Her Name Is Jude

   “I feel like I’d name her something sweet and simple. Something like Ellie or maybe…Claire!” Her eyes lit up as she stared at the night sky. The only thing to interrupt the silence after her proclamation was the din of the crickets in the woods surrounding the truck.

   I put on a smile because I felt I had to, but it soon faded away. She always strikes up this conversation when it's quiet nights like this. It’s always these times when she's daydreaming about the future. The stars echoed my concerns but remained speechless nonetheless.

   "Hey?" she said, turning over to her side to look at me. I could feel those brown eyes intensely burning into the side of my head, even though it was almost so dark I couldn't see. "What's wrong?"

   "Nothing," I said instinctively, not daring to even glance to my right. "It's just... I thought it would be something more meaningful, you know?"

   "Oh," she said thoughtfully, shifting back over to lay supine, "that makes sense. Like what, though?"

   I half-shrugged. "I know we both like mythology. Something like Athena, I guess? Doesn't that mean she's pretty?"

   Her face became stone. "Athena is the goddess of wisdom, hun. The goddess you're probably thinking of is Aphrodite. Either way, those names are too outlandish- kids who read any Percy Jackson book would make fun of her. In other words, only I like mythology. What's something we both like?"

   I dodged the question. "What about Percy? It could be a girl's name... or a boy's name if we have one."

   "Hmm," she mulled over that suggestion, but again dismissed it. "I think that reminds me too much of Thomas the Train. Percy was the red one... I think."

   "No, Percy was the green one. James was the red one."

   "Well, excuse me," she said, laughing, "I didn't know the professor of Thomas the Tank Engine was with us today."

   "I worked hard for this degree and paid a lot of money towards it, I might as well use it!" I replied indignantly. A genuine smile started to prey upon my lips.

   She came down from her laughter and again took a passive, almost somber look to her face. "You don't want a baby, do you?"

   She caught me, of course. "I..." My voice trailed off, and I turned to look at her. She was the most important person in my life. My soul, my person, my everything. Losing our special companionship of each other would destroy me. The truth was, I was not at all interested in having a small human enter this earth because of me. I'm not responsible enough for myself, let alone a newborn child. Amidst my thoughts, I noticed I could start to see tears glossing over her eyes. The silent stars reflected in them.

   She was always so sure of herself. She had a plan for her future and sought to stick to it- it's one of the reasons why I married her. I hated to break her heart, but the fact was that I didn't know what I wanted.

   "Not right now," I felt myself saying to her. "I don't think we can afford a child right now, you know? But, hey, maybe in the future."

   She seemed to accept that answer with a sense of dejection. She sat up and gazed at me from above. "Okay,” she extended a hand to me, “let's go home."

***

   It was on that night that I realized the topic was not going to be thrown away in the coming years. I hated to make her cry… I hated to make her uncomfortable. I tried my best to sweep it under the rug when it came up in conversation, but when her parents asked when they were getting grandchildren, it couldn’t be avoided. 

   The tension thickened at every little mention of it. Nowhere was safe. Family reunions, birthdays, work… She would even stop by the “baby needs” aisle at Wal-Mart and stare in desperation when she thought I wasn’t looking.

   It honestly felt as if this nonexistent baby was nailing an ever-expanding wedge between me and my wife.

   The worst came when her sister had a baby. Prior to this kid’s birth, we had never visited Lisa and Duncan unless it was some sort of holiday. It’s always at least a six-hour drive to get to their place in Nashville, the air there seems as thick and as hot as soup, and it’s always overflowing with tourists. I. Hate. It. And she does, too. We love them- that’s not what the problem is. It’s cursed Nashville. 

   But since the birth of their son, that’s where we’ve been going nearly every weekend. I’ve had almost too much country music stuffed into my ears in the past six months. I’m nearly at my breaking point. But she loves to see that kid... and it’s all to get me to warm up to the thought of having one.

   She always coos over little Liam. She always holds him close like he’d disappear if she didn’t. She knows a certain cry means he wants his toy, a different one means he needs a diaper change, and she knows when he wants his mom. 

    It’s always a heartbreaking departure for her when she has to give that baby back to Lisa. Her face shows no signs of hurt, but I know she’s in terrible pain when he is back in his mother’s arms.

   One night, we were at a quiet restaurant in a nearby town when she got up to use the bathroom. I was left in solitude with the merry couple and Liam. Nothing I hadn’t already been through, until:

   “I think you need to reconsider having a child.” Duncan’s eyes pierced through me as I took a savory sip of my beer.

   Duncan had always been everything I wanted to be in a man. He was living the dream as a police officer in the big city, had a nice house, kept a toned physique, and on top of it all, he was the nicest person I have ever met. Now, the same man was giving me a heart to heart in the middle of this hole-in-the-wall.

   “Wha-” Before I had a chance to say anything, her sister cut in.

   “Audrea is killing herself over this whole baby thing and I can see it in her eyes. The way she looks at Liam, the way she sinks when I have to take him away… I have never seen that girl look so depressed in her life. I think,” she paused, calculating what she was about to say. “I think you need to get over yourself and think about someone else for a change.” Lisa’s sharp whisper shocked me, as she had never taken a tone like this with me. 

   “Now,” Duncan said, giving her a side-eye, “there’s no need to be rude to him about this whole mess. The man has his own opinion too. But,” he flicked his gaze back at me, “you need to seriously reevaluate why you’re with the Mrs. in the first place.”

