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Chapter Thirty Five

Gifts

Jason (living room)-

News travels fast.

Seems like everywhere I go someone's congratulating me on the baby. They're still congratulating us based on word of mouth since Brenda certainly doesn't look pregnant. She proves it time and time again walking around the house in midriff baring shirts, which has definitely made keeping this relationship platonic once more, slightly difficult. Especially falling asleep and waking up with her pressed into mine; my body knows hers, every inch…

"Are you coming with me to my doctor's appointment tomorrow?"

"Huh?" Her words snap me out of my daze, where I'd been staring at the documents in front of me looking like I was working as we sat on the couch together, Brenda rereading the What to Expect When You're Expecting book. She's already gone through a stack of about a dozen, she now knows more about fetal development than I do. Em dropped off a few text books though, figuring I'd prefer them to Brenda's hoard, which she was correct about.

In the bag there was also one of those expectant father's books. I've flipped through that already…Agree with everything she says, unless it's she looks fat and do everything she says. Brenda would kill me if I yes-ed her to do death and well the do everything she says, I think that's how we got here. Her wanting to dance…

"I never got my dance at Luke's"

"I never promised you a dance at Luke's"

"I'm your wife Jason, for better or worse that means you put up with dancing. Better for me, worse for you."

"Uh yea, 10:30 right?" I ask trying not to remember how our child came into creation.

"You don't-"

I turn, "I want to come, you know that. You want to meet at the hospital?"

She nods, "Sounds good, lunch after?"

"Brenda, I don't like you eating at Kelly's so much"

"Who said anything about Kelly's?" She asks trying to look innocent.

I just look at her.

"I swear to god it's the baby not me," she laughs.

I join in her laughter; Brenda skipped the whole morning sickness routine and went straight for the hunger, hunger and cravings. Nothing odd, just a constant desire for burgers, I have never seen someone so little consume so much on such a regular basis. "Bren, you've got to eat better."

"Mike makes me have a glass of milk with every meal," she tries to condone her habits.

I shake my head and realize I'm going to have to be like Sonny with Carly and watch her. Then again I think Jax already did that with Brenda, somehow I don't recall it going over well. "Bren," I simply shake my head, "vegetables instead of fries."

"You mean like broccoli poppers?"

I sigh, no broccoli with cheddar and bacon fried in dough were definitely not what I'd meant, "I mean like just plain broccoli."

Her face falls, albeit it falls trying to make her case, I see the laughter peaking out, she gets a kick out of these things. "Broccoli with cheese?" She offers with a smile.

I can't help, but laugh, "You're gonna weigh two hundred pounds by the time this baby gets here."

She smiles and I can see the few pounds she's already put on in her cheeks. She's still so far away from that girl in the picture up on our mantle, but I kind of like that step closer a few extra pounds has brought her. Sometimes it feels as if we're almost those people. Carefree, young, friends without having to worry about anything else, the future is ours.

"Good thing I don't have anything to look good for, not to mention padded restraints are adjustable."

It's like someone sucker punched me in the gut as she makes the point she's made several times over the past year. I hate that joke. I hate any reference to what's going to happen in the future. There are days when I can't even bear to think about the baby being born because I'll know we'll be that much closer to losing her mother.

"Speaking of food, registration for that cooking class is the day after tomorrow, still wanna do it?"

"Did I eat dinner alone tonight?" Our chicken marsala was a dry alcoholic mess. Brenda within a few bites had actually asked if she should even be eating it, it was a joke though since we both knew she knew everything about the do's and don'ts, she could have drank the entire amount of sauce and not effected the baby.

"So that's a yes."

I nod, "So you want to open that package we got from AJ and Courtney?"

"Dumb question," she says already standing.

I'd put off opening the package addressed to me, despite Brenda's pleading eyes when I came in from work and she hadn't asked again after dinner, shockingly enough not pushing. Might as well open it though after all what else could happen that hadn't already happened in the past few months.

Brenda's already in the kitchen standing next to the package with a steak knife waiting for me to cut through the tape. Why it's in the kitchen exactly I don't know, things just tend to gravitate there.

I cut through the first box only to be confronted with another, which just annoys me, "It was already in a box."

