All That Matters

Sidney was sitting on the floor of the closet trying to figure out just how much he wanted to lug back to Canada with us.

“Don’t you have clothes there?” I asked.

I was reclined on the bed, a pile of baby books around me. I didn’t want to haul them all to Nova Scotia, but I didn’t want to leave them all behind either and was trying to narrow the selections before having Taylor shove them into one of the boxes already in the back of the SUV. She was making herself useful elsewhere in the house, loading up the items that I’d listed and keeping herself plenty busy while Sidney hemmed and hawed.

“I have clothes,” he defended. “Don’t they sell books in Canada?”

“Why would I buy copies of books that I already have, Sidney? That’s just wasteful.”

“It might be, but it’s also easier than packing all of those when we already have so much shoved in the car.”

“I like a challenge,” I retorted. “Anyway, I’m not taking all of them.”

I was digging through one of the baby naming books that had been pawned off on my by another WAG. Most of them had come from Maureen Kunitz. I could see where she and Chris had marked pages and places where they’d lingered. It gave me an idea of the types of names that they’d filtered through in the process of naming their two children.

But the book didn’t seem to be helping me that much. All I’d really noticed was that it appeared Chris leaned towards the more traditional names in the way Sidney did and while Maureen didn’t appear to be as adventurous as me, some of her notes leaned more towards modern. I wondered if their balance of Canadian and American was to blame in the way it might have been for me and Sidney.

We needed to find a balance with names the way they had. Zachary and Payton worked well for them. But balance was a struggle for us sometimes.

I dropped the book next to me on the bed and scooted towards the edge. Moving of my own volition was becoming difficult in some ways and I could feel Sidney watching me as I struggled.

“Want some help?” he asked with a wry smirk.

“Shut up,” I quipped as I found my footing and stretched.

He glanced up and down my frame, his eyes lingering momentarily.

“You’re still okay with me having the cup over my birthday?”

“I’m fine with it.”

“But the baby—“

“Will be a few weeks old. It will be fine. I’d rather we handle it with a newborn than with me feeling like a beached whale.”

He glared.

“I’m whale-sized.”

“You aren’t whale-sized.”

“The camera adds ten pounds and there will be a ton of cameras. I’ll look like a beluga.”

“That’s what you’re worried about?”

“There are a few things I’m worried about. I’m worried about keeping up, staying on my feet, not having to pee every twenty minutes. But you are aware that the press knows about this, right? You held the cup up to my stomach and took a picture or eight. She isn’t a secret anymore and while Pittsburgh hasn’t lost its collective shit, she is like the weird equivalent to the royal baby as far as Canada is concerned.”

“That’s not true.”

“You know, there are times I’m really glad that the only times you use the internet are to find new books to read or check boxscores. Those pictures are all over the internet and more than a few people now think that you married me because I was pregnant. Apparently I look a little closer to ready to pop than I thought.”

“Am I going to have to do another personal interview?” he groaned.

“I think they’ll expect it eventually.”

He rolled his eyes.

I joined him on the floor of the closer. My clothes were already packed. Some to get me through the remainder of my pregnancy, flowy shirts and anything that stretched. But I’d placed a few items I was hopeful I would fit back into before our return to Pittsburgh. If that failed, I’d fall back on the stretchy items.

“Did you decide how much of the library you’re dragging along?”

“A few books. I’m not sure if I want to bring the naming books though.” I was still not sure they were helping.

“Heidi?”

“What?”

“Heidi. I like Heidi.”

“She isn’t a Swiss orphan.”

“Just a thought,” he sighed.

“I almost feel like the books give us too many ideas.”

“Then maybe we should stop.”

“And just have a nameless daughter?”

“We’ll figure out a name for her. Maybe we’ll just see her and know.”

“You realize that the first time we see her she’ll be screaming, red, wrinkled, covered in goo, and possibly have a conically shaped head?”

“Wait, are we talking about our daughter or a character from a low budget horror movie?”

