Chapter 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Rick loved coming home to his house and his little family. No matter how often he did it, it never got old.

So when he came home to not only find his family there, but curled up together, Darla wrapped around their dog, Scout, he paused in the doorway with a soft smile on his face, enjoying the sweet scene.

He stopped enjoying it, however, the moment he heard a telltale sniffle from his wife. The smile dropped into a confused frown as he hurried to the couch to pull Darla into his arms.

"Hey, sweetheart, are you crying? Are you hurt? What's wrong?" His eyes flicked over her, checking for any visible injuries. He didn't find any, but her eyes were puffy and red, indicating that she'd been crying for some time.

She freed a hand from his embrace to wipe at her eyes.

"Oh, I'm fine," she said, shaking her head so her curls bobbed. "It's nothing. I'm just being silly."

"It's clearly not nothing," he said, tugging her close. "And your feelings aren't silly. Come on, sweetheart, you're worrying me a little. Tell me what's going on."

She gave him a sheepish, watery look. "Well, you know how Marty's pregnant?" she asked.

A flash of terror went through him. "Oh no, did something happen?"

She shook her head. "No, nothing like that. It's just… Monica is pregnant too."

"Okay," he said slowly. "But that's… good, right?"

She nodded, although she did not have a happy expression on her face. "Yes, of course. Of course it is. I just…" She trailed off, looking miserable.

"What is it, sweetheart?" he probed gently.

She let out a gusty sigh. "Honestly, I feel terrible for even saying it, because I should be happy for them! And I am, I promise I am. But I just hate that I'm not pregnant too!"

And then she was crying again, wet tears rolling down her cheeks. His heart broke as he watched her press her palms against her face, trying to wipe away the tears that refused to stop.

"Oh, Darla, sweetheart," he murmured against her hair, hugging her tight. "I'm so sorry this is weighing on you so heavily."

"And I just," she said, sniffling loudly, "feel so awful . I mean, how selfish of me to not celebrate such a wonderful thing for two of the people I know most in the world? Instead, I just keep thinking about me, me, me." Her shoulders slumped. "It's terrible."

"No, no," he hastened to reassure her. "It's completely normal that you feel a little jealous that someone else is getting the thing you want very badly. You can both wish it were you and be happy for them. That's not selfish at all. It's human."

"It feels selfish," she said, her tone so grumpy that he would have laughed if he weren't upset about her clear anguish.

"Well, it isn't," he said decisively. "After all, if you were in charge, would you stop Marty and Monica from being pregnant until you were?"

She looked shocked. "No, of course not!"

"Well, there you go. You're not wishing something hard on them, you're just wishing for some good news of your own. And, hey." He nudged her. "It'll be our turn soon enough."

He'd thought this would be encouraging, but he could immediately tell that somehow it had actually been the exact wrong thing to say. Darla's face crumpled again and a tear began to drip, slow and almost lazy, down her cheek.

"I'm starting to get afraid," she admitted on a whisper, "that it won't ever happen for us. That we'll keep trying and trying but we'll never, ever get to be a family."

Darla watched as her husband's face grew even softer and more full of love than it had been moments ago. She didn't understand how this was possible, given that she'd just confessed her worry that a dreadful future was ahead of them, but there it was.

"Darla, sweetheart," he said, cupping her chin in his hands and using his thumbs to wipe the tears from her cheeks. "I got news for you: we're already a family." He waved at himself, her, and Scout, all sitting together on a couch. "When we got married, we became a family. When we adopted Scout, our family got a little bigger. There's no going back on that, not even if you wanted to."

"I would never want to," she said fiercely.

He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "Me neither, sweetheart."

"But I want our family to grow," she said with a note of sadness in her voice. "I just really, really want to have a baby."

He smiled. "I know. Me too. But remember that statistic in the pamphlet from the doctor? The average couple conceives within—"

"—a year," she chimed in, sighing. Drat that Rick, trying to make her feel better with his logic and reason. "I know, I just…"

"Want it to be faster?" he said with a smile. "Me too. But try to think of it this way: your sister and Monica got their good news unusually fast. That doesn't mean that you and I are unusually slow."

