Title: A Dream Life
Author: Andrea (CarbyLove@aol.com)
Rating: PG-13 … at least for now
Summary: Can I get back to you on that? The life and times of Carby, I guess. What exactly that will be remains to be seen. Probably your general fluffy fuzz, with a good dose of drama thrown in now and then to mix it up.
Author's Note: So … yeah, I'm sure exactly how far I'll end up going with this fic, but it has the potential to be a long one. I've got lots of ideas, it's just a case of implementing them. Which is generally easier said than done. But since I've not yet finished the next chapter of "This Thing About Birthdays," consider this a consolation prize. Maybe it'll keep some people happy until I can finish chapter 6. Maybe not. Oh well, too bad.
Disclaimer: Same old, same old.
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A Dream Life
Chapter 1: Homecoming
The cab rumbles over familiar streets, and I find myself almost giddy with the prospect of being home. It's only been two weeks since the last time I saw her, but it feels like a lifetime. I remember when I first broached the subject of going on another medical missionary undertaking. She hadn't exactly taken to the idea. After all, it would be the first time we'd been apart since we'd gotten married.
"Well if being apart is what's bothering you, why don't you come with me?" I'd asked.
"To Guatemala?"
"Sure, why not?"
"Why would I want to do that? What the hell is in Guatemala?"
"Sick people, Abby. People too poor to see a doctor. Mothers and children, old people, newborn babies … and all of them need the kind of help that we could give them."
She'd regarded me carefully at that point, not saying yes, but certainly not saying no. It had taken more than a little prodding, along with some careful reminders about how it was time to get on with things, but eventually I convinced her that maybe this was just the type of drama that she did need in her life. Maybe seeing the struggles of the indigent and illiterate of a third-world country would do her some good -- put her own problems in perspective. Which is what she said to me when she finally agreed to come along.
And so we'd set out on this adventure together. We'd planned and packed carefully. We'd gotten books and tapes of Berlitz Spanish and quizzed each other incessantly, trying to at least gain a working knowledge of Spanish before our trip. We'd swiped supplies from the closets of County together, sneaking them out under our coats and packing them in a huge suitcase. We'd laid awake at night, side by side, wondering aloud what we would find when we got there, what this adventure held in store for us. And more and more we got excited at the prospect of not only taking this journey, but of taking it together. I was more than a little enchanted with the romantic aspect of it all. A missionary doctor and his loyal wife, the nurse, bringing medical care to those who need it most. Abby and John Carter saving the world. Or something like that anyway. I could just see us working side by side to miraculously cure patients of dreaded diseases. She'd be my right-hand 'man' and it would be great working with her by my side and anticipating my needs without a word uttered between us.
What I hadn't counted on was what happened once we got there. As soon as it was discovered that Abby was not only a trauma nurse, but an experienced OB nurse as well, she was quickly catapulted to practically a God-like status. Seems the dozen or so villages that we were going to be responsible for were experiencing something of a baby boom, and the women were desperately in need of medical care during childbirth. Being an ER doc, I've delivered my share of babies and could certainly contribute my experience, but there was once hitch. In these villages made up of the native people where things have remained in large part staunchly traditional, childbirth is women's business. While a male medicine man from within the village might attend a birth, the other men of the village, and white, foreign, male doctors aren't exactly welcomed.
But Abby with her OB background and med school training was the perfect pseudo-midwife candidate. And she more than lived up to the role. She gloried in it. Within a half an hour of reporting into the program's headquarters, Abby was whisked away to attend to a birth in a nearby village where she safely saw a big, strapping, healthy baby boy into the world. He was the first, but it certainly wouldn't be the last. In the two weeks she was there, she delivered a total of 23 babies including two sets of twins, and didn't lose a single one. On the occasions when I got to see her in action, she was amazing. Confident and self-assured and very much in charge. Yet she always managed to provide comfort and reassurance to the scared and exhausted mothers. Of course they all loved her.
And she loved it. She was happy. She'd fall asleep at night with a look of exhausted exhilaration on her face and wake up in the morning, or the middle of the night as was sometimes required, smiling and eager to get to work. I've never been so proud of her. And she was proud of herself too. She knew she was making a difference in the lives of these people. I would kid her about her new career, suggesting we chuck it all and quit our jobs in Chicago in favor of staying in the hills of Guatemala where Abby would be a midwife extraordinaire, and I would continue to minister to the more mundane everyday needs like sore throats, infections, and lacerations. We would laugh during our breaks about the complete and utter role reversal. At home it's the doctors who are revered while the nurses are left to handle the necessary, but completely unglamorous details. Here Abby was the one on the pedestal. Come to think of it, I think she was probably laughing a lot more than I was. But I was thrilled to see her so happy, so removed from her usual problems. I hated to see those two weeks come to an end.
