palpitating. I sit and listen for a moment, letting the music work its calming magic on me.
“Oh,” Sarah says suddenly, putting her hand on her belly again, and my impending serenity evaporates.
“Sarah?” I choke out.
She laughs. “Crazy Monkey just kicked the crap out of me. Wowza.”
I exhale audibly. Jesus Christ.
She grabs my hand and places it on her belly. “Can you feel that?”
It takes only a couple seconds until I feel something karate chop my palm. “Whoa.”
“We’re gonna have our hands full with that one.” She grins. “That one’s a chip off the ol’ block.”
I move my hand to the other side of her bump, searching for signs of life over there, too. “What’s the other one doing?”
“Chillin’ Like a Villain Monkey? Well, as usual, he’s just chillin’, drinking a beer, watching the game on TV, laughing at his brother. He’s like, ‘Dude, chill the fuck out.’” She contorts her features into an exact replica of Josh’s smug face. “‘You get so riled up sometimes, bro. Jesus.’” She bursts out laughing.
“That was a pretty good impression,” I say, moving my hands around her belly. “Has Chillin’ Like a Villain Monkey been moving around? I don’t feel anything over here.”
“Yes, love. He’s still there. Don’t worry.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. “You gotta stop saying ‘he’ and ‘brother’ and ‘dude’ all the time, by the way. We’ve got to keep things gender-neutral so we don’t become attached to any one particular outcome. Happiness is borne from the absence of expectation.”
“Plato?”
“No, Jonas Faraday.”
She flashes me her patented smart-ass grin. “I’m not gonna call either of my monkeys ‘it’ or ‘they.’ They’re monkeys, not goldfish.”
“Well, at least call them ‘she’ half the time so the gods don’t smite us for displaying unbridled hubris.”
She leans back and stretches her arms above her head, giving me a delightful view of her massive boobs. “I’m not displaying unbridled hubris—I’m displaying mother’s intuition. I know in my bones I’ve got two little Faraday boys in there.” She looks ruefully at the ceiling. “God help us all.”
I run my hands over her curves again, trying to calm my racing heart.
“If you’re worried you’re gonna get attached to the wrong gender,” she says, “then let’s ask Dr. Johnston—”
“Nope.” I lean down and kiss her belly button.
Sarah runs her hands through my hair. “But if we find out the genders I could finally paint the mural in the nursery and—”
“Nope.” I start kissing my way from her belly button toward her “OAP” tattoo farther south.
“Aw, come on, Jonas. Please.”
I look up at her. “This is the first time I’ve exercised patience in my entire life, woman. You should be applauding me, not thwarting me.”
“But I could paint the mural and get everything ready—”
“No,” I say firmly. “No peeking. We’re gonna get a grand surprise, precisely when and how nature intended and not a second before. End of story.”
She exhales. “End of story,” she whispers, rolling her eyes. “Another round of delicious anticipation brought to you by Jonas Faraday.”
I don’t respond. She misunderstands me, and that’s a good thing. Actually, I’m not engineering another round of delicious anticipation for the two of us—not at all. I’m simply being a realist—or, maybe, more accurately, a self-preservationist. It’s true Sarah and I have had an incredible run these past three years—married life with my sexy little wife has exceeded my wildest dreams, in fact, and, on top of that, Climb and Conquer has already smashed our most ambitious three-year goals to smithereens—but no matter how great life has been lately, I’m still Jonas Faraday, after all, which means my happiness simply won’t last forever. It can’t. Something’s got to give, and I’m scared to death that ‘something’ is gonna be the monkeys growing inside Sarah’s belly. But since no husband should ever tell his pregnant wife he’s certain heartbreak, rather than two bundles of joy, awaits them at the end of her third trimester, I haven’t told Sarah about my rampant premonitions of disaster.
I’ve only become plagued by this ever-increasing anxiety recently—probably within the last month or so. In fact, at the beginning of Sarah’s pregnancy, my demons didn’t whisper to me at all. When Sarah first said, “What do you think about trying for a baby, hunky-monkey husband?” I didn’t hesitate in my enthusiastic reply: “Fuck yeah!” And a couple months after that, when Sarah leaped into my arms, squealing that two pink lines had appeared on her pee-stick, I cried tears of joy right along with her.