I is for Ice Cream

Waiting on Zoey (Abbey / Jed)

He found her on the porch, a tub of ice cream in one hand, and the spoon she was using to repeatedly dig into it in the other. At first he laughed, made a crack about the irony of their kids not being allowed to eat sugar when their mother was apparently allowed to eat it by the bucket load, but as he moved nearer, and saw the tears in her eyes, he realised his quip was ill timed.

"Abbey." he sat down beside her, concerned by the tear tracks in her mascara, and the fact that ice cream was all but gone. This was clearly a party of wallowing self pity that has been going on for some time. "What's wrong? What's happened?"

She didn't even look at him, instead crying harder, "I'm what's wrong. And nothing's happened, nothing at all. So that's nothing new." The frustration in her voice, the abject desperation, and anger that she was directing so vehemently at herself made it pretty clear what was wrong. He reached out, wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

"Not this month eh?"

She let the now empty ice cream container fall to the floor, the spoon clattering down alongside it as she leant into his arms, her tears now uncontrollable.

"Not this month. Not any month. What if I can't get pregnant Jed? What if we can't have another baby."

He knew what the logical answer was. The logical answer was that they already had two beautiful daughters so if she didn't get pregnant a third time, well, they were already blessed twice over and they should accept that. But he also knew Abbey. And he knew the logical answer wasn't what she wanted to hear. He planted a kiss in her hair,

"You can get pregnant, we know you can. And you will."

"We've been trying for five years." She sounded like her heart was breaking, and that in turn broke his heart. All the same, he forced a smile, wanting to reassure her,

"And I enjoy the 'trying', so we'll try for five years more." he said, before quickly adding an addendum, not wanting to give her the chance to play the medical doctor and protest that her body might not give them five more years to try, "But I bet we won't need to. I bet next month will be our month, and then in a few years from now you'll have yet another poor child to deprive of candy."

Finally she smiled, getting to her feet, "Thanks Jed." she held her hand out to him, "I think there's another quart of ice cream in the freezer, you want to split it with me before the girls get home?"

He nodded, "Sure. Sounds good." And it did. Truth be known, he was as disappointed about the baby as she was.