Gerald got back to the apartment and found Kim asleep on the couch. He smiled at how peaceful she looked. He took the blanket covered her. He never really noticed how pregnancy suited her. The glow on her skin, how her hand rose steadily on her stomach with every breath she took. He knew she thought she wouldn’t be a good mother, but he had no doubt. She had so much in that heart of hers, and so much love to give. The way she stayed by is side, and held his hand through the entire service. His mom had his dad, his sister her fiancé, and he thought he’d be alone, but having Kim by his side made the day bearable. He wasn’t alone anymore.

Kim woke up, “Hey. You’re home.” She readjusted herself on the couch. “What’s up?” She asked.

“How’s Ysabella?” He asked rubbing her stomach.

She smiled, “Ysabelle is doing great. Was your family mad about the scene at the reception?”

He shrugged, “I left before I spoke to them. Sorry you hadn’t gone on your shopping trip you wanted.”

Kim shook her head, “Don’t be sorry. I can always go some other time. I do have four more months left.”

“Well, I’m happy to see that you’re in a good mood after what did happen.”

“I let Marissa get to me, but that nap helped put things in perspective.” She rubbed her bulging stomach. “And I have more things to worry about, like that nursery up there. I still don’t have a crib, or a changing table, or a dresser.” She said. “So after my doctor’s appointment tomorrow, I was going to look around. I even opened up a new credit card for only buying baby stuff.” She smiled.

Gerald smiled, “I wish I could go, but I gotta work. But I’ll call you.” He said, smiling.

The next day, Gerald left before Kim woke up in the morning. She got dressed and hailed a cab to the hospital. Everything was routine now. She got dresses into the gown, and waited on the bed for the doctor. Her cell phone rang. “Hello?” She smiled when she heard his voice. “Hey, I thought you were at work…Yeah, I’m just waiting for Dr. Lee…” she laughed, “Well, you need to buy me some time…I know, not much, but she’s kicking up a storm though…I think she’s missing you…I don’t know, I read in some baby book that babies recognizes voices they hear all the time…” she giggled and smiled, “Yes, I will be sure to tell Ysa that Gerald misses her too. Okay, I’ll see you later. Bye.”

The doctor walked in and Kim hung up the phone. “So, you look happy. How are you feeling? Most mothers I’ve had are freaking out at this point. The next couple of months will fly by,” Dr. Lee said, putting on the latex gloves.

Kim laughed, “Well, I am sort of freaking out, but mostly just excited. She just recently started kicking, but Gerald’s upset that he’s never home when she does.”

“So…you and Gerald huh?” Dr. Lee knew everything about her situation. She had to know, there could be no secrets between her and her obstetrician.

Kim rolled her eyes, “We’re just friends. He just called actually…he’s super excited too.” She leaned back, and Dr. Lee the monitor.

“Well, it didn’t sound like just friends. And speaking from a medical stand point that sees the two of you almost on a regular basis, you guys have serious potential.”

“What?!” Kim laughed, “No. It’s weird. I mean with the whole Michael thing, and the best friend thing. Look, I’m just staying with him so Michael would be able to see this little bundle of joy,” she smiled sheepishly.

Dr. Lee shrugged, “Well, it doesn’t look that way for long. You guys like each other.”

All the way home, Kim couldn’t get the conversation out of her head. Okay, maybe her and Gerald were getting along better now. Maybe she’s been with him for a crisis, but it didn’t mean anything, right?

As she exited the elevator, she ran into the worst possible person, Marissa. Kim tried to ignore her, but Marissa calling her name didn’t help. “Kim!”

She took a deep breath, and told herself to remain calm. “What?” Kim said turning around. “You want to have another dig at me? Maybe call this baby a mistake, unwanted, a bastard again?” She asked.

“This was obviously a mistake.”

“No, you obviously had something to say, so just say it. Why did you call my name? Because you like the way it sounds? Because you felt a need to say it?” Kim pushed. “Usually when someone calls out a name they despise, it’s usually important, so go ahead.”

“I was going to apologize for my actions at the funeral. I had no right to say it.”

Kim nodded and pursed her lips. She was a couple of inches shorter than Marissa, so she needed to look up at her. “And is this coming from Michael or Jason? Because I know that those words practically barfed their way out of your mouth. You know what, it doesn’t even matter. Marissa let me tell you one thing, I know what everyone says about me. All the whispers and all the glares that attack me when I walk out there,” she pointed to a window in the hallway. “I know what they’re all about. And it hurts less than when it comes from you. Your glares and your whispers and your words hurt way more than they do. Do you know why? Because you know. You know the real story, the truth. You know way more than they do out there. You just choose not to believe it. I get it, Michael’s your husband. He’s the father of your kids, he’s the centre of your universe. But at one point, he was mine too. For a couple of months, I pictured myself being married to him, I pictured myself having his child and being a family.” Marissa’s jaw tenses and her gaze moved away from Kim. “And I’m not saying this to hurt you, I’m just telling you the truth. He became the centre of my universe also. We share that. We share the love that I once had for Michael. You want to know what else we share? His betrayal. He didn’t just betray you by sleeping with me, Marissa. He betrayed me by not even mentioning you. I had no idea you existed. He betrayed both of our trusts, and our faith in him. We share that betrayal. And yet you still can’t find it in your heart to move past it.”

