Chapter 6

Things were going pretty well for Elynne and Gussie in the next weeks… other than Gussies transgressions.  Elynne knew all about it, but she couldn’t bring herself to talk to Gussie about it yet.  She loved him so much, and just wanted to pretend for a moment that things were perfect still... until one not so relaxing afternoon.

It was Gussie’s lunch break, and Elynne hadn’t had the time to make anything exciting, so she just put together some grilled cheese.  Turner had been a handful that day, and he needed all of Elynne’s spare time to learn to walk and talk.

“You know what would really make this good?” Gussie said through a mouthful of grilled cheese, “pesto!”

Elynne stared at him fixedly.  Gussie obviously didn’t get it because he went on to explain to her how to make pesto, and how easy it was to preserve.

“Really, Elynne!  Hailey makes awesome pesto!” and as soon as the words were out of his mouth he knew he was in trouble… He didn’t think Elynne knew, but he also noticed Elynne getting tense lately whenever he mentioned work, or anything to do with Hailey.

That’s when Elynne’s fury unleashed itself.  She just could not take it anymore.

“Well, then Hailey must just do everything better than me then.” Elynne snipped.

Gussie’s face fell, and even though he wanted to try to deny what had been going on with Hailey, he knew at this moment that Elynne knew everything.

“Elynne—“

“Oh no you don’t” Elynne glared at Gussie.  “You’ve had weeks to make a confession, and it has been making me sick.  The baby can’t handle all of this stress, Gussie.”

Gussie zoned out… he had enough on his plate, and just gave up.  No matter what he said Elynne was not going to listen anyway.  He got up to kiss her goodbye, but she slapped him.

“I don’t know what to say, Elynne.” Gussie sighed, and left for work without waiting for a response.

Elynne cleaned up the kitchen before waking Turner up from his nap.  It was time for him to work on walking again.  After he finally got the gist of walking, Elynne felt a cramping sensation in her belly, but tried to ignore it.  She was sure it was just the baby reacting to the stress.

She went about her chores as usual, but when she was getting ready to give Turner a bottle and doubled over in pain, she knew it was time to visit the hospital. 

After calling a sitter for Turner, she was on her way.  On the taxi ride to the hospital, Elynne was so mad that she didn’t even call Gussie, but she was sure he would be notified when she got there.  She pressed her forehead against the glass window, and bit her lip.  What a terrible mess she had gotten herself into.

After two hours of excruciating pain, Gussie was at her side, and Elynne gave birth to a beautiful baby girl.  They hadn’t really talked about names after the party incident with Hailey… actually they hadn’t really talked at all.

“Olive,” Elynne cooed as she held her newborn baby girl.  “She’s definitely an Olive.”

Gussie faked a smile, and together they brought her home.

It took forever to get both of the children ready for bed especially since Gussie had gotten called back to the hospital.  Being a paramedic was a demanding job that was for sure.

When Gussie finally got home, he was dead tired, and ready to fall into bed.  He hoped that Olive would be a new start for their family, but got a rude awakening.

Elynne had laid her sleeping bag out for him… She wasn’t even willing to try anymore.

Well, if that was how things were going to be, then Gussie wasn’t going to try anymore either.