Drowning in Sight of Land

“G’morning.” Harry mumbled, shoving a piece of toast into his mouth.
I rubbed my eyes a little too hard then squeezed them shut to recover. The sun was pouring in from the open curtains. Harry was lying next to me, propped up with pillows on the headboard. His hand held his phone up on his bare chest while he ate.
“You got food. Let me have some.” I pulled his tray over towards my side of the bed. I was hoping for bacon or even a sausage or two, but it was nothing but fruit and toast.
“Did you know that the baby is roughly the size of a fig?” He asked, staring down at his phone intently.
“Jesus.” I muttered in exasperation and rolled back over, leaving the ruddy breakfast to sit.
“What? No, listen. The baby’s already got fingers and toes.” He tried to pull the duvet off of me but I pulled back, tucking it under my body and hiding. “And bones!”
He set his phone and then the tray down on the floor and crawled across the bed to me.
“Wake up, Malu.” He crooned, straddling my thighs. “Wake up.”
“No.” I said defiantly, grabbing a pillow to cover my face.
“Let me see your belly.” He started pulling my t shirt up but I stopped him. “Come on.”
“There’s nothing to see.” I murmured into the pillow.
“If there’s nothing to see then show me.” I let go of the hem of my shirt and brought my hands up to lift the pillow covering my eyes.
His face was nothing short of adorable as he raised my shirt to just under my breasts and smoothed his hands down my stomach.
“You do have a little bump.” His hands were warm as they cradled the tiny mound at the bottom of my abdomen.
“You’re imagining things.” I sat up on my elbows and looked down. As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. Under his long fingers you could clearly see the rise in my belly that was never there before. I wiggled my legs under his butt. “Get up, love. I have to go to work.”
The weeks seemed to fly by in a blur. Nora joined Sarah and I in the kitchen after the second week out. Having a third person made a world of difference but it still didn’t feel like nearly enough.
Hiding my pregnancy with Harry and Sarah both hovering over me like overprotective mothers was not easy, so by the time the European leg was over it looked like everyone knew there was something strange going on. It seemed that every time I so much as sighed someone was asking me if I needed to sit down. It was maddening.
Harry had agreed to take every day as it came with me. I wasn’t ready to rule anything out just yet. We didn’t move quickly, relationship wise, either. The last thing I needed was to be his next girlfriend rumor in the papers. Everything had to stay hush-hush for now.
At Harry’s request, I flew into Los Angeles a week before everyone else did for the North American leg, and after much goading on his part, had decided to get on with a doctor in LA. I didn’t want some ritzy American doctor who would put me on a million tablets and force an organic vegan high fiber diet down my throat, but his reviews seemed great and after all, if I hated him I still had time to change my mind.
I was picked up at LAX in a black Range Rover driven by Lou Teasdale. We had become quite friendly on the tour and she could be sweet, though sometimes brash.
“Ello!” She called out to me in her thick Yorkshire accent as I got into the passenger seat. “How’s the flight?”
“Long. But fine.” I answered, buckling my seatbelt and fishing my phone out of my purse to turn it on. “I didn’t know you live in America.”
“I don’t.” She chuckled. “I’m just visiting. Harry said he was going to send a car for you but I told him I’d get you instead.”
“Well thank you.” I wanted to sound pleasant, even in my tired state, but I couldn’t help but wonder what she knew. “Is Harry busy today? I haven’t gotten to speak to him since last night.”
“Ah no. Jus been waiting around for you, I think.”
I stayed quiet while she drove, watching the city go by and listening to her sing along to the radio. I had never been to America before. They say it’s completely different but I didn’t quite understand until I saw it. Los Angeles appeared to be an entire city made of signs.
Nearly an hour later, we pulled into a neighborhood lined with trees in the hills. It was beautiful, though I couldn’t see a single home. There were nothing but high walls, some covered in vines, some looking clean and brand new, with only gated driveways separating them.
We pulled into a particularly forested drive and Lou rolled her window down to punch a code into a little keypad jutting out from the wall. I should have known, Harry is bloody Tarzan after all.
When the gate opened and we pulled in, I was completely in awe of the house sitting in front of me. It was all wood and windows nestled in a cocoon of oak trees and vines. It felt like another world.
“Home sweet home, innit.” Lou stated, watching me clearly aghast at this absolute palace Harry lived in.
Harry was waiting for us on his front steps clad in nothing but sunglasses and yellow swim trunks. He smiled wide when I got out of the car and my heart fluttered. I ran to him and he engulfed me in a long hug.
“Thank you, Lou.” He spoke over my shoulder as Lou walked past us and into the house. “How was your flight? Are you feeling well?” He asked me.
