Dream a Little Dream

Dream a Little Dream - Dream 16

Dream 16

It had been two months since Susan found out she was pregnant. With how protective she had been during the first months of her pregnancy, Susan worried that she would be one of those over protective mothers that she and Jack use to laugh about. The ones that would cut up their children’s food, even hot dogs and grapes at age twelve.

Reading everything online about what to expect and what to do to help your child from womb to college, Susan could be considered an expert by the time the baby was born. She ate the healthiest foods possible, cut out caffeine (which gave her headaches the first week or so), bought the safest crib and furniture for the nursery and had purchased the best car seat/carrier she could find.

She was only about four months pregnant, but not wanting to wait until the last minute, knowing she couldn’t call Shelly and Josh for help, although she was sure Tom and Mary would give her a hand if needed, she was sitting in the middle of the nursery floor putting together the crib. She told herself she wanted to do it before her baby bump became any larger and she would have trouble bending.

Halfway through, she realized there was a reason Jack always put together anything and everything that needed assembling. She would change the oil any day as long as she didn’t have to work with one of those tiny allen wrenches and miniscule nuts and bolts. Plus she also realized that doing this alone was more problems than it was worth. No one was standing at the other end to hold something in place while she screwed in a tiny bolt or threaded a long bar through an opening. Jack always had more determination and patience when it came to stuff like this.

Her doorbell rang. Relieved for the break, she dropped the directions that were in some foreign language and rose to get the door. Maybe she would close the door to the nursery and wait until Shelly and Josh came to visit in a couple of months.

She opened the front door and was shocked to see Jacob standing there on her doorstep. The surprise must have been evident on her face, “I’m sorry to just drop by without calling, but I needed to talk to you without others around. I hope you don’t mind.”

Things had been going smooth with Jacob. He respected that she loved Jack and had told her that he did not want to push her when she obviously wasn’t ready. But, deep down she knew that he wanted more. Every time she caught him looking at her during group or from across the table at the diner when the group went out afterwards, she knew and sensed that he wanted more. And she was just not ready for that. Being polite did not stop him from continuing to ask her out. He had repeatedly tried dinner, coffee and her favorite... to New York City. But she had refused them all.

Susan’s hand went to her hair. Suddenly conscious of what she was wearing and how she looked in the sloppy knot her hair was in and one of Jack’s old t-shirts saying, “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.” She had found it in a drawer when she and Shelly packed his things and with all the dreams she had been having she had been wearing it and even sleeping in it over the past few months. Her cut-off jean shorts fell just below the edge of the oversized t-shirt. She was comfortable and decided she wasn’t trying to win a beauty pageant or entice the man standing in front of her.

“No problem. I can use a break from... never mind. What can I do for you?” Susan ushered him into the living room. She sat on one end of the sofa  and Jacob sat towards the other. Turning towards Jacob she criss crossed her legs and knew she wouldn’t be able to sit like this much longer and relished the fact that she still could.

“I hope I didn’t interrupt anything important. Working late?” She often used working on articles as an excuse not to go out for coffee or dinner, and either Jacob was stalling, needing time to tell her what he came to ask, or he was seeing what she was up to. He didn’t seem like the busy body type. But he also always seemed confident in his actions. She knew something was different tonight.