Con Part IX

Those were perhaps the most perfect days, those few days, that Beth and I ever had, the wonderful, beautiful us I'd always known we could be.

The night before I left, for the first time, Beth cried, not for sorrow nor for rage, but for love, a love I could feel with every part of my being, when she came on me, in me, verbalized the wonder she felt when my body tightened and pulsed around her and when we finally slept, she still rest within me.

"I love you, JayJay," she whispered into my neck and held me close with gentle desperation, the same way she'd made love. "I love you and our baby."

The ride to Rhode Island passed in a blur of high spirits about the gig - and anxiety about the gig - but the four of us balanced each other well, and Noah was almost as careful as Beth in reminding me to drink enough water, eat another something or other.

Noah reached behind the bench in the double row van that held us and our equipment and when he turned back around with a bottle of water in hand, his eyes widened before he lunged forward to grab me and tuck me under him.

Then the world flipped on its back with a sharp, brilliant blasting howl...before it turned silent, warm, and black.

Con VIII

"Aw, honey," he said after placing a warm arm across my shoulders and handing me a blue handkerchief of softened cotton to wipe my face with, "you gonna be okay - you just focus on you, on your melody, baby, breathe into your rhythm - you'll be alright, you'll find your way."

Somehow after talking with Noah, things did seemed to get better, I felt better and as we got closer and closer to the departure date, I cut myself less, ate more, started paying attention to Beth's attentions until one day, about three days before "D-Day" (she called it that because she wasn't thrilled about my going) I felt it, that sense, that knowing: Beth and I were going to have a baby.

For the first time, since I'd been officially told, even after having gone through the first few months, I knew it for myself: I was no longer simply "me," but for a little while, I was an "us;" me and this little thing that was growing under my skin, under my heart...a part of us both.

The how it happened...I couldn't think about, I couldn't let it bother me, because the expression on Beth's face and the way she held my hand as together we listened to that rapid little heart beat that filled the room through the speaker and watchted it, pulsing and alive on the monitor in black and white, made it all worthwhile.