Worry Rock

A pair of lips caressed my jaw as a thumb rubbed my cheek affectionately. I sighed in content as I relaxed in my husband’s grip, closing my eyes while maneuvering my head so that it was resting on his chest. “How’s our baby?” I asked after a few moments of lingering silence. “Did you go down to see him?”

Billie nodded while moving his hand from my cheek to run through my dark hair. It was only then that I noticed that despite all the nurse’s protests he was lying next to me in the hospital bed. I felt his hand slide to my jaw and gently caress it as his lips had only a moment before, before he placed his lips against mine sweetly. “Beautiful,” he answered honestly.

“What have they said about him?” I asked.

“He’s doing fantastic for the time he was born.”

“Is he?” My husband nodded once again and rubbed his nose against mine affectionately as he gently kissed my lips again. When he didn’t respond, I continued. “I want to see him.”

Billie shook his head. “Not now, Joe. Your body is exhausted and they’re still doing all they can to have him survive.” He paused momentarily and pulled away. “He’s not completely healthy, Joe, baby.” His eyes closed slowly. “He’s all hooked up to machines, baby; you forget he’s only but a little over five months old since being conceived.”

I felt my throat tighten. “I want to see my baby, though. He’s my baby.”

“We need to let him rest and get better.”

“He needs his mother.”

“His mother also needs to get better.” Before I could protest again, Billie Joe’s hand covered my mouth and he kissed my chin. “Let the doctors work on him, babe—they're saying that this may just be a miracle.”

My eyes snapped open and a quick breath escaped my lips, creating a gasp. Two pairs of unfamiliar eyes fell upon me with a cocked eyebrow and then a sweet smile covered his lips, almost hesitantly. “I was just beginning to check your vital signs to see if you were still alive,” he chuckled.

I cocked an eyebrow back at him, wondering if he had intentionally used a line from a past Green Day song seeing as who my husband obviously was. I bit down on the inside of my bottom lip and forced a smile, deciding not to hold the pun against the man that was obviously trying to make me feel better. “Where is my husband?” I asked hesitantly as I looked around the bright white room.

The doctor smiled down at me and checked the bundle of machine next to me. “We practically forced him to lie down in another room, actually,” the doctor admitted. “He looked absolutely exhausted but refused to leave you.”

“Do you know where my daughter is?”

I’m not as to why I expected the doctor to know that, or how he did know that, but nonetheless he did. “I believe she’s staying at some boy’s house named Chris?”

I looked at him in surprise. Billie had actually let our daughter stay at her boyfriends’ house? For what? At once, the realization of the fact that what I had just woken up from was nothing but a dream and I felt a stabbing-like pain spread throughout my chest. “Oh my god,” I whimpered while lifting my right hand to cover my mouth. Through wide eyes, I looked up at my confused doctor. “Where’s Billie?”

By the look on his face it was obvious to tell that he knew that everything had hit me, but he still had no idea of any of the pain—the pain that was now spreading throughout my body like a wildfire and paralyzing me completely. I couldn’t feel it, but I heard myself sob loudly into my hand. I hadn’t noticed the doctor leaving the room right away, but as soon as I did, the overwhelming feeling of loneliness was also making itself known. The tears that I could now feel running down my cheeks endlessly only made it worse.

Within only a couple minutes, thankfully, the door to my hospital room was opened and the only man I wanted to see stepped inside, closing it softly behind him. My doctor hadn’t been lying; Billie Joe looked absolutely exhausted. Though, once he caught sight of my face and the streaming tears, his expression changed immediately and he picked up his pace over to the bed steadily. Without missing a beat he somehow climbed over the metal bar on the side on side of the bed and managed to dodge all of the wires connected to my body [most likely for morphine or whatnot] as he wrapped both of his tattooed arms around my pathetic frame. “I’m sorry,” he apologized while burying his nose into my neck. “They practically dragged me out of here.”

Perhaps it made me a terrible person, but I didn’t care.

Well, no, I wouldn’t say I didn’t completely care because I did, more or less. I cared about my husband, the man who was slowly shifting from just holding me to almost clinging to me. “Where is he, Billie?” I asked quietly. I felt Billie shift uncomfortably next to me. His hands moved from around me to my waist, where he rubbed affectionately. I waited for a few minutes for him to respond and give me some answer, however he didn’t. Billie was perfectly content in just lying there without saying anything. I, on the other hand, wasn’t. “Billie?” I repeated.

“Um,” he inhaled deeply and paused. I felt the cool air when he took an arm from my body and watched as he ran it down his tired and scruffy face, his eyes closing. “Uh, they uh, they’re cleaning him up.”

A small spark of energy ran through my body, a small bubble of hope forming in my stomach. Perhaps what was a dream was everything else. Perhaps I had been nine months pregnant after all and here I was, the day after I had given born to a brand new, healthy baby boy. Perhaps my baby was alive.

I shifted next to Billie and groaned as I felt the tug of the IV. Almost immediately, my husband jumped in alarm as the alarm next to the bed went off and I scowled loudly, trying to bury my head into Billie’s chest to get away from the irritatingly loud noise. “Joe,” Billie hissed as he covered his ears.

“I’m sorry,” I sobbed.

A nurse came quickly through the doorway and into the room, sighing as she saw my husband and me lying there in discontent. “Apparently you are up,” she observed. I didn’t say anything, just merely nodded. I looked at my husband from the side of my eyes, worried that she’d tell him to get out of the bed and even more worried that he’d fight back—because he would. However, I was lucky and the nurse only turned off the alarm while Billie relaxed more against me. His had rubbed my side affectionately and I felt his lips press themselves to my temple.

It was then I realized that I was crying again.

