I realised how much I had missed having the air on me. I thought about the baby.
I had become obsessed with researching things on the internet; found a site that stated that pregnancy could accelerate cancer. Maybe the miscarriage had been a blessing in disguise.
I watched you eating your burrito like a child. You were engrossed, cold, hungry and lacking any self-awareness. I pictured you pushing a stroller and me gone. The thought of not being around for a child made my head thud. I would hear the results from my blood tests soon.
"When summer comes around let’s try for baby," I said.
You looked at me surprised and then smiled; your teeth all red.
"Are you sure you are ready?" you asked.
I nodded, you lifted me into the air and spun me around, I squealed at the shock of it. The shock of all of it.
"Ok. Ok. Let’s do it. Planned this time. Wow, how very grown up of us!"
"Well we are pushing thirty," I said.
"Well you are anyways, you are older than me."
"Only by three months!" I shouted. I laughed. It felt great.
I hadn’t told you about the lump though I knew you would have understood; without doubt. You lost your mother in June. You had went back home to nurse her in her final weeks. I hadn’t mentioned Jackson to you, even during her illness. Of course you knew about him, my Mom always made sure to mention him when we visited her in the holidays, as though if she didn’t it would mean that he had never existed. You never pushed me to talk about him.
The baby had lifted your spirits as though your mother had put it there and not our emotional, heady reunion. We had decided on Penelope in her honour if it had been a girl. I wonder if her eyes would have been grey too.
"Let’s get a cab," you said.
"Someone feeling flush?" I asked.
"Why the hell not? This is a day for celebration," you hailed a cab and we got in.
"Empire State Building please," you said.
"You are so Colorado the way you speak to cab drivers," I said.
You frowned but laughed. You didn’t always get me but you were always amused nevertheless.
"Does Penelope still stand for a girl?" you asked, squeezing my hand in the back seat.
I looked at your boyish grin.
"Sure it does," I smiled back.
"And for a boy?" you asked.
I wondered if I was supposed to say Jackson, but I couldn’t. I never said his name; certainly couldn’t face calling someone else it every day for the rest of my life. That was if I got pregnant, if this one stuck and if I wasn’t dying of cancer.
"Richard? After his daddy?" I volunteered. You were taken aback.
"Are you serious?" you giggled.
"Why not?"
"Do you really want to become one of those types of couples? Who call their kids after themselves ‘cause they are so fucking awesome."
"We are fucking awesome and don’t you forget it," I said, watched the edge of your mouth curl and your eyes glisten.
"I love you," you said, not caring if the driver heard. Not normally one for public displays of affection, that day you were.