and as Jarod watched, a flash of lightning brightened the sky. The rain had not started, but it would soon.
And yet, the restless branch had not woken Jarod. Nor had the faraway rumble of thunder. Something else had disturbed his slumber. When the soft sound repeated, Jarod sat up and cocked his head.
As awareness dawned on him, Jarod smiled. He turned toward Parker, tempted to rouse her so that she could share this moment with him. But Parker was so deeply asleep. She’d been working very hard over the last week, in preparation for their trip. Jarod had noticed how tired she’d been, how difficult it had been for her to get out of bed each morning.
Placing a tender kiss on his wife’s temple, Jarod slipped out of bed. He moved across the floor as silently as a wraith and eased his way out of the room. He crept through the darkened house, following the snippets of sound that lured him.
As Jarod came down the stairs, the gentle tone steadied. At a distance it had seemed to come and go in waves. But in truth, it had been differences in pitch that had made the sound seem softer at times.
Jarod peered around the doorframe into the kitchen. Barefoot, wearing nothing but silk pajama pants, Jarod felt a shiver as goose bumps rose on his flesh. It wasn’t fear or a chill that caused this reaction. It was one of those perfect moments, a perfect image imprinting itself on Jarod’s mind. He smiled, savoring the sight, drawing out the moment for as long as it would last.
Only the light above the sink was burning, giving the room a dim glow. Sitting in a chair beside the table was Jarod’s mother and in the crook of one arm she held a bundle of pink flannel. With her other hand, Margaret held a bottle, carefully tucked into the child’s mouth. Rocking side to side in a soothing motion, Jarod’s mother was singing to her grandchild.
One tiny foot flailed, kicking out in random. Jarod chuckled, causing his mother to look up at him.
“Did we wake you?” Margaret asked softly.
Jarod nodded as he stepped into the room and stood at his mother’s side. “I’m glad.” He looked down at the blond curls framing the baby’s face. “She’s so precious. The most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen.” With a shrug he added, “Of course, being my only niece, I may be a bit biased on the topic.”
Margaret smiled lovingly at the child. “Heather is so disappointed that her milk didn’t come properly. She feels like she’s failed somehow.” Caressing the baby’s cheek, Margaret continued. “But I love being able to share this closeness with my little Rose.”
The two adults were quiet for several minutes. Margaret set the half-empty bottle on the table and gently burped the little girl on one shoulder. When she would have resumed the feeding, Margaret looked up at her firstborn and asked, “Would like to give it a try?”
Jarod flashed her a smile. “I wouldn’t want to deprive you of your time with your granddaughter.”
“Nonsense,” Margaret chided. “I get to feed her every day. You’ll only be here for a week.”
Margaret changed places with Jarod and lifted the babe into his arms. As Jarod popped the bottle back into the small mouth, two wide blue eyes opened and looked up at him.
“Hi there, Rosie,” Jarod whispered with awe. “Remember me? I’m your Uncle Jarod. We met this afternoon.”
The infant answered with a rude slurping and another kick of her legs. Jarod laughed, mesmerized by the steady gaze of the child. “She seems so curious,” he said to his mother.
“Yes,” Margaret agreed. “She always wants to see what’s going on.” After a pause Margaret added. “You were even more so.”
“I was?”
Margaret sighed indulgently. “As an infant, you just weren’t happy unless you were in the middle of everything.” She caressed her son’s hair as she spoke. “You never wanted to sleep. You might miss something important.”
“I’m sorry,” Jarod said.
“Don’t be,” Margaret answered. “You were a special child. You still are,” she added with a smile.
Jarod swallowed. “When did you know?” he asked quietly, his eyes glued to the baby. “When did you realize that I was… different from other children?”
Margaret’s fingers continued their soothing strokes through Jarod’s hair. “I knew you were special the moment you were born.”
“All babies are special in their mothers’ eyes,” Jarod said. “When did you know that I was different?”
“When you were about three,” she admitted. Margaret sighed again. “You had walked a little early, talked sooner than most. But we thought nothing of it. We’d had no previous experience with children. We knew you were a bright and inquisitive child. We just hadn’t realized how bright.”
“What happened when I was three?” Jarod asked.
“We were in the car one day,” Margaret remembered. “You were in the back seat doing what preschoolers do.”
“Which is?”
“You were asking questions,” Margaret said. “Always. Drove your father and me up a wall with your nonstop questions. ‘Why do dogs have four legs instead of two? Why is a school bus orange? Why are green beans good for you? Why, why, why?’
