Always and Forever (7 page)

“All her life, she’s had this dream of being a mom, having children, so right now she can’t stop thinking about what she’s lost,” said Kelly.

“I know. We always talked about having kids, but . . .”

“Matt, when you’re pregnant, you feel so protective of the little life inside of you. Every step, everything you do, you’re more aware. Add to that the fact you’d tried for so long. She lost a lot terminating that pregnancy—it must have been a hundred times worse than a natural miscarriage. At least then there’s nothing you can do to stop it happening, but this was a choice you both made.”

He heard what she was saying, and it wasn’t like it hadn’t hurt like hell losing the baby, but from the day he’d been told that his wife could be saved, that was all he’d wanted to focus on.

“Maybe I’ve been a jerk, but I just wanted to save her. I love her.”

“I know you do, but just give her time. She’s hurting.”

“So do nothing?” he asked.

“Think of some things you can do together. Make time for her. There’s nothing else I can suggest but just giving yourself to her when she needs you.”

“Do you know she’s back working?” Matt asked, leaning back in the seat now. “I didn’t even realize she’d been back there so often when I was at work.”

“The shop is good for her. We both know that. It’s like her therapy.”

Matt ground his teeth. Therapy for her, but it didn’t help him figure out what to do.

“Maybe you should call into the shop. It might be easier for her hanging out with you there instead of at home with all the baby reminders,” Kelly said.

“Thanks for all the advice,” Matt said.

“You want my real advice?” Kelly said with a laugh. “Don’t be an asshole again and stay out all night drinking. You want my sister to recover? Then be there when she needs you. And that means stepping up and pulling your own shit together.”

Matt grinned. “Thank god for a sister-in-law to pull me up by my boot straps, huh? Maybe I should call Penny too. Then she can give me a telling off as well.”

Kelly laughed. “You better believe it. We expect a lot from our unofficial brother—you know that.”

He said goodbye and started up his vehicle. Kelly was right: he needed to sort his shit out and try to understand what Lisa was going through. He’d been so hung up on saving her, on not losing her to cancer, but in reality he felt like he was starting to lose her anyway.

Matt had been in to check on his construction sites, but he decided to head into town and see Lisa before he got completely covered in dirt for the day. He grinned as he jumped into his truck. This way he could take her out for a nice lunch, surprise her.

“Let’s go see our girl, huh?” he said to Blue, opening the door and letting the dog jump in first to ride shotgun.

Blue stuck his head out the window as Matt started the engine. It only took a short time to get there, and when Matt pulled up on the other side of the road, he saw Lisa in the window, head tipped back, laughing at something as she dressed a mannequin. Matt sat watching her, slung his arm around Blue to give him a pat. It was nice to see Lisa happy, to see her smiling, joking around and in her happy place. He’d been racking his brain trying to figure out what he could buy her as a nice gift, and it hit him then. A really nice new book to sketch in, something that wasn’t too big to carry around. Something she could get started on a new collection with, focusing on the future. Maybe he could ask Savannah to look for something for him. She’d definitely know what Lisa would like.

“Come on bud, let’s go.”

Blue jumped out with him and followed alongside him as they crossed the road. Lisa had her back turned now as she pulled a skirt onto the mannequin she was dressing, but he could hear her laughing.

“Hey, gorgeous,” he called out as he walked in.

Her laughter died as she turned and stared at him. “Matt?”

“Thought we’d surprise you. What’re you guys laughing about?”

“Hey, Matt,” Savannah said, stepping out of the window as Blue ran toward her, tail wagging.

“Hey, Savvy,” he replied, shoving his hands in his pockets and wondering why his wife was suddenly looking so dull, when he’d seen her so happy and full of life from across the road.

“I thought we could go grab some lunch,” he said, “or else I could help you wiggle clothes onto those sexy-ass ladies there.”

Lisa gave him a tight smile. Clearly his jokes weren’t going to make her laugh.

“I’m pretty busy today. Maybe we could take a rain check?” Lisa asked, coming forward to give Blue a big hug, blonde hair falling all over the dog as she bent to cuddle him.

“Ah, yeah. Sure thing,” Matt said. “Maybe a coffee instead? I didn’t pick up a hammer even for a minute so I could stay nice and clean for you.” He gestured at his white t-shirt. He couldn’t read her expression.

