The Edge of Always(83)

“Yeah. I do.”

She starts to cry harder and gently presses baby Lily against her breasts, rocking her. Then she looks up at me and nods several times. “Lily,” she whispers quietly and kisses the top of her head.

The next morning, I stir awake in the chair beside Camryn’s bed where I fell asleep the night before. I hear Camryn’s voice speaking quietly in the room, and like every other time before, I pretend to be asleep while she reads that letter I wrote her months ago.





Camryn





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 you away from me, or turn you against me. I think it’s more than safe to say that we’re indestructible.


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 our way, no matter how reckless, or crazy or unconventional. It’s like the more we pushed and the more we fought, the harder the obstacles. Because we had to prove we were the real deal.


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 going to do it. I promise you that.


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!”