“Yeah. It was good. I’m good. Just tired.” I pulled away from him reluctantly. His skin was so warm and I was so exhausted. I just wanted to crawl into his arms and sleep for a week. “Harry, your house. It’s nuts, mate.”
He smiled shyly, his dimples showing themselves again. “Thanks. It’s better inside. Do you want to eat or nap?” God he knew me so well.
He was right. The inside was even better. Modern clean lines but still homey and welcoming. It wasn’t the kind of stuffy house where you were afraid to touch anything, but it was simple. I loved it. I had never been inside of his home and he had never been in mine. I hadn’t realized that fact until he walked me to his bedroom, carrying my suitcase and backpack. We had always seen each other in the context of hotel rooms, but never how we actually lived. Never in our own spaces.
His room was soft. That’s the only real word to explain it. Just soft. Everything was white and bathed in light from the massive windows all around. It was like standing in the middle of a cloud. White sheer curtains hung on either side of his bed. Oh his bed. It took everything I had no to drive straight into it the moment I entered the room. It looked so comfortable that I actually whined a bit.
“Harry, I’m so tired. Would you be mad if I just went to sleep? I’m sorry.” I apologized as I slipped my shoes off and began undressing.
“Of course not.” He pulled his sunglasses from where they were propped on his head holding his hair back and placed them on the dresser. “I’m going to sleep with you though. I missed you.”
“I missed you too.” I slipped into his bed and audibly sighed. It felt amazing to just lie down. “Nice touch sending Lou. Did you tell her?”
He stripped off his swim trunks and got into bed behind me, sliding his hand around to my stomach to cup my tiny bump. “I did. She wanted to know what was going on with us. She was going to find out eventually. Did she say something to you?”
“No.” I yawned out. “She didn’t but she seemed like she knew.”
He kept talking but I didn’t hear any of it. It was all background noise as I slipped off into a blissful sleep.
The Fourth of July was apparently much more significant than I had originally thought. Everything in Los Angeles appeared to be draped with or spray-painted as an American flag.
“Two Brits in America on Independence Day.” I laughed from the passenger seat of Harry’s ancient and quite clunky white Mercedes. “We do love to live dangerously, don’t we.”
“I want you to come to a friend’s house with me tonight.” He stated, peering into his rearview mirror suspiciously. Everyone is a paparazzi in LA and the last thing we wanted was to get followed driving to an OB/GYN’s office together. That’s one rumor I don’t think anyone could brush off. “The Azoff’s are having a party. We’re going to grill and swim and have some drinks. Well, no drinks for you, but should be good fun.”
We pulled into the parking garage of a smart and extremely expensive looking building. “It’s not like I’m doing much else.” I smiled and reached over to squeeze his hand. “Lets go look at this baby.”
The waiting room was sea foam green and decorated with what appeared to be thousands of portraits of mothers and babies. I hadn’t felt so uncomfortable in years. I was just going to reach over and bother Harry out of his iPhone-related stupor when my name was finally called.
“Mrs. Stryder?” the nurse called out loudly, though there were only two other people in the waiting room and I’m sure they could hear just fine. “Malu Stryder?”
I followed her closely, Harry a few paces behind me, into a rather tiny pastel room. I obeyed her instructions and sat on the examining table while she took my blood pressure and asked a million questions. Harry looked like he was going to chew all the way through his bottom lip if he wasn’t careful.
The doctor came in not ten minutes later and you know what? He was absolutely lovely. I was surprised, but pleasantly so. He told me to call him Dennis instead of Dr. Hutton. His hands were warm and his voice was jovial. I didn’t feel completely calm, but close enough.
He had me lie down while he measured my miniscule but growing bump. “13 centimeters. You’re measuring on the low end of perfect. I couldn’t ask for more.” He smiled and reached into his lab coat pocket for a clunky little device. “Are you ready to hear the heartbeat?”
I gulped hard. No I wasn’t ready. I mean I was, but god, a heartbeat. A real person. A living person. Inside of me. All I could do was turn my head to the side and look over at where Harry was sitting while Dr. Hutton pressed the little machine to my stomach.
Harry’s eyes widened and his face cracked into a smile when the room was filled with the “Wishh-Wishh-Wishh” sound of the baby’s heartbeat. I could feel the weight in my eyes building. I knew I was going to cry. I didn’t want to but it was coming all the same. This baby was real. This wasn’t some scary metaphor or massive mistake. This was a living human being that Harry and I had made together, whether we intended to or not, and though I didn’t tell him for quite some time, my mind was made up right then and there.

Notes