Wethering the Storm

Chapter TWENTY-THREE

Jake, I know you’re there, I can hear you talking.
Why isn’t he answering me? Who is he talking to? Why does he sound so upset?
I need…
Jake?
I can barely think. I need to open my eyes but…
“Hurt.” I can hear “Hurt”…

How long have I been awake? Is that Jake yelling? Who is he yelling at?
God, my head hurts. My whole body hurts, for that matter.
I try to open my mouth to speak, to tell him to stop yelling, but my lips feel like they’ve been glued together, and there’s an intense burning sensation in my throat. I’m so thirsty.
Giving up on talking, I try to move…but I can’t. I feel weighted down.
Everything hurts. What’s wrong with me? Something’s different. Something’s wrong. I feel wrong.
Oh God, what’s happening to me?
Jake, I need you to help me!
I hear a door bang.
No! Don’t leave! Please don’t go!
F*ck!
I need to move.
I focus with all my might on moving my left hand. There’s a pain screaming down my right arm and I dare not attempt to move it.
I’m scared.
No, you’re okay, Tru. Just keep calm and you’ll be fine.
Maybe I’m just sick? Yeah, that’ll be it. I’ll have one of those really bad twenty-four-hour flus or something. God, I hope the baby isn’t sick with me.
I just need to get a part of me moving; then everything else will follow, and I can get to Jake. Once I get to Jake, I’ll feel better.
I focus on moving my index finger. I feel it move.
Thank God.
Gaining confidence, I go to move the rest of my fingers.
Okay
?
here we go.

Flexing them in and out, I shift my left hand and my arm moves with it.
Okay, I just need to get up now, maybe if I—
“Trudy?”
What?
Who is that? Is that…Susie? Why is she here?
With huge effort, I wrench my heavy eyes open.
Everything is foggy. Dark. I can’t get a focus on anything.
Then I hear voices calling out. More yelling.
Dave?
Then Jake…I hear Jake. He’s back.
Thank God.
“Tru.” He sounds fearful. “Tru, baby, I’m here.”
Why does he sound so scared?
Fear starts to prickle my skin. I need my f*cking eyes to work! Goddamnit!
Then Jake’s yelling again, “Get the doctor!”
Doctor? Where the hell am I?
“Get Eva and Billy!”
Mum and Dad?
I feel his fingers touch my face. “I’m right here, sweetheart. I’ve been here waiting for you. God, baby, I’ve missed you so much.”
He’s missed me?
At the feel of Jake on my skin, my worry starts to ease. That man has the power of touch, I swear.
I blink though the haze, desperate to see him. It feels like ages before my eyes focus.
Then they find his beautiful face.
He looks really tired. Like he hasn’t slept for days. Worst of all, he looks afraid. I can see it clear in his eyes.
The last time I saw Jake look like this was when I found that girl in his bed. And that was because he thought he was going to lose me.
Oh God, what’s happened, baby?
I need to talk to him.
With every ounce of strength left in me, I force my lips to part.
I try to make the words, but my throat screams in pain and the only thing that escapes is a breath.
“Shh, don’t try to talk, sweetheart.” Looking at me with love in his eyes, he smooths my hair back with his hand. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”
It’s not okay. Nothing about this is okay.
I close my eyes and feel a tear of frustration squeeze from the corner, running down my temple.
I open my eyes and meet with Jake’s. I see what I think is a glimmer of relief in his.
Then the ache in my head intensifies. My eyes feel heavy. I’m struggling to keep them open…


How long have I been awake? God, my head is pounding like a bitch.
I move my tongue around. The inside of my mouth feels like the morning after a really bad hangover, and even moving my tongue takes real effort right now.
Bloody hell, what’s wrong with me?
I reach into my memories but don’t come up with much, and it hurts my head to try. I remember being in bed with Jake yesterday morning…showering…Jake asking me to stay home. Then…nothing.
If I didn’t know better, I would think this is the mother of all hangovers, but there is no way it could be—pregnant lady here.
Well, I might not know why I feel like crap, but what I do know is I really need a drink of water.
With much effort, I force my gritty eyes open.
It takes a moment to adjust to the light.
Ceiling tiles. I can see ceiling tiles. Those really awful ones you find in offices. What do they call them—asbestos ceiling tiles?
Why would I be somewhere with those? Where the bloody hell am I?
I take a light breath. My throat burns again.