“My point is, we won’t see her and have some sort of huge epiphany.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t added that to the list of suggestions.”

“Added what to the list?”

“Epiphany.”

“Don’t be a jerk,” I muttered as I tossed a t-shirt at him.

“I just folded that,” he complained.

“Oh well,” I muttered. “I’ve decided to bring the naming books.”

“We have the internet in Nova Scotia. Aren’t there websites for that sort of thing? Don’t pack more than you have to.”

“Yeah,” Taylor agreed as she appeared in the doorway. “I’m the one doing the heavy lifting. Speaking of, how are we going to get Shamu off the floor?”

I glared at her as she pointed towards me. Sidney tossed the shirt he’d been refolding up towards her face, covering her smirk for just a moment. She caught it and broke into a laugh; a sound so infectious that Sidney joined in.

“You two morons laugh, but I have the ability to make both of you incredibly miserable on the drive north.”

“You wouldn’t,” Sid muttered.

“A girl has to stay hydrated and if I happen to drink a lot of water and juice and the baby decides to take a seat on my bladder, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Taylor stopped laughing.

I continued. “So many pitstops that you’ll be in gas stations more than you’re in the car. I’ll drag it out way past the allotted two days. We’ll have to stay in seedy motels for at least a couple of nights because I’ll have us stopping in the most random places as long as they have bathrooms.”

“Okay, no more whale jokes,” Sidney said.

“She makes them too,” Taylor complained.

“I’m the pregnant one, I can make the jokes, you can’t. And enough with the elephant jokes too.”

“But those are the best ones because elephants are supposed to remember everything and you forgot your pin number the other day.”

“It’s called pregnancy brain.”

“Is the baby really sucking that much blood and nutrition away from you?”

“She does a good job of it. Do we have a deal?”

“Deal,” she agreed as she handed the shirt back to Sidney.

He refolded the garment and slipped it back into the duffle he’d been filling with his clothes.

“Anything else you need me to take to the car?” Taylor asked me. “I think I’m gonna call it a night soon.”

“This,” Sidney said, pushing the large bag her way.

“I was talking to Wyn.”

“So now you’re sucking up to her?” he quipped.

“She doesn’t want to stop every twenty minutes over the next couple of days. Especially during her shifts behind the wheel.”

“We’re leaving at seven in the morning, kid,” he reminded her. “Up and at ‘em early.”

She nodded and said goodnight as Sidney zipped the duffel and got to his feet smoothly. I reached towards him with both hands. He grabbed my hands and swiftly pulled me to my feet. He did so with ease, letting go quickly and winding his arms around my waist. He pulled me close, dropping his forehead against mine.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

He lowered his face closer to mine, his freshly shaved jawline feeling smooth against my cheek.

“For what?” I asked.

“Handling everything so well. I can be so oblivious to what’s going on around me and the way people react to things. You treat it all like it’s normal, like this life isn’t hard for you.”

“It isn’t always easy, Sid. There’s a lot of craziness and I get uncomfortable with the attention sometimes. The fact that private moments wind up on the internet will never be something that I like. But this is our normal and I think that’s all that matters.”

He pressed his lips to mine. “I’m still pretty fucking lucky,” he said as he drew away from me.

“I won’t argue.”

He let go and hoisted the duffle up onto his shoulder.

“I’m going to take this down to the car, make sure it will all survive the trip the way she’s got it packed. Then I think we should call it a night.”

I glanced at the bed. “So I suppose I should move the books?”

“Maybe.”

He smiled as Sam followed him out of the room, practically stepping on his heels. She was nervous just as she had been when we’d been preparing for our return to Pittsburgh the previous summer. It was clear that she had no intention of being left behind.

I cleared the books away, stacking them on the nightstand and slipping under the covers. I heard Sidney lingering in the kitchen before he headed for the garage, Sam’s toenails clicked against the hard surface of the floor as she mirrored his every move.