“It’s a nice thought, but I really want to keep going here. I’m behind on everything,” she said stiffly.

Matt nodded, but a pang of hurt hit him. “Sure. I get it. Come on, Blue.”

He bent in to kiss her but she turned her face. It had been like that since the termination, the loss of connection, her always pulling away. He hated the distance between them but didn’t know what the hell to do about it.

The dog reluctantly followed when he turned away and Matt waved to Savannah. “See you at home,” he said to Lisa.

“Yeah, I’ll see you later.”

Maybe it was just him, but he got the feeling that the reason his wife had lost her smile had less to do with how she felt after surgery and a whole lot more to do with him.

Lisa watched Matt go, never took her eyes off him as he crossed the road with Blue and jumped into his pick-up. She raised a hand as he drove off.

She hated the way she felt around him. Why could she come to work and feel like her old self, but not be that same person around Matt? She loved her husband, but when she was with him now . . . She sighed. All she could think about was what they’d lost, what they’d never have. And Matt was a constant reminder, because the overwhelming feelings of failure were amplified whenever she was with him. She hated herself for the way she’d behaved toward him, for being so cold when he was trying so hard.

“You okay?” Savvy asked, putting her hand on Lisa’s shoulder.

“Yeah, fine,” Lisa said, pushing her thoughts away, looking at the skirt she’d dropped in the window. “Let’s get back to making these ladies look fab.”

Savvy didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t ask any more questions and Lisa wasn’t about to bring the topic up again. She’d see Matt soon; right now she had work to do, and work was exactly what she needed.

8.

TWELVE WEEKS LATER

L
isa braved a smile and stared into her champagne glass, raising it slowly to her lips to take a sip. The last thing she felt like was celebrating or drinking, but the other option was to give up and sob on her bed. She straightened her shoulders and smiled at her husband, trying hard to make an effort for his sake.

Hell, he deserved a medal for putting up with her. There was nothing she could do to pull herself out of the way she was with him, but he was trying and she needed to acknowledge that, even if it was easier to say than do. The only place she still felt like herself anymore was at work, but she couldn’t exactly hide there twenty-four-seven.

“Happy birth day, Bump,” Matt said.

Lisa blinked away a fresh flood of tears and nodded. “Happy birth day.” She ran a hand over her stomach, something she’d never stopped doing even when the roundness had long since disappeared.

She swallowed the emotion and raised her glass again. After going sugar-, dairy- and gluten-free immediately after her cancer diagnosis, she knew she needed to make the most of the delicious bubbles now that she was easing up on her diet restrictions. “We should have been making a mad dash to the hospital today.” Lisa forced herself to push the words out. They hadn’t talked about him for weeks now, but today, not acknowledging him would have only made it harder.

Matt’s smile was slow. “I bet you’d have been waddling around in bare feet, praying he would get a hurry on.”

Lisa swilled the champagne again, held the stem so tight she almost hoped the glass would shatter.
Their little boy. Their darling, sweet little baby boy.

“Do you ever wish we hadn’t found out?”

She nodded. “Yeah. All the time.”

“It made the whole thing more real,” Matt said, surprising her with his tenderness. “Thinking about what . . .”

Lisa met his gaze. “Our son would be like?” she answered for him. “Maybe just thinking of him as an
it
would have made it easier. We wouldn’t have built up such an idea of what he would have been like.”

They didn’t often talk about what they’d lost, because she always shut down whenever she thought about it. But today was the day they were supposed to have become parents. That she was supposed to have been staying strong and refusing an epidural, learning to breastfeed and refusing formula. Although after everything she’d endured now, she’d happily take the drugs and make up a bottle if it meant being a mom; all the preconceptions she’d held about motherhood were long gone. She just wanted the opportunity, wanted the chance to actually hold her own baby and decide what was best for him.

Instead, they had an empty nursery filled with even emptier cans of paint. Soft blue walls perfectly finished, a white sleigh crib pushed to one side, the big comfy armchair she’d found at a market never to be used for sitting with a baby. A delicate mobile forlorn on the floor where she’d been trying to assemble it. And still she couldn’t bear to go in there and take it all away.

“What are we going to do?” Lisa asked, not wanting to pretend any longer that everything was going to be okay when it wasn’t. Nothing about their life was going to plan; nothing felt right.

