Been Here All Along

“How about Brody?” Justin asked, peeking up at me with his amazing blue eyes from the baby book he was reading. He had this smirk on his face as if what he said was the punch line to some joke I didn’t hear.

“And why would you think it’s going to be a boy?” I giggled, skimming through my baby name book.

“Because,” he smiled, leaning over to kiss my bloated tummy, “he kicks like a pro soccer player every time I kiss your belly, so he just has to be a boy. Plus he’s going to be tough just like his old man.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” I laughed, resting my book down on my baby bump and stroking my husband’s silky soft blonde hair. “But you are right about the kicking part. I’ll consider Brody if she’s a boy, but I think Hailey is going to stay true to her gender.”

“Hmm, I like Hailey, Hailey is good. Only a few more months to go, baby Hailey!” he cooed at my belly, kissing it again as the child in my tummy began to kick up a storm.

“Honey, did you check the mail today?” I asked him suddenly, pushing myself up from the couch as he reached for the TV remote.

“Nah babe, I didn’t but could you go check it? I’m expecting a letter from my mom,” he asked sweetly, batting his long eyelashes at me.

“You’re so lazy, you’re lucky I love you,” I groaned, brushing him off and waddling the short distance from our house to the mailbox. I grabbed the mass of envelopes and nonchalantly flipped through them as I walked back toward the house. Junk, junk, coupons, junk, bills, more junk; and then there was one envelope in the back of the pile that looked whiter than all the others. The envelope was addressed to a Mr. Justin Kline from the U.S. Army. My heart suddenly stopped and I forgot how to breathe. As I walked through the threshold of our house, my clammy hands struggled with the fold of the envelope but I tore it open with a single tug. “Dear Mr. Kline, We are pleased to inform you that your registration into the United States Army has been approved and you have been picked to serve your country in Iraq. You will be sent to basic training in Texas and be deployed to Iraq shortly after to serve a maximum of two years away from home...” I froze as I read this, tears forming in my eyes.

“What’s wrong, babe?” Justin asked, getting off the couch quickly to come to my side. His voice sounded distant, as if he weren’t actually here and none of this was actually happening. His arms slid protectively over mine as he read the letter from over my shoulder. I could feel him freeze too, his grip around me growing a little stronger when he reached the part about being away for two years. I dropped my arms and turned around to face him, tears already staining my flushed cheeks.

“Please don’t leave me,” I whispered softly, my voice cracking slightly as the last word escaped from my pink lips.

He looked deep into my brown eyes as if he was searching for some kind of answer inside them. It took awhile to get any kind of reaction from him, but I knew that once his mind was finally made I couldn’t do anything to change it.

The weeks following passed faster than I had hoped. It was as if somehow time went by faster until our last day together. Then, as if it were just seconds after we had received his deployment letter, here we were at the airport dreading the moment when we had to let each other go. “Don’t go,” I breathed, hot tears forming in my eyes. I had been a complete and utter mess since he made his choice to leave, but he came from a military family so he felt as though he had to honor his father and serve his time.

“I promise I won’t be gone long,” he whispered quietly. “But I love you, Dre, and everything will be okay.”

He rested his cheek onto my head as I cried silently into his warm chest. This was it, this was the last time I’d see him for at least two years. I couldn’t bear the thought of him never coming back, so I promised to him that I’d always wait for him no matter what happens. He crouched down so that his head was the same height as my stomach and he breathed in softly, resting his lips in the center of my belly. “I can’t wait to meet you, Hailey Marie. Keep your momma safe,” he whispered, a single tear sliding down his face. He stood as they finally they called his flight number and with one last kiss, he was gone.
________________________

“I don’t understand why you insist on doing everything yourself all the time,” my best friend Spencer groaned over the phone. “He’s only been gone for two months, Dre; he’ll be back before you know it.”

“Spence, if I don’t get this done now then it’ll never get done, okay?” I sighed, trying to decipher the gibberish written on the crib building instructions I was holding.

“Could I at least come over and help you? I feel like a bad friend letting you struggle over trying to build a baby crib by yourself when you’re almost nine months pregnant,” she laughed.

“Fine, the key is under the mat, just let yourself in when you get here,” I agreed, hanging up. I hated the thought of having to do all of this on my own; paying all the bills, taking care of a newborn, putting a crib together. I was so scared but also so thankful to have Spencer to help me.

A few minutes passed and my phone rang again. Puzzled, I grabbed my phone and answered it with a groan, assuming it was just Spencer asking me to let her in. “Spence, I told you the key is under the mat.”

“Good afternoon ma’am, this is Major Carmen Jackson calling for a Mrs. Andrea Kline. May I speak to her please?” a gruff voice asked.

I froze slightly. “This is she, is everything okay? What happened?”

“Usually we’d call you into our offices to tell you personally and not over the phone, but seeing as though you are currently incapable of much movement, we thought that at least a phone call would do some good,” he stalled.

“Major Jackson, with all due respect, would you just please tell me your reason for calling?” I demanded, getting frustrated. My heart was racing and my adrenaline started pumping, which I was positively sure wasn’t okay for someone who was in my stage of pregnancy.

He hesitated, taking a moment to gather his thoughts. “Mrs. Kline, this may come as a bit of a shock to you, but I assure you that we’ve got everything under control. Your husband, Soldier Kline, has gone M.I.A.”

