Ashton
Nina and I had gotten married while she was still in the hospital. Three years have passed since that day. Our third anniversary fell on the same day the fertility doctor told us it would be prime time to try to make that baby we’d wanted so badly.
If I could give her that baby for our third wedding anniversary, then I would make her the happiest girl in the world. And I would be the happiest man in the world, too.
But things don’t always go the way we hope they will.
I lay on my side, looking down at her. Her face was red and sweaty after our eight-hour baby-making session. Her chest rose and fell slowly as she tried to relax the way I’d told her to.
Resting my palm on her abdomen, I closed my eyes and said a little prayer, the way I’d been doing since we started this endeavor. It had been a solid year since we’d started visiting the specialist for help conceiving.
He told us that the next logical step would be to use powerful fertility drugs whose names I couldn’t even pronounce. That wasn’t a thing either of us wanted to do. He also gave us the option of in vitro fertilization. That was another thing we didn’t really care for.
Having the sex to make the baby was a huge part of the process—in my opinion, at least. I didn’t want to miss out on that important step in parenthood.
Checking the time, I found the thirty-minute timeframe had expired. Kissing her soft lips, I whispered, “Time’s up. You can get up now. If you want to.”
Her golden-brown eyes opened, and I saw anger behind them. “I can’t stop thinking about him, Ashton. I can’t stop being mad at him for what he did to me. And to all the others he hurt and killed.”
I often wondered if her anger might be getting in the way of our getting pregnant. She had a terrible fury burning inside of her. The man who’d committed the terrorist act had killed himself at the scene. That had Nina and some of the other victims angry that he didn’t have to face the consequences of his hurtful and deadly actions.
She and I now shared having a past trauma that had shaped our minds—and not in a good way. “Hush now.” I kissed her lips again. “As your therapist has told you time and time again, being angry is natural, but it doesn’t solve a thing.”
“You think I don’t know that?” She sat up and got out of bed, huffing mad as she went to the bathroom.
Lying there, I had no idea what to say to her. No matter what I said, she would take it the wrong way. Sometimes I thought that trying to have a baby only made things worse for her.
Maybe, if this time didn’t work, I would see if we could take the baby thing off the table for a while. We could always try again at a later time.
We could just stop trying so hard. She wouldn’t need to take birth control, and we could just go about our lives normally and see what happened then. The stress of trying so hard was making her nuts.
After a few minutes, I headed into the bathroom, finding her crying as she sat on the toilet.
“Nina?” I went to my knees in front of her, taking her hands away from her face. “You don’t need to cry. Things will be okay. You’ll see.”
Shaking her head, her dark blonde hair flew around her face. “No, they won’t ever be okay again.” She pulled her hands away from me to run them over the scar on her stomach. “He took away so much, and he never has to pay for what he’s done! It’s not fair!”
And here we go again with that damn word. Fair. “Not many things in life are fair, baby.”
Breaking into a new round of sobs, she whimpered, “I know that. It makes living so damn hard.”
That was the first time she’d said that. I had a feeling she thought it at times, but she’d never said it out loud. And that scared me.
One of the male victims of that attack had taken his own life only a few months before. He lost a leg in the incident and couldn’t seem to accept the fact that he’d never have that appendage back. He’d been in therapy, too, so that had me worried.
I prayed that Nina wouldn’t get so down that she’d start to hate living. “How about we take this coming weekend to really celebrate our third anniversary?” I ran my hand through her damp tresses. “We could go to the coast or the mountains? Anything you want to do, we can do it.”
Still, her head shook. “I don’t want to do anything.”
Getting up, I left her to cry while I ran her a hot bubble bath. The smooth lavender scent of the bubbles would help soothe her. If I could get her to stop crying, the battle would be nearly won.
Going back to her, I asked, “You all done on the toilet, sweetie?”
Nina nodded as she sniffled. Then I picked her up and took her to the bath. Placing her into the deep tub, I turned on the jets to speed up the relaxation.
I sat on the edge and ran my hand through her hair as I whistled a soothing little melody. I had to admit, this wasn’t what I thought our future would be like. But it was ours, and I would be the man she needed me to be.