Once Upon a Time

“She cried the whole time you were gone,” my mother tells me as Teagan and I walk in the front door. Grace is still crying as she holds her little arms out to me. She’s so confused about what’s going on. I feel bad, but she’ll realize everything is okay after a while. I reach out and take her from my mom, pulling her close to me. It doesn’t seem to help, though, because she keeps crying. I kiss her forehead and she looks up at me, tears streaming down her face. I hold her with one arm and use my free hand to wipe her face.

“I think she’ll be sleeping with us for a little while,” I say to Teagan. “At least until she gets comfortable being here.”

Teagan smiles and nods at me. “It’s okay,” she answers. She brushes past me, kissing Grace’s forehead as she does so. Now Grace puts her thumb in her mouth, her tears slowing, and reaches an arm to her.

Teagan happily takes her from me.

“Where does this go?” Mark asks, popping his head in the door, holding up a box labeled kit-din.

“Kitchen,” I answer.

I stride over to Teagan and kiss the top of Grace’s head. “I’ll be right back,” I say, but as I turn to walk out she lets out an ear-piercing scream and starts crying again. I stop in my tracks, not knowing what to do.

Before I can turn back around a hand grasps mine. “I’ll walk with you,” Teagan says softly.

I nod and grin at her, trying to apologize to her with my eyes for putting her through this. She responds with a roll of her eyes and a squeeze of my hand.

We reach the truck and she lets go. I pull out two boxes, one stacked on top of the other.

“Noah,” Teagan says.

“Mhh?” I respond.

“Noah,” she says again.

“Yeah baby?” I ask.

“Get…” she starts softly, “Grace…”

I don’t understand so I turn around, just in time to pull Grace from her arms as she falls. I try and grab her, too, but with only one arm the only thing I could do was keep her head from hitting the ground.

With that, Grace is screaming.

“Mom!” I call, scared to death. “Mom!” I shout again.

Erin, who was sitting in Mark’s truck, was now kneeling on the ground, her ear on Teagan’s chest. I wait, hopeful, but when Erin starts giving her CPR I just sink to the ground, holding Grace in my arms as tears make their way to my cheeks.

Grace screams, patting my cheeks, trying to get me to look at her, to say something – to comfort her… but I can’t. Not while the love of my life is one the ground, unable to breathe.

“Come on, Noah,” a voice says and I look up at my mother. She has the keys to her car in her hand and I notice Mark has Teagan in his arms. “Noah,” she says again, waving her hand in front of my face. “We have to go to the hospital. Come on.”

I nod and force myself up. We all pile into my mother’s car. She starts driving before I even get Grace buckled in her car seat. Teagan is next to me, unconscious, her head resting on my shoulder. Erin is in the front seat with my mom and Mark is right behind us in his truck. I can hear Erin talking on the phone, probably to Teag’s mom, but I can’t hear the words. I pull Teagan closer to me, resting her mouth near my ear, trying to feel her breath on my ear, just to make sure she’s breathing. I keep my fingers on her wrists at all times, keeping track of her pulse. When we get to the hospital I get so mad that they try and take her away from me that Mark has to hold me back.

“She’ll be okay, Noah,” my mom says, rubbing soothing circles into my back. It doesn’t stop me from crying. I never cry and I know it’s scaring my mom, but hell, this is scaring me. Teagan is my life – I can’t lose her. I refuse to lose her. Not now.

Teagan’s mom and Kim show up after a while, telling my mom that her dad was called into work after we left but that he was on his way.

It was another half hour before the doctor came out to see us.

“She’s fine,” she tells us. “The baby is fine, too. From what I can tell she just got a little worked up, a little overwhelmed and the pressure on her heart just caused her to faint. All she did was check out for a little while, but both her and the baby’s heartbeats are strong. We’ve got her on pills to keep everything steady, though. We’ve also given her pre-natal vitamins. Make sure she takes them, eats right, and exercises every once in a while and she’ll be just fine.”

“When can we see her?” her mother asks.

“You can’t all go in and see her at once, but she’s asking for a Noah,” the doctor answers. I stand up almost automatically. She nods at me. “Noah here can go back and then we’ll see how she’s doing, okay?”

