Before the sleep

Chapter twenty three

Daddy

Home, sweet home.

With my son, Clovis, in my arms and my wife by my side, I slide the key inside the lock to our front door. The dream has come alive.

"I can't believe you let the house go that far." Irene's eyes inspect every nook and cranny from the picket fence to the house's walls. "Those flowers were really expensive."

"I know, honey. We'll just have to start all over again." I lean for a kiss. "As a complete family."

"Complete? We only have one son. We're still missing at least one more."

I haven't even wrapped my mind around the first one and she's already fast-forwarding to a soccer team of them.

I open the door, letting her walk in first so that the house is not the same lonely four walls once I enter it. I follow her, carefully managing the baby and his suitcase in my hands.

"Wow," Irene stands in the middle of the living room with her hands on her hips. "When was the last time you came in here?"

"The same time you was," I whisper.

I let go of the suitcase so I can search for a light switch. Clovis is stretching and crying louder as soon as the darkness settles on him.

"There you go." I whisper to him, letting the light chase away the darkness. I take smalls steps with him, swaying him along the way to quiet him down.

I think I'm getting the hang of this now.

Everything in the house is exactly how it was half a year before. Irene's slippers still lay untouched by the couch where she left them. My empty coffee mug sitting on the ledge of the half wall separating the living room and the dining room. It's almost like it had never seen the presence of a human being except that my mind knows it has. Henry did a good job with not disturbing anything.

The furniture embrace the liveliness of the contemporary style with a subtle hint of western life that Irene is used to. From the white couch taking over most of the living room, the hand embroidery lilies pillows sitting on it, to the pale blue curtains hiding the windows in the far corner, it's all Irene. The television facing the couch rests on its shelf with a small library on either side of it.

A blown up photo of our wedding day with Irene and I smiling from ear to ear at the camera sits on the coffee table besides a pot of dead flowers.

I guess this is why I really couldn't come inside this house without Irene. Everything reminds me of her. Every furniture, every corner has her scent, has her touch, and her memory.

"This feels so weird," Irene brings my attention back to her. "I thought I'd never see this house again. Never see you again."

She holds out her hands to take Clovis. He seems more than eager to go to his mother.

Mommy's boy, I wonder where he got that from.

She smiles down at him when his head turns towards her chest, his lips perk up and ready to receive his dinner. "I thought I'd never see him ever."

"But you did." I touch her face, memorizing every little details of it. I've touched her face countless times but there's always a new fascinating feature that hypnotizes me every times I put my hands on her.

"I almost didn't come home." She moves back to the couch. "We don't even have a nursery for him yet."

Little Clovis' wide eyes continue to inspect his surroundings, probably trying to decipher this foreign world he has been thrown in. I can't imagine how scary it would have been for him to venture it without the maternal love I would have never been able to provide. It would no doubt be worse than my pain even though I can't imagine one greater than losing the other half of me.

"He can sleep with us for a while before I can make arrangements to have the room next to us turned into a nursery."

"Is it too early to call the school to ask for maternity leave?" she lifts her eyebrow at me with a teasing smile dancing at her corner of her lips. Welcome back that sweet sense of humor I adore!

Clovis' tiny foot brushes my arms as he stretches in his mother's arm, gulping down his dinner.

I'm just going to keep acting as if it's not uncomfortable and weird at all to watch a human being feast on my wife's breast regardless of how small he is and the fact that he's my son.

"I was thinking of asking for a few weeks off in my job too."

She smirks at me, that teasing light back in her greens eyes. "When I said I wanted more children, I was kind of thinking in a year or so not today."

I roll my eyes at her but inside my spirit is still hooting at being in the presence of my wife. Having her sitting in the living room with our son in her arms had seem like a wish upon a star just a month ago.

"Not like that."

"Yeah right."

"Okay, there's that in it too. Can you blame me?" I continue when I see her smirk widen. "I have been alone for six months."

"Said the man who made me wait for an entire year for s-e-x."

"I don't think the baby gets anything you're saying right now if that's the reason you're spelling it out. Anyways, I don't think I'd be able to get the days off since I've been absent for about four months before they sent someone to drag me back to work." I lay a kiss on the back of her hands. "I didn't want to leave you."

"I know and I love you even more for that but I'll be fine." She glances back at the little bundle of caramel-come-alive dozing off in her arms, wrapped tight inside the blue towel the nurse had place him in. "We'll be fine."

I look in Irene's eyes, reliving the torture of the last few months in one second. Then the joy and love that seems to unravel to the world as soon as her eyes opened tug away the pain in my heart. Just the sight of her makes the world a better and safer place. Just the thought of holding her one more time makes the birds sing a little louder, the aroma of candy apple a little sweeter.

"I know."

I know they'll be alright no matter what comes. I know they'll be here to kiss me awake every morning and for me to hold them to sleep every night. They have to be. They're my fighters, my reasons why the world doesn't totally suck.

I need them as much as they need me, if not more. My love, my fighters, my miracles.