Matt leaned over and gave her that big, gorgeous smile that had made her fall for him over a decade earlier as a crazy-in-love sixteen-year-old. His fingers over her palm had always soothed her, made her so thankful to have her big, burly builder husband at her side. He’d always been so tough and strong, but what scared her the most now was that none of that physical strength had been able to save her when she’d most needed saving.

“We’re going to think up a whole lot of fun things to do together, things we wouldn’t have done with a baby in tow,” he said, as if it was the most logical suggestion in the world. “And then we’re going to do them all.”

She loved his optimism, even if most of hers had completely run out and left her as a “glass half empty” kind of gal. “You’re kidding, right?”

He laughed. “Nope. I’ve been trying all this time to think of something we could do together, and this is it. We can do a whole bunch of fun things.”

She sat back, tried to forget everything else so she could just stare at her man. She wanted to go back to the way she used to feel, only nothing felt the same anymore. “Okay,” she agreed, knowing she needed to make an effort. “Or maybe we could just come up with one thing, something we could do now.”

“While we’re at it, maybe we should think of what we’re grateful for.”

“You go first,” Lisa said, not sure what to say. She was trying so hard not to be negative, to give him a chance.

“Hey, I’m just thankful you’ve still got your long hair after everything we’ve been through. It’d be a bummer to be married to the pretty beach-blonde and have you looking all bald and ugly.”

Lisa burst out laughing. She hadn’t laughed for the hell of it in a long time with him, but something about the way he was looking at her made her crack up. Only Matt could ever get away with saying something like that, and it took her back in time.

“You always did love my hair,” she mused, running her fingers through her long locks. They were well past her shoulders, and she was so fortunate to have survived cancer without losing them. “I don’t want to say something for the hell of it, but I am grateful to be alive, even if I don’t act like it sometimes.”

“I know you are,” he said, reaching for the champagne bottle and filling up both their glasses with a cheeky wink. “So fire away with your ideas. What fun thing are we going to do?”

“I’m blanking,” she confessed, not able to think of anything other than curling up to watch something on television before bed. Which was basically what she’d done every night lately.

“Come on, there must be something?” Matt asked.

“Um, I don’t know . . .” She hesitated.

Matt took her hand, squeezed it. “Come on, please. Just have fun with me. For old time’s sake.”

She felt guilty, knew how hard she’d been to live with lately. She took another sip of champagne and braved a smile. When he touched her hand, she didn’t pull away. Instead, she sucked in a breath and didn’t break the connection even though that had been her instant reaction lately. “Go on a road trip.”

Matt chuckled. “That’s actually a brilliant idea.”

Lisa raised an eyebrow. “It is?”

“Well it’s something that only a couple without kids can do, so hell yes, let’s do it!”

“You don’t have to drink this just because we’re celebrating,” Lisa said with a laugh, feeling so much more like her old self now that they were joking around and she was coming up with ideas. “Go grab a beer.”

Matt grinned and did what she’d suggested. When he returned, twisting the top on the bottle, he bent to kiss her, tilting her chin up with his thumb. “We’re going on a road trip, we’re going on a road trip,” he said in a stupid sing-song voice.

“I guess we actually could.” Lisa laughed, finding it hard to believe that she could even smile, given the way she’d been feeling, given what day it was. Maybe she just needed to take a leaf out of Matt’s book, because right now she was feeling better than she had in a long time. “One day,” she added, even as the familiar feelings of despair started to bubble up within her now that she’d acknowledged how good she felt. She forced them away, didn’t want to think about cancer or babies or . . . She swallowed and took a slow, deep breath.

“If we’re going on a road trip then we need a super-cool car,” Matt winked.

Lisa leaned back into their outdoor sofa, smiling as she cradled her champagne, no longer in danger of snapping the glass into shards. She’d been dreading the day for so long, but now it was here . . . she had a lot to be thankful for and she knew it. The cancer, the baby . . . They were all stumbling blocks, barriers in the way of what was supposed to be an amazing life. But she had Matt and her family, and she needed to start being grateful instead of resentful, before she ended up losing her husband and becoming all bitter and twisted. Her cancer hadn’t just ended her dreams—it had ended Matt’s too, and it was hard to deal with the fact that she was the obstacle standing between Matt and his ability to become a dad.