I waited for Sidney, and reached for one of the books from the pile leafing through the first few pages filled with names.

It was another from Maureen’s expansive collection that I’d borrowed. I hadn’t browsed it previously, overwhelmed by the number of volumes she’d sent my way. There were annotations in pencil in the margins of nearly every page. Most of the notes were in a feminine scrawl that I recognized as belonging to my fellow hockey wife. Several names were marked with question marks. Along one of the names I found the words, “Chris likes.” I flipped back to the previous page and found a name up at the top of the page that had been circled and then crossed off. The writing next to it was masculine and simply read, “Don’t like it.”

Chris wasn’t a fan, but clearly Maureen had been.

But I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach when I saw it. It felt right. It sounded perfect.

I grabbed my phone and texted Maureen quickly. I hoped that she’d be awake so it wouldn’t fester during the trip back to Halifax.

-Found a name. I think you liked it but Chris didn’t. Don’t want to steal it.

I heard Sidney come back into the house with Sam behind him. I heard the clicking of the lock on the kitchen door. My phone buzzed in my hand and I was washed with a wave of relief.

-Which one?

I sent my reply quickly as I heard the heavy footed steps of my husband as he mounted the stairs. Sammy was still alongside him. My phone vibrated again.

-Go for it!

I put the phone and book back on the nightstand as Sidney came back into the room and closed the door behind him. Sam settled in her favorite corner of the room, her eyes locked on Sid. I found myself hoping he would like it.

He peeled off his shirt and butterflies rose into my stomach. My eyes traced the bruises that marked the flesh of his torso. They were proof of a few solid checks and a couple of blocked shots. Battle wounds; wounds he didn’t feel until after the adrenaline wore off.

He crawled into bed and switched off his lamp. The lamp on my side of the bed was still casting a soft glow that didn’t reach the furthest corners of the room.

“How’d the exit interview go today?”

“Fine,” he replied. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you weren’t there for four hours like last year.”

“Season ended a little differently. And a little later.”

He was smiling.

“So, you had other things to do?”

He shrugged. “No one will ever think less of me for wanting to get my wife home and start our summer vacation.”

“But what on earth did Ray do with the rest of his day without you there to talk his ear off for hours?”

Sid laughed. “He might’ve actually accomplished something.”

I slid down into the cocoon of the pillows and reached to turn of the light.

“Who were you covertly texting?”

“You saw?”

“You suck at being covert.”

“I was checking something with Maureen.”

“Kunitz?”

“Yeah.”

“WAG stuff?”

“Not really.”

I was glad that WAG stuff was over until fall. There were no fundraisers to help organize or bake sales to not offer much to. It was just a summer on the lake with a little time left to settle into having a newborn.

“You going to tell me?”

“It’s name stuff.”

“Calling in reinforcements?”

“No. She had it circled and I didn’t want to steal a potential name out from under them.”

“That would be awkward,” he admitted. “So, what was the verdict?”

“They aren’t going to use it. She said we could go for it.”

“I would agree blindly,” he said through a yawn, “but it might be something like onomatopoeia.”

“I will name her under the influence of pain killers without your permission or input if you aren’t careful.”

“Okay. So it isn’t onomatopoeia.”

“No. It isn’t.”

“What is it?”

“Adia.”

I heard him draw a breath to speak but I didn’t want him to shoot anything down before I had my say.

“Before you say it’s too weird or different, hear me out. The book says that it means “Gift from God,” and I think that’s what she is. We’ve never been closer and things have never been better between us. This whole situation was a wake-up call that we didn’t expect to get and I think the best gifts are surprises.

“You were a surprise,” I wiggled my hand in the air near his face in the dark. “Your nervous breakdown and sudden proposal was a surprise. Those are a couple of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten.”

“May I speak now?” he asked as he plucked my hand out of the air and gripped my hand in his.

Even in the dark I could see the smile crawling across his face. He squeezed my hand.