And you were never satisfied with a simple answer either.” Margaret went on. “Your father had realized that he could stop the questions by answering in a way you couldn’t possibly understand. You’d go all quiet and thoughtful when you were trying to make sense of something. Confusion troubled you.”
“Still does,” Jarod replied with a nod.
“As a result,” Margaret continued. “When you asked about rainbows, your father bought you a prism and talked about the visible spectrum. When you asked why birds have feathers instead of fur, he told you about aerodynamics. When you asked about bubbles he explained surface tension. We thought that you just liked to hear your daddy’s voice. We never dreamed that you understood any of it.”
“But I did,” Jarod whispered.
“That day in the car,” Margaret said. “You asked what color the sky was in Florida. In your young mind, that was about as far from home as one could get. When we told you that the sky was blue even in Florida, you seemed very confused.”
“Then what happened?”
“You asked us where the other colors go.” Margaret shook her head at the memory. “You figured that if the blue is really scattered light from the sun, the other colors of the spectrum must be floating out there somewhere. I believe your exact words were, ‘Light from the sun has all the spectrum, where does the rest go?’”
Margaret shrugged. “The theory may have been a bit off course, but the point is no three-year-old should have been making those kinds of hypotheses.”
Jarod nodded.
“We had your I.Q. tested the following week,” Margaret told him.
“And I scored well,” Jarod said.
“You could say that,” Margaret nodded. “Blew the top off the scale.”
“And so it began,” Jarod murmured. He looked down at the child in his arms and realized that she had fallen asleep. “All the heartache, all those lost years.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Margaret said. “No one blames you for any of it.” Taking her son’s chin in the palm of her hand, Margaret tilted Jarod’s gaze to meet her own. “No one blames you,” she repeated.
Jarod swallowed. “I know, Mom.”
“Of course,” Margaret continued with a mischievous gleam in her eye. “I’ll never quite forgive you for eloping. A mother likes to see her children get married you know.”
“Mom!” Jarod exclaimed. He kept his voice low so as not to wake the infant in his arms. “I’ve told you a hundred times how sorry I am about that. Everything happened so fast there wasn’t time to fly you out.”
“It looked awfully well put together to me.” Margaret chided him.
“It’s astounding what you can accomplish when you go to the hotel manager and say ‘Money is no object.’” Jarod shook his head. “We had a very expensive cameraman with a live satellite feed. It may have been via long distance but you were there.”
“It just isn’t the same watching it on a monitor.” Margaret added, “She would have waited, you know.”
“Maybe,” Jarod said. “But I didn’t want to give her the chance to change her mind.”
“You underestimate her.”
“Probably,” Jarod replied. “Things between us have always been complicated. There’s a lot of emotional baggage, insecurities that we both struggle to overcome.”
“You’re still bringing out the worst in each other?” Margaret asked.
Jarod thought about that for a moment. When he answered, it was slowly as if the words were forming even as he spoke them. “Yes. Yet somehow, the worst isn’t as frightening as it once was. It is what made us strong. It’s how we survived.”
“Jarod,” the firm tone in Margaret’s voice made Jarod look up at her. “Are you happy with your life in Delaware?”
There was no hesitation. Jarod’s smile was bright and honest. “Oh yes, Mother. Very.”
Bending down, Margaret placed an affectionate kiss on her son’s brow. “Then nothing else matters, does it?”
They sat in silence for a time, listening to the rain beat against the windows and admiring the newest addition to their family. Jarod eventually relinquished his hold on his little niece. He followed as his mother took the baby to the nursery and tucked her into her crib. After kissing his mother goodnight Jarod went to his room.
Silently lifting the blanket, Jarod slipped into bed beside his wife. As Parker snuggled against his chest she spoke in a sleepy voice. “Where were you?”
“Downstairs, talking to my mother,” Jarod answered. “She let me feed the baby.”
Parker opened her eyes. Jarod could see her gazing at him through the darkness. “You handle Rose like a pro,” she observed.
Jarod grinned. “You sound surprised.”
“I suppose I shouldn’t be,” Parker said. “But I’ve never seen you around a small child. I wasn’t sure how well you’d deal with one.”
“She’s awfully cute,” Jarod said. “Coping is much easier when they are cute.”
“I’m sure.” Parker agreed. Lightning flashed, brightening the room. In the moment of illumination, Jarod could see a loving smile on Parker’s face.
“Do you suppose we could take her home with us?” Jarod asked playfully. He weaved his fingers through Parker’s hair and absently began to massage the back of her head the way she liked.
“Hmm. Ethan might have something to say about that.”