“Kim…”

“I know, I’m the other woman. I’m the mistress, I’m the pregnant mistress. I get it, you hate me for being that person. But who do I get to hate? You get to hate me for the wrongs I didn’t know were happening. Michael gets to hate me for getting pregnant. You get to hate this baby for stealing her way into your life, but who do I get to hate. I can’t hate you because I know how you feel. I can’t hate Michael because he gave me this little girl. So, you and the rest of the world get to blame all the infidelity and lies on me, and show it by your looks and your comments. But who do I get to glare at? No one.” She answered her own question. “And I’m stuck with all the blame and all the hurt and the eye numbing tears that fall from my eyes. Because it’s people like you who are never at fault and who always pass the blame on innocent people.” Kim smiled and went into her apartment, seeing Gerald staring at her from the inside.

She threw the keys on the table and went to sit down, holding her back as she did so. “I’m guessing you heard that.” Gerald nodded. “I didn’t hit her,” she chuckled.

“That’s good. That’s very good. And I didn’t hear any screaming or profanity,” he smiled.

Kim shrugged, “Well, I felt like I owed to you to avoid another fight with Marissa. I mean, there’s no reason she and I can’t find a way to be civil with each other, other than getting you or Michael involved.”

“Well, that’ll be a first for Marissa.”

She smiled, “Well, I just really want to concentrate on everything I have to look forward to now, especially my little girl.”

Gerald smiled at her. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Dr. Lee’s words came rushing back. “Me too. And maybe – something inside me is saying – that everything is going to work out for the best.”

By the next month, Kim got bigger and more moody. All the furniture she ordered a couple of weeks earlier arrived and all in the nursery. “You need to read the instructions,” Kim said looking about the rubble to find what they both needed.

“I’m a man,” Gerald scoffed, looking at his tool box. “Instructions are for…”

“Exactly, you are a man, and instructions are for smart people,” she found it under a pile of wood on the other side of the room. She laughed as she crawled to pick it up. “Okay, it says here…” she blew her hair out of her eyes. “You need a the piece that looks like an L.” She said looking around.

“An L? That’s what you’re giving me? They all look like L’s!” He said.

She laughed, “There’s no name on the sheet.” She picked up some pieces on the ground, and looked at it intensely. “Like you’re so smart, you can’t even find a screwdriver.” She shot back.

He lifted something out of the toolbox. “I just found it. So now why don’t you do something helpful and look for the appropriate…” he picked eight pieces in a shape of an L. “L piece.”

The entire building process took a couple of days to build with all the bantering and bickering. The crib was all completely built, also all the other furniture. Gerald even invited some of his boys to come over and paint the nursery, and he even lent her his bed while the toxins left.

The next morning, Kim left the ultrasound to find Gerald outside talking to Marissa. “Hey,” she said. “Why are you standing out here? You should’ve come in,” she caught Marissa’s angry stare, and Kim’s smile faded. “The baby’s really starting to grow.”

Obviously, the two of them were having a serious conversation because he was distracted from what Kim was saying to him. “What?” He asked.

“A child-birthing seminar. You know where we go over our options. I mean do we want a natural birth, a scheduled C-section? An epidural.” Kim said.

Gerald tried to shrug it off. “Whatever. Do whatever you want.”

“Well that’s the thing. I don’t know what I want. And since you’re going to be there, I assumed you’d want…”

Gerald heard Marissa’s snickering in the background. “Marissa, stop laughing.”

Kim turned to face Marissa who was covering her smiling lips. “What? It’s funny, Ge. It’s funny. Think about it, are you going to count her breaths,” she chuckled at the thought of a big man like Gerald doing these types of things. “Are you going to rub her back? You might faint. Men do that sometimes.”

Kim looked back at Gerald who had a pained expression on his face. “Just do whatever you want. Sign up for the classes, whatever. And we’ll go from there.”

After getting home, and her nap she walked downstairs and found Gerald going over some papers. “Hey,” she said, resting her hip against the table. “What’s going on?”

“It’s paperwork for the construction business.”

“Huh,” she sounded interested, “You need any help? I’m really good with contracts and forms and stuff like that.” She spoke from experience before she took time off of  work.

