Chapter Nineteen

Tami hadn't made it to Eric's game tonight. She was too tired. When he came home, he switched on the lamp and crawled into bed next to her. "You awake?"

She rolled over and yawned. "I am now." He still had his coaching cap on. She kissed him. "How'd you do?"

"We lost by a field goal."

"I'm sorry, sugar." She took his cap off and threw it on the floor and kissed him again. "And I'm sorry I didn't make your game."

"I understand. But since you're awake now, you want to…maybe fool around?" It had been awhile. Five days to be exact. Eric would claim seven days, but Eric always exaggerated his sufferings.

"Sure," she said, even though she wasn't precisely in the mood.

The lovemaking was lazy. He insisted she be on top because he didn't "want to hurt the baby." The foreplay put her in the mood, and, toward the end, she was whimpering, Yes, Eric, please.

She drifted off to sleep in his arms afterward, though she woke when she felt him shift and get up. She rolled over and went back to sleep.

An hour later, she woke up again. He wasn't in bed. She made her way past the would-be nursery to their postage stamp of a living room where he was grading papers.

"You gave them a test on a game day?" she asked, sitting down on the couch next to him.

"Nah. These are from Tuesday. I just hadn't gotten around to all of them, with practice and all."

He was working so hard, teaching five classes, and putting at least twenty hours a week into the assistant coaching. She toyed with his hair. "I love you."

"I love you, too." He wrote a C on the top of the paper that rested on the coffee table, put a circle around the letter, and scrawled, You're capable of a B+. 30 push-ups.

She leaned in and kissed him. "What do you want to name the baby?"

"What's wrong with Eric Michael, Jr.?"

"What if it's not a boy?" she asked.

"I really don't care, as long as it's not weird."

"How about Julia?"

"That's weird."

"What's weird about it?" Tami asked. "I think it's pretty."

"Sounds old."

"Well, it was the name of my grandmother."

"She was old," Eric said. "Didn't you say she was like 100 when she died?"

"Ninety. I adored her."

Eric kissed her hand on his shoulder. "Well, if it means that much to you, I don't care."

"If Julia sounds too old fashioned to you, we could call her Julie."

"Okay by me," he agreed. "But I have a feeling it's going to be a boy."

[*]

Tami had largely escaped morning sickness, but her exhaustion was off the charts. One day, she crawled into bed at five o'clock in the evening and immediately fell asleep. She woke up seven hours later at midnight. Eric had the bedside lamp on. He was lying on his back, his head partially propped up by pillows, holding the Dr. Spock book above himself.

"I'm surprised you're reviewing a baby book instead of game tape." She hadn't touched the book since he'd bought it, because she'd been busy reading several books specifically about pregnancy. She figured she could dive into the child care stuff her last trimester.

"Well, I did that until ten. Then I tried to sleep and couldn't. Sorry if the light woke you up."

"I've been asleep since five," she said. "Did you get some dinner?"

"I finished off the lasagna from last night. It's even better the second time around."

She smiled. "Grady's old recipe."

"Listen to this: There's no solid medical evidence to support routine circumcision."

"Trust me, hon," Tami insisted, "if we have a boy, he's going to thank us for getting him circumcised. Or at least his girlfriend is."

"Says here circumcision can reduce sexual sensation for a guy."

"Boys don't really need any extra encouragement in that area, though, do they?" she asked.

He chuckled, rolled over with the book still in his hand, and kissed her. "Speaking of which..."

"We just had sex…um…" She tried to remember.

"Six days ago," he said.

"Love keeps no record of wrongs. I think John Paul read that verse at our wedding."

"It's been six days, babe. And I've got a game tomorrow. And I can't get to sleep."

"Will you give me a back rub first? With the oil?"

He smiled. "Sure."

She expected him to fall right asleep right after the sex, but she did. When she woke up again at 2 AM, he still had the lamp on, and he was sitting up this time, against the headboard, reading. "Honey, you need to go to sleep. You've got to teach a class in six hours."

"This guy is crazy!" he said. "He thinks you should put your kids on a vegetarian diet! No kid of mine is ever going to be a vegetarian."

She sat up and peered at the book.

Eric flipped through the pages. "I mean this guy is nuts! He says if a kid cries in her crib until she vomits, you should just ignore her until she falls asleep and then clean up the vomit later."

"What? Put that book away! We're not using that book."

He shut it and set it on the nightstand.

"You need to go to sleep, honey," she said.

He smiled. "You want to help with that?"

"It didn't work the first time."

"If at first you don't succeed…"

He settled for a blow job and fell asleep sixty second later.

Tami realized she hadn't eaten dinner, got up, and ate half a bag of potato chips, even though that wasn't in any of the recommended nutrition plans in any of her six pregnancy books. "There's your vegetarian diet, Dr. Spock," she muttered.