Say you love me

Part 47

Christine's heart pounded as she hung up the phone. She was more nervous than she expected, but wasn't sure why; wasn't she doing them a favor? Stevie's voice was like molten gold, and Lindsey's playing was like poetry. They'd be perfect for the band.

"Mummy! Can I have Joni?" Pearl sat on the floor near the coffee table, coloring a picture with crayons and coloring her cast with markers. Her arms were striped with purple and green and red; her cast a mess of indistinguishable scribbles. The nurse at the hospital had let Pearl keep the Joni tape she had lent her, and Pearl was thrilled.

"Sure, darling, but only one song, okay? It's almost time for bed." Chris got up from the couch and put Clouds in the cassette player.
"Both sides! Both sides! Pwease Mummy?" Chris flipped the tape over and fast forwarded the tape.

"Rows and flows of angel hair, and ice cream castles in the air..." Joni's voice warbled as she sang and strummed her way through "Both Sides Now."

"Yay!" Pearl clapped her hands together. She adored Joni, she sang so pretty and played piano like her mummy did. Maybe Mummy knew her!

Chris sat back down on the couch and began to go through the mail she had gotten from the mailbox earlier that morning, but hadn't had a chance to look through. Bill, bill, bill. The few art classes she had been teaching and bar gigs weren't cutting it to pay for the bills, she'd have to pick up something else if she wanted to keep both the heat on and the refrigerator stocked. But how could she when she had a child to raise? Who else would watch her for long periods while both she and John worked?

Christine sighed. She was tired, and the pain from the car accident wasn't helping. She felt ready to give up. What was she doing? Why was she doing it? That was the question of her life, why?

Pearl smiled as the music played. She loved it, she lived for it. She truly had musical intuition, maybe that came from the piano playing Chris had done while she was pregnant. It was her way of bonding with her baby while she still had her; after the quack doctor had looked her in the face as he told her his diagnosis, she had the tiniest bit of fear. What if he was right?

So she played for her baby. She played anything and everything she could think of, played until her fingers hurt. Baby had apparently loved it (or maybe hated it) , because whenever Chris played, she would kick. Wasn't that a good sign?

Chris smiled as she looked at her baby daughter enjoying the music, reaching for the yellow crayon to color in the sun on her picture. She remembered a conversation before Pearl was born, it stuck with her.

Christine sat in the waiting room of the OBY-YN office, trying to comfortably sit among the other pregnant women waiting for their checkups. Only one more month to go. Everything had been fine, so far. She felt fine.
"If you could name your baby after the reason why it was born, what would you name it?" A red headed woman with cloudy gray eyes asked as she sat next to Chris. The tiny platinum blonde to Chris's left laughed. "Oh, I think I'd name mine Honeymoon! What about you?"
"Snowstorm for me! What about you, honey?" The red head asked as she looked at Chris with a playful smile. Chris glanced down at her stomach, huge and not able to ignore. She clenched her eyes as she tried not to cry.
"Love," she whispered.