And it wasn’t quiet or choked back tears; it was the dry heaving, sobbing tears. The relaxed grip that my tense husband had on me turned once again into a strong hold as my body began to shake with sobs of realization. “Joe,” Billie whispered, “Joe, baby. I—I’m so sorry.”

If it was possible for my heart to fucking bleed then it was most definitely was.

I could barely feel Billie’s lips on me, trying to shush me as my body continued to shake with heaves as I sobbed. I had turned myself in the bed so that I was now facing Billie and was now grabbing fistfuls of fabric of his Adeline t-shirt. While caressing the back of my head, Billie looked up at the sympathetic nurse. He smiled to the best of his ability, meaning it came out as a grimace. He then turned his attention back to me and pressed his nose into the top of my head, kissing it softly and repeatedly.

His hands gently pried mine off from his now stretched-out t-shirt and he held them gently. I felt him cringe and heard him gasp as I grabbed hold and dug my nails into his palms. “Joe,” he whimpered. But he stopped almost immediately.

The thought of bringing my husband even more pain than I had already caused us with my goddamn body only made everything worse. “I’m—I’m sorry,” I sobbed, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“No, no,” he chanted softly, caressing my jaw as he pressed his lips against my ear, “don’t you apologize—ever. Ever.”

His hands rubbed my shoulders soothingly though my body still shook with sobs while my head stayed buried in his chest and created a large stain from tears and mascara that I had never had time to wash off. “I’m so sorry.”

Billie scowled loudly. “Stop it,” he hissed, “stop apologizing—stop.” We were both startled when there was a knock at the door only a few seconds later. Knowing that I wouldn’t answer, Billie called out “Come in.”

The door was pushed open and the nurse that had come in when I had set off the alarm fifteen or so minutes before reentered the room. She stayed at the door though with one hand wrapped around the side of it as she peered in. “Should I come back?” She asked hesitantly.

A snarl ripped through my throat. Was she blind? My husband and I were two fucking broken people holding onto each other in the middle of my hospital bed after losing our goddamn baby and she was asking if this was a good time to interrupt us? “Yeah,” I snarled, “you should.”

One of Billie’s hands removed itself from my arms to gently caress my jaw as he placed a couple kisses along it as if to calm me down. He then pulled away and looked up at the nurse. “No, come in.”

I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms, leaning forward into Billie’s chest so that my eyes and nose were pressed against the dark fabric of his shirt. I closed my eyes and inhaled while hearing her heels click across the tiled floor. Billie’s arms wrapped around my back, holding me against his chest as he watched her as if he knew it would calm me down.

Billie shifted slightly next to me though didn’t take his arms from around me. I heard the nurse clear her throat and so I decided to look up. She was now standing along the side of the bed where Billie was, though between her and the bed was a basket—a Moses basket.

Billie’s arms had stopped soothing me and for a moment his chest stop rising and falling. For a moment both of us just stared at the basket in terror. I could feel Billie’s eyes slowly move from the basket to me, however I didn’t look away.

I couldn’t look away.

Because in that basket was my baby. My baby who I had to be induced to give birth to not all too long ago. My baby that first kicked on my husbands and my anniversary. My baby that I had been pregnant with since May but hadn’t known until late June. My baby that died inside of me at 21 weeks.

Zachary Andrew Armstrong.

I looked away from the basket and to Billie in absolute horror as my bottom lip began to tremble. I expected Billie to pull me against his chest as he had before, however he didn’t. Instead he closed his eyes while his lips stayed tightly pressed together so that they were turning an almost white.

As if the fact that we were in a hospital room four months early for this baby wasn’t a reminder enough.

The nurse shuffled next to the bed awkwardly. “We’ve cleaned him up,” she stated in a voice that would have been so soothing had it been another circumstance, “if you’d like to hold him.”

Billie and I were both dead silent for a moment and then Billie un-wound himself from me and sat up. I looked up in shock as he placed his feet on the ground and then pushed himself up so that he was standing. The nurse smiled softly at him and stepped away, exiting the room to give us the time we needed.

I sat up slowly in the bed, propping myself up with an arm as I watched Billie peer over the side of the basket. He lifted an arm and gently moved the blanket that I’m assuming Zachary was wrapped in and then he looked up at me over his shoulder. Billie looked at me through such sad eyes, but lifted his eyebrows suggestively at me and then looked back down. Hesitantly now, he lifted his other arm and slid it into the opposite end of the basket and then holding the small body in his arms as if it was living, he lifted it out of the basket.

Billie turned around slowly, a small bundle of blue blankets cradled in his arms.

At the sight of the small bundle in his arms, tears that had finally faded resurfaced only I didn’t have Billie to bury myself in at the moment. Instead, I lifted a hand to cover my mouth to hold in sobs. Billie looked up at me from the tops of his eyes and then back to the baby in his arms, in which he swung slightly in a cradling motion, as if waiting for a response. When he didn’t receive the one he had been praying for, he lifted his arms and shifted so that his lips gently brushed the forehead of his third son.

A few minutes later, Billie looked up at me and our eyes connected. His eyes were completely empty.

Billie licked his lips slowly and then sat down on the hospital bed next to me, still holding Zachary against his chest. He looked up and over his shoulder at me again and then motion with his head for me to move next to him. I didn’t move for a good few minutes but when Billie looked up at me again I finally did.

Hesitantly and extraordinarily slowly, I slid closer to my husband on the bed. Billie turned to me and so evidently forced a smile. I bit down onto my bottom lip and then shook my head. An expression that looked like a cross between shock and disgust spread across his face. “No?” Billie asked quietly.

“I don’t want to hold him,” I admitted.