[Tuesday, August 21]

Tami awoke at 6 AM. Eric was sitting on the edge of the bed, tying his shoes. "Julie was up at 5," he said in a business-like manner. "I fed and changed her. She's in the swing in the living room, asleep. I left you coffee." He stood. "I need to get to morning practice." He usually left at 6:30. He was sure in a hurry to get out of her presence. "Good luck at your classes today," he said.

She had all 15 semester hours crammed in two days, 8:30 – 10:00, 10:30 – 12:30, 1:00 - 3:00, and 3:30 – 5:30 every Tuesday and Thursday so she could work the rest of the week. She figured she'd bring a Slim Fast bar for lunch and eat it between the second and third class. She needed to lose her pregnancy weight anyway.

"What's your day like? When will you be home?" she asked him.

"I have practice from 7:30 to 9:30. Then I'll shower. Review game tape in the office for a couple of hours. Grab lunch. I have that Sports Medicine class 12:30 to 2, and then World War II from 2:30 - 4. Then I have to meet Stumpy to run routes. I should be home at 6:30."

How many girls would hang about the stadium and admire him as he ran routes, Tami wondered, or flirt with him in class? How many perfectly manicured girls, with hair they'd had time to style, and no spit-up on their shoulders, and no pregnancy weight, and no sleep dust in their eyes? How many who would be more than happy to give him a blow job, if he only asked, without dinner, and without a rose?

"I'll have dinner ready when you get home," she said, a peace offering of sorts, but he didn't acknowledge it. He lifted his Baylor's cap off the dresser and put it on his head.

"Eric," she said when he was in the door frame. "Thank you. Thank you for feeding her this morning. And changing her. And leaving me coffee. Thank you for dinner last night, and the rose."

"You're welcome," he said and disappeared down the hallway.

The babysitter showed up at 8:10 AM, giving Tami just enough time to get to her first class. She did her best to concentrate, but it was weird, knowing Julie was with someone else, someone she didn't know terribly well. Of course she'd talked to the woman in church, and she'd double checked her references, but still….Tami was used to feeding Julie and putting her to sleep and counting her fingers and toes, over and over. Not taking boring notes.

Tami looked around at all these other college kids. They were her age, every one of them, but they weren't thinking about the babies they'd left behind. They were thinking about Friday's party and how drunk they could get without passing out and who they were going to "hook up" with. (Tami still hadn't figured out what that new term meant. People had started using it recently. It seemed to cover everything from kissing to sex.)

She pushed through that class, went to the next one, ate a Slim Fast bar, and then went to the third one, which was a Family Therapy class.

"Why do babies typically look more like their fathers than their mothers?" the professor asked.

Julie did look a lot like Eric, Tami thought. Her eye color hadn't settled yet, but Tami was pretty sure they weren't going to be blue like hers. And old baby photos of Eric looked very much like the still mostly bald Julie.

Someone raised a hand. "Genetics?" he guessed.

"Well, this is a psychology course," the professor said. "You think I might be looking for something a little different?"

Someone else raised a hand. "So he won't eat his young?"

The class laughed.

"Close," the professor said. "So he knows the baby is his, and he's less likely to abandon the child."

"I don't look anything like my father," one student said. "I look more like the mailman."

The rest of the students laughed, but not Tami.

She missed her baby.

[*]

Tami paid off the babysitter and then went straight to Julie when she got home. She held her baby and counted all of her fingers and toes. Ten of each, as usual. She looked into her baby's eyes, and speculated what color they would finally be. She tickled Julie's tummy, and sang to her. After a few minutes, she put Julie on her back under the play gym and started dinner.

When Eric got home, Tami already had the meal on the table. "I made your favorite," she said. "Lasagna." She'd bought the groceries in bulk on Sunday, made four lasagnas, and frozen three. The fourth she'd left in the fridge, planning to have it yesterday, but he'd brought home the Chinese.

He glanced at the food on the table, said nothing about it, and went straight to Julie, lying down on his side before the play gym.

Tami felt a pang of fear. How hurt was he, and how were they going to bridge this gap between them? He wasn't being mean or angry, but he was being distant. Somehow, that was worse. She'd rather he yell at her, the way she'd yelled at him last night. Yelled at him for wanting to make love with her.

He pulled one of the toys down, a little monkey, with an arm that stretched as it was pulled, and he bopped Julie's nose with it. "Monkey noodle," he said, "with noodle arms."

He put it in Julie's hands, and she curled her fingers around it, but she couldn't hold onto it. It flew back up. Julie gurgled.

