Jazz: Vol 3 of the Still Waters Series

Chapter 35

"Claire," I opened her door and stepped into her room. She was lying on the bed on her back staring up at the ceiling. The baby was next to her, trying to climb up onto her stomach. She looked over at me and I sat down on the bed beside her. "Claire...Remmey...say you pregnant again."

Claire just watched me speak, waiting to see what I thought about that before responding.

"Christian?" She nodded and a tear dropped out of her eye. "Claire..." I reached my hand out to her. She took it. "You think I'm mad at you?"

She nodded her head and her tears started flowing.

"Why?"

"I don't mean to keep getting pregnant," she choked out. "It just keeps happening. I love him so much." The baby stopped trying to climb up onto her stomach and crawled over to Claire's face. Then she reached up and started stroking Claire's cheeks, wiping her tears away. "I didn't know he would have to leave again, Jazz. I just thought he would be here with me...forever. I didn't know they would take him away from me again." Claire moved Sammy's hand away and wiped at her own tears.

I picked the baby up and held her in my lap. She was getting big.

Almost two years old.

Christian was missing it.

All of it.

Claire sat up in the bed and leaned her back against the wooden headboard. I turned to sit that way, too, and leaned against the headboard with her. Sammy put her hands on my shoulders and pulled herself up to a standing position.

Then she smiled at me and put her hands over my eyes.

She always did that when she got close enough to me. I didn't know why. It was like she couldn't deal with my eyes, either, just like everyone else. The thing was, her eyes and mine were the same.

The exact same.

Claire grabbed her handkerchief from the nightstand next to her and wiped her face. Then she blew her nose.

"I knew I was pregnant before he left," she said quietly.

She sounded sad enough to die.

I looked away from the baby and over at her.

"When he made love to me...I could feel it. I could feel it happen, Jazz." Her eyes teared up again. "I wanted to tell him, I just...didn't. And then he was gone." She cried harder. "I won't tell him...until he comes home." Her face told me that she knew as well as I did that he...probably wouldn't. "He asked me not to ever write him...never to tell him anything good or bad while he's over there. So...he may not ever know..."

She curled into a ball and hugged a pillow to her face. The baby climbed off my lap and pushed herself up onto her mother's back.

"Sammy..." I took the baby's arm and she looked back at me. I held out my hands and she climbed back into my lap. "Claire, don't cry." I scooted myself and the baby closer to her. "Don't cry, Claire. He's coming back."

Her shoulders were starting to shake, and I was afraid that she was about to get too worked up.

"Claire," I pulled on her and the baby reached out to her and did the same. We both tugged on her until she finally turned over to look at us. "I'll help you with Sammy. You just take care of the new baby in there, ok?" Claire nodded her head and wiped the tears in her left eye. Sammy leaned over my arm and wiped away the tears in her right. "Remmey and I will help you. Don't worry about anything. Just...relax."

I held her hand and she gripped me tightly.

I gazed at her. She was terrified that Christian wasn't coming back. I could see it in her eyes.

"Were you scared? When you told Remmey?" My sister shook her head no. "Why not?"

I had to know.

How could she feel so abandoned by the man that she loved, but still trust this killer that he left her with so much?

"Jazz...Remmey do bad things, but only because...that's what he do. Not because that's what he is." She gazed into my eyes like she was trying to make me believe everything that she believed about him. "He good, Jazz. He nice. He don't hurt us. He don't beat us like Papa. His job is just...what he do." She held my hand a little tighter. "It's how we eat, Jazz. You know that."

She whispered it like she didn't want God to hear her.

We both stared at each other.

Because we both knew, in the grander scheme of things, that we were wrong, too.

We were both just as wrong as Remmey.

But there was really nothing that we could do about it.

Not right then, anyway.

"Remmey love us, Jazz. He love all of us."

I nodded and stood up to leave.

I patted Claire's back, and then I picked baby Sammy up and took her with me.

So Claire could rest.