My Path To Serenity

Chapter five

I took in a deep breath before I swung open the door of our hotel room. I didn't want to lay the news on Jasper as soon as he woke up that we were offered the chance to become adoptive parents, but I was feeling anxiety ridden keeping it in. After all, this could potentially be life changing. I sat on the edge of the bed and shook him. "Good morning." He sat up straight out of bed and looked around confused. "Shit, are we late?" I chuckled and furrowed my eyebrows. "No, we aren't late. It's only nine fifteen." I leaned in to look closer and I seen his left eye was black and blue. He groggily rubbed his eyes and laid back down as he curled the blankets over him, yawning. "I could sure use another hour of sleep." I threw my hands over my mouth in shock and yelled out, "Jasper, you have a black eye!" He sat up straight again and looked at me in panic. "I got into a fight last night, didn't I?" He got up from the bed and staggered over to the mirror to check his face. "This looks bad.." I grabbed an ice pack from the freezer and handed it to him in hopes of making his eye feel better. Maybe now wasn't the time to bring up my sisters pregnancy, I'll wait until later.

"So, I have to walk around like this today," he accepted. "Yep, through church and everything." I answered back. He sighed as he sat down beside me. "Well, I'm not going to let a black eye stop me," he chuckled. "Would you like to go out for breakfast before we renew our vows? Like the morning we went to breakfast before I proposed." I wasn't really hungry, considering I lost an appetite. I couldn't stomach the emotions I know my sister is dealing with. So, I explained to him that I ate already, but he kept on telling me that one orange wasn't enough to fill me until lunch. "You always eat big breakfasts," he was catching on. "Come on, let's get dressed and let's go get something to eat. Then after we renew our vows, we can walk to the festival and see what's there." Breakfast truthfully wasn't on my mind right now, and neither was the festival. My anxiety was rising higher as my mind kept tracing back to the thoughts of my hopeless, heartbroken sister. "You're not still upset about the fight I got into last night, are you?"

Oh. I realized I haven't been talking. He placed his hand on my leg and looked at me. I looked up and tried to shake off any worries I had about Charlotte in this moment. "No, I'm not upset about the fight." He moved his hands from my leg and placed his palm in mine. "Let's go eat, okay? I'm starving." I was tired of  going back and forth about going out to eat, so I gave into his idea of that. I'm not going to sulk and create a bigger problem, I'm going to talk to Jasper over breakfast and try to create a solution.

     There we were, at Sunrise family diner. As he was looking over the menu, I was looking over ways to break the news to him about Charlotte. There's no easy way to tell him that my sister wants us to become the mother and father of her baby, but it had to be said. I opened up the menu and looked over all these appetizing meals to get my mind off the thoughts of Charlotte and her baby. "Ooh, blueberry pancakes sound delicious!" He nodded in agreement as he pointed to the eggs and bacon. "The eggs and bacon platter sounds good to me. I haven't had Sunrise Diner's scrambled eggs in years, did you know that? I had to of been about five since the last time I've been here. My parents took me on a Vegas trip with them." Yeah," I answered. "One day when we have kids, maybe we can take them back here." He looked up at me and raised an eyebrow. "Oh yeah? This is the first time I've heard you mention children in a while Allison. Are you still drunk?" He tried to joke and laugh it off. I drummed my fingers on the table as I looked around the busy diner. I noticed he was observing me, so I took in a few deep breaths to muster up the courage to speak. "I've been waiting all morning to talk to you about something rather important." 

I know I shouldn't of started off this conversation so seriously, I just didn't know how exactly how to come across this in a blasé manner. He looked up at me rather perplexed. "Let's hear
it!" He shut his menu and pushed it to the side, putting all focus on me. Gosh, I wish our waitress would come over here now and interrupt us, so I could buy more time. However, she's not here to interrupt us right now so I just have to say it. "My sister, Charlotte, is eight weeks pregnant." I looked up at his face to see his reaction, and he was in just as much shock as I was. "Charlotte is going to have another child?" He shouted."Well, this is amazing news," he smiled. "We'll have to call her together and congratulate her." I gulped. "She isn't so excited about this. She's already a mother that's living with my Mother and father." He slowly nodded, trying to grasp what I'm telling him. "No shame in that," he justified. "She just really needs to get back on her feet. She needs a part time job to help out." "I agree," I added. "a job would do her good. She's just feeling more scared about this pregnancy than anything." He nodded. "So, she called me and asked me something on the phone this morning.. and I of course need to talk this over with you first." He leaned in closer with open ears. The anticipation was rising as I struggled to get the words out of my mouth. "Well, you know that I can't have children." He looked down and frowned. "Yes, I know." The rest of the words poured out of my mouth before I had the chance to rehearse what I was going say. "I don't exactly know how to feel about this, but Charlotte would like us to adopt her baby. She wants us to be the parents of her son or daughter."