Jake.
Jake’s here. I can smell his scent close by.
With much effort, I turn my head to the side. Shit, that hurts. Jake’s sitting in a chair by me.
“Hey, baby.” He reaches over and strokes my face, cupping my cheek with his hand.
I can see tentativeness in him.
“Wh-ere…” God, it hurts so much to get that one word out. It reverberates around my head, setting the pounding off again. Steeling myself, I finish with, “am I?”
Jake moves closer to me. He leans down and kisses the hand he’s holding, then lifts his head and looks at me. “You’re in the hospital, sweetheart.”
The hospital? Why? Is the baby okay?
“Ba-by?” I exhale, broken. I try to sit up.
“No.” Jake gently eases me back down. Not that I had gotten very far. The pain in my head exploded the moment I tried to lift it. “Don’t try to get up.”
My eyes move past Jake, down to my bump.
My heart drops hollow.
Where my bump was is now a flat, empty surface.
Oh God, no! No, no, no, no, no! Where’s my baby?
I want to scream, cry, something…but nothing is working.
I’ve lost the baby.
No.
The pain I feel is unbearable.
I start shaking my head, uncaring of the pain. Tears run from my eyes, pain pushing them out.
Jake takes my face in his hands, holding me still. He stares into my eyes.
“Our baby is fine, Tru. I swear to you.” His voice is filled with so much conviction. Staring into his eyes, my fears start to calm.
Jake wouldn’t lie to me.
But if our baby is fine, then why am I not pregnant anymore?
That means my baby was…born?
Jake strokes my hair gently, looking at me like he often does—like I’m the most precious thing in the world to him. But this time, with even more intensity. “Everything is fine now, Tru. You’re back and everything’s going to be okay.” I’m not quite sure in this moment if those words are meant for me, or him.
Jake leans in and kisses my tears away. The feel of his gentle breath against my skin, the warmth of his nearness, is like a salve to wounds I didn’t even know I had.
He shifts back, looking into my eyes, but keeping my face in his hands. “You were in a car accident, sweetheart.”
Fragments of memories instantly blur into my mind. I was at the spa with Simone…Dave waited in the parking lot all day for us…I teased him about it…we were all driving home, listening to Pearl Jam…“Just Breathe”…then…nothing.
Simone. Dave.
It must be the look on my face that prompts Jake to say, “Simone and Dave are fine. The impact was on the passenger side. Your side.” He sounds like he’s in physical pain as he says these words. Jake pushes my hair behind my ear using his fingertips. “You were in a bad way. I thought I was going to lose you…” His voice breaks, his eyes filling with tears.
Slowly, with much effort, I lift my good hand and touch his face. “I’m…okay,” I reassure him.
He holds my hand to his face, kissing the palm.
A tear drips from his eye and lands on my cheek. I can literally feel the pain it represents.
“You hurt your head real bad in the accident.” His eyes flick from mine to my forehead. “You were in surgery. Our baby was in distress. The doctors had to perform an emergency C-section, Tru. He was born before I even got to the hospital.”
He.
I watch him, stilled by his words. “We have a son, Tru. And he’s beautiful.”
A son. We have a son.
“He’s doing real good. He’s breathing on his own now. It took a while before he could, but a few days ago they removed his ventilator and he did great. God, he’s so amazing, Tru. He’s growing stronger every day. They said he should be able to start feeding from a bottle in a week or so.”
I can’t help but cry again. These tears are sheer happiness. Nothing else matters to me right now other than knowing my baby is here and he is healthy.
Then I realise—I haven’t been asleep for a day. Everything Jake’s said to me, from the way he’s talking and the way he’s looking at me…I’ve been away for longer than just a day.
Moistening my lips, I part them to speak. “How…long?”
His eyes dip. “You were in a coma for seven days.”
I inhale sharply, causing the burning to start in my throat again.
Seven days. My son has been here all that time without me.
“You first woke up two days ago. But you kept coming in and out of consciousness. Kish told me that was perfectly normal—oh, Dr. Kish. He’s the doctor who’s been taking care of you,” he explains at my questioning expression. “The first time you woke up was for a few minutes, but you didn’t talk. For the last two days, you’ve been here a little. Sometimes you’d open your eyes for a few seconds. Sometimes minutes. You even mumbled a few incoherent words. But this is the first time you’ve actually talked to me. This is the longest you’ve stayed awake, so I’m taking this as a good sign.” He smiles, but it’s not one of my Jake smiles. It looks forced.
