“Azmir, I want this. I want to share this experience with you. I want to give you an extension of yourself from my loins. I want to give you the family you haven’t had in years. I want this baby to look like you. To persevere like you. To be a warrior just like you. I want this. I’m not afraid. Not anymore. Not like before.” I choose to quote the lyrics to the Quincy Jones song he shared with me last summer. I now feel it. They’ve become the theme of my soul regarding our love.
Azmir sucks in a breath and his eyes go wide as stares at me for moments long. I’m panting, beckoning him with my eyes. I feel exhausted and my bladder is now completely full. I don’t know what he’s thinking, but I have to pee. I also need to eat because I feel my stomach toiling, reminiscent of the morning sickness symptom that have recently let up. I don’t want to go back there anymore. I turn and gait down the hallway and into the master suite, swearing if Ruby Mae comes into my bedroom I’m going to cuss her out.
After using the bathroom, suddenly I feel the need to shower again. I’ve been in here for a few minutes, soaking my bruised ego when I feel his strong arms encircle my waist. Azmir buries his face in my neck and I feel the breeze of his cool breath hitting my sensitive skin.
“Where’s your crew?” I ask mordantly.
“I’ve dismissed them all feeling we need to discuss a few things first. I’m sorry,” he murmurs quietly. My frame instantly melds into his, warming to his soothing words.
There is silence for long minutes as we stand under multiple cascades, wrapped in each other.
“I’m scared,” he eventually speaks hoarsely into my ear.
“I’m scared, too.” I feel his arms tense around me.
“You said…out there you weren’t afraid,” he mentions tentatively.
“I said I’m scared, but I’m not afraid. I’m scared of losing this baby, something you really want. You’ve always made wanting me seem so simple…making all things right with the world as far as you’re concerned. I fear not being able to carry this baby to full-term and give you the first thing you strongly desire from your wife.” I turn in his arms to face him. His eyes are soft and his forehead wrinkled. He’s now open, receptive. Vulnerable. “However, I’m not afraid of approaching this next frightening stage of my life so long as you’re by my side. I can do just about anything with you, here with me. I have the strength I need when I’m here, safely nestled in your arms. I want this baby. With you. For you.”
Azmir exhales long and hard, excreting pending emotions I wasn’t aware he held within. I can feel the waves of relief lifting from his shoulders.
“It means more than you know to hear that,” he utters as he studies my eyes in search of my soul.
“I want it. I also want to eat,” I murmur as my eyes fall from his gaze sheepishly. “And I also want to smash…like…a lot. Like now—or perhaps after I eat so that I won’t get sick.” My eyes make their way back to his.
Azmir chuckles beautifully. His panty-snatching smirk has returned.
“I think you should eat first, too.” A crease forms between his brows. “You were sick? Was that what—” he’s so caught up in his theory that he can’t formulate his words.
I shake my head. “No. I did catch Lil’ E’s bug. But then I caught another “suspected” bug that I tried to hide from you because I panicked.”
“You couldn’t tell me? You kept it from me all this time?”
“Your travel made it easy.” I kiss his sternum, suddenly feeling like sharing this burden I’ve carried alone. “I went to the doctor the day Kid passed away.” Azmir sucks in a breath. “I didn’t get the results then. I left immediately after the call.”
“Well, when did you get the news?”
“The day before yesterday.”
“The day before yesterday?”
“Yes. I had a morning appointment. I’d already given my urine weeks ago and they processed it. The doctor has been calling since for me to come in and chat. I kind of had a clue at that time. My sickness wouldn’t let up and I was always tired…still am. She told me in the morning and I wasn’t going to call you with the news before coming to terms with it myself first. And I certainly wouldn’t announce it to you at the table last night. I guess Erin’s new and embarrassing belly-grabbing habit was simply bad timing.”
“But Samantha and Yazmine…they seemed to have known,” he states and I know he’s confused.
“I don’t know,” I shrug. “Call it womanly intuition. Maybe she suspected something when I’d spent those days over there.”
“But that night we…I pulled out the…”
“I know. The tampon,” I nod. “I was spotting, something that isn’t rare for pregnant women.”
Azmir nods as he sets his ruminative eyes beyond me, processing what I’ve told him.
“November 11th,” I mutter.
“Huhn?”
“That’s our due date. November 11th,” I explain.
“That’s…wow!” he sputters. “That’s…” Azmir is speechless. There is no thug rhetoric, no airy CEO jargon. Just pure unadulterated jubilation. And I’ve helped put Azmir in the blissful stupor he’s in. I can’t fight my smug smile.