“Can we end the trip in Mexico?” she asked, dreaming of white sand and blue water.

“Mexico?” Matt asked, eyebrow arched. “You’re serious?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I am.”

Matt laughed. “Hell yes. Mexico here we come!”

Lisa smiled. Driving around, heading for Mexico—it all sounded perfect. Maybe a vacation a long way from home was exactly what they both needed. A change of scenery to remind her of all the good things that were still in the world.

They sat for a while, sipping, silent. The light had almost completely disappeared, and as darkness engulfed them, the pretty little lights that Lisa had strung up across the pergola at Thanksgiving the year before, all through the wisteria, twinkled back at her.

“Matt, I don’t ever want to sell the house,” she said, not taking her eyes off their beautifully renovated bungalow. They’d bought it just after they’d been married. It had been a work in progress for years, but when they’d found out she was pregnant, Matt had spent every spare hour finishing the place. It had been transformed from a house into a home, the whitewashed walls and pretty country-style kitchen everything she’d ever dreamed of, with doors opening out to a big sun-filled patio. Their floors were stained the perfect shade of dark chocolate, gnarled old wood beneath, but made beautiful by sanding, staining and sealing. And she’d chosen every piece of furniture with their renovated home in mind, the home that was supposed to be for a family. “Even after everything, I never want to sell this place.”

“I don’t want to sell it either, Lisa. It’s our home, no matter what. Why have you been worrying about that? There’s no need.”

She was blinking away tears again when Matt’s smile stopped her from choking up, told her that she needed to stay strong. Today was not the day for tears.

“It’s just that we bought this home and fixed it up so we could have a family, and now we’re not having kids . . .”

“Sweetheart, if we want to have kids, we can have kids. You know I’m up for adoption or whatever it takes!”

She shook her head. “Don’t, Matt. Not now.”

He shrugged. “I’m not selling this place after all the work I put into it. So don’t even worry about it—it’s still our home.”

She nodded, wished she could be as optimistic as he was.

“I love you, Lisa,” he said, taking her by surprise with his words.

Lisa looked into his eyes. “I love you, too.” She smiled, trying not to be sad, wishing she felt differently. “
Promise I do
.”

Matt put down his beer and pulled her into his arms, onto his lap. “Baby, I know it. I always have.”

It was Matt with tears in his eyes now. Matt who never cried no matter what, who’d stayed so strong. The only other time she’d seen his eyes fill with tears was the day they’d found out they were expecting a son; but on the day he’d been taken from them her husband had remained unflinchingly stoic, strong for her every step of the way, even when she’d sobbed. She’d thought all this time that it was because he didn’t care as much as she did, but maybe she’d been wrong; maybe she’d just needed someone to blame.

“I’ll be sitting here admiring a tree house one day, for the kids we’re gonna fill this house with when you’re ready to talk about it,” he whispered, holding her hand.

“Matt, don’t,” she cautioned, not wanting to venture into that territory, not now. “Please just stop with the adoption talk, or anything else that involves kids.”

He went to say something, mouth open, then stopped. “You would have made one helluva mom,” Matt said, meeting her gaze, not backing down. “I don’t care what you want me to say or not: you would have and you still could.”

Lisa knew that Matt thought they had other options, but it wasn’t what she wanted, wasn’t what she’d seen in her future. But it broke her heart to think of Matt never getting that chance to be a dad, of them never getting the chance to be the parents they’d always laughed about being, so casually, like it was their right to have kids one day. Never realizing how damn hard it would be, or that the life they’d started to map out as teenagers might not go to plan.

“You still want it that bad, don’t you?” she asked sadly.

“No, what I want is for you to be happy, whatever it takes.” He leaned in to kiss her, to comfort her, but she just pushed him away. She didn’t want his touch, not now.

Matt stared into the eyes of his wife. He was trying.
He was trying so damn hard it was almost killing him
. He was trying to be in touch with his feelings, trying to say the right thing, trying to save his goddamn marriage.

“I don’t care about not being a dad if it means I have you, Lisa. I need you to know that. You’ve got nothing to feel guilty about.”

“But I do and I always will,” she said, shaking her head, her fingers clenched tightly together so that he could see the white of her knuckles. “We wanted a family—
you
wanted a family, and now . . .”