The Problem with Dreams

Chapter 78 - Getting to Know Melody

Susan sighed as she looked after her parents and the children when they left for home, leaving her and Greg in her hospital room alone.

"You didn't want them to go, did you?" Greg asked.

"Not really. I miss them, Greg," Susan said. "I miss being with them."

"They miss you too," Greg told her. "Couldn't you tell by the way they prayed with us tonight?"

Susan smiled. "I did. Is that the dinner cart I hear?"

"I think so. I'll go check."

Greg started to get up, but it really wasn't necessary. Two of the nurses were bringing in dinner for them both.

"I get to eat with you?" Greg asked in surprise.

"It's something we try to do for all our new parents for their first dinner after a new baby is born," they explained.

"Thank you," Susan said. "Thank you very much. Maybe I should sit up to eat?"

The nurses brought in an extra guest chair and another bedside table which they arranged in a makeshift fashion to turn them into a dining table. Greg helped Susan into a chair, before sitting down across from her.

"Happy valentine's day, Susan," Greg said. "Somehow I don't think we'll ever look at this day on the calendar in the same way ever again."

"I know we won't. What a perfect gift you've given me on this, the pagan holiday intended to honor love," Susan said.

"I thought it was you who'd given that gift to me," Greg told her. "It was after all you who worked so hard to bring Melody to this day."

"I couldn't have done it without your support," Susan told him. "It was a joint project."

"Perhaps," Greg conceded. "But perhaps more significantly, it is a gift from the Lord."

"It?" Susan asked. "Melody certainly is, but I wouldn't call her an 'it'."

"No, I meant it, the gift, not it, our daughter," Greg assured her. "She is a new life, she is wonderful, and she is ours. I feel incredibly blessed."

Susan smiled as they ate. "Me too."

They ate in silence for a time. Susan smiled and Greg did too but it seemed neither of them had a lot to say.

"Are you going home tonight?" Susan asked.

"I wasn't planning to," Greg told her.

"You might rest better if you did. You know how it is around here."

"Yes, but it is much more restful without a midnight crisis. We've had two of those this week," Greg reminded her.

"I remember, and you are exhausted, my love." Susan studied her husband's face. "I think tonight I need to send you home. This has been hard on you, and you really do need the rest."

"You may need me here," Greg said.

"It's not that I don't need you, it's that I need to take care of you. One of us has to stay healthy ... preferably both of us. I'll get better gradually, but I'm not sure you will stay healthy if you keep getting run down like this," Susan observed.

"Won't you need me to take you down to the nursery to feed Melody during the night?" Greg asked.

"Take me down at nine like they said, then go home and go to bed. I'll get one of the nurses to help me around three," Susan insisted. "I need you Greg, but I need you healthy, okay?"

Greg nodded. He knew Susan was right, but he didn't like the idea of going home to sleep alone.

"I tell you what. I will if your bloods come back normal tonight," he told her as they finished eating and the lab technician came in to draw Susan's blood again.