Keeping Tabs

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Chris drove me out to the middle of nowhere one day shortly after Easter at Colin's request. Chris kept marveling at how my belly was swelling, and kept touching my abdomen every time he looked over at me in the passenger seat. My hair was flying around my head as soon as we got out of the car. Colin was standing out front in a hard hat, talking to a man with blueprints as he pointed to the upper right corner of the sprawling three story estate being built behind him. He waved as he came over to us.

“Hey, I'm sorry it's not finished yet, but I wanted you to see this. And look at you! Aw baby, you look so cute with your little mommy belly!” Colin laughed as he threw his arms around me.

I noticed more than a few workers stop to watch as he kissed me deeply, then let me go to Chris, who began nuzzling my neck. Neither of them seemed to even notice that people were watching, so I did my best to ignore it, even though I knew what everyone was thinking. I took a deep breath as we walked up the stairs to the house, telling myself that I was prepared for this, that I had been expecting the strange looks.

“Come check this out. This is the 'formal' dining room. Have you ever had one of these, Chris? Dude this is gonna be so phenomenal!” Colin beamed as we walked around stacks of lumber and tile. We walked through over twenty different rooms, Colin listing off the name of each space as we walked throughout the house, Chris and I both rendered speechless by the sheer grandeur of the place.

“And this is your room, babe.” Colin announced, stepping in front of a door covered by plastic sheeting. He opened it so that I could walk in, and I was immediately astonished. A huge bay window sat embedded in cream colored walls, a green ivy print hand painted around the entire room.

A giant four poster bed sat in the center of the room, an ivy print bedspread on it that matched every lamp shade and throw pillow in the room. There was a little white bassinet at the end of the bed, and I began getting misty eyed. He held up one finger, gesturing for me to wait, then he walked to the door I'd thought led to the bathroom, and I did begin to cry.

Directly attached to my room was a nursery, fully stocked and furnished in white. There was every detail, set up and waiting for me and my baby. I couldn't believe it, and I thanked any and every god listening for the two men that were standing before me.

When Chris finally took me back home, I was still crying, making him worry a bit that they'd upset me. I told him how happy and overwhelmed I was, and he just smiled and kissed me, saying I should have been expecting it.

He spent the next three months going with me to every doctor's appointment, every Lamaze class, every shopping trip that Micah planned. We debated different names and wondered if it would be a boy or girl. I decided to be surprised by the gender, so everything that anyone bought for the baby was either, white, green or yellow.

I was almost seven months pregnant when Micah and I graduated from college. I had earned a degree in Language Arts, and he earned one in Business Technologies. Chris and Colin were both there, and both agreed that I would never need to use the degree I'd just spent four years of my life working for. Micah and I celebrated a bit anyway. Or I watched them celebrate while I sipped on my one caffeinated drink of the day, wishing that this would all be over soon.

That was also the evening that we all ran into Jared, and I thought the world was about to end in an apocalyptic explosion. We had pulled up to a daiquiri shop so the boys could get more booze, and I needed to use the bathroom for the millionth time. I froze halfway to the front door when Jared walked through it, coming out with his friends, and I recognized two of them as his obnoxious band mates. And of course they recognized me, and I watched Jared go as still as I had.