“It isn’t something that I would pick on my own—“

I groaned audibly but I felt his grip tighten slightly letting me know he wasn’t done speaking.

“But I like it. It sounds little like the more classic stuff that I like. But it’s uncommon.”

“And the meaning?”

“I have to say, it hits home.”

“So you like it?”

“I really do.” He paused and drew a deep breath. “I think it’s perfect.”

“Adia Lynn,” I murmured.

“Adia Lynn,” he confirmed.

I curled towards his side, our hands still clasped. There was a certain peacefulness about it. It had been months of struggle just trying to find something that was even worthy of contention. There hadn’t been many options that straddled the line properly.

It felt almost too easy. The baby wasn’t just a ‘she’ anymore. She had a name to go along with the images that played out in my head every time I thought about our future.

“Maybe next time it won’t be so difficult,” I mused.

“You don’t actually believe that, do you?”

I shrugged. “A girl can hope.”

“So we don’t have to pack any of the name books?”

“Not anymore.”

There was a short period of quiet between us.

“How’d you find it?”

“It was marked, Maureen liked it. But Chris didn’t and it was crossed off. It kind of just jumped out.”

“Their loss.”

“It certainly is.”

I fell asleep thinking about our future. A little girl with my blonde curls and his hazel eyes dancing through my thoughts.

Taylor was up and ready to go when we woke up in the morning. She was wrapped in sweats as we joined her in the kitchen. I hadn’t wasted time trying to squeeze into anything and was dressed as casually as she was. We had a lot of time in the car ahead of us.

I’d selected a few books and tossed them into my purse. Aside from ourselves and the dog, everything was packed and ready to go.

“There’s no food in this house,” Taylor complained.

“Because we don’t be living here again until September,” Sidney countered. “Can you imagine the sorts of things that would be growing on the cheese?”

“No worse than the stuff growing on your jock.”

“Charming, you two.”

“We’ll stop and get breakfast on the way out of the city.”

“Why are we even going into the city?”

“I have to drop a few things off at the rink before the other guys leave town.”

“This is going to take forever,” she moaned.

“You know, sometimes I forget that you’re a normal teenager and then you open your mouth and terrible sounds come out.”

“You wanna hear terrible sounds?” she asked. “I can handle that!”

She began singing a few bars of an awful song that I’d heard on the radio far too often in recent weeks.

“You sound like a dying cat!” he complained.

“Better than smelling like one!” she countered.

Sam was crouching in the corner waiting for us.

“Are you two going to fight the whole time?” I demanded. “Because if you are, I will duct tape your mouths shut, listen to boybands the entire trip home, and I will stop at every solitary exit to pee and stretch my legs. Every. Single. Exit.”

They both quieted.

“We’ll stop at Consol, it will not take long let alone all day, we’ll get breakfast, and then we’ll be on our way.”

The drive into the city was quiet. It was still early enough in the morning that there weren’t many people rushing to work or school. The traffic could have been much worse than it was and the two of them decided not to bicker along the way.

Taylor lounged in the back seat of the car with Sam sleeping next to her. We’d only be inside for a few minutes before heading on our way and she was fine waiting in the car in the cool air of the parking garage.

“Maureen said you found a name,” Chris said with a friendly smile as Taylor and I followed Sidney into the dressing room.

I handed him the books that I’d borrowed and he sat them in his empty stall. He was one of the last to leave, one of the last to take part in the team’s exit interviews. There was nothing causing him to rush out of the city. They’d spend part of the summer in Chicago but as Zachary got older and started to take part in more activities, their visits to his wife’s hometown got shorter.

I knew that there would come a point for us that our entire summers couldn’t be spent up at the lake, that we’d have kids that kept us planted in the city we called home. I didn’t think it was something that Sidney minded, and I knew that it didn’t bother me. We’d still take part of our vacation up north, but staying in Pittsburgh in the home we loved wasn’t a bad deal.

“Did she tell you which one?” I asked.

