My Fucking Nightmare

I remember very little about going into labour.
I can recall just about to the point where we reached the hospital, shortly after two the next morning following my wedding reception. It was blurry, but the memory was there. How could I have forgotten the pain? Probably triggered by all the stress, the crowd, the overwhelming sense that for once something in my life was actually going the way it needed to. Or so it seemed that way.
When I woke next, lucid, I was in recovery with Matt holding my daughter and Brian at my bedside wiping tears from his sleep-deprived eyes. The time between was nothing more than a faint blur? A dream, perhaps. However, I do remember seeing and speaking with someone familiar. Little vague details popped in here and there, as recalling any dream would have it. I recognized this to be Liz, our Vegas medium. Accompanied by…person unknown. A woman, probably close to my age. Both standing together in a room much like Liz’s office.
Repeating…something. Their voices were soft, indiscernible. The more they repeated the better I heard. “Matt knows the truth. Matt knows the truth. Matt knows the truth.” Dozens of times, again and again. Louder and louder until I heard myself screaming in the distance. I was caught in a white space, absent of Liz and her anonymous friend, devoid of anything else of solid matter.
“What truth?” I called out, hoping they’d reappear. “What truth?”
Amidst all the whiteness, it faded to grey, and then to black. All I felt was pain between my legs, in my belly, radiating up my spine. After that, nothing.
Which was when I woke. Groggy, feeling sicker than I’d ever felt before. Weak. Yet, in the company of my family. I could feel nothing. No fear, no pain, no happiness or euphoria. Just the overwhelming sense of illness. It soon dissipated as my gaze focussed on my daughter’s face. The purest life in this world, the only beauty I’d ever know.
Brian and Matt left me in the hospital. In their absence, while I breastfed and bonded with Audrey, that blend of two voices stayed with me. “Matt knows the truth.” I said aloud, in repetition. My baby girl cooed in my arms, waning between sleep and consciousness. Mumbling little nothings to herself, drooling across my arm and bosom. “What truth does he know?”
Hours later while I visited my family again, the doctor revealed that I had a twin pregnancy and that one never came to term, as it was suffocated in the protection of my womb. The one place where life ought to have been safest from all the world’s darkest forces. While I didn’t think to be bothered by the revelation, I was at least irked by one more thing that broke my body down.
So I stewed. I told my family members and friends that until I was discharged, that I wanted to be alone. Brian included. I kept in contact, yes, so as not to arouse suspicion of depression or resentment of any kind. I didn’t resent anything about this situation, nor was I depressed. I just needed answers to questions I didn’t have before. My gut told me I wasn’t ready to face the answers.
I texted Matt before visiting hours were over, in case he wanted to pop by for a meeting. If, that is, texting wasn’t an effective enough means for conversation. And what we were about to delve into probably required more than technological barriers. I needed him to see my emotions. I needed that kind of connection. The truth was that I knew he’d been hiding something from me. Since Vegas so long ago. There was never a good time to bring it up, I suppose. And now was just a good time as any, and I couldn’t bear to wait any longer. With or without the baby.
I shot the first message. Are you awake?
Moments later, he responded. Yes, is there anything you need?
We need to talk.
A pause. I set the phone down on the dinner tray beside the gurney, cradling Audrey to sleep as I made the critical mistake of leaving my embarrassingly loud ringer on. Matt responded just as she went to sleep. I think so too. Be over shortly.
Figures.
Ten, twenty minutes passed. The hospital was so quiet despite the EKG monitors and ventilators droning in unison. I heard the heavy clunking of Matt’s boots approaching from the hall, coming to a halt at the door. He entered after knocking twice, careful not to make too much noise. “How is she?” he asked, eyes fixed on the bundle in my arms.
“She’s fine.” I muttered, tightening my grip around her. “You probably don’t know why I told you I needed to speak with you, but this was the only time I could without Brian breathing down my neck. I’m lucky his parents are here to keep him occupied. So before we lose the chance, tell me what you know. Why my psychic is telling me in my dreams that there’s a truth you’ve been hiding.”
He looked bewildered. Flustered, even. “Liz? Why would she…oh.”
“What?” I snapped, trying not to yell. The baby stirred but didn’t wake. “Tell me. Everything. Or you’ll never see her again.”
Matt sighed. I watched as his hands began to shake, his eyes drowning in tear water. “Okay. Okay, I just need you to promise that you won’t tell him. Don’t tell Brian.”
“Matt, start talking. Now.”
He inhaled shakily and stared at the floor. “The day we saw Liz. We went back to the hotel. I headed for the bar and the blackjack table. Had a few too many. You were upstairs watching a movie. When I got back you were crying, damn near inconsolable, droning on and on about what we learned that day.”