“I haven’t left you, Tru. I’ve been here the whole time. The only time I left was to see our boy—and he’s right next door.” Jake tilts his head to the right.
He’s right through there. There’s only a wall separating me from my son.
“I want…see him,” I force out.
“I know, sweetheart.” He strokes my cheek with his thumb. “But I think I should get Kish now that you’re fully awake to let him check you over. Your mom and dad—I should call them and let them know you’re properly awake now. They’re waiting over at the hotel. They’ll want to see you.”
And I want to see my son.
“No.” I shake my head. Shit, that hurts. “I want…him.”
Jake smiles, and this time it’s a real honest-to-God Jake smile. The smile he reserves for me only, and I couldn’t be more relieved to see it right now.
“Okay,” he concedes. “How could I ever say no to you? I’ll get him now and bring him through.”
Jake leans down and presses his lips gently to mine. “I missed you so much,” he whispers over my lips.
Then he leaves the room, leaving me alone.
The silence hits me immediately.
I was in a car accident that resulted in my son’s being born while I was unconscious.
I missed his birth. I’ve missed the first week of his life.
I’ve missed those important first moments. The moments when a mother bonds with her child and he bonds with her. They were taken away from me. I can’t ever get them back.
What if I can’t bond with him now? What if he rejects me?
He doesn’t understand why I’ve not been with him for the start of his life. To him, I’ll be a stranger.
We don’t know each other.
What do I say—do?
I know he’s only a baby and won’t understand what I’m saying, but these first moments between us now are crucial, and I’m lying in a bed, struggling to move and in pain every time I speak.
I hate that I haven’t been here for him. I hate that this is how I’m meeting my son for the first time.
This was not how I imagined it.
I imagined my baby being handed to me, holding him in my arms. Giving him to Jake to hold for the first time. Watching as Jake had his first moments with our son.
Not having my child pulled from me while I was unconscious and Jake was on his way to the hospital.
Loss for what should have been ours overwhelms me. Visions of what happened form in my mind, forcing fresh tears to my eyes.
My son was born alone, surrounded by strangers.
I’m just so thankful he’s had Jake with him ever since.
But it makes my heart hurt that Jake has had to cope with this alone—take care of me and become a dad all on his own.
I can’t even imagine how Jake felt when he was told what happened. If it were him, I know it would have killed me.
I know without a doubt that Jake and our son will have bonded, and I am so happy for that. I’m just afraid he won’t bond with me, that he might reject me.
I don’t know how I will cope with that.
And now instead of being excited to meet my son, I’m terrified.
I hear the door open, then the squeak of wheels and two sets of feet.
My body starts to tremble, my heart beats erratically.
I close my eyes, afraid.
I don’t think I can do this.
“Put him over by the bed,” I hear Jake say.
The squeaky wheels grow ever closer. Then they stop and I hear the sound of a plug being put it in the socket, a switch being turned on, and the gentle hum of a machine.
“Give me a holler when you want a hand bringing him back through,” I hear a female voice say. Then the door closes.
I feel the bed dip as Jake sits down by my legs. “Tru.” His voice is soft. “Are you awake?”
I know I made him get the baby, but now I’m scared. I hesitate, actually considering faking sleep, and immediately hate myself for it.
I nod.
“Open your eyes.” His voice is still soft, but there’s a quiet command in it.
Taking a burning breath, I whisper, “I’m…afraid.”
I hear a light sigh escape Jake. He takes my hand in his. I curl my fingers around his hand. “I know, baby…” I can tell he’s talking from experience. “But I promise, one look at him, Tru…that’s all it takes. Trust me.”
So I do. I open my eyes and turn my head to the side. There he is, in an incubator pushed up against the side of my bed. I see him, and it’s love at first sight.
He is beautiful. The most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
I can’t remember ever feeling a love like this before. It’s equally as powerful as the love I feel for Jake, but so very different.
A mother’s love.
God, I can see so much of Jake in him.
He has the same furrow Jake has in his brow when he’s sleeping.
Any worries of not bonding with him are gone. I just love him, completely. And I start to cry instantly.
Jake squeezes my hand. “Hey, don’t cry. He’s okay in there, really. It’s just keeping him warm.”
