reads that letter I wrote her months ago.
38
Dear Camryn,
I know you’re scared. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little scared, too, but I have to believe that this time around everything will be fine. And it will be.
We’ve been through so much together. More than most people in such a short time. But no matter what, the one thing that has never changed is that we’re still together. Death couldn’t take me away from you. Weakness couldn’t make me look at you in a bad light. Drugs and the shit that comes with them couldn’t take
Maybe all of this has been a test. Yeah, I think about that a lot and I’ve convinced myself of it. A lot of people take Fate for granted. Some have everything they’ve ever wanted or needed right at their fingertips, but they abuse it. Others walk right past their only opportunity because they never open their eyes long enough to see that it’s there. But you and I, even before we met, took all the risks, made our own decisions without listening to everybody around us telling us, in so many ways, that what we’re doing is wrong. Hell no, we did it
And I know we’ve done just that.
Camryn, I want you to read this letter to yourself once a week. It doesn’t matter what day or what time, just read it. Every time you open it, I want you to see that another week has passed and you’re still pregnant. That I’m still in good health. That we’re still together. I want you to think about the three of us, you, me and our son or daughter, traveling Europe and South America. Just picture it. Because we’re
You’re everything to me, and I want you to stay strong and not let your fear of the past taint the path to our future. Everything will work out this time, Camryn, everything will, I swear to you.
Just trust me.
Until next week…
Love,
Andrew
I look up from the letter in my hand, letting it rest on the bed at my side, clasped in my fingertips. Lily is sound asleep next to me in the hospital bassinet. It took some convincing by Andrew before I finally agreed to lay her in it instead of just holding her throughout the night. But I did wake up often to check if she was still breathing. I check again now. I can’t help it; I’ll probably do that for months.
Finally, I fold Andrew’s letter again into the same worn creases. He probably thinks that I’ll stop reading it now that Lily has been born. But I won’t. I never stopped reading the first letter he ever wrote me, but he doesn’t know that. Some things I keep to myself.
“Ready to put those destinations into that hat?” Andrew asks.
I wonder how long he’s been awake. I look over at him and smile. “Let’s wait a few months.”
He nods and rises from the chair.
“How did you sleep like that?” I ask. “You should’ve gotten on the couch.” I glance at the small couch next to the window.
Andrew stretches his arms out at his sides and then pops his back and his neck. He doesn’t answer.
“I guess we can finally get all of that stuff from the first baby shower at my mom’s and bring it to the house,” I say.
Andrew smiles mischievously.
“Wait… you already did it, didn’t you?”
He stands up and stretches some more. “Technically, not me. Yesterday, Natalie, Blake, and your mom took everything over there after we left for the hospital and they’ve already set it all up.”
I never wanted to do that during the pregnancy. It was just another way of worrying about getting ahead of myself and then miscarry all over again. Same reason I refused to know the sex of the baby before she was born. I didn’t want to focus or depend on any of that stuff like I did before. I thought it might jinx it. Andrew didn’t really agree with it, but he never said anything or tried to convince me otherwise.
“And, as you can probably imagine,” he goes on, “since Michelle and my mom are in town, there’s a lot more than just the baby shower gifts waiting for you when you get home.”
The next day, when Andrew opens the front door of our house and I walk in with Lily in my arms, I see right away that he was right about that, too. The house is immaculate. I never could’ve cleaned it like this myself. As Andrew walks me through the living room toward the hallway, I glimpse one baby monitor on the kitchen bar as I walk by, one on the living room coffee table, one on the counter in the bathroom, and, finally, one in Lily’s room when I step inside.
I gasp with wide eyes. “Oh wow, Andrew, look what they did!”
Lily stirs in my arms, probably from the excitement in my voice, but quickly she becomes still again.
The baby bed is set against one wall with a cute Winnie the Pooh musical mobile hovering over the top. A matching chest of drawers and changing table sits against the wall by the window. Andrew opens the drawers to reveal that each one is full of clothes and receiving blankets and burp cloths and little socks and other various things. He opens the closet and I see dozens of little dresses and outfits. So many packages of diapers are stacked against the wall near the changing table that I feel like we’ll never have to buy diapers ourselves. Of course, I know that’s just wishful thinking.
Andrew takes me back out into the hall and opens the closet next to the bathroom to show me the brand- new walker and baby swing and some strange play-gym thing, all still in the boxes they came in.
“I’ll have to put them together when she’s ready for them,” he says. “But that’ll be a little while.”
“Think you can manage that all by yourself?” I joke.
He raises his chin and says, “Without even reading the directions.”
I just laugh inside.
Then he takes me into our room. There’s a white bassinet next to the bed on my side.
“I bought that for you,” he says, smiling proudly. “I know you won’t be ready to put her in the room by herself for a long time, so I figured you’d need it.”
He’s blushing. I step right up to him and kiss the side of his mouth. “You were right,” I say. “Thank you.”
Lily starts to stir again, and this time she wakes up. Andrew takes her from me. “I’ll change her,” he says.
I pass her over and lie down across our bed and watch him. He lays her down on our bed, too, and unwraps her from the receiving blankets. The cutest yet loudest cries come from her tiny lungs. Her little arms and legs move stiffly back and forth. Her whole head turns beet red. But Andrew doesn’t flinch. And when he opens her diaper he doesn’t gross out at the surprise she left him. I admit I’m surprised at how easily he’s already taken to being a daddy.
