“Watcha doin’?” Sabrina asked me, smiling fondly. She was carrying Nicholas with her as he slept. Although that nap probably wouldn’t last long, judging by the two weeks we’d known him for.

I looked up from my papers and smiled back. I could see the dark circles under her eyes that were a reminder of how much hard work a baby was and briefly wondered if I was marked with sleep deprivation as well. It seemed likely, but I hadn’t looked in a mirror as of late so I couldn’t be certain. “Filling out the business ledgers,” I replied.

“Are you making money?” she teased.

“As a matter of fact, I am,” I retorted with. It was the truth, too. Sometime soon we could buy a bigger house for Nick to grow up in. “Are you?”

“You betcha! My business running skills are legendary! Damn good thing, too. The more money we have, the more booze we can buy. Hey, you want me to start dinner?” she laughed.

“You’re making salmon, right?” I probed warily.

“Yep,” she replied, shifting Nick to her other hip.

“Then by all means, begin! I love the way you make salmon.”

“You’re too sweet,” she giggled. Then she promptly flicked the back of my head.

“What was that for?”

“No reason. I just felt like doing it.”

“You little monster. When I get my hands on you…” I grumbled.

The conversation died out as she went into the kitchen and I stayed at the dining room table.

Then a cry began to erupt, hiccupping at first and slowly gravitating towards wailing. Sabrina swore, knowing that full-on shrieking approached.

“Neumann!” she cried over the din Nicholas was creating, small though he was. “Feed the baby and calm it down, would you?

“But, Brina,” I calmly informed her, “I can’t.”

She heaved a disgusted sigh and asked, “Why not?”

“I don’t have breasts.”

“Dammit, Neumann, there’s a bottle! And I’m trying to cook!”

“I’ll finish cooking. And I can’t do that rock-jump thing you do.”

Clucking her tongue impatiently like the cluck doodles pecking at the ground in our back yard, Sabrina walked into the dining room and sat down in the chair I had just vacated, soothing Nick. As I handled the pots and sizzling frying pans, he calmed down, little by little. By the time I served up dinner, he was asleep in his cradle, and Sabrina was rubbing her temples.

Chit-chat filled the gaps between bites of food as we told each other about our day. I mentioned a particularly clumsy man who had to buy seven egg cartons before he managed to carry one through the door without dropping it. Sabrina in turn brought up a slightly disgusting old woman who bought a fish and ate it raw, scales and all, right there in the store. And the banter continued in such a manner.

When we finished with our salmon, I took our plates to the kitchen sink and rinsed them before going to the fridge. When I returned to the dining room, I carried like a baby a fine bottle of valuable wine. “Look what I’ve got for desert.”

She had slumped in her chair and begun to my absence, but quickly livened up when she saw what I had for us.

“That,” she told me, “is the best part of not being pregnant. I can drink all I want without ruining someone’s life before it even started!”

She just looked so beautiful sitting there, dark circles and all, that I felt an immense urge to kiss her. I set down the wine bottle followed the impulse, and soon my sudden outburst of passion was reciprocated. As my hand rubbed up and down my wife’s back, I slowly slid it up her shirt.

Even though we both knew that was the direction this was heading in anyway, she gasped and protested, “Not in front of the baby!”

“Fine then,” I chuckled, sweeping her into my arms bridal style and carrying her off to our bedroom.

The wine lay forgotten.
§~§~§
My eyes snapped open, pulling my unwilling conscious back to awareness. It was just a dream. Sabrina left me a long time ago, and took Nick with her.

It was just a dream.