I remembered it all clearly, until I lay my head on the pillow. All I remembered seeing was the green light from the television show. “I can’t remember that night at all. So you were fairly drunk.”
“We both were. I saw a ton of beer bottles all around the place. Like I said, you were inconsolable. Sobbing. Damn near ready to jump off the balcony. And you just…calmed down after I told you to go to bed.”
“But I didn’t go to bed. You didn’t go to bed. Something happened, didn’t it? Something so volatile that if Brian ever found out, he’d be completely destroyed.”
Matt nodded. His gaze never left the floor. “When you told me you didn’t remember, I was relieved. Hurt but relieved. Only one of us knowing the truth was risky enough, and for the sake of the band and everything I still valued in life, I couldn’t risk Brian finding out. He doesn’t suspect a goddamn thing. I wanted to keep it that way.”
I felt my face flush and my arms become shaky. I wasn’t angry, but boy did it sting. Lied to by one of my best friends. “You should have told me, Matt. You should have told me and I’d have gotten tested. We’d have a definitive answer.”
“We can test now. It’s not too late. I’ll have another doctor assigned to run the test so the results don’t get thrown in with the rest of your reports. No one needs to know.”
I sighed, letting the tears fall freely now. “What brought all this on, Matt? It was platonic. You were jealous of Brian, angry even. But if it wasn’t for that goddamn telepathy bullshit we’d have never gone to Vegas. It never would have happened.”
“And you never would have had Audrey.”
I glared at him. “You don’t know that.”
“Suit yourself. I wasn’t the vulnerable one, you know. I was lonely, yes. Drunk, definitely. You were the one bitching about being unhappy in your relationship. As if Brian wasn’t perfect enough for you. The guy who would have given you the air he breathed. And over that, you chose me. Why did you?”
Audrey fussed but remained asleep. I tucked her head under the blanket, securing her. “Brian could give me all I wanted in life. A child, a happy marriage. He lacked…control. He lacked the means of taking things into his own hands. I stood by you when you were at your worst. And you did the same when I was at mine. You were the one that took matters into your own hands. You served prison time to exact revenge for me. Brian couldn’t do that.”
Matt got up and stood by my bedside, stroking the crop of Audrey’s hair while simultaneously caressing my arm. “I fell in love with you, Melissa. I can’t hide it anymore.”
“You never really hid it in the first place. And you really ought to work on that expression you make when Brian walks into the room. It’s starting to get a lot easier to tell that there’s tension.” I grasped for his hand, passing up a half-smile. He reached for Audrey and pulled her up into his chest, careful not to wake or squeeze too tight. “She’s really taken to you.”
He rolled his eyes. “I wonder why.” Pulling the chair from the corner over to the bedside, he lowered himself into the seat and kicked back, gently patting and rubbing her back. “This whole daddy thing seems pretty fun.”
My exhausted arms were screaming fire and pain. “Keep her a while. It helps.”
He glanced over at me, noticing my face sink down into a disheartened frown. “Liss, want to talk?”
“I…I can’t do this.” I whispered, my voice hitching as the emotion found its way through. “She’s always going to remind me of everything that happened in the past year, Matt. It’s too much. I endured too much. I’m exhausted. And she came so soon. We were supposed to have at least two more weeks between the wedding and her due date. The nursery isn’t finished, the house isn’t ready. We…I’m just not ready.”
Sighing, Matt clutched her tighter against his chest, curling her head into the dip in his collar. “She’s a reminder to us of how strong you are, Melissa. I know the fight was tough. It had to be. You went through it all. You never gave up. You showed us how to fight…showed me how to fight.” He cleared his throat. “If this little one grows up to be anything like you, I’d be honoured to have you both in my life.”
The truth was, with what drama was about to come of all this, I wasn’t sure how I’d get through it. If the paternity test came back and revealed that Audrey was, in fact, Matt’s child…on the flip side, if it wasn’t, then I’d have nothing to hold my breath over. The drama and secrets would cease to exist. The only thing Brian wouldn’t have a clue about was the apparent affair. The affair, which, I now started to remember more about.
More specifically, how it happened. The nitty gritty details, things I’d already seen through his eyes. I longed for it now; Matt’s body glistening in the dim light of the moon, the green glow of the television screen. All the sweat and excitement. How protected I felt, and how I never felt it with Brian. Maybe Liz was right. Marrying Brian was the mistake. I just…couldn’t bring myself to admitting that simple, ugly truth.
And now I longed for solitude. Away from the baby, away from the boys. Away from my life as I knew it. They called it postpartum. I called it a vacation. Only, you can’t run from your problems. I just didn’t have the energy to face them anymore.

Notes