Chapter 2 - So Soon?

Jazzed up and jazzed out. Those were perhaps the best words to describe Joey Randall right about now. With his hair tucked into his hat and his body still buzzing from the adrenaline of making love to his beautiful wife the night before, he tugged on his fatigues and set off at a quick jog down to his carpool.

Leda, meanwhile, sprang from bed in her underwear when she was smacked in the face with a sudden hit of inspiration.

 

Which was followed swiftly (and rudely) by a sudden hit of nausea.

Leda nearly flew to the bathroom, praising whatever deity might be listening to her when she didn't trip up the stairs from the basement, and spent the next few minutes worshipping the porcelain throne instead.

 

 

"Why?" she muttered as she shoved her hair out of her eyes, body sagging in exhaustion. "Why do these sorts of things ALWAYS happen right when I'm writing something climactic?"

But her head was scrubbed clean of all sources of inspiration from this sudden shock, and thus as she lowered herself into the bathtub to scrub herself clean of the remaining

 

'He's not going to like this,' Leda thought as she sank back against the bathtub. She'd done enough studying. She'd seen her mother birth six children after her. She knew the signs of a pregnancy from a mile away. For her, it was a dream come true. For Joey, she knew, it was a setback.

She wasted no time. Promptly after she realized that her baby belly was developing and that she could only fit into her cheapest clothing, she took her news to her husband of less than a week.

Joey was arguably less than pleased. Thoughts of being able to excel in his career path, to shoot straight up the ladder, disintegrated in his fingers. Of course, that wasn't the worse of it.

"Leda," he gritted out, dragging his hands through his hair. "Leda, our finances, we...for God's sake, if we can't afford to pay for anything other than the cheapest food at the grocery store, how the hell are we gonna take care of a damn baby?"

That hurt. That really hurt. Leda pressed a protective hand against the child growing in her womb, as if to shield it from its father's angry words, before she leaned forward to comfort her husband instead. "Everything'll come through. You'll see. You'll get noticed by your superiors, I'll...I'll hit some inspiration, something like that. We'll figure it out."

He merely pulled away from her and started up the stairs in silence.

Dinner was consumed in a similar state.

When Leda attempted to touch her husband's arm following the frigid display at the island, he merely pulled out a book that his superiors recommended that he read.

Leda took the hint. She quietly scooped up her husband's plate and went to washing them.

It seemed that in sleep was the only time that Joey could show a supreme lack of disappointment.

But even as his sleeping body snuggled close to hers for warmth, even as he wrapped his arm tightly around her to hold her close, his dreams were frantic. He had to do something to succeed for this baby. He had to get a raise, do something, ANYTHING, so they could get a bigger house to care for it in.

He woke that morning before Leda, crawled out of bed, and went to work without alerting her in the slightest.

As the days of her pregnancy passed, Leda did whatever she could to avoid upsetting her husband, who was already coming home stressed out of his mind from work. She sold a few things that were precious to her to pay the bills, and paid them out of her own pocket before her husband even knew they existed.

 

She took her preparatory research to the library instead of home.

The silence was finally broken when Joey came home that day brimming with ecstasy.

"Leda!" he called, sending her scrambling up from the basement and nearly tripping over her ungraceful form. "Leda, great news!" He hugged her tight before he stepped back, eyes sparkling. "I've done it! I got a promotion!"

 

"That's wonderful!" Leda cried. She felt as if she could burst from excitement.

Joey was already pulling out his wallet and tugging out several extra notes from inside. "Look, a raise. I got a RAISE. We can buy anything we want with it! We can buy a crib for the baby, something!"

That night, for once, was spent with great joy, with Joey worshipping his wife for hours in their bed all over again.

Of course, bad things wait for no man.

Count on washing machines to break the second you give your wife an Aussie kiss.

Count on you not to notice until 4am the next morning.

"Goddammit, what the hell is this, blargleflargle, grumph..."

It was rather unexpected the next day when Leda was greeted with a surprise right when she prepared to work on her novel again.

"Joey? JOEY?!" Leda shouted, knowing full well that there was no way she could get up the basement stairs and to the hospital in the throes of labor.

Never assume that things are as bad as they can get. They can only get worse.

He's on his way from work, she thought as she nearly bit her bottom lip off in the middle of a particularly severe contraction. She stumbled to the middle of the room, crying out his name repeatedly.

He arrived home finally, of course.

If it happened to occur right when magic took over and delivered Leda's baby for her, then so be it.

A beautiful baby boy was born, Jarred Randall.

There was the obligatory happy times, holding him, passing him between them, calling the relatives, et cetera, but Joey was still...stand-offish. Leda felt lingering traces of paranoia in the base of her stomach when Joey went off to bed that night, aware of the cold reception that Jarred was getting. This wasn't anything like Joey.

That night, at two in the morning, when Leda was collapsed from exhaustion, piercing screams rang out from the basement. Joey tugged himself out of bed and padded down the stairs, where he paused.

Not even twelve hours into your life, and I'm already failing you as a father. He stared at Jarred with wide eyes, frozen in a degree of fear. Look at you. You're down here sleeping in a basement because we can't even fit a damn crib in our room. You're going to get some sort of pneumonia and die, and it'll be all my fault for not getting on the ball sooner and expanding our house.

But the siren call of Jarred's wails were too strong for him. He swept him into his arms and pressed a bottle against his lips.

No more, son. Jarred snuggled into his shoulder and Joey's tension slid out of him all over again. He clung to the bundle in his arms. I'm going to build you a legacy. You'll never hurt for money again.