“Your secret is safe with her,” he said with a shake of his head. “There was no way she was going to tell me, just that it wasn’t something we’d ever use.”

“Wait,” Taylor said suddenly, like she was finally starting to wake up and get with the program. “You guys picked a name? Why didn’t I know that?”

“Because it isn’t your concern,” Sidney responded.

She pouted as we said our goodbyes to the few teammates that were still around. Overall, the place was quiet. We slipped off to Mario’s office and said a quick goodbye before Taylor wandered back to the car with her brother’s keys in hand. She wanted to get on the road; all of us did. She also wanted breakfast.

Dan caught me in a quick hug in the hallway as we passed the open door of his office. I hadn’t known he’d be around, but he was there with a friendly smile on his face.

“Keep him in check this summer,” he said with a glance towards Sidney.

“I will.”

“And make sure he has a little fun before all hell breaks loose.”

“I have fun,” Sid countered.

“Sometimes you work too hard.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” I assured his coach.

His attention turned to Sidney and his expression grew firm. It was something more than the smile of a joyful summer goodbye. It was draped in concern.

“Let me know what’s going on this summer or I’ll worry.”

I couldn’t help but smile. I knew that before their son Bryan had been born, Dan and his wife had suffered a loss while he was still playing hockey. He was being sincere with Sidney, he really wanted to know that everything in Nova Scotia was good, that the baby was healthy and we were doing well. And I knew that Sid meant it when he assured his coach that he would keep in touch and keep the team abreast of everything happening in our little neck of the woods.

He would certainly let them know when our daughter arrived.

All in all the trip to the rink didn’t take long and we were on the road with breakfast in our laps before nine in the morning.

We drove in shifts, each of us behind the wheel for a few hours.

We stopped for lunch at a diner in State College. Sidney kept his hat pulled down over his eyes and no one approached us. No eyes lingered even when Taylor broke into a fit of giggles that could have easily drawn the eyes of anyone that heard her. The food was a bit dry and the air was musty but it was enough to get a little rest from the road.

We stopped hourly along the way, just long enough for me to stretch my legs and hit a bathroom before heading on our way. Sam didn’t seem to mind the chance to get out of the car either. But we didn’t linger.

Taylor made us pull over for ice cream as we passed a stand in Connecticut. She’d slept through our dinner stop at a truck stop a while earlier. There didn’t seem to be much else for her to do after her section of the drive in Eastern Pennsylvania.

It was late when we got into Boston and Sid pulled up to the valet. We took only what we needed inside and headed up to our rooms. Taylor retired to her room immediately and Sidney and I stayed up to share a late room service provided meal with a couple of friends.

It was odd seeing Jack and Nicole together interacting in a way that seemed harmonious. They were clearly giving it a shot. There was no talk of anything serious between them; they were just spending time together. There was no rush for either of them to settle down and they hadn’t really started on the right foot as it was. It was best that they took their time and didn’t hurry anything in the way Sidney and I had. Just because diving in with both feet had worked for us didn’t mean that our friends weren’t better off simply starting by testing the water.

“I can’t believe you’re gonna be a dad,” Jack said as he nursed a bottle of beer.

Sidney had called his friend and told him about the baby just days after Sochi while congratulating him on a bronze medal to add to his silver from twenty-ten. He used it as a jumping off point to tell one of his oldest friends some pretty impressive news.

Nicole had stayed mum on the whole thing letting Sidney do the telling.

“Me either,” Sidney admitted. “The closer it gets the more real it feels.”

“How are you going to handle having a girl?” Nicole kidded.

“Better than I will.”

Sidney chuckled, but he knew I was being sincere. He was the patient one, the one more likely to keep his cool and take things in stride. Even though he would certainly be over-protective to a fault, he would still deal with things better than I would. He was just programed that way.

I kept flashing back to the image of him lounged on our sofa with Estelle resting peacefully on his chest. He’d been at ease then, with a child that didn’t even belong to us. I had a certain longing to see him with our daughter, splayed out on the sofa without a care in the world as she dozed, eyes hidden away behind fluttering lashes.

