Avenoir

Avenoir - Kristen

Kristen

When I awaken from my sleep, I immediately reach out for John's hand. But all I encounter is thin air and a scratchy cotton bedcover.

"John?" I say sleepily.

"'Fraid not." The voice is familiar and unwelcome. I crack my eyes open to find Laura Horton eyeing me with open curiosity and not a little hostility. God, could this day get any worse? Not one but two fucking nosy, interfering shrinks. I feel like an animal in a zoo in this hospital room, the way they all come and stare at me with their sappy but insincere smiles and their manufactured concern. And me, trying to act like I've just had a baby when all I want to do is take little John Jr. home and get John to 'renew' our vows.

That won't be too hard. I'll just tell him I don't want my only memory of our wedding to be while I was pushing a watermelon out of my vagina. He's compliant enough. I just have to make sure that bitch Marlena is out of the way first.

"Uh, where's my husband?" I ask Laura, not bothering to hide my irritation. I wave my fingers around so she can't fail to notice the rock and the wedding ring on my finger. "He said he was going to stay with me while I slept."

Laura shrugs carelessly. "He wasn't here when I came in," she says with a sly smile. "I guess he had better things to do than watch you sleep."

I glare at her, trying to figure out if she knows something I don't. She certainly looks smug enough. I swallow as I am filled with a sudden fear that he has disappeared to talk to Marlena.

But she did promise me she wouldn't tell him. That she would keep quiet until John Jr. has had his operation. Marlena is nothing if not pathetically easy to manipulate when it comes to John. All I have to do is remind her how difficult all this has been for him and how terribly worried he is about the baby, and she caves almost immediately. I'll have to think up some other excuse to convince her to keep her interfering mouth shut until I can get John to make those vows again, to me this time.

"I was just at the nursery," Laura observes haughtily. "He's a beautiful boy, your baby. But he doesn't look much like his Daddy, does he?"

"Oh really, you think? I think he's the spitting image of John," I say airily and with a forced smile stretched across my face.

"Yes, I think," Laura says, cocking her head on one side. "In fact, he doesn't even look that much like you, Kristen, now I come to think of it."

I feel my heart skip a beat and my face starts to heat up. She can't have figured out my ruse, surely? How on earth could she suspect that it wasn't me who gave birth to John Jr.?  I was in that birthing room, and everyone thought that idiot Susan was me. Including my occasionally dumb-as-rocks 'husband'.

"Well, I guess he has that little old man baby look," I yawn. "I'm sure he'll start to look like both of us in a day or two."

"Hmmmmm," Laura obviously remains unconvinced.

"What are you trying to insinuate, Laura?" I demand irritably. This is too stressful. First Marlena threatening to tell John that I knew about that damned letter and now Laura coming infuriatingly close to the truth about the baby. "John married me in the labor room. He watched me have our baby. So, unless someone swapped him in the nursery then the baby you were looking at is ours."

Damn John for writing that letter. I should have just destroyed it when I had the chance. If Marlena had never found it she wouldn't know the truth and she would still think that I was her dear, sweet friend Kristen and she would probably have been matron of honor at our wedding. I would have loved that, to be honest, the thought of making that holier-than-thou bitch stand up for us and watch John put the ring on my finger and make me his wife would have been just too sweet. The pleasure of rubbing her oh-so-perfect nose in my happiness would have been almost better than getting to marry John. Almost.

"Yes," Laura says slowly and thoughtfully. "I have to say, if I didn't know John had stupidly married you while you were in labor, and been there while you were giving birth, I almost wouldn't have believed that it was you who had a baby. You certainly don't look like a woman who just popped out an eight-pounder."

"Well, I did," I snap. "I can't help it if I bounce back well."

"Amazing how all that baby weight has just disappeared, literally overnight," Laura observes with a spiky laugh. "Really, really amazing."