Chapter 19 - Life

Too impatient to wait around for three hours for a flight to be organized at such short notice, Cam was in her Audi, pressing down on the accelerator and making the most of the quieter roads.

Getting out of LA had still been its usually difficult self as she weaved in and out of the traffic, but once she was away and on the I-14, she was moving.

At the halfway point, she stopped for coffee and fuel. It was just past midnight. Her mum and the kids would be asleep; so would Lucy and her family. She just had to hope that Michelle was too and that she would still be there when she arrived.

Now as she thought about it more, she realized it was probably the perfect place, somewhere she should have thought about looking. She questioned whether she had been as attentive with Michelle as she could have been. Why hadn’t she noticed how much this was all getting to her wife?

She pushed on, the roads dark and empty for miles. Then lights would sweep around and flash past in a second and she would be alone on the road again. In daylight, this was a route she loved to drive, but now she drove with an apprehension, not an excitement.

The last time they had driven up here, Michelle was six months pregnant. Cam had wanted to fly, but Michelle had insisted they drive.

“What if something had happened and I needed a doctor?” she said as Cam lifted the cases into the car.

“We could take a doctor with us?” Cam replied, smiling at her wife.

Michelle clearly hadn’t thought of that, and did so now, but answered, “No, I don’t want that. I already feel…I just want to drive, Cam. I’ll feel more comfortable in the car.”

Cam walked around the car and planted a kiss on her lips with a firmness that caused Michelle to swoon a little. “Okay, anything you want my love.”

“Anything?” Michelle asked coyly.

Nodding, Cam said, “Uh huh.” She kept the space between them down to a minimum as her fingers hooked around the belt loops on Michelle’s woolen dress.

“Peanut butter and banana…” She looked around and checked nobody was in earshot before whispering, “White bread?”

Cam laughed. “How unhealthy…fine, I will get it for you on one condition.”

“What is it?”

She leaned in and kissed her again. “Stop worrying so much. It’s Christmas, these babies will be fine.”

Michelle’s eyes searched her wife’s face. “How can you know that? You say it with such confidence that I always believe it, but then…” She shrugged. “I worry I’ll do something wrong…what if I hurt them?”

Cam’s fingertip pressed against her lips. “You won’t.” Her hand moved to stroke across her bulging tummy. “They trust you.”

She passed the sign for Yosemite National Park and glanced at the clock.  Almost three a.m. and she was tired, but her brain was in overdrive, going over and over things. Maybe she had missed the signs. Michelle had always seemed so happy throughout the pregnancy, and even afterwards, but as the conversations ran through her mind, Cam realized there had been doubts. But didn’t all expectant mothers have those?

She exhaled slowly. None of it mattered right now. What mattered was getting to Michelle and finding out exactly what was wrong, instead of trying to come up with explanations of her own.

Beating herself up about it wouldn’t help either. They needed to be a team, to work this out together as a family.