“You going to make her play hockey?” Jack asked.

Sid shook his head. “Won’t stop her if she wants to play, but we’ll never force her.”

We’d discussed it more than once. People had a certain perception that led them to believe that Sidney had been forced to play his sport. That wasn’t the case. Sure Troy had strapped a pair of skates on his feet when he was very young, too young to decide on much for himself, but he hadn’t been forced into the game. He wanted to be a timbit. He wanted to dedicate himself to a sport. All that could be said for pressure was the fact that Troy had encouraged him not to play goalie and to get out on the ice and be a skater. That had mostly been intended to burn off some of Sidney’s excess energy and to make him a little less of a handful at home.

None of our children would be expected to follow in his footsteps.

Besides, if they took after me, sports would be more of a hazard to them than anything else.

“I can’t imagine having a kid right now,” Jack admitted.

“Good,” Nicole chided. “Otherwise I think we’d need to be having a discussion about some things.”

Sidney smiled and looked towards me before turning his attention back to Jack.

“You’re at a totally different place in your life. You aren’t ready to think about the long haul. You probably still struggle with picking which superhero boxers you want to wear on any given day.”

Nicole laughed at the quiet slight. “Every day.”

“Someday,” Sidney assured him, “it won’t be such a foreign idea. Just remember that when it does happen, the dumbest thing you could do is be a raging asshole.”

“In other words, do as he says not as he did.”

Jack and Nicole didn’t know the full extent of the struggle we’d had in the weeks following Thanksgiving. We’d given them a few details and they knew that he’d needed to apologize profusely. But it didn’t seem important to share such things. Besides, we were well past those days. The fight we’d had felt far removed from where we were. Things had changed significantly and all of the drama was well behind us. It wasn’t anything that we needed to relive.

“I’ll just say this,” Sidney added, “when the woman you love, or knocked up without intent, tells you she’s pregnant, you don’t yell or argue. You keep your mouth shut until you know that what you have to say is positive, unplanned or otherwise.”

“He speaks from experience,” I confirmed.

Jack laughed and continued to work at his beer.

He was staying in the same hotel we were just a few blocks from my old apartment. It was odd to be back in my old stomping grounds.

Jack wasn’t ready to stay at Nicole’s apartment. She shared the space with a coworker that didn’t like to give Nicole a lot of privacy. But beyond that, she was hesitant to invite anyone in too closely. She was still new to the idea of being in a relationship with anyone and it wasn’t like Jack’s situation was all that different. While she’d agreed to meet some of his family over the summer, something she’d avoided like the plague in Sochi, she too would be staying in a hotel.

They were hesitant to label themselves, to make anything too permanent.

Their lives were far from ours. There was nothing up in the air about our status and there never really had been. We were happily married and aware that the idea of marital bliss was a sham. But that didn’t make their relationship, whatever it was, less valid.

I was just glad to see that they were trying. I’d never expected it of her just as I’d never expected him to grow a pair and call her.

It was an instance in which I enjoyed being surprised.

We stopped in Maine during the next leg of the trip, Sidney had insisted that we needed to have a real meal at an actual restaurant. We were tired of diner food. It was a nice rest from all the time spent in the car, but the real rest only came when the tires hit the driveway of the house outside of Enfield.

It had already been decided that we weren’t going any further than the house on the lake. The remaining twenty-five minutes of the drive to Cole Harbour wouldn’t be happening until morning rolled around.

We were all too tired to make it any further than we absolutely had to. We didn’t make an effort to unload the car, it was enough work getting ourselves into the house without tripping over something in the dark.

Two days in the car had Sam well-rested and she ran around the house sniffing every surface trying to become familiar with the place again.

