75 - You Want to Know Why?

Tony stood out on the front ‘porch’, smoking a cigarette and staring up at the half-full moon.  The smell of honeysuckle mixed with the humid night air, reminding him of someplace far deeper South than Kentucky.  It also was the first time he’d made the connection between the fragrant flower and the scent that Lilah carried.  Her hair still held a sweet honeysuckle scent, despite her claims that she stank of antiseptic and old people.

Right now, she should be fast asleep.  At her insistence, they’d eaten their impromptu dinner at the maple dinette on the kitchen end of the open living and dining area, sporadically chatting as though nothing were out of the norm.  He was glad to hear of Richie’s offer to Andrew and silently hoped the kid was good enough to make his dreams come true.

Lilah ate about half of her food before claiming exhaustion, prompting Tony to send her toddling off to bed in her bare feet and wildly polka-dotted pajamas.  The woman loved color and bling.  Her living quarters were a testament to that. 

Nothing was tacky.  Far from it, in fact.

The candy-apple red walls in the kitchen complemented her apple tablecloth and kitchen accessories.  The slightly darker shade of red in the living area was the perfect accent for the Americana wallpaper border and the handful of knickknacks scattered amongst the blue denim and maple furniture.

The exception might be that damn bedroom of hers though.  He shook his head with a chuckle and flicked ashes over the railing. 

The walls were bright orange with the bottom half covered in lime green, hot pink and purple circles of various sizes.  The comforter was lime green and the sheets were purple.  There was even a small chandelier as her shot of sparkle.  It was a twelve-year-old girl’s dream room, but he had no idea how she slept with all the bright colors.

It was partially reason he gave himself for committing to sleep on the overstuffed couch.  That, and her need to rest.  She wouldn’t get any if he couldn’t keep his hands to himself, succumbing to the desire to touch the silky softness of her skin and wrap his arms around her.  HE might get the first good night’s sleep in three weeks, but he wasn’t the one whose body had been traumatized today.

Stubbing out the cigarette butt, he exhaled the last puff and checked his watch.  Almost one in the morning.  Seeing as he’d started his day at about eight, he wasn’t doing too bad, but it was still time to get some sleep. 

As soon as he checked on Lilah.

✧✧✧

“You’re beautiful,” Tony said, pressing a sweet kiss to the center of her forehead, and bending to share a similar kiss with the infant swaddled in her arms.  “And so is our baby girl.  Thank you for giving me everything I ever wanted.”

“I love you, Jersey, and I’d do anything to make you happy.”

Lilah tucked the little girl into the crook of her left arm, and picked up a glass from the nearby table.  Protruding from the top of the glass was a pink paper umbrella.  When she tilted it to her lips for a sip, the rum was so strong that it burned from the back of her tongue to the pit of her stomach.

Draining the potent drink in one healthy swallow, she replaced the glass on the table just as the baby started coughing.  Lilah’s heart raced as the sweet bundle went from rosy cheeked to blue lipped as she choked on some unknown object.

“Jesus Christ, Lilah, can’t you do any-fucking-thing right?  Babies can’t tolerate all that booze!  You’re going to kill her!”

Her eyes flew wide open and a sucking gasp left her lungs splintering with pain. 

It was her fault.

It was her fault their baby was dead before it ever drew its first breath.  She hadn’t known she was pregnant and…  that last night in Europe…  all those damn umbrella drinks….  Then just last week she’d been drinking again.

Tears puddled in her eyes and trekked toward the pillow, streaking across the bridge of her nose as she pulled herself into a fetal position. 

Pain was something she was familiar with in all of its varied forms.  Oddly enough, physical pain was the easiest to bear.  Physical pain was just something to get through.  It would go away. 

Emotional pain, though was… excruciating in its capacity to linger, crippling a person in ways that were abysmally cruel.  Lies would build on truths, twisting them into an altered reality that was larger than life.

And hadn’t she had her fair share already? When was enough enough?

Finding out that Walter had been running around on her was like a sharp ice pick stab to the heart.  Burying Amos and coping with the ensuing humiliation was like having the blood squeezed from her heart with an old-fashioned wringer.  Tony’s look of terror at her profession of love was more like a brief arrhythmia, but it was still painful.

Men were just hard-wired to mess with a woman’s heart.  That’s what they did, whether they meant to or not.  You got over it and got on with your life.

But an innocent baby who relied on Mama for its ability to live…?  A baby who was its daddy’s only child…  Lilah and Tony’s baby… dead before it ever really lived.

