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I slip into the blue scrubs and make my way out, placing my clothes in a pile beside his and watching as he leans against the wall, arms folded across his chest.
He raises a brow. “I know, I know, Mr. Impatient.” I walk over and lean against the wall beside him and looking down at my hands as I prepare to tell him about the pain in my past. “Gerry and I, we were happy at one point, believe it or not.” I look back up at him and his face screws up, but I continue on. “We had no worries really. He had a good job and I loved working at a studio doing similar to what I do now. That was until I started to notice the way I was watching the parents dropping off their kids. I wanted that kind of relationship.”
“That’s understandable,” he comments, searching my eyes for the real reason that I’m telling him all of this.
I sigh, trying to dispel the lump forming in my throat before telling him the rest. “I told Gerry how I was feeling and he seemed less than happy about the notion of having kids at first, so I gave up on the idea for a while. That was until he brought it up again. We tried for months but nothing was happening, then one day we finally got the good news that I was almost two months pregnant.” My eyes flutter closed, my nails digging into my palms as I try to keep my emotions under control.
Whenever I think about that time, it feels like it happened to someone else. It may sound cold, but I’ve detached myself from all of the memories, because I have to. If I let myself feel what I did back then, I’ll never move forward and teaching kids would hurt every time I looked into their eyes, knowing that I’ll never have what their parents have.
Talking about this with Tris is breaking me, but I need to tell him so that he understands. I open my eyes again before taking a deep breath. “We were so happy, but… two weeks later, I felt sick and had stabbing pains low in my stomach.” I blow out a breath, my voice growing hoarse. “I knew that something wasn’t right but I went about my daily tasks anyway, hoping and praying that the small niggling voice in the back of my mind was wrong. I wanted to stay in my bubble. I remember being rushed to the hospital after I started bleeding and the pain became unbearable, but everything after that is a blur.”
“Oh, God, Harm.”
“I miscarried... not once, but twice in the time that we tried for kids.”
I feel his hand touch my shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
I stare into his gray eyes. “I’m not telling you this for sympathy, I just… I needed to tell you.” He nods and waits for me to get my emotions under control. “After the miscarriages, Gerry didn’t want to try again. I wanted kids more than anything so I saw a doctor.” I sigh. “I found out that I can get pregnant, but I can’t carry a baby. I hated myself for not being able to do the one thing that a woman should be able to do for a long time. I threw myself into working with the kids at the studio, but something was missing. There’s always been something missing, that is until my mom brought me here.”
“I don’t understand,” he says, his brow furrowed in confusion.
I take a deep breath, suppressing the memories and pushing them back inside that locked box inside my mind before sterilizing my hands again and buzzing us through the door in front of us. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
He sterilizes his hands and walks through the now open door, his face an unreadable mask as he looks around at all of the incubators.
I walk over to “Baby F” and the nurse joins me, smiling. “Good to see you back here again. He’s gotten big, hasn’t he?”
I glance down at the gorgeous baby boy and nod. “He sure has, can I?”
“Sure.” She takes him out, making sure all the wires that he’s hooked up to aren’t disturbed as I sit down in the armchair beside the incubator and she places him on my chest.
“Hey, little man. I’m back, did you miss me?” I run my finger down his cheek, marveling at the fact that he’s no longer shaking.
I’m so lost in the moment that I don’t notice Tristan has bent down beside me until he speaks. “Hey, little guy.” He does the same as I did, running his finger across his cheek before looking up at me, a smile on his face and a glint in his eyes that I haven’t seen before.
Our eyes meet and he nods at me like this explains everything, but I have to voice it anyway. “Coming here has helped relieve the ache that I feel. What I do at the studio means everything to me, but these babies?” “Baby F” wraps his tiny hand around my finger. “They need people like us. These aren’t ordinary babies, Tris. They’re essentially recovering addicts.”
“What?” he whispers, but his voice is gravelly, and I can tell that he’s not happy with what I said from the way his brow furrows and the muscle that tics in his jaw. “They’re recovering addicts?”
I nod, a tear rolling down my cheek. He wipes it away, his hand lingering on my face as I barely breathe my next sentence. “I won’t ever get to be a mom, yet there are women out there that fill their bodies with substances, damaging these innocent lives that they’re carrying. How is that fair, Tris?”
“Not everyone has the kind heart that you do, sunshine.”
My head snaps up at the use of his old nickname for me and I smile. “Sunshine? You remembered.”
He snorts. “Of course I remembered.” I lean into his hand that is still lingering on my face.
“I bet you want to run away now.” I smile sadly.
“Never again,” he says, suddenly turning serious. I blush as I cuddle the baby against my chest, looking up at him when he clears his throat. “When do I get my turn?” he asks, putting on a smile and looking around at all of the babies that are lying in their incubators.
“Well, this one’s my special boy, but I’m sure Nurse Franklin can hook you up.”
The nurse chuckles and walks over to an incubator. “This little guy could sure use a cuddle. He’s been out of the danger zone for two weeks now and is yet to be cuddled by anyone but us.”
Tris smiles and walks over to the incubator opposite the one I’m sitting next to. He sits down in the armchair as she hands the tiny baby to him, his face suddenly looking frightened.
“Tris?” He looks over at me and I give him an encouraging smile. “Thanks for being here.”