But of course they did, and we somewhat reluctantly prepared for our trip home. And then we got a call asking us to stay for another two weeks, since our replacements wouldn't be arriving after all. It didn't require much discussion, we both knew we would stay. Or so we thought. But it seems that while there were numerous people who could fill my shoes during our absence, Abby was irreplaceable. A nursing shortage meant they'd barely been able to find people to cover the two weeks she'd already been gone, there was no hope of finding any suckers willing to pull a bunch of doubles so Abby could stay in Central America and play baby doctor for a couple more weeks. Nope, the nurse manager was expected at 7am Monday morning and that was that. I told to Abby to just quit, she didn't need the job. She could go start a career in midwifery whenever we felt like going home. Apparently no one was too concerned about my return. I guess the nurses really do run the place.
But as much as I wanted her to stay, and as much as she may have wanted that herself, she felt it was her responsibility to get back to work. I thought we would both go, but she urged me to stay. Having seen the need, she knew this place really shouldn't be without any medical staff for the two weeks until the next team arrived. So she left me to hold down the fort. She would go keep the home fires burning, and I would single-handedly take care of business here. She promised to talk to some of her old colleagues in OB and tell them what a wonderful experience this was in an attempt to drum up more staff for the program. Besides, we were running low on supplies and now that we knew what was most needed, she promised to steal what she could and ship it out right away.
We said our good-byes in a small Guatemalan airport early the next day.
"I'm gonna miss you." I said as I held her tight and kissed the top of her head.
"Only because you'll have to do all my work."
"Only because I feel like I can't breathe without you."
"You are sooo dramatic sometimes." She sneered at my mushiness, making me laugh.
"I am going to miss you, though. More than you know."
"I'm gonna miss this whole place … but you know what I'm going to miss the most?"
"Me?" I asked humbly.
"The coffee." she said lightly as she pulled from my embrace and headed for the small twin engine that would take her on the first leg of her solo journey home. She'd turned and looked over her shoulder at me, smiling and waving one last time, before climbing up the stairs. But just moments after she disappeared inside the plane, she came back to the door. I looked up expectantly with an idea of what was coming.
"I love you!" she shouted.
"I love you, too!" I yelled as loud as I could to be sure she heard me over the racket of the plane. She moved away then, but a minute later her face appeared in one of the windows. And then her hand appeared as well, fingers arranged in the sign language symbol for the words we'd just yelled across the tarmac. I signed "I love you" right back to her, until the plane taxied off down the run away. I watched until lifted off into the sky and disappeared behind the clouds.
I knew then I was facing two of the longest weeks of my life.
But with so much work to do and so little manpower, those two weeks had flown by at remarkable speed. Punctuated with almost daily calls home to Abby, the days had come and gone, and before I knew it, I found myself in the same place Abby had been two weeks earlier. And now here I was, the cab pulling up outside our apartment. I'm at least an hour late getting home and I hope Abby is still awake. I search the window for signs of life and am glad to see the faint, soft glow of light from the living room windows. Maybe she is waiting up.
I open the door and am immediately greeted with all the familiar scents that mean one thing to me: home. I put my bags down quietly, just inside the door and shrug out of my jacket, hanging it up with care. It's only then that I glance up and see her. Leaning against the doorway into the bedroom, she's watching me with a quiet smile on her face. Standing there wearing one of my pajama tops, and presumably, hopefully, nothing else. The hem of the blue material hits her mid-thigh, making her look long-legged as she leans against the door, rolling up the sleeves of the partially unbuttoned shirt. Her damp hair, somewhat wavy and unruly, cascades around her shoulders. She's obviously just gotten out of the shower, and the scent of soap and shampoo and something essentially Abby threatens to overwhelm me. I don't think I realized just how much I missed her until this moment.
"Welcome home." Her voice is quiet, and the smile she gives me is shy. I grin back at her and slowly start across the room and she pushes herself off the doorway and heads in my direction. There's a part of me that wants nothing more than to grab her and rip her -- my -- shirt off and throw her on the bed. But another part of me says that maybe it would be good to act like civilized adults for once. Besides a little anticipation never hurt anyone.
We meet in the middle of the room, and for a moment we just gaze into each other's eyes, smiling at one another, happy to be in same room, on the same continent once again. Then she slips her arms around my neck, reaching up on tip-toe to kiss me sweetly before laying her head against my shoulder.