The house was clean, spotless really. It was the first time that I’d ever been truly happy to know that Sidney had people on the payroll to keep up with things when we were away. We’d discussed the possibility of hiring a housekeeper when the baby came to keep up with things in Pittsburgh, but I wanted to try to do things the way my parents had. I just wasn’t ready to commit to having someone else clean our house while we were living in it, but it hadn’t been completely ruled out.

For the time-being, the cleaning service and the landscapers only had to clean up after us when we were gone.

But for the house on the lake where we only spent our summers, it was nice to have everything maintained and ready for us when we got home. We knew that the place was clean and the cupboards were stocked. We wouldn’t have to run to the store to stock up on anything because that job was already done.

The gym was sure to be clean as well and the dock was out and ready to be used. The landscaping was well-manicured, better taken care of than we were capable of.

It all made it easy to just pull into the driveway and fall into bed.

Taylor dropped onto the couch and was asleep within minutes. Sidney pulled a blanket over top of her and I pulled her shoes off her feet, leaving her to sleep where she’d landed. If she was sore in the morning that would be the price she had to pay for not attempting to reach the guest room where the sheets were fresh and ready for her.

“I’ll take Sammy out,” Sidney whispered. “You go ahead and go to bed.”

He kissed me on the cheek and moved towards the kitchen doors.

I shook my head. “I’ll come with you. I need to stretch my legs a little bit.”

The air was still, just a soft breeze rose off the surface of the water. The moon reflected brightly off of the lake as Sam made her rounds, sniffing the bushes as she had the surfaces inside the house. I wondered how different the lake house smelled to her from the house in Pittsburgh.

We stood on the deck, my hips aching from the ride in the car. I leaned back a bit into Sidney’s touch as his wide palm traced slow circles on the small of my back.

It was hard to believe that my first trip to the house had happened just two summers before or that it had been less than a year since we’d exchanged vows just feet from where we were standing. So much had changed in the time since we’d met in that Boston coffee shop.

“It’s nice to be home,” I mused.

He was smiling, his elusive dimples showing in the silvery moonlight.

“So this is home now?”

“Home is wherever we’re together.”

Sam was deeply interested in something hiding in the bushes and Sidney called her back to us.

“Couldn’t agree more,” he murmured.

I’d been tired until we’d stepped out into the cool evening air. Everyone else that lived on the lake had likely been asleep for hours, but I wasn’t feeling sleepy anymore.

I broke away and sat down in one of the chairs. Sidney followed suit.

“I think this is the first time I’ve felt relaxed since last summer.”

“We better both enjoy it,” I said as I let my hands glide across my abdomen in random curves and lines.

The baby was wide awake and I was almost certain she had the hiccups.

He was watching me carefully as the dog settled in a heap at his feet.

“I’m looking forward to July.”

“I’m looking forward to having my body back.”

He rolled his eyes. “You look incredible.”

“I know you feel that way, but I’m tired of the trips to the bathroom that are basically emergencies and I’d like to see my toes as well. It’s been months.”

“Your toenails are a sparkly shade of blue.”

“I know. I made your sister paint them last week. Told her she had to earn her keep if she was going to stay with us after the playoffs were over.”

He laughed softly, his voice carrying in the still of the night.

“You’re lucky she didn’t sabotage them.”

“Probably.”

“When are you supposed to meet the new doctor?”

“In a couple of days. Figured we’d get settled in and start the process of transforming the guest room. I’ve already got the appointment set up. My doctor back in Pittsburgh says we’ll like her.”

“As long as she knows how to deliver a baby, that’s all I’m worried about.”

“That’s the important thing,” I replied through a yawn.

The refreshed feeling that had come over me had clearly been momentary. I could barely keep my eyes open as the feeling faded away. I was tired again and I felt like I could easily sleep for days though I knew it wouldn’t be allowed.

Besides, we had a lot to do.

Sidney rose to his feet and reached for my hand.

“Let’s go to bed,” he said softly. “We’ll worry about settling in tomorrow. For now, we both need to get some sleep.”

I couldn’t help but follow him. I was too tired to do anything else.