That shattered her heart into a billion irreparable slivers.

Her shoulders heaved on a strangled sob and she turned her face into the pillow, allowing it to serve as a vacuum for the sorrow that had finally found its way to the surface. 

She’d lost a baby.  A tiny, defenseless baby that might’ve looked just like his handsome daddy.  A precious little being that could have had her father’s smile.  Even more tragic to her was that this baby was the one thing she wanted to give Tony, but she’d felt too stupid to tell him that. 

That’s why you lost it, Lilah Jane.  You didn’t have the moxy to step up and put it all on the line.  You didn’t claim it, so Mother Nature stepped in to teach you a lesson.

“Bluegrass?  Are you in pain?”

A warm, heavy hand cupped over her shoulder and Lilah cursed both her weakness and his presence.  Tony didn’t need this.  This was Lilah’s baggage, and her pain was her own problem.

“I’m… I’m okay,” she mumbled, pushing her face further into the pillow and using it to inconspicuously wipe away the tears.

“No you’re not.”  The room went from a dark cocoon to blinding brightness with a flick of the bedside lamp, and he edged his hip onto the mattress beside hers, peering down at her with concern. “Do you need to go back to the hospital?”

“No.”  She shook her head and straightened out her legs, making room for him to sit.  While she was outwardly opening her body by unfurling herself, she deliberately closed her eyes, unable to look him in the face.  Not after she’d killed his baby.  “I’m fine, really.”

The tender way he brushed errant strands of hair from her forehead was in direct contrast with the angry growl that filled her ears.  “You can’t lie worth a damn on a good day, and today isn’t a good day.”

Hot teardrops stole out of her sealed lids, scorching misty paths down her face.  There was a solid lump of agony sitting in her chest and it knocked against angrily against the confinement of her ribcage. 

No, it wasn’t a good day.

“Bluegrass,” Tony sighed, using a hand to nudge her into the middle of the queen-sized bed.  While she was still ensconced under the covers, he stretched out on top of them, aligning their bodies from chest to ankle.  One strong arm draped over her torso and held tight as he shared her pillow, bringing them nose-to-nose.  “Everything’s okay, baby.”

His soft assurance, along with the sweet kiss he touched to her temple, destroyed the remaining shell of pride that kept her insecurities and shame hidden from the world.  He’d always known just how to get past her defenses and, this time, she was glad for it.  She craved the forgotten familiarity of his touch and shamelessly claimed it for a safe haven as she dissolved into puddle of grief.

“No it’s… not,” Lilah forced through lungs that wouldn’t hold air after she’d drenched the front of his shirt with her blubbering. “I killed…”  An anguished cry stuck in her already-clogged throat, and she had to whisper so that she could get out the rest of her confession.  “…a baby.  I d-drank too much...  I… did t-too much.  I di-didn’t do… enough.  Tony, I-I’m so… sorry.  So… so sorrr-ry…”

“Stop it.” His growl ruffled the top of her hair and he gave her an angry shake.  “You can’t blame yourself.  Sometimes things just happen, and this was one of those times.  There’s nothing you could have done to change it.”

“But I should have known!” she bawled piteously, shaking from head to toe as she stretched out his shirt by balling it into her clutching fists.  Her grieving soul ached until she thought she might die from the distress.  “I should have known our baby was living inside of me!  Why didn’t I know?”

“But you didn’t know!  You didn’t know and, even if you had, there’s nothing you could have done about it.  It wasn’t meant to be.”

That was another sharp tap of the hammer to Lilah’s brittle mental state. 

If that wasn’t meant to be, then you aren’t meant to be and we aren’t meant to be.  Fate played a fucking cruel joke on me!  I swear I think I would’ve rather never found my will to live than go through this.   

His grip intensified until it bordered on painful, but the physical discomfort was preferable to the emotional.  It was a tangible distraction and, along with his next tersely uttered tirade, it was enough to haul her from the mire of smothering self-pity.

“Lilah, you can’t do this, dammit!  How would you feel if I said it was my fault?”  Outright frustrated with her self-recrimination and dying a little inside at her obvious suffering, he shook his head with exasperation.  “I didn’t call, I didn’t text, I didn’t even fucking respond when you said you loved me.  Maybe that stressed you out and killed the baby.  Did you ever think of that?”

Tony had no idea his subconscious had created that scenario until he was heatedly counter-attacking her in the blame game, but it could be true.  Who the hell knew?   Only now was he able to admit that the lasting scars left by his first marriage had made him gun-shy of women.  Not of their bodies, obviously, because he could do ‘no-strings-attached’ with the best of them.  He just didn’t want anybody to see inside him and find his vulnerabilities.

