Page 43 of Book Bae

I loved that she was so easy to please. I had feared that her hormones would take over and change the sweet woman I had met into some raging woman that I no longer recognized.

“What do you have a taste for?”

“Tacos.”

“Cool. I know the perfect place.”

We chatted about the doctor appointment until we arrived at The Fiesta Bowl. Once we were seated and placed our orders, she asked me a question that I could tell had been on her mind for a while.

“What was it like the first time around—with Malachi?”

I inhaled and released a long exhale. “My wife worked hard to keep me at a distance. As much as I wanted to be involved, she made it difficult for me. She canceled appointments, rescheduled them, skipped some, or just didn’t tell me when they were. No matter what I did, it wasn’t good enough for her. She was always upset and angry, which she blamed on pregnancy hormones. I was patient with her, but the more patient I was, the more she fussed and cried. She said she hated that I didn’t argue back with her; she said it was a sign that I didn’t care.

“After Chi was born, I learned why she had been so argumentative, distant, and pushing me away about anything that had to do with her pregnancy. I thought it was just hormonal like she’d said, but it wasn’t. She had a car accident before she became pregnant, and she had been prescribed pain pills to manage her pain.”

“Please don’t tell me that she continued taking them during the pregnancy.”

I stopped talking as our waiter returned to our table with our orders. Once we were served, I took her hands in mine, prayed over the meal, and then took a bite before I resumed the conversation.

“Not only did she not stop taking them, but she was drinking too.”

“I have a confession,” she mumbled weakly.

My chest tightened, and my jaw clenched as I waited for her confession.

“What’s that?”

“I uhm . . . I had a glass of wine three times before I knew that I was pregnant. It was the first trimester.”

“Did you continue?” I asked, trying to unscrew the tightness in my jaw.

“No! Before I found out, I hadn’t had a glass in almost a month.”

“What did the doctors say?”

“The doctors have said that everything is okay from the tests that have been ran, but—I still worry.”

It was hard to hear her confession, but I knew that was because of my memories of Malachi. I dug down deep and pushed past the pain, and I reached out and grabbed her hands.

“Listen, we’re not gonna focus on ‘what-if,’ but we’re gonna focus on the positive, pray, and keep our minds and hearts clear of anything but a healthy baby girl. Okay?”

“Okay. I’m sorry, Micaiah.”

“Don’t apologize. I don’t believe you meant any harm; you just didn’t know.”

She inhaled and exhaled slowly, letting me know that had been a weight on her shoulders. With a nod, she replied, “Okay. Finish telling me about Malachi.”

“He was born premature with a low birth weight and neonatal abstinence syndrome. He struggled with respiratory issues, he cried all the time, and he had seizures, which scared the shit out of me. Thank God, we didn’t have to have him weaned by giving him other drugs and slowly reducing the dose.

“That’s what we thought might happen at first, but we took a supportive care approach. Shit wasn’t easy, Myraj. He had to be swaddled and have skin-to-skin care while he was gently rocked. We used to have to keep his hands to his face to help him self-soothe.”

“You said ‘we,’ but I thought she wasn’t involved.”

“She wasn’t. By ‘we’ I meant my family and her parents. I had a great support system for him, still do.”

“My heart is breaking, Micaiah. No child or parent should have to go through those types of battles,” she replied, wrapping her arms around herself as though she could protect our baby by that action alone.

“Nah, they shouldn’t.”