Jake thinks I’m crying because I’m worried that’s he’s in an incubator. Of course I’m concerned about the incubator, but that’s not why I’m crying right now. I’m crying because I’m happy.
“Why don’t you touch him?” Jake suggests. “That might make you feel better. It helped me the first time I saw him.”
I start to free my hand from Jake’s when he says, “Hang on.”
Jake releases my hand and disappears into the bathroom.
It’s then for the first time that I notice the tubes taped to my arm. I follow them up and see them attached to two different drips.
I glance at my right arm and see a cast covering it, my hand swaddled in bandage.
Jake said I hurt my head in the accident.
I lift my good hand to it and feel a thick bandage on my head.
“I just need to clean your hand before you touch him,” Jake tells me, reappearing with a bottle of gel.
I smile at him. He sounds so responsible. In a way, he sounds like my dad would.
That’s because he is a dad. He’s had over a week learning how to be one.
Today is my first day as a mother.
Forcing back a wave of fresh tears, I chance a quick glance at Jake and see him squeeze some gel out and rub it over his hands. Then he squeezes another blob into his hand, sits back down on the bed, takes my hand in his, and starts gently working the gel into my hand.
It’s cold on my skin, but Jake soon warms me.
“You’re good to go.” He smiles, giving my hand one last rub.
I grin at him.
Taking my hand from his, I slowly put it through the porthole, keeping my eyes on my baby boy.
The instant my fingertips touch the soft downy skin on his tiny hand, sensations explode under my skin, tunnelling straight for my heart.
He is perfect.
I could spend forever here with him like this.
I have so many questions about him that I want to ask Jake, but I don’t think my throat will hold out, so I ask the important one.
“Name?”
Jake shakes his head, smiling gently. “I haven’t named him. I was waiting for you. That honour is all yours, Tru.”
My heart crumbles.
I stare at my son, thinking of all the names I had come up with…all the ones Jake hated.
“He still like…rock songs?” I grate out.
A small chuckle escapes Jake. “Yeah, I sing to him a lot—the old favourites. I think we might have a mini–rock star on our hands.”
I shake my head, smiling. A rock star needs a rock star’s name, right? A smile curves my lips. “I know.”
Jake gives me a suspicious look, humour in his eyes. “It’s something crazy, isn’t it?”
“No,” I croak out, giving him an affronted look. “I thought…” I pause, swallowing through the burning. “Jonathan Jacob.”
The look on Jake’s face right now is beautiful.
“You’re giving him Jonny’s name?” I watch him gulp down the words.
“And yours.”
Jake bends close and gently kisses my lips. “I love it. I love you.”
“Love you,” I whisper.
From out of nowhere our little boy curls his fingers around my little finger, the one that was still gently stroking his skin, gripping tightly for his small size.
I laugh softly in surprise, turning to look at him.
“He does that a lot, he likes to hold on to your finger,” Jake tells me, running his own fingers along the crook of my arm. “I think he likes his name.”
“Yeah?” I smile.
“Yeah…” Moving away, Jake walks around the bed, kicks his shoes off, and carefully climbs onto the space beside me. Lying on his side, his head on the pillow, he says into my ear, “I missed you so much.”
His breath tickles my skin.
I turn my face to him and he leans in and kisses me softly on the lips.
Turning from Jake, I move my gaze back to my son. I’m finding it hard not to look at him.
Jake’s arm goes across my waist. “He looks like you.”
“No, like you.” Beautiful like you, Jake.
He laughs softly. “No, he definitely looks like you. Everyone agrees with me.”
Everyone agrees.
Everyone else got to see my baby before I did. Sadness pokes at my heart.
Brushing over my sadness, I shake my head in disagreement.
Jake chuckles, then presses his lips to the skin between my neck and shoulder blade. It tickles down my spine; even the parts of me that are in pain shiver with delight at the feel of Jake’s lips on me.
“He’s got your lips and your colouring,” Jake says against my skin, still kissing me.
“This…gonna go on for…while,” I force out, giving him a quick look, eyes smiling.
“Forever,” he replies, and I know he’s not talking about the disagreement anymore. Burying his face into my neck, he takes a ragged breath. “I love you so much, Tru. Thank you for coming back to me.”
I press my cheek against the top of his head. “I…always will.”
He tightens his hold on me. That’s how we stay.
Jake’s holding on to me, and I’m holding on to our son.
The three of us are together, and nothing is ever going to keep us apart again.