All of the sudden we were abruptly interrupted. "Hi, I'm Candice! I'll be your server today." Jasper's face turned white as a ghost and I was sure he was going to faint. His voice sounding still and quiet, he spoke, "We're going to need a minute please.."

   He collected himself together for a moment, and it was pure silence. The anticipation was agony. He looked at me and spoke, "I don't think I'm ready. I don't think you're ready either." "Ready to order?" I played dumb. "I thought you wanted the eggs and-" He shook his head. "No, Allison. I don't think we're ready to take on the challenge of raising a child." His eyes widened with a frightened look on his face. "Just last night we were having fun at the casino, and now we're discussing babies. Doesn't it sound a bit crazy to you?" I didn't say a word, I just internalized his. It didn't sound crazy to me. I don't know if crazy was the right word to use. The idea of it all is different, it's unfamiliar, and it's new, but I wouldn't say it's crazy. I pulled my hand away from his and set them in my lap. "I personally think Charlotte's already had it rough financially over the last couple of years while having to rely on my mom and dad for help. So with that being said, I don't think she wants to carry that burden of having Mom and Dad support another." He rolled his eyes and looked at me in disgust. "So she can pass the burden on to us, and that would all just be okay?" I was taken back by his comment for a second. I don't know what I was expecting to hear out of Jasper's mouth, but it certainly wasn't that. "It wouldn't be a burden on us." I confronted. "Well it would certainly be for me," he huffed. "She can go get a job to save up and raise the child she made herself. Her boyfriend Tristan can stick with his part time job at the bakery, and they can figure that out together." I looked up at him in confusion and then was reminded of his black and blue left eye. Maybe he's not ready to raise a baby. If he can't be mature enough to leave a place where he knew danger was, then how could I expect him to enter a whole new realm of raising a family? I then had to catch myself thinking the way I was, because I knew I loved Jasper with all of my heart and soul, and we've always worked as a team.

But in that moment, I was turned off by the way he wasn't taking this as a opportunity to start something bigger in our relationship, like a family. My mother and father may have had their fair share of issues, but they taught me family is everything. I decided to turn the table around and see if he could see this from another perspective. "If I was able to have children, and it was me that was pregnant carrying your baby, would you still feel uneasy?" He shook his head and put his head in his hands. "But it isn't you that's pregnant, Allison. It's someone else's baby we'd be raising." "Well not just anybody's, it's my sister. Besides, even if it was some stranger, wouldn't that be just fine, too?" "Look," he said stern, "After we eat our food and get the check, lets go back to the hotel to get ready for our vow renewal. Then after that, we can go do whatever you'd like. Just please, don't bring this conversation up again for today."

I was in complete shock at the way his approach towards the whole conversation. He never talked to me like that, with so much control. Ever. "I don't appreciate the way you're going about this, Jasper. I respect what you're saying.. I guess I wish you'd be just a bit more open to the idea of it all." He gulped and looked away. In that moment I felt there was something about him that I didn't know. I didn't know what exactly, but it was something. He sighed and flailed his arms in the air. "Listen, Allison, I can't be open when it comes to adoption. I just can't." he had explained it to me while sounding a little choked up. I had no idea what he meant at this point, but my curiosity was tugging at me. "Honey, what's going on?" He broke his eye contact with me so he could look away.. or break away. "Now isn't the best time to talk about this. I'll explain it all to you one day, just not now.. not here." I put my finger on my chin and studied him for a second. He looked panicked, he looked anxious. I reached out and grabbed his hand and placed it in mine. I sat there for a moment wondering why he was reacting the way he was. Was talking babies really that frightening for Jasper? Was bringing up her choice of adoption what triggered him? Did he not believe in adoption? I took a sip of my coffee and tried to figure him out the best I could. Being with Jasper for eleven years I was able to read him like a book, but this one I couldn't figure out.