Jarod heaved a dramatic sigh. “I suppose you’re right. But she really is adorable.” He kissed Parker on the lips. “I want one,” he murmured.
Parker’s laughter was like music in the dark room.
“What?” Jarod growled playfully. “You think that’s funny? Don’t you think we could make babies as beautiful as Rose?”
Parker kissed him back. “Nothing could be as perfect as the life you and I create together,” she whispered. When she kissed him again, it was a long lingering kiss that left Jarod breathless. “Your birthday,” Parker murmured against his lips.
“What?”
“Your birthday,” Parker grinned. “I’ll give you one for your birthday.”
Jarod hugged Parker close and laughed. “Parker, my birthday is in six months.”
“Closer to seven,” she corrected.
“Six, seven, it doesn’t matter,” Jarod said with a smile. “Biology dictates a nine month standard in this area.”
“Very good, Genius,” Parker said. “You are quite correct.” She kissed Jarod’s cheek and whispered into his ear. “I’m due on the tenth.”
“One week before my birthday,” Jarod said in dumbfounded wonder.
“My, but you are a smart boy.” Parker snickered. “I can see the wheels turning in your head, Jarod. Don’t hurt yourself. It really isn’t that difficult to connect these dots.”
“You’re pregnant.” Jarod’s voice was little more than harsh whisper.
“Brilliant my ass,” Parker giggled.
“You’re pregnant?” Jarod sat up, his voice stronger this time. “How long have you known?” He asked. Without giving Parker the chance to respond, he answered his own question. “You had an appointment in Dover the day before yesterday. It was with a doctor wasn’t it?” Jarod frowned and sprang from the bed. “You’ve known for two days and didn’t tell me?”
“I wasn’t sure what you’d think of the idea,” Parker admitted. “We’ve never talked about it. And, well, I didn’t exactly mention that I had stopped taking the contraceptives.”
“What!”
Parker shrugged. “I wanted to do this for you while there was still time,” she told him in a quivering voice. “And let’s face it Jarod, you really tend to talk things to death before you finally act on a decision.”
Emotions were rushing over Jarod in rapid succession. He felt as though he was on a tilt-a-whirl ride at a carnival. The world around him was spinning. In a valiant attempt to regain his senses, he focused on two words. “Still time?” he repeated. “What do you mean ‘while there was still time’?”
“I’m not a young woman, Jarod.” Parker replied. “The biological clock is ticking its last few ticks. Simply because of my age, this is considered a high-risk pregnancy.”
Jarod felt his knees buckle. He sat heavily on the edge of the bed, catching himself before he fell down. “God,” he gasped. “We flew halfway across the country today. Should you have been traveling?”
“The doctor said it wasn’t a problem,” Parker reassured him.
“But what if,” Jarod began.
Parker cut him off with a kiss. “I’m fine.”
“You’re pregnant,” Jarod sighed.
“I’m fine.”
Jarod blinked in the darkness. With both hands he took Parker’s face and pulled her close, kissing her tenderly. “You’re pregnant,” he said again.
“You keep saying that,” Parker noticed.
“Trying to internalize the fact,” Jarod said. “It’s a little hard to believe. You don’t seem any different.”
Parker smiled. “I feel different,” she told him.
“You’ve been tired,” Jarod noted.
“Exhausted,” Parker agreed. “But I’ve had no nausea worth mentioning so I can’t really complain.”
Taking his wife in his arms Jarod eased her down onto the pillows. He lifted Parker’s nightshirt and splayed one large hand across her abdomen. Caressing little circles on her flesh Jarod said, “Do you suppose it’s a boy or a girl?”
“Too soon to tell,” Parker answered. “Does it matter?”
Jarod smiled. “Not really. Hey, it could be both. One of each.” At Parker’s startled gasp Jarod laughed. “Don’t blame me, twins run on your side of the family remember?”
“Oh lord,” Parker groaned. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”
“This was a great idea.” Jarod kissed her. “Best birthday present I could ever imagine.”
With a shrug Parker said, “What else do you get for the guy who has everything?”
Laying his head over Parker’s heart, Jarod snuggled down for the night. “I do have everything,” he said softly. “Everything I’ve ever wanted, everything I ever dreamed of.” He felt Parker’s soft arms tighten around him.
“Same here,” she whispered.
-
The end
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Author’s Notes: There you have it. A happy ending as promised with plenty of sap to go around. I apologize for taking so long with these last few chapters. But we all know that real life tends to rise up and bite us in the butt once in a while. I want to thank you all for reading and I especially want to thank those of you who dropped me a note to tell me what you thought. 200+ reviews is a truly flattering number. Thank you.