“He what?” I gasped.

“After basic training he was deployed to our base camp in Iraq and they went out on a platoon mission one night to a village. When his group came back to home base he didn’t return with them. There were no guns fired so he was probably left at the village, but we’ve set out a search and rescue party to find him as soon as we can. I can assure you that everything will be okay,” he promised. The call was dropped before I could respond but the only thought running through my head was that I was sure I had lost him for good.

The doorbell rang and I pushed myself up off the floor, so full of rage and worry that I didn’t notice how fast I was flying down my staircase. Being both pregnant and clumsy didn’t benefit me in anyway because I tripped in the middle of the staircase and tumbled down the last seven steps landing on my back. I felt something inside me crack, bones breaking one after the other. My vision was fuzzy and I couldn’t think straight, but the second I saw the blood, the pain began to sink in. I hadn’t felt this kind of indescribable pain my entire life, so it caused me to shriek at the top of my lungs. I clutched at my stomach as tears began to stream down my face in buckets. The pain and my blurry vision caused me to blackout, not coming back into consciousness until my stomach was completely empty.

My eyes searched the room in a quick panic, taking in the disgusting yellow stained roof and dirty gray tile flooring. I searched for a familiar looking face or even a pink newborn baby but all I found was my nurse sitting beside my bed writing on the broken brown clipboard she was holding. Her hair was pinned back in a short messy bun and she wore light blue faded scrubs like they do in those hospital TV shows, only she looked less like an actress and more like a fresh-out-of-med-school nurse. She was looking down with a concerned look, her bushy dark brown eyebrows mashed together with worry. “What’s wrong?” I croaked, sitting upright in the hospital bed, my thin sheets still tight around my torso. Pain shot through my body and soon regretted my decision to move.

She looked up with shock, as if she wasn’t expecting me to be awake. “What’s wrong? Oh nothing!” she shot up, reaching a cold, pale hand toward my wrist to check my rapid pulse. “How are you feeling? Does your head hurt? Are you feeling sick at all? Do you need to use the restroom? Are you hungry?”

“Where’s my baby?” I demanded, ignoring all her other questions.

“Your baby?” she asked, considering this for a moment. “Um... Let me get your doctor, I’ll be back in a quick second.” I stared at her in horror as she shuffled out of the room. What happened to my baby? Why wasn’t she here with me? Was there something wrong with her? And where on earth was Spencer?

While all these worried thoughts ran through my head, I heard tension outside my door so I listened in closely trying to decipher what was being said. “... see her? She’s perfectly fine and healthy, there’s nothing wrong with her. Just let me go in and I’ll show you that everything is okay,” I heard someone that sounded like Spencer argue.

“I don’t know... she’s pregnant and all alone in a big house and she just found out that her husband was M.I.A., if you were her what would you do to get rid of the problem?” someone else questioned.

“I promise if you just wait and see you’ll find that she’s not the crazy woman you think she is,” Spence explained.

I heard someone let out a long exasperated sigh before the door was opened. Spencer walked in quickly, followed closely by a doctor and my nurse. “Good morning, sleepy head,” Spence smiled as she came to sit down next to me. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m alright, just a little scared,” I admitted. “What’s going on though? Where’s my baby?”

She shot a look over to the doctor that was staring at me intensely. His gaze broke mine for a split second so that is eyes could answer Spencer’s unspoken question before they shot back over to me. “Hailey is fine,” Spence started, shifting her weight on the bed. Even with the slightest movements pain shot through my entire body, but I didn’t show so much as a grimace on my face because I was sure one little wrong thing would set my doctor off.

I relaxed for a moment as the pain subsided, but then I noticed that her sentence hadn’t quite been complete. “But?” I demanded.

“But, everyone is just a little bit scared at the moment. What happened to you?” she wondered, reaching out to touch my arm. As she did this, it felt as though I was getting stabbed repeatedly over and over again with a thousand different knives. I winced slightly and she let me go.

“What do you mean what happened?” I questioned.

“You were found at the bottom of your staircase unconscious and in labor, Dre. Everyone is a little freaked out,” she explained. “They think that you might have, well, been trying to get rid of her...”

“Spencer, you know me. I love my baby more than I love anyone in the world. You know I’d never do that ever,” I promised her.

“See,” she said, turning to look at the doctor. “She’s perfectly fine. Can she see her now?”

The doctor sighed heavily again, scratching his balding head before allowing the nurse to leave and return with a pink bundled up blanket that looked like it was breathing. My nurse handed the blanket over to the silent doctor and he looked at it lovingly before reluctantly coming to my side and placing my sleeping baby in my hands. I ignored the pain that radiated throughout my arms because with just a single look, nothing else in the world mattered besides the little girl that I was holding before me. Words couldn’t explain the feeling I got inside my heart when I first laid eyes on her. It’s like everything single thing I loved about Justin was sitting there staring me right in the face. The only part of me she really had was her dark brown hair; everything else from her adorable pink cheeks to her little button nose were all Justin. This observation slowly broke my heart.

I lowered my head down just far enough for my lips to brush against her soft forehead. “Keep me safe, baby Hailey,” I whispered. “Please keep me safe.”