“I told you, I’m not going anywhere.”
She sits up, already breaking her promise.
“You just left me.”
She shakes her head and giggles. “I’m covering you up. You don’t want to catch a cold and you don’t want your mom to see you like this.”
“I think my mum knows we have sex, Sweet Lips.” I say, pointing to her belly.
“Incorrigible, that’s what you are. We can’t have sex, Jimmy. You need to heal.”
“But my sexy wifey, you can straddle me and hang onto the rails. I’ll do all the work, I promise.”
She’s not buying it, clearly. She re-ties my ridiculous excuse for a hospital gown and covers me back up. Tucking me in like I’m a baby. I like being pampered, but this is going to get old fast.
“Jenna?”
“Yeah, Jimmy?”
“I love you.”
I’m rewarded with a smile that puts all the others to shame. “I love you too.”
I smile weakly. “I’m tired.”
“I know you are. You should rest. I won’t go anywhere.” I don’t know where the fatigue came from, but suddenly I’m exhausted. Jenna slips my oxygen mask over my nose and mouth and I instantly hate it. I can’t kiss her now. It’s a sad realisation that I can’t do any of the things I want to do with my wife right now, except look at her.
She sits down next to me and holds my hand. Is this what she did while I was in a coma? Part of me wishes I knew, but the other part doesn’t want to know. I don’t want to know if she cried, although I know she did. I don’t want to know that she didn’t take care of herself. I can see it in her eyes. She’s tired. She should’ve been taking care of herself and Little One, not sitting by my side day in, day out.
But I’m happy that she did. It warms me to know that she never left my side, that when things got rough she anchored down and held us afloat.
She’s the last thing I see when I close my eyes. Her head rests on my bed next to me. I want to pull her into bed with me and hold her while I sleep, but I know it’s not possible. I heard everything the doctor said, I just don’t want to believe it. No sex now and it’ll be questionable later and because of the damage to my lungs. I’m not breathing at ‘full capacity’ whatever the fuck that means. I’ll need physical therapy to help me rebuild my stamina. But the worst thing? I’ll be carrying around an oxygen tank with me for a while until I can breathe on my own at ninety percent. Fucking great.
When I wake up my blinds are closed and it’s dark. There’s a small light coming from the corner, but that’s the only light I can see. I reach for Jenna, but find her spot is empty. She’s not here. She said she’d never leave me. My heart rate increases causing the machine to start beeping like wildfire.
“Hey, what’s the matter?”
My mum comes into view. Her fingers work their way through my hair. She did this when I was little to soothe me. I close my eyes and let her work her magic as I try and calm down. I’m afraid to remove my mask. I can feel my lungs struggling to get air. Tears sting my eyes. I refuse to let the water drip down my face. I will not cry, not now. Who knew bullet holes would cause so much damage?
“Are you okay?”
I nod, even though I’m not. I want my wife to be sitting next to me so I know she’s okay. “Jenna,” I mumble into my mask. My mum smiles and I don’t know if she’s doing so because I’m awake or if she actually understood what I said.
“Your wife is lovely, Jimmy. I’ve watched her take care of you for a month. She loves you so much and is very happy that you’re having a baby together. I never thought, after Chelsea, that you’d fall in love again. I had hoped, but also realised that you were young, hurt and going to do whatever you needed to mend your heart.
“The day you called and told me that you got married, my first thought was that you were doing something stupid and reckless like I read about in the papers. When you said that she was pregnant and you were the father, my words were ‘You don’t need to marry her because of the baby, you can work something out, maybe live together a
nd raise the baby’, and do you remember what you said to me?”
I shake my head.
“You said, “Mum, Jenna is the one woman that I can see myself falling in love with. I didn’t marry her because she’s having my bub, I married her because she makes me feel whole.
“I’ve watched her, Jimmy. I’ve watched her to see how she was around you and do you know what I saw?”
I shake my head again.
“I saw a woman who loves her husband with every bone in her body. You both make me believe that it doesn’t matter how you got together, but what you do once you have each other is what counts. Maybe that’s the secret. Maybe everyone should marry someone they don’t know well and let life lead them wherever it takes them. Whatever journey you, Jenna and Little One are on, it’s the right one. I can see nothing but happiness for you.