"I missed you. I'm glad you're home."
"I'm glad to be home." I hold her tight and take in the scent of her. "You smell good."
At this she laughs. "Are you sure that's not our burned dinner you are smelling?"
"You cooked?"
"I can cook, you know." She pulls back enough to glare at me … but just a little bit.
"I know. It's just that you usually don't."
"Well, it was a special occasion, so I thought I'd make you a home cooked meal, but …"
"Then you burned it?" I ask in a sympathetic tone.
"Nooo," she says with expiration and a light swat to my shoulder. "Then you got home almost two hours late."
"Hey, that's not my fault. I wasn't the one flying plane."
She pulls out of my embrace and waves at me dismissively. "Whatever." I can tell she's not really mad because she tosses a smile over her shoulder at me as she heads into the kitchen. "You look tired. Why don't you go take a shower and I'll see if I can salvage part of dinner." It sounds more like a directive than a suggestion, so I gather up my bags full of dirty clothes and head into the bathroom while Abby putters around the kitchen, humming quietly to herself. Yeah, it feels to good be home.
An hour or so later, with dinner done and the dishes washed, we've moved over to the couch and snuggled up together. Most of our meal was spent with me catching Abby up on what she missed in Central America. She listened attentively and certainly seemed happy enough, but I get the definite feeling that something is going on. She seems content, but she's awfully quiet and any attempts on my part to draw her out have gone nowhere. I'm not sure that there's anything wrong, but she certainly does seem to have something on her mind. Time to go fishing.
She's curled up next to me, nestled between my arm and my chest, her bent knees resting on my leg. I jiggle my leg against hers to get her attention and she looks up at me.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Abby."
"Nothing's wrong. What could be wrong? You're home and everything's perfect."
Uh-huh. Okay. Sure. But then why does she seem so distant, so wrapped up in her own thoughts. Something must be weighing on her. But I let it slide for the moment, and we sit in a companionable silence, just reconnecting after our time apart. But her silence bugs me. It's usually a sign of distress, of withdrawal. So I try again.
"How's work been?"
She shrugs against me. "Oh, you know. Same old shit, different day."
"So things have been bad?" Maybe something happened at work today that upset her.
"No worse than usual." This really isn't helping.
"So how was your day, today?"
"Fine." Great thanks, that tells me a lot. I can't help it; I heave a big sigh.
"What?" Her tone is quarrelsome, she recognized that sigh.
"Why can't you just talk to me?" She slips out of my embrace and scoots to the other end of the couch, regarding me with a look of annoyance.
"Why do you have to push me to talk?" She shoots right back at me. Then her expression and her voice soften a bit. "You just got home. Why can't we just enjoy being together again?"
"Because you're acting weird."
"I am not."
"You are too." Yeah, this a real mature conversation we're having now.
"How am I acting weird?"
"Gee, I don't know Abby. You've barely said five words all night. I talked all through dinner and then when I try to ask you about what's been going on here, I get one word answers. Now I know there's something you're not telling me." I can feel my voice rising as my frustration level rises. But his is not the Abby that left me two weeks ago. She was so happy then and now she seems stressed out by something. I know something's bothering her, something must have happened in the past two weeks. "I want to know what happened while I was gone, and I want to know now!"
She looks taken aback, and I realize I probably said that a lot more forcefully than I meant to. I cup my hands together, brining them up to rub my face. I trail my hands down along my cheeks and let out another sigh. This one contrite. She's right, I push. But I just can't stand the thought of not knowing what's obviously bothering her as she sits at the end of the couch, biting her lip and looking at me solemnly.
"Abby," I start as I reach out my hand to her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell. I just … I just wish you'd tell me what's on your mind." She puts her hand in mine and then crawls across the couch and into my lap. She looks into my eyes, and I see in hers … fear and doubt.
"I … I don't know how to say it." Her voice holds that same uncertainty as I saw in her eyes.
"Just say it. You can tell me anything. You know that." She shakes her head slightly; I swear I catch a glimmer of tears in her eyes.
"I .. I just … " She lays her head down on my shoulder and falls silent once again.
"Abby?" She's got me worried now. At first I thought maybe this had something to do with work. Maybe she felt like she found a new calling during her brief stint as a de facto midwife and she was contemplating making a change -- going back to OB or med school. But I don't understand why she'd be so hesitant to talk to me about that.
"I want …"
"What? Abby, what do you want?" Maybe she does want to change careers. Maybe she just wants to quit her job. Maybe she wants to leave me. That must be it. She wants a divorce. Or maybe …
"I want a baby."