Shiver by Deborah Bladon Read Free Book Online Page A

my job is that I walk into homes where women confess to me that they weren't even sure they wanted their baby but now that they have him or her, they're grateful. They throw those words out like they mean nothing and as I snap frame after frame of the small faces and tiny hands of their newborn children, I wonder why the universe didn't see fit to give my wife a child of her own.
    I mourn for the loss she must feel in the knowledge that she'll never carry her own child in her body. She'll never feel it kicking, or sense its presence. She tells me all the time that she's fine with that but she's not. Her desperate desire to adopt an infant is evidence of that.
    Alexa can't have our baby, but she wants a baby. She wants the experience of holding an infant, and swaddling it next to her chest. She wants that baby to only know her as its mother and me as its father.
    How in the hell can I take that away from her when she's given me everything?
    "Sometimes I think that I want a baby more than anything." Her hand trails over her stomach, across the black sweater she's wearing. "Then there are times when I don't want things to change at all. I love Max and Chloe so much."
    I arch my brow, waiting for her to continue, wanting her to share.
    "When we got Max and Chloe I knew that they were born to be our children." She smiles brightly. "You could feel that too, right? It was as if they were waiting for the two of us. "
    "They were." I graze my hand over her toes. "Those kids were waiting for us."
    I met our children when I stumbled on a community daycare program. I volunteered my time to help and in the process I met my twins. It felt like fate at the time. It still does.
    "What if there's another child waiting for all of us?" She pushes her foot into my thigh. "What if our family is supposed to be bigger? What if we're not done yet?"
    "We can talk to a lawyer about adoption or we can foster another child."
    She folds her hands in her lap, her eyes cast down. "I don't want to go out looking for just any child, Noah. I think if our baby is meant to find us, he or she will."
    I don't argue. I don't push because the baby she's looking for may never find us. I now realize the hole that my wife feels inside of her may be the child we'll never be able to conceive.

CHAPTER 11
    ––––––––
    "G randpa said you used to be a troublemaker."
    I turn towards the soft voice of my daughter. Her small hands are resting on my forearm. She's dressed in her pajamas, her dark hair framing her face. I tucked her in bed more than an hour ago after telling her a story about our dog, Rex. My kids love that dog. I do too although I'll never admit it to them.
    "You're a troublemaker," I counter as I pick her up and place her in my lap. "You're supposed to be asleep."
    "Max is asleep," she offers as if that's the consolation prize. "He always falls asleep before I do."
    I snuggle my face into her hair. "Are you not tired?"
    "No." She looks up at me. "Did you get hurt because you were a troublemaker, Daddy?"
    Her small brown eyes rest on the scar on my cheek. My children have asked about the scar at various times, in very different ways.
    In Max's mind I'm a superhero who was injured while saving the world. I've corrected him by telling him that I was trying to save a friend but the bad guy hurt me. He prefers his story and until he's older, I've decided that correcting him is a waste of his time and mine.
    Chloe is different. She's the one I catch staring at my face when she thinks I'm not looking. She's also the one who touched it repeatedly one night when we sat together on the sofa watching a cartoon. She didn't ask me about it then, and I never offered an explanation.
    Since that day she's tossed out random questions about whether it hurts and why my twin brother, her Uncle Ben, doesn't have one just like it. I've answered each question with thoughtful tenderness.
    I know one day I'm going to have to explain to both of them that I was stabbed