"That's true," she admitted with a faint scowl. "My feelings don't want to see it that way though."

"Feelings never do," he said, stealing another kiss, this one on her lips. "And I have been reading up about it myself, a little, and sometimes stressing over it can actually make things harder. A lot of couples have better luck after taking a break from doing all the science things that help you predict fertility. Do you feel like you want to do that?"

Darla's knee jerk reaction was to immediately say no, she didn't want to stop trying, not for anything. But she made herself pause and consider how it would really feel before answering. In the end, her response was the same.

"No," she said. "I don't think I want to take a break, or at least not yet. Maybe if it doesn't happen in the next few months, I'll feel differently, but for now I think trying makes me more hopeful than not trying."

Rick nodded. "I'm on board with that plan. And while I hope it happens soon for us, of course, we do have options if we aren't as lucky as we hope. We can talk to fertility specialists and see what help they can offer us. This might be a case where knowledge is power."

That was a good point, but the thought still made her stomach twist with anxiety.

"What if they find that something is wrong?" she asked, almost too nervous to speak the thoughts out loud.

Rick's expression was solemn. "That will be hard. But it will be better to know than not to know, because then we can look at other options. We don't have to weigh those things now, but we can consider adoption or surrogacy. It might be a tough road," he allowed with a soft squeeze to her shoulder, "but we're going to find a way. You're going to be a mom, and I'm going to be a dad, and we're going to love that kid with all of our hearts… no matter how he or she gets here."

She sighed the tired sigh of someone who had been wrung out of all the emotions their body could hold. She slumped against her husband's warm form, thinking fondly of how lucky she was to have a partner who always supported her, through good times and hard ones.

"You're right," she agreed. "I know you're right. I guess I'm just being impatient."

"That's human too," he said with a laugh. "You have to be less hard on yourself, babe. Nobody is perfect, not even someone as amazing and gorgeous and brilliant and all around wonderful as you."

She rolled her eyes at his playfully exuberant praise… but it did help her feel a little bit better.

"It would be so nice to be perfect though," she complained, pouting. Unlike her previous sad expressions though, this one was just in jest. She had been carrying these feelings around inside her chest for a few days now, keeping them in due to the sense that they were too foolish to let out. She should have known, however, that talking through her concerns would make her feel better.

Especially since she was talking them through with Rick. He always made her fears seem more manageable, like she could conquer anything with him at her side.

She sat up so she could look at him face on. "I love you," she said seriously. "I know that's not news, or anything, but I want to make sure you know how much I value and appreciate you. I didn't mean to say that I don't think the two of us are a family. You mean the world to me, Rick Maroney."

He smiled, looking pleased by her words. "I know you didn't mean that, just like you know that I love you too, more than anything."

Almost as if she'd heard his statement, Scout chose that moment to perk up from her snuggly dose, lifting her snout into the air quizzically. It was a much-needed moment of levity, and both Darla and Rick laughed at the puppy's expression.

"Yes, Scout, I love you that much too," Rick reassured the pup, scratching her behind the ears. This reassurance of her parents' adoration seemed sufficient for the dog, who settled back down for more napping.

"Maybe this is just the universe giving us some more time with only this baby," Darla said with a chuckle, patting Scout's soft fur.

"Maybe," Rick agreed. "Although I think we both know that Scout's going to be a great big sister. Isn't that right, puppy?" he cooed. Scout opened one eye to give them a look that said, Can't you see I'm sleeping here? and then closed it again. It was another welcome opportunity for a laugh.

"Thanks," Darla said softly, settling in against her wonderful husband once more. "You always know how to make me feel better."

He tugged her back even further, until they were all a soft, snuggly pile together, the two humans and their dog. A happy, wonderful family.

"Anytime, sweetheart," he told her, his voice low and almost sleepy against the side of her head. "Anytime."