   “Hey, where’s my opportunity to defend myself? Can I get my two cents in? Please?” 

   Their deafening silence was my answer.

   “Okay, now then… Let me say this first and foremost: I love Audrea as much as a man can love someone. I would never hurt her. We’ve just had a rough time agreeing on when to ha-”

   “You told her you didn’t want one!” Lisa hissed, leading to a small whimper from Liam. She shushed him with the gentleness of a lamb. 

   “First off, no I did not. I told her that I wanted to wait a while. Second off, I wasn’t finished with what I was saying.” I took a deep breath. “I’m not sure if I want one. I don’t think I-we-can afford to support a baby, let alone have time to properly care for it, and I can barely-”

   “Listen,” Duncan’s deep voice started, stopping me in my ramblings, “the bond between a parent and child is something so special. It is unbreakable. I love my wife very much,” he took her hand as he said this, “but I love my son too. I don’t cherish one more than the other, but rather I love them differently... They are both so important to me and I don’t think I could live any other way.

   “The joy of seeing a child grow up- to see them take their first breath, first step, graduate, fall in love, get a job- all of that is an experience worth having, I think.”

   I absorbed his musings and then slowly nodded.

   “She’s coming back. I want you to think about what I said, Sean.”

   And so I did.

   I thought on the way back to their house. I thought when I laid in bed with her that night. I thought on that long drive home the next day.

   On that drive, as I was lost in my contemplation, the radio crackled out a song that neither one of us had heard in a long time.

“Hey Jude, don't make it bad

Take a sad song and make it better

Remember to let her into your heart

Then you can start to make it better…”

   I started to break down. All it took was Paul McCartney’s euphonious voice to do it.

   It was this song that we did our first dance to at our wedding years back. It made me weep then. Now, at my time of despair, it had returned to make me crash down once again. 

   I could hear, to my right, a small sniffling coming from Audrea. She was trying to hide it from me, though I don’t really know why. It was obvious I was distraught. Perhaps she was trying to be strong for me. 

   I pulled over at the next gas station. 

“So let it out and let it in

Hey Jude, begin

You're waiting for someone to perform with

And don't you know that it's just you

Hey Jude, you'll do

The movement you need is on your shoulder...”

   I took her into my arms and we let it all out. The cry that we both needed, for the sake of our relationship. 

   “I’m sorry,” she whispered between hiccups, but I just shook my head and sobbed into her neck. 

   After I calmed down, I pulled away and put her hands in mine. 

   “I want a child,” I said, squeezing her hands a little tighter. 

   “We don’t have-”

   “No,” I interrupted, stealing away a hand to wipe the tears away from her eyes, “No, I want one. A beautiful daughter, and her name will be Jude.”

***

   It was three months later when she came running into the kitchen with a pregnancy test in hand. She was grinning from ear to ear and squealing like a little girl. “Look!” she practically screamed, teeming with excitement. 

   I looked and, of course, it was positive. I gave her the longest hug I’d ever given her in my life, and we celebrated through the night.

   It was a long process after that point. Doctor appointments to attend, a nursery to construct, a baby shower to prepare… It was not an easy task since both of us work full-time jobs. Family and friends are what got us through these hard times. 

   Five months in, we found out we were, in fact, having a girl. We could feel the light at the end of the tunnel drawing steadily closer. 

   The nursery was painted a lovely light teal and was decorated with little woodland creatures. An overstuffed rabbit lay in wait in the crib. A deer, painted on the wall by a friend of mine, wandered carefully through a colorful forest. A mobile that would spin above Jude’s head was clustered with thrushes and bluebirds. 

   At month seven, there were complications. 

   She’d had headaches, nausea, a hard time breathing… all things we thought were pretty typical with pregnancy. Audrea was also sick with what we both thought was a minor illness. Unbeknownst to us, a strep infection had spread to her kidneys.

   I took her to the hospital one night when she had nonstop pain in her side. She tried to brush me off, saying it was just contractions, but I told her I had a bad feeling. She finally relented after some persuasion.

   When we got to the hospital she was in rough shape. Pale in the face, delusional… I think from dehydration. I don’t remember the details very clearly. 

   What I do remember is the rush of nurses she got once we got into a room. They were using a lot of technical terms I didn’t understand, “precamps-eel-ya”. They were running around, saying they needed Dr. Allen, 100 “cee cees” of something I don’t remember…

   They ended up performing an emergency C-Section on her because blood flow to Jude was simply not getting through. They needed her out. Fast.

   After the agonizing wait, my Audrea lay like a ghastly petal clinging to the wilts of its stem. She looked terrible. But even in her last days, she held a beauty to her face that no other woman could ever have.

   Jude was born on August 12th. Her mother, my wife, died on August 14th after fighting hard to live.

   She was the tiniest thing I’ve ever seen. But so beautiful. She had inherited it from her amazing mom, and I'd let her know that every day.

   She was all I had left, and I was all she had left. We were each other’s rubble.

   I took her home with me nearly a week later, with at least a hundred pamphlets and phone numbers to call. I took her to work with me the next week.

   I took her to the funeral with me. Audrea’s parents expressed tearful sympathies. Lisa didn't as much dare make eye contact with me. Duncan gave me a solemn hug, but he did not speak a word. Liam cried through the service.

   My daughter is my everything now.

   Her name is Jude.

   And she is the best decision I’ve ever made.