"She smiled!" Eric exclaimed. "I think that was her first real smile. The others were probably just gas, but that one was definitely real."

Tami's heart swelled to see his excitement. Watching him as a father made her love him more. She sat down on the floor near him. "You're a good father," she said. "I always imagined you would be."

"Even if I'm never around to help?"

"You do help. I'm sorry I said that. We've both been really stressed out. Can we call a truce?"

Eric hovered his finger over Julie's little hand. She grasped it as best she could. Eric smiled.

"Eric? Can we?"

"Yeah," he half whispered. "Of course." He turned his head toward Tami and searched her eyes. "You do know I love you, don't you? That you and this baby…y'all are my world."

"I know. But I also feel like you and I have been moving in different worlds lately."

He looked back at Julie. "Yeah. So do I."

"Come eat with me."

As they ate, she asked him to tell her about his day, and she listened and asked questions and tried to show more interest than she usually did in the daily workings of his training. After dinner, he put Julie down for her first round of sleep while she did the dishes. When she finished, she came and stood in the doorway and watched him sing their baby to sleep in her crib. He was a little off key, but she couldn't help but find him adorable.

She took his hand when he reached the doorway and led him to their bedroom, where she began to unbutton his shirt. She caressed the sinews of his chest. He closed his eyes while she kissed each spot her fingers had touched. "What do you want?" she asked him.

He opened his eyes. "I want you to sit between my legs and lean back against me while I play with your breasts." The breasts that had for weeks belonged only to the baby.

Tami took off her shirt and bra and they walked over to the bed. He leaned back against the wall (the futon didn't have a headboard), his legs spread open, and when she eased between them and leaned back against his chest, he began to fondle her slowly and gently, squeezing and circling and pinching lightly. He kissed her neck and whispered in her ear, "I missed this. Did you miss it at all?"

She hadn't, because she'd forgotten what it felt like. She'd forgotten how badly it could make her tingle and ache, how her breasts could be more than tools. "I love your touch," she told him as she stretched her arms behind herself and hooked her hands behind his neck, giving him a better view and freer access. "I love your hands on my tits, Eric." She didn't usually use that word, but she wanted him to know she was thinking in purely sexual terms tonight.

His breath grew deeper in her ear. "Yeah? You like it when I play with your tits, babe?"

"Yes. I want your hands on them. I want your hands all over my body."

He let one hand fall from her breasts to unsnap and unzip her shorts.

"Yes, there too, Eric. Please."

He slid one hand into her panties while he continued to fondle a breast with the other. She closed her eyes and moved against his hand, up and back, feeling his erection through his athletic shorts every time she moved back.

"Yeah," he murmured, kissing her neck. "That's good, babe. You like that?"

"Yessss…You make me feel so good, Eric…your touch is perfect…" She jerked her hips around his fingers. "You make me so wet. I want you so badly right now." She wasn't just stroking his ego, though she was doing that, too. She did want him badly right now. She needed to be close to him.

"Do you want to go all the way?" he asked.

She smiled at the phrase, as if they were still in high school, and not married, and parents.

"Yes. Take me all the way, sugar," she told him.

"I will," he whispered. "But let me play first. Let me make you want it more."

[*]

"I'm sorry," he said again.

They lay naked together, Tami's cheek on his shoulder, one of her legs wrapped around his. The foreplay had been drawn out, tantalizing and teasing and rewarding, but once he was inside her, he came in just two strokes.

"It's okay," she said. "Eric, it's been a long time. And you already made me cum once when you were touching me."

"I wanted to make you cum again."

She kissed his shoulder. "I know. Next time. It's probably for the best anyway. I was a little sore. It may take a while to get back in the groove of things. Until then…a lot of foreplay and a little…uh…performance time is maybe for the best." The book had warned her she might be sore the first couple of times back. She ran a hand over his chest. It was amazing how much more relaxed he was now. "You really need that physical release, don't you?"

He yawned. "Yeah."

"And…it doesn't work….just to…."

"Jerk off in the shower?"

She hadn't wanted to say it. She knew he'd been doing that a lot lately. His showers were long. Sometimes he used up all the hot water.

"That relieves a little tension, Tami, sure, but…not like what you can do to me. And it's…it's not just about the physical release, you know. It's that connection. With you. That's what makes me feel at peace. I love you."

She kissed his cheek. She felt at peace too, for the moment. She had a sense that they had a long road ahead of them, that there would be more tense moments between them. But for now, she enjoyed the relaxed feel of his naked body against hers. "I love you, too," she said.

He snored.