“How many bassinettes and cribs are there?” Tori asks, mouth agape, looking around at the various styles of cribs. I’ve always wanted to be a dad. I just never thought it would be on the cards for me. I envisioned building my baby’s crib—it felt like the dad thing to do—and sadness grips me at the thought of not being here.
Tori is drawn to a beautiful wooden sleigh-style crib, stroking her fingers over the bars, she smiles at the teddy bears and blankets inside it.
I come up behind her, placing my hands on her belly, hoping I get to feel my daughter kick before I leave next week. According to the pregnancy books, we should start to feel them any day now.
“Which one do you like?” Tori asks, leaning back against my chest.
I anxiously chew on my bottom lip, not wanting to bring the reality of our situation into our day, but I need to say it.
“I don’t mind which crib, darlin’, I just want to be the one who gets to build it.” She cranes her neck to face me. Pain flickers through her big blue eyes and I hate that I’ve made her sad, but she nods with a melancholy smile.
“No one will touch her crib until you come back home to us.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Tori
The build up to Noah leaving may be more painful than the goodbye itself. The past few days have been a mixture of me wishing time away so that he would just go and then hurry back to us, while clinging to every passing minute that we have together.
But now we are here. The moment I have been dreading. I do my best to drown out the noise around us, the other families saying their goodbyes. Ali and Harry headed back to the car after saying goodbye, giving Noah and me a moment alone. I was stubborn at first, but really grateful Ali and Harry flew out to be with me while I said goodbye. They will help me pack up my life in London once we leave North Carolina and then head to New York. I have spent the past few months, since finding out about the baby, here with Noah, and it’s time I have cherishedbefore everything changes. Slow mornings, walks around the mountains, watching Noah work outdoors. Every day felt like a Sunday morning. This is the life I crave, slow, peaceful, and full. I can picture our daughter running outside through the fields and us spending evenings on the porch swing, drinking hot cocoa, and reading her a bedtime story.
But before I get that dream, I have to get through my reality, which is saying goodbye to Noah for potentially six months, maybe forever. Our daughter is due in five months, and I pray he makes it back in time.
I watch Noah load his bags onto the trailer, which will be taken to the plane waiting for him on the tarmac, with knots in my stomach.
I can’t do this. I can do this. I have to do this.
We stand motionless, the wind blowing through my long brown hair and blowing the floral sundress that shows off my small bump. Noah has already changed into his camouflage uniform, ready for the flight to God knows where to do God knows what, and suddenly, he looks like the young guy I first laid eyes on in the bar, all those years ago.
And now we are here, and I hope I can muster enough strength to get through this without breaking down. Because I need to be strong for all of us. I want to be the woman he can lean on through the hard times because, Lord knows, he’s kept me upright more times than I can count.
He strokes my cheek with the pad of his thumb, pressing a chaste kiss to my lips, sending tingles down my spine. I don’t think there will ever be a time when a kiss from him won’t affect me. He dusts his thumbs over my jaw, and I brace my palms on his chest.
“I’m going to miss you,” I confess.
“Not as much as I’m going to miss you, darlin’.” he says as a hand lands on my stomach. “Both of you.”
A lone tear trickles down my cheek, and I fight to keep the rest from falling. “I have something for you.” Reaching into the pocket of my denim jacket, I present a small tin to him, one just big enough to hold a deck of playing cards.
He takes it and examines the engraved letters on the top.
Memento Vivere.
The same words that he had engraved on my necklace that has remained around my neck since he gave it to me. Never has the reminder to live been more important than now. We both have a little girl who’s going to need us both.
“The box you keep your playing cards in is a little worn now, so I figured this would keep them nice and safe.”
He smiles at the tin in the palm of his hand. “Thank you. This is really thoughtful of you.”
“Open it,” I say, trying to swallow down my emotions.
He lifts the lid and a surprised expression morphs into appreciation as he lifts two photos between his fingers.
Inside, I placed a photo of us from this past summer, lying out on the picnic blanket, and then one of our baby girls the sonographer gave us.
“Your reasons to live,” I say, placing my hand over his. I feel the tremor that rolls through his body, and I want to take all his sadness and nerves away.
He gets down on his knees and places a hand on my bump, and I look up at the blistering sun and take a deep breath as he begins talking to our daughter.