Everyone nodded. As I started following the doctor Grace started screaming again and I took her from my mother, kissing her wet cheek and rolling my eyes. She’s never done this before. She cuddles into me, though, burying her face in my shoulder and wrapping her arms around my neck. Sometimes it surprises me how much I love this kid.

When we reach Teagan’s room the first thing I do is pull her to me. She wraps her arm weakly around my waist. Grace giggles and somehow moves from my arms to hers. I sit down next to Teagan on the bed and pull both of them into my arms.

“You scared the hell out of me, do you know that?” I demand, hooking my fingers under her chin and forcing her to look at me.

She nods. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize!” I tell her. “It wasn’t your fault, I’m just going to need you to promise me that it won’t happen again.”

She laughs. “I love you, Noah.”

“I love you, too, sweetheart,” I tell her. “But if you ever scare me like that again I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” she challenges, pressing her lips so lightly against mine it can’t even be considered a kiss.

I lean in close to her ear. “I might just have to tie you to our bed and teach you a lesson,” I whisper huskily.

Her breathing becomes shallow and her hands grip the back of my shirt. “Thanks, Noah, for getting me all horny while I’m laying here in a hospital bed,” she says sarcastically.

I grin and kiss her cheek. When I glance down at Grace I see her watching us. She smiles at me, and I smile back. I’m glad she’s feeling better. I didn’t like seeing her cry like that. I lean down and kiss the top of her head.

“Horny!” she says.

Teagan and I glance at each other.

“Looks like our baby’s learned a new word,” Teagan laughs.

I sigh. “I guess we’re going to have to be more careful what we say around her.”

Teagan nods and wraps her arms around my neck, resting her head on my shoulder. I press my hand against her stomach and she tenses. She looks up at me.

“Is she okay?” she asks me.

I grin and nod. “The doctor didn’t tell you?”

She shakes her head and kisses the side of my neck. “No, and I was too scared to ask.”

“You love him huh?” I ask her.

“I love her,” she answers.

“You really think it’s a girl?” I ask and she just nods. “But you already have a girl.”

She looks in between us at Grace, who is facing her, playing with her hair. “I know,” she says softly. “I just want a girl… but if it’s a boy I don’t really care,” she whispers, smiling up at me. “As long as our baby is healthy I’m fine.”

“I love you,” I tell her. “I love you and I love our baby.”

Grace pulls on my shirt and I look down at her. She holds her arms out to me and I pull her to me. “I love you, too,” I mumble.

“Wove woo daddy,” she says.

“When can I get out of here?” Teag asks me now, stretching.

I smile at her. My girl just never stops. “I don’t know,” I answer. “But you know how I told you earlier that you could put things up if you wanted to?” She nods. “Well, I take that back. You can stay in bed or on the couch but I don’t want you doing anything else. Got it?”

She pouts at me. “Can I paint?”

“Grace’s room?”

“Yeah. It’s not strenuous, so I should be fine.”

I sigh. “Only if Grace stays with you.”

“No way, she’ll scream her head off! She wants you.”

“I know she does, but I don’t know why. She’s never done this before.” I pull away and look at her little face. She just watches me with her big, bright green eyes – my eyes. She opens her mouth to say something, but it’s just baby talk. She bounces a little and smiles at me, clapping her hands together. I kiss her cheek and she laughs. “She’s fine now. The only reason I brought her back here was because she wouldn’t stay by herself with my mom in the waiting room.”

“She’ll be okay,” Teagan tells me softly. “She’ll get used to everything after a while. She’ll realize her daddy’s not leaving her.”

I pull Grace close to me again. “I could never leave her.”

“Well, I know that.” Teagan smiles. “But she’s only two. She doesn’t know.”

“You really don’t mind if Grace sleeps with us for a while?” I ask her. I know that she’s already said she doesn’t mind, but Grace isn’t really Teagan’s – not yet anyway – and I feel a little bad asking her to do this for me.

“No, baby, I don’t mind. You know I love Grace. She can stay with us as long as she needs to. We’re a family now,” she says, grinning mischievously.

I can’t help the way my heart warms to hearing her say that. I also can’t wait to get her home, to our house, to start our life together.