Page 42 of This Is Love (The Light to My Darkness 3)

I took a deep breath. This wasn’t about me. I hadn’t wandered down here in the middle of the night to grieve what I had lost. I came down here to fix whatever I could. But no matter how hard I tried to bury down the pain, it wouldn’t go away. Tears kept spilling down my cheeks as I lifted up my phone and dialed the number of the doctor I had found that had the highest success rate with rehabilitating preemies. I needed to book flights, car rentals, hotels. I had too much to do. There wasn’t time to fall apart on the what-could-have-beens.

Chapter 12

Tuesday - James

I reached out and felt empty sheets. The familiar pain in my chest returned. Not from the surgery, but from the feeling of loss that had overcome me. I had been sleeping alone for weeks. And every morning I woke up reaching for Penny. Some mornings I wondered if this was how widowers always felt. Reaching out for a spouse that was no longer there. A ghost whose presence became less and less every day as their smell faded away. As their laughter became a distant memory. As the feeling of their lips grew harder to remember. As the memory of their smile disappeared from existence.

But then I heard a small snore from behind me. I opened my eyes and turned to see my daughter sleeping beside me. She was smiling in her sleep, hugging one of her stuffed animals tightly. And I remembered that I hadn’t gone to sleep alone last night. Penny was back. She came back to me. And I didn’t need to remember her smell, touch, taste, and sound. She’s home. I slowly sat up and ran my hand down my face, trying to ease away the sleep and the bad memories. I had almost been swallowed whole by them. I had almost lost everything.

But Penny was definitely back. So where was she? I glanced at the clock. It was only 5:30 in the morning. My feeling of relief quickly disappeared. She promised she wouldn’t leave again. I pushed the sheets off of me and practically tripped out of my bed. I glanced back to see Scarlett still sleeping peacefully before I jogged out of the room. I wanted to call for Penny, but I didn’t want to wake anyone else sleeping.

She wasn’t in Liam or Scarlett’s room. I ran down the stairs. Penny wasn’t in the kitchen or the living room. There were plenty of mornings when I found her on the couch with a cup of tea, a blanket, and a good book. But not this morning. It felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest. She promised me she wouldn’t leave again. I knew she was remembering. I could tell by the way she looked at me. The way she kissed me. Where the fuck was she?

I glanced into the dining room to find it empty before walking down the hall. I breathed a sigh of relief when I found her sitting in her office, her knees pulled up to her chest, balancing a cup of tea in one hand and moving her computer mouse around with the other. She didn’t hear me or see me, she was completely engrossed in whatever she was doing on her laptop.

“Penny, what are you doing up so early?” My voice came out croaky and strange. I sounded desperate. I tried to swallow down the insecurities. She came home. She was still here. I took another deep breath and the pain in my chest eased.

Her eyes flitted to mine in the darkness. “I couldn’t sleep.” There was something alarming in her voice. Pain. Emotion. Fear. I was by her side in a second, putting my arms around her, hoping that they somehow helped ease her hurt.

“What happened? Is everything okay?”

She quickly wiped tears away from beneath her eyes. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.” But everything sounded wrong in her voice.

There was no way I was going to drop this. Not when our relationship was still so fragile. I wasn’t going to let anything else break. “Baby, talk to me. Let me in.”

“God, it’s stupid.” She angrily wiped her tears away this time.

“No secrets. Remember? Whatever it is…tell me. You’ll feel better if you let it out.”

“I wasn’t trying to keep a secret. I just…I was thinking of myself and there is no reason to be thinking of myself at a time like this. But I can’t stop crying. I keep trying to stop and I can’t.” Her voice cracked.

“And why, my beautiful wife, can’t you stop crying?” I tried to massage her shoulders, but she felt stiff and uncertain. Usually my touch could calm her. But if anything she seemed more agitated.

“I wanted more children, James. I don’t know how to accept the fact that I can’t have any more. This wasn’t the plan.” She dropped her shoulders, letting my hand fall from her. “I wanted to fill our house with laughter and love…”

“Penny, it’s okay. Plans change. And I love our family just the way it is. We have everything we need. The four of us is all I need.” I tried not to think about how easily we could become three.

“You don’t have to lie.”

“I’m not lying.” I tried to catch her gaze but she was looking anywhere but at me.

“You’re acting like it doesn’t matter. Like you don’t remember what you said.”

I shook my head, trying to think of what she was talking about. I grabbed her hands so she’d stop wiping her face, trying and failing to hide the fact that she was crying. “Remember what?”

She looked up at me with her tear stained eyes. “You said if it was up to you I’d be pregnant all the time. You can’t stand there and pretend you’re okay with this. I know you want more children. And I can’t give you that. I can’t give you the one thing you’ve asked of me.”

How did she have this so wrong? How could she think that was all that I wanted, when all I truly wanted or needed was her. “Penny, all I’ve ever cared about is you.” I knelt down in front of her so that she’d meet my eyes. “And then Scarlett came along and changed everything. Unexpectedly, I’d like to add. I would have been happy just the two of us. But I love her to pieces. And now Liam. Our children mean the world to me now. But I was always terrified when you were pregnant. I was always scared that something would go wrong. And it did. Yes, I wanted more children before this happened. But now? I don’t know if I’d ever want you to get pregnant again even if we could. For weeks it felt like I'd lost you. I’ll never jeopardize your health again. Another kid isn’t worth the risk of losing you. I can’t lose you.”

She nodded but didn’t stop crying. “I’ve always just wanted to give you everything you’ve wanted. Because I didn’t come with…wealth or an Ivy League degree or a…”

I silenced her

words with a kiss. “I never wanted those things. I only ever wanted you.”

She wrapped one of her hands behind my neck and deepened the kiss. If I wasn’t already on my knees, she would have brought me to them. Her kiss was salty from her tears. Her fingertips dug into the back of my neck, drawing me closer. When she was upset, there were usually two things that made Penny smile again. The first option was listening to her. Letting her get everything off her chest. The second option was distracting her. But this felt a lot more like she was trying to distract me. Which meant something else completely. She was still hiding something from me. Something that she thought after-sex bliss would make it easier for me to hear. I pulled back from her kiss, almost knocking both of us to the floor.

Her chest rose and fell rapidly as her eyes searched mine. “I wasn’t done kissing you yet.”

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