Brenda laughs and tosses through the peanuts to further reveal the rest of the baby themed package complete with yellow bow and ribbon and takes it out of the box. "This part's probably Courtney," Brenda smiles as she flicks the yellow ribbon and looks at the package longing, wistfully.

"You sure you want to open it?" I ask.

"Huh?" her attention turns away from the package.

I focus my eyes down the item in question.

"Oh yea," she nods, "it's just you know this is the baby's first gift." Tears well up in her eyes and a hand drops down to her stomach.

Funny I though I'd done that with the animal mobile I'd purchased almost the day after Brenda told me.

"I mean we've bought the baby things, but no one else and its gift wrapped. It's their first real present." She looks over at me looking at her and laughs, "It's a girl thing. I'm really not insane yet, I swear."

"That's a matter of opinion. So you gonna open it or what?"

She snaps out of her sappy moment, "You should," she pushes the other box out of the way and slides the gift over to me, "your brother."

My brother, still not entirely okay with that, "It's a gift for the baby, you're carrying the baby."

I see something twinkle behind her eyes as she debates my logic, "I'm gonna open enough gifts at the baby shower. He's your brother."

She's stuck on the brother thing today. I just shrug my shoulders and slip my finger into the ribbon to slide I off.

"Aah," she yells, hitting me.

"What? You told me to open it."

"After I get the camera Jason," she says with a shake of her head so offended and shocked that I didn't know that, "you only get one first gift."

"You ready?" I ask five minutes later after Brenda has torn through the house trying to remember where she left the digital camera.

"Ummm…" she says with a final look over the buttons, dial and screen confidant that she has everything in its proper place, "yea open away."

I freeze two clicks of the camera in, the ribbon off, the paper partially torn with only a corner exposed.

"What is it?" she asks with a pout.

I shake my head, "Uh it's a train set," I raise it up so she can see exposed corner too. Another click.

She smiles, "The Q's always have the train set up at Christmas, you and…well…"

I just nod, don't make her bother trying to figure out if she should be saying you or he, "I know."

"That's a sweet gift," she says with a smile.

"Yea," I nod wondering why exactly I'm suddenly having so much trouble swallowing.

-o-o-o-

Later that night (Jason's office):

I finally found it, the passage I'd ready months ago that caused the lump in my throat today.

There's something about setting up the train that makes Christmas real, makes me feel like just for an hour I'm part of a normal family. AJ had been on his way out of the house when I caught him today, he stopped and smiled at the thought of the train, skipped out on his plans.

I can't even remember how many Christmases we actually spent at this house as kids, no more than a handful. But there's something about that train…It just seems to block everything else out. All of the fighting, the pain, the hurt, the manipulations, the lies…We're just a normal family when it's just our heads underneath the tree.

I slam the book shut, just spent twenty minutes looking for that passage and now I can't finish reading it. It goes for love of his brother and wishing to be a normal family. Wondering if one day he'd ever have a 'normal family,' wondering if their kids would one day be setting up that train set. He's me. I'm him. His future, my present. He'd be happy hearing the basics.

His brother, sober and happily married living far away from their poisonous family.

Him happily married to Brenda, a mostly stable Brenda, expecting a baby.

He wished for miracles, wished for a normal family. No matter how hard he tried though, how hard anyone tried they couldn't do it.

They were all getting second chances to try it again on their own. Just a matter of not screwing it up, not doing to their kids what their parents had done to them.

-o-o-o-

Brenda's already asleep as I make my way into our room and pause to see her bathed in the moonlight filtering in through the gauzy drapes. She likes waking up to the sunlight here and I'm not one to complain, it's nice to be able to clearly see her as she sleeps.

She's curled up clutching the comforter up to her, a bare arm exposed, her shoulder covered by one of my shirts she's confiscated as her own. I've learned in the months I've lived with Brenda she can sleep through anything. She doesn't move as I cross the room and enter the bathroom, she doesn't stir as I slip into bed with her, but I know at some point and time she'll curl into me as we sleep.

I simply close my eyes and wait, knowing soon the family he'd/I'd dreamed of would be in our arms soon.