He also warms up my dinner every night after school because my tiredness knows no bounds.
Before, he could pick me up and drop me off and leave, but now things have gotten so bad that he stays.
He has to.
He has to come inside the house that he arranged for me to live in.
He has to stay with me all through dinner, which if I’m very lucky I get to keep inside. Then he has to stay while I do my homework on the couch — he usually does his work from the office that he hates — or try to. Because I always end up falling asleep in the middle of it.
Then with those same arms, he carries me to the bed.
And sleeps on the couch.
To do everything all over again the next day. Because he wouldn’t let anyone else do this for me. He and my brothers had an argument about who’d watch over me. But there was no contest.
Reed Roman Jackson won that one with one fiercely spoken statement. “She’s carrying my baby in her body. So I’ll be the one taking care of her if her body is giving her a hard time.”
Anyway, these are the hands that I hold on to when I go for my doctor’s appointments.
Like the first time, Reed doesn’t let me hold on to the examination table. He makes me let go of it and wraps his fingers around mine. He lets me dig my nails into his skin when things become uncomfortable for me. He doesn’t even flinch under the force of my grip, simply keeps his eyes on me and lends me all his strength.
And he always asks for copies of the blurry ultrasound pictures.
Of her.
That he then puts into his pocket with those very hands.
With those hands, he makes lists of questions he wants to ask our doctor. And those same hands curl into fists when her answers remain the same for the next couple of appointments.
My raging morning sickness will hopefully vanish when I enter my second trimester. It’s normal for me to feel tired and lethargic as my body changes and yes, second trimester should be better than the first.
And it is.
God, it is.
When February comes around and I enter my second trimester, I start to feel normal.
I start to feel like a human being. The days aren’t blurry and I’m not so tired anymore. I can bear the school days, the homework, the snickering, the looks, which still haven’t faded.
But it’s fine.
I’ve got my girls and they’re on my side. So I don’t care what the rest of the world thinks about me. I have so many other things to worry about anyway, and so I’m letting it go.
I can talk to people when they visit me, like my brothers, especially Conrad. Ledger comes down from New York as much as he can. Shepard and Stellan try to make it too.
And I’m so glad that I’m feeling more like myself now when a week into my second trimester, one of my favorite people in the whole world visits me: Tempest.
She comes down from New York for the weekend and I’m so excited about it.
Because I missed her so much.
I’ve been talking to her over the phone since I don’t have any time limits now, or on the number of calls that I can make. But I’m so glad that I get to see her.
“Oh my God, you’re going to be a mommy,” she squeals as soon as she arrives in her car, carrying what looks like everything from every store in New York City.
She dumps it all on the driveway and runs over to give me a big hug, her gray eyes cheerful.
I laugh, squeezing her tightly. “What have you done? What are all these bags for?”
