I reached across his chest and unfolded his arms, making him hold me. Eventually, he was receptive and began to stroke my arm with his fingertips.
“I mean……does everything have to be off limits, though?” His tone was steady, but I still picked up on the air of desperation.
With a smile, I hugged him closer. “It’s not like we’ll never do it again…..I just need a little time.” In my head, I again listed the reasons I thought it best that we stop, reminding myself of how difficult this year had been for us both.
AJ studied my expression for a moment and then kissed my forehead. “Okay…..when you’re ready.”
I smiled and rested against him. “Let’s talk about something else.”
He thought for a moment. “Ok, let’s talk about the future; more specifically, our future together.”
The thought of us always being together brought a content smile to my face. “What about it?” I asked unenthusiastically.
“Well, like how do you envision it? Where do you wanna live? How many kids? Stuff like that.”
I sighed again and tried to focus on the stream of questions he’d just asked. “I do want kids, but I’m not sure how many yet. I’ll make that decision after I have the first one.”
He laughed. “Boy or girl first?”
“Boy. Lil’ AJ,” I chuckled.
“He can have the name Anthony, but maybe we’ll come up with something else for his middle name,” he replied.
“Anthony Jun Hahn II,” I said in an accent that was supposed to be Japanese, but came out more like a cross between Australian and Creole. I made an awkward face at how ridiculous it sounded and AJ laughed again.
“I just never liked it. My father insisted on Jun because my grandfather passed away a couple years before I was born and he wanted to honor him.”
“Don’t you want your child to carry on the name too?”
AJ seemed to zone out for a second, so I stopped pressing the issue and changed the subject. “What if we have a girl, what would you want her name to be?”
“Maybe we’ll name her after my mother if we can’t think of anything else.”
“That’s sweet. What is your mom’s name?” I inquired, realizing that it’d never come up before. I always just referred to her as Mrs. Hahn.
“Emi,” he replied.
I didn’t have cause to object because Mrs. Hahn had been nothing but kind to me. “I like it.”
A lull in conversation, and just this subject matter in general, caused my mind to drift back to the child that we’d lost back in late May. Immediately, I wished the topic of children had never come up. My chest constricted and a tear streaked down my cheek as I turned to face the wall, hoping that AJ wouldn’t notice. The room was silent as we both became consumed by thoughts of a very different life with an alternate ending that we never got to even ponder before it was violently snatched away from us. The bed shifted when AJ turned to hover over my side. In my peripheral, I could see him watching me, the expression that he wore reflecting his concern.
“What’s the matter?” He asked quietly, probably already knowing where my thoughts were focused.
“My imagination just got the best of me. That’s all.”
He sat up a little and saw a tear in the corner of my eye. Before I could get to it, he wiped it away.