I'll Catch You

Chapter 30

*Seven Weeks after the Breakup*

Mae sat up in bed slowly, struggling now that she was growing exponentially bigger and as she did every morning, she checked her phone praying for some late night drunken call or text from Opie but there was nothing. She dressed and waddled down the hall, stopping shortly in the doorway of the nursery, and felt her heart sink. The walls were painted, curtains hung and the room was decorated with tiny flowers in varying shades of red but the crib, changing table, and other furniture sat boxed and untouched. She had to call Opie, she needed his help, but she didn't want to and so she wouldn't.

A few hours later, there was a knock at her door, Piney she suspected but when she opened the door Opie stood on her front step, confident and strong. "Hey Mae."

"Ope," she stepped back but didn't open the screen door. "What are you doing here?"

"My old man told me you needed help." He pulled the screen door open and stepped in the house.

She smiled, which was something she hadn't done in weeks, and pressed her hand to his chest for a moment. "Congratulations. It's good to see you up and around."

"Yeah," he quickly switched topics. "Mae, I told you, she's still my kid, I want to help. Don't call Piney, call me."

The embarrassment and pain his words inflicted crushed her small glimmer of happiness. She looked down and nodded. "Okay. Well, the nursery is the middle bedroom. Crib front left corner, changing table across from that and the bureau against the back wall."

"Alright," he moved toward the steps. "How you doing?" Opie looked at her and knew she wasn't right, he wasn't either but he had such rage flooding his system while all Mae felt was sorrow and loneliness. "You look...sad."

"I am sad, Ope." She grabbed her keys from the entryway table. "I have errands to run," she didn't but she couldn't be around him, "I'll be back in an hour or two."

He nodded and made his way up the steps, passing right by the nursery and heading into her bedroom. He couldn't tell if anything was different, they never did spend much time there, but he noticed the collection of photos on her vanity. A few of them, him and the kids, the four of them together, a few ultrasound photos and the small notecard with the baby's gender scrawled on it. Snatching up the picture from the party where they had met, taken by a drunken Cherry, he loved across the room and say on the end of her bed. Not allowing himself to give in and bury his face in her pillow Opie took a deep breath and smiled wistfully, her scent wafting up into his nose, as he gazed at the photo.

They looked different, he almost didn't recognize the people they were now. Despite neither being prepared for the picture, they both wore bright smiles, even the perpetually grumpy Opie, as they walked toward her cab with his arm over her shoulder. Slipping the photo into his pocket an orange prescription bottle caught his eye. They were antidepressants, which was not surprising the more he thought about it, but disconcerting nonetheless.

"Shit, Mae." Opie felt responsible. He worried about her and their child but despite how earnestly he loved her the betrayal went too deep.

He left the room and moved to the nursery. She had done meticulous and beautiful work, which finally brought his sorrow and loneliness to the forefront of his heart. Weeks of stewing and obsessing over what Clay had done to Mae helped push the heartbreak down and only nurtured his rage. Seeing her, being there and feeling how much she loved and missed him condensed the pain he'd been ignoring and forced him to experience it in one crippling blow.

"She did this," he tried to rationalize as he sank to the floor to begin the furniture.

She had, of course, made the decision to lie and that was on her but Opie couldn't separate the club's lie, their massive betrayal and disrespect, from what she had done. The description of their actions against her sickened and enraged him, ripping the wound from the betrayal that lead to Donna's murder open again. To know Mae was in on it, planning, or so he thought, with the club, hurt deeper than he'd ever have imagined. He had never felt more alone than he did then, in the empty house, putting nursery pieces together for a baby with whom he felt very little connection even though he had been the one to fight for her life.