He looked at her amused, “Don’t you want to rest?”

Kim was taken aback. “Do you have any idea how condescending that sounds.” She was insulted.

He raised his hands in surrender, “What? Because I asked if you were tired?”

“Well, excuse me if you don’t want me anywhere near your precious business.”

“Here,” he straightened out some folders against the desk and handed it to her. “Here’s what you want.” She took it from him. “In five minutes, you’re going to be asleep.”

“Hey,” she said, holding her back as she sat down on the sofa. “Carrying a child takes a lot of energy, thank you.”

He smiled at her, “I’m sure it does, Kim.”

She scoffed. “Just because I occasionally doze off in the middle of the afternoon and take random naps, doesn’t mean I’m a complete invalid.”

“Random? Ha!” He laughed. “One minute you’re awake watching TV, or reading a book, and the next your head is down and no one can wake you in hours!” He .

“Oh, shut up!” She told him, trying to hide a smile.

“Is that why you’re mad? Because I think you fall asleep all the time?”

Kim looked at him, “I am not mad!” She had to talk over him. “I’m just saying I don’t like be taken care of. I mean, sometimes you’re great – you make me breakfast…actually my meals, and you go for walks with me, you helped me with the nursery. But sometime you just make me feel like a sac of flour you agreed to carry around for nine months.”

Gerald tried to hide his smile. “This is hormones right? Maybe you need something to eat?”

“That is exactly what I’m talking about!” She argued. “You think I’m full of raging hormones and the only way to fix that is stuffing food down my mouth. Maybe that’s where I’m gaining all this weight.”

He waved his hands in the air, and walked into the kitchen to fix her something to eat.

Time was going by fast, and Kim found herself constantly going shopping, looking for different things about becoming a mother and a parent to a newborn. Just like those days, she’d go home and introduce them to Gerald. “Hey, you should really read those parenting books I bought. They’re actually really helpful.”

Gerald turned his attention away from them. “No thanks. Kids are unique, and you can’t just lump them all into one category.”

It was the same conversation they’ve been having for awhile. “Okay, sure. You’ll handle it your way, and I’ll handle it mine. I mean at least you have some experience, I do not. I am flying blind here. And I’m not ashamed to admit that I need help.”

He smiled at her, “You’re going to be fine. You’re not going to need books to tell you how to mother. You’re just going to know.” He got up and walked towards his desk. “And look at this.” She held out a CD.

“Baby Michelangelo? You got to be kidding me.”

She laughed at his resistance. “Well, it teaches you how to educate the baby in utero. And I’d really like it if you started playing classical music. And if you don’t mind, I’d really appreciate it if you started reading Shakespeare to her before we go to sleep at night.”

“To your stomach?” He needed to clarify.

“Yeah,” she said calmly.

“Ha. What if she wants to sleep?”

She chuckled along with him. “Well, that’s funny, Because I think she still hears when she sleeps.”

“Look, Kim…I understand where you’re coming from, but Michelangelo, classical musical and Shakespeare? I think you’re going overboard with this.”

Her smile disappeared. “Look, Gerald, I’ve already put my child in a disadvantage. Her biological father isn’t going to be here, and I’ve made so many mistakes. I just want everything to be perfect.”

“Can you just listen to what I’m trying to say to you, I’m trying to give you a compliment.”

“Okay,” she sat down, bracing herself on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “Lay it on me. Go ahead.”

“Okay, wel…you have better instincts than you think. You don’t need all this junk to tell you how to love your kid.”

Kim watched him carefully, “You’re just trying to distract me from my chosen course. You don’t want to play classical music, and you probably don’t even want to think about reading Shakespeare. So I get it.”

“If she’s going to be listening to some music, what about the blues?”

“The blues, really?” She scoffed. “You’re suggesting that I bombard this precious little girl with life’s misery and pain before she’s out of the womb?”

Gerald laughed at her defiance. “And what do you think Shakespeare’s about?”

He got her there. “Okay, fine. We’ll compromise. Blues are okay, but if Blues stay, than Shakespeare does too.”

He shook his head. “What about a traveling book. I’ve read them all to Michael’s kids, and they really like it. Especially Jake.”

“Jake, really? Well, Jake’s a boy. I suppose fairy tales are out?”

“No good,” he shook his head.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so. Let’s compromise – history. No wars though,” She suggested.

Gerald smiled, “History’s good.”

“Great, look at us.” She waved her hands. “We’re compromising.”

“That’s what I’ve been to tell you,” he picked at her ear. “If you’ve been listening to me.”

Kim grabbed his hand, and pushed it away. “Okay,” she mocked him. “Whatever you say.” She smiled. And just like all the other sweet moments before, they were sharing a moment.