But Lilah…  From the minute she’d looked into his eyes at the bar of that Dublin pub, she had seen exactly who and what he was – and she fell in love with him anyway.  That nervous, edgy woman who had awkwardly propositioned him within minutes of their first meeting had been trying to give him something else ever since. 

Happiness.

All he had to do was accept it.  If he hadn’t been so damned afraid of getting hurt himself, he would have realized weeks ago that she’d done exactly what she set out to do and 'saved' his life. 

But instead… now they were both hurt.

“It’s not your fault!” she staunchly declared, anger sparking in the wet blue-green depths of her eyes as she tried to wiggle away from him.  “Don’t say that!”

There’s my Lilah.  Hard as hell on yourself, but always willing to take care of somebody else.  So sweet, even if you don’t wanna believe it.

With a melancholy smile, he gently thumbed away the tear that hovered on her lower lid, saying quietly, “And it’s not your fault either.  Our baby just wasn’t strong enough to make it.”

Those two words – ‘our baby' – and claiming ownership of the lost child viciously knotted his stomach muscles.  He could easily find himself beside her in desolation, but what good was that going to do? 

Tony thought again of what his brother had said.  This wasn’t something he could make sense of and he would make himself crazy trying.  All he – they – could do was move forward.

“I’m still sorry.”

He slowly angled his head, kissing the needless apology away with an airy brush of his lips.  “I’m sorry, too.”

Her tears now dry, Lilah went softly doe-eyed from his impromptu kiss.  She silently put aside her faithful Shield of Apathy and let him see into her heart and soul.  

She still loved him.  Maybe more than anybody in his life ever had. 

Tony went back for another barely-there caressing of lips. 

And another.

Really, he hadn’t planned to kiss her.  His only intention had been to comfort and reassure her that everything was going to be okay.  That she was going to be okay. 

That intention was devoured by the soft sigh of his name on her breath.  When she slowly burrowed against him, lips parted with a soft mewling of pleasure, Tony intuitively responded.   The tip of his tongue slid between her teeth, skating over the rough velvet of its long-lost mate and he groaned, drowning in the unmistakable flavor of Lilah. 

It had been too long since he’d tasted her.  Too damn long.

Pure instinct had him taking the kiss to a more intimate level.  His hand came up to bury in the chocolaty locks at the back of her head, immediately finding the deepest of her scars hidden there.  He stroked it tenderly with his middle finger as he made love to her mouth, seeking the closeness that had been absent as long as she had. 

He hated that damn scar and what it represented, but at the same time, he appreciated what it had wrought.  Wishing it away would also wish away Lilah and,without it, he wouldn’t be here - finding solace and happiness in the touch of this very special woman. 

“Damn I’ve missed you, Bluegrass.”

Cupping her face, he silently basked in the reverent touch of her fingertips over his cheeks and lips as she took in each of his features before connecting her gaze to his.  “Have you?  I figured you found plenty of companionship in Sturgis.”

His thumbs lightly outlined the shape of her mouth, which was arched into a disdainful frown.   It didn’t take a genius to figure out where her mind was at.  He could answer the unspoken question with a single word, but Tony felt compelled to remind her of who he was... who they were... and who they would always be.

“You wanna ask me something, you ask,” he ordered with a gentle nip at the full swell of her bottom lip.  “Tour's over, but I’m still me, and I’m still not putting up with bullshit between us.”

Her jaw went tight under his fingertips, but she was only quiet for a heartbeat before voicing the question he could hear resonating in her mind.  “How many women have there been since I left your hotel room?”

Tony could play with her a little if he wanted.  He could ask if she wanted to know how many offers he’d received, or how many he’d accepted.  He could string her along and toy with her before giving his answer, but he really didn’t have the desire to.  They’d been through enough for one day, and he was ready to get to the good part.

“None.  I haven’t wanted anybody since you walked out that door, Lilah.”

He might be imagining it, but it seemed an awful lot like she was holding her breath when she cradled his face and inclined her head, whispering, “Then tell me why you’re here.”

Why was he here? 

Fate?  An uncanny connection with the woman snuggled into his arms?  A psychic knowledge that she needed him?  Just a plain old-fashioned desire to see her?  Any of those things may be true, but, ultimately, he now knew that they all tied back to one simple truth. 

He leaned close, resting his forehead against hers as he felt the sorrow of today morph into the joy of tomorrow. 

“Because I love you.”