Hopeless Romance

Chapter Twenty Four

May was upset again.  Slowly over the six months of trying for a baby she had changed into someone I barely recognized.  Her giggle was a foggy, distant memory and I hated that I wasn’t sure if I remembered it just right.  I hated that once again she was disappointed.  She was the most wonderful person I had ever known and she deserved to be happy.  I wanted nothing more. 

She sobbed, “I was chosen as a Birth Mother!  My body is fine.  You have two kids so you must be fine.  What is going on?”  Suddenly sadness turned to anger and she yelled, “Damn it!” before dissolving once again into tears.

“May please, baby, come over here and just let me hold you.”  She looked at me with anger but came over anyway.  I felt relief as her body slid in next to mine and she fit perfectly into my arms.  Everything was a mess, but this, this still felt so right, so natural.  Then she started to kiss my neck, touch me all over.  I was so not in the mood.  Emotional roller coasters are not my idea of foreplay.

I backed away.  She threw up her hands, “What you just want to give up?  Well, you already have a family, so I’m sure it doesn’t mean as much to you.” She was back to anger. She stormed off.  I let her go.

I was sleeping when she came to bed. I could smell that she had been drinking.  WTF?!  We were trying to get pregnant.

“May, you were drinking?”

“Why the hell not?  I’m not pregnant.”  And, she cried but this time she wouldn’t let me hold her. 

I thought maybe she had given up.  Or at least maybe we could take a break.

I don’t know why I thought May would ever give up on anything.  I knew her better than that.  She hadn’t given up on me, or walking again after being shot in the back.

In the morning she wanted to go to the library.  She stayed there for days.  I think she read everything about pregnancy and childbirth.  She found one that talked about her cycle, the times she could get pregnant.  She started to think we were missing her fertile time when she was away on missions. 

It took a lot of talking, persuasion, but a week later I was sitting in the passenger seat of her current RR vehicle.  It was not a boxy brown delivery truck anymore.  Now, she revved a red mustang and the back of the car fishtailed to the side, dust kicking up, and we were on our way.  I was going along on the RR; going along for the ride.  I was scared to death.

"So, Port Arana was once a really cool place.  Did you ever go there before the war?" She glanced quickly over at me.  I just shook my head no.  I was so scared my voice was hiding.  The one trip I took was from a different port, a northern one.  I didn't feel like elaborating on my answer right at the moment though.

"Okay, well, you know how Alume looks like some kind of middle ages helmet?  The Gulf of Alume comes up into the middle like that space the helmet had for an ear?  Well Port Arana is on the tip of the long, skinny peninsula that hangs down like the piece that protected a soldier's jaw.  It's straight across the gulf from Sawi.  Southwest from our cave."

I nodded so she knew I could see where it was.  I had seen maps after all.

“There’s a Rache base there so we will have to be super careful.  We have Intel that there is a comp girl’s unit set up close by the base, and soldiers frequently visit them.  There have been live video feeds of it on Comp girl sites.”  She sounded so disgusted that I found I was tensing up defensively.  I also thought it was disgusting now, but it was something I had personally done.  I had to remind myself to breathe and remember it wasn’t a personal attack because we both knew that wasn’t me anymore.  I wouldn’t do that now, even if I had the opportunity.  May accepted that I had changed so wholeheartedly that she sometimes forgot my sensitivity to the subject.  It’s like when a buddy of mine lost a bunch of weight when we were kids.  After a year or so I forgot he had ever been overweight.  I made some jokes about fat people once.  He got really mad and called me a jerk.  It’s like that.  Always difficult to hear someone criticize who you were, even if you’ve changed.