The soft rhythmic breaths are the sole sounds to break the stillness of the night. No wind rattles the screens and the late spring is still too early for the cicadae. I’m slowly aware that there is someone in my bed and that person is asleep. This is good on both accounts. I’m married and she needs the rest.
I listen to the soothing rhythm and strain to hear deeper. Hunting tribes could tell much by the sounds of nature, but the modern world has dulled our senses. Some distant ancestor could tell by the snap of a branch if he were to eat or be eaten, but for me it only means that the maintenance company hasn’t cleared the walks yet.
A breath in, a pause and a breath out. Can I hear anything more? This is the breath of the woman I love so much, the women who gave new meaning to my troubled life. The breath of one who from a young age vowed a childfree existence but with her mind, philosophy and resolution spun completely around, found her own mouth saying for the first time, on our first night, that she wanted a baby.
Now I listen deeper. Can I hear if the breath is for one or for two? Can I hear if the breath is encoded, like some digital signal, with the future coos as our baby first starts to pick out my face as someone special? Can I hear the pattering of tiny feet as they race to the door to welcome me home? This quiet breath. Does it speak for itself or for another? Is there the giggle of a little girl as she’s tickled or the laugh of a boy as he thrusts his tiny feet into his father’s black grownup shoes? A deeper breath now, almost a sigh. Is that the annoyed voice of an adolescent whose parents are so last century?
This night is still. Will it stay so or will someone come whose needs for food or comfort are greater than for sleep?
Blackness rules. In the low light which slips through the heavy drapes, the pictures on the wall are nothing but fuzzy rectangles without content. Without contacts or glasses, I squint to see more. What’s that in the dark? Is it the joy of the child as she chases bubbles in the park?
I feel her soft breasts and wonder if the countdown has already began. Will, in another 39 weeks, these organs belong to someone whose needs will outweigh mine? Will they grow swell with nourishment for a new life we long for?
Every morning in the early hours as dawn breaks, she so faithfully has laid still for a full five minutes to record her body’s temperature as it rises and wanes following the flows of hormones within. Ups and downs, her body whispers secrets of when our love can create more love. She worries and frets. Points of degrees point to mountains of meaning. Is everything all right?
A fact completely and utterly incomprehensible to a teenager, for those fathers-to-be, making love on command can become a chore. She worries that her husband will feel pressure. Afterwards, she admitted that she almost hadn’t mentioned the timing since this man, though in his midlife, as a newly wed has still the ahem frequency in which will do fine.
A week has passed and her temperate is still up. Good news, but far too early to be sure. We’ll wait another week and then check.
My arm as her pillor, my face rests next to hers. The sweet fragrance of hair freshly washed that night. Can I smell more? Not a god nor a mystic I hear only what sounds are here now. The future can be held only as hope in my heart and not seen, even in the night.
But I can smell the now and that ever so soft breath has that tiny odor which comes and goes for but a few days. So subtle I knew it not the first time for our son whose time was too short, and only the second pregnancy, which ended – mercifully or cruelly – too early. The little whiff which was not there when a dark day said last month was not yet right. In the still darkness, the scent from within speaks of a future.
Our lives saddened twice, we will wait for more signs and give it time before we share. Truthfully, we still don’t know and every morning will hold a question until the million or billion things which must align go right.
I hold her tight as my breath’s rhythm slows to match hers. Two breaths in our apartment that night. Will soon there be more? We can’t wait to be right.
