I WISH THAT I COULD TELL YOU

Chapter 9 - in which Max threw up on Camila and she laughed

Shawn sat stiffly beside Camila as she fed Max and cuddled Lita. This was new, she usually had to be reminded to feed him, and even then he usually had to take the baby to her in bed, and she would want to do it alone, in silence, as if it was a distasteful bodily function she was wanting to get over and done with. He wanted to be encouraged, but although nothing quite like this had happened before, he had had his hopes dashed before, thinking she was getting better, then to watch her disappear beneath the waves once more, not even raising a hand to indicate she was drowning, not even interested in being rescued.

"That was beautiful," she said, looking at him cautiously.  She had heard him singing then.

"Thank you," he said. He didn't know what else to say. He didn't know how to talk to her.

"Do I know that song?"

He wasn't sure if she was talking to him because she wanted to or because she felt it was what was expected, and he hated himself for the eagerness he felt to grab onto even the smallest sliver of her attention. She was barely looking at him, her smile could hardly even be called that, and yet he felt like he was basking in the warmest summer sun.

"It's the one you wrote, about missing me when I was away...." he reminded her.

Her eyes widened and a red flush worked it's way up from her chest to her cheeks.

"Oh, yes, it sounds so different when you sing it. So beautiful." She said, her voice breaking.

He meant the words even though she wrote them. Words describing the ache of missing him, the emptiness in the bed, in her heart, the longing to have him back in her arms. He had changed the pronoun and it had described exactly how he felt about her. She knew it too, he could see it, and her look was pleading. She was asking him to forgive her, to be understanding, and he wanted to so badly, but he had been so hurt, so devastated by the blame for everything that she had placed at his feet, the hateful words she had used to wound him when she was in pain and needed to lash out. The doctor had explained and had told him not to take it to heart, but how do you ignore that? How do you forget it? How do you forgive her for neglecting her children, for not loving them, for not loving him?

He watched her feed Max and it hit differently today. She gazed down at him, her hand softly stroking his curls, a soft smile on her mouth. This was the Camila in the moments he had dreamed of when Max had been growing in her belly. God help him, he was feeling the seeds of hope growing in his heart. She used her finger to break the suction and covered herself back up, not in that hurried shameful way she used to do, but in a matter-of-fact way as she lifted him to her shoulder and began to burp him. Lita placed a cloth over her mother's shoulder to keep her clean, which was good, because he burped and threw up a little squirt of breast milk. Shawn tensed for the expected expression of revulsion but she and Lita both laughed and Lita wiped Max's little mouth.

"You missed a bit," Camila said, taking the cloth and gently wiping Max's chin. Lita's smile was wide enough to split her face in half and she looked like she might cry. Camila saw and as she would have done in the past, she headed it off by changing the subject to one that was sure to distract her.

"So, are we up to the bit with the horse yet?" she asked, still patting Max's back. He leaned back a little and grabbed her nose, looking at his mother with a sort of wonder, as if he had never seen her before. Because this Camila he really hadn't met, this was his Camila, or it seemed to be, not the empty, embittered shell who had barely left the bedroom in the last few months.

"Do you need anything guys?" Sinu asked, walking into the room wiping her hands on a towel. She stopped when she saw Camila holding Max up in front of her, sucking on his little hand and making raspberry noises. Her hand flew to her mouth and then she schooled her expression, acting like it was the most normal thing, that she saw it every day.