Can't Look Away(118)
“I can’t, either.” Molly’s voice breaks. She wraps her arms around his neck, staining his shirt with her own tears. She feels hopelessly sad, swallowed whole by her sadness, but she knows, as impossible as it seems, that this is harder for Hunter. She wipes the corners of his eyes, smooths the hair back from his forehead.
“What do you want to do?” he whispers.
He could mean any number of things, but they are husband and wife, and Molly knows right away what he’s asking. Above them is the sudden pitter-patter of little feet on the floor. Their daughter is awake from her nap.
Molly looks at Hunter, and his face is her home.
“We keep trying,” she tells him. “We try again.”
Epilogue
Sabrina
The worst part is finding a comfortable sleeping position. I toss and turn, wrap myself around an overpriced pregnancy pillow, but at this point, nothing helps. Oh well. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.
Other than lack of shut-eye, being pregnant has been nothing short of a dream. My hair is thick and glossy, my skin dewy, and feeling his tiny elbows and knees poke around inside of me is the stuff of miracles.
His father, Hans, is six foot five and was a Division I swimmer in college—I kid you not. The sperm bank didn’t specify which college, but they did divulge that Hans graduated summa cum laude with a degree in biochemistry. An athlete and a genius—what more could you desire from a stranger’s genetic material?
When people learn that I’m having this baby on my own, they always ask me if it’s strange, not knowing the father of my child, the person who will be half of my son. A few nosy bitches have even gone so far as to ask why I went and bought sperm on the internet when I’m only thirty-two years old.
“You have plenty of time to find someone else,” they comment, inserting their own unsolicited judgment. “You can still remarry, start a family the right way.”
I resist the urge to tell them that it’s none of their damn business what I decide to do with my body or my love life; that this is the twenty-first century and there’s more than one “right way” to start a family.
It was Jake who first put the idea in my head, the night we broke up last summer. I still remember the way the anger in his eyes softened into compassion when he spoke the words.
If you want a family, Sisi, you should have one. Don’t let me be the one to stop you.
He was right, I realized. It wasn’t Jake that I needed, not actually, not the way I’d thought for so long. What I truly yearned for was to fill the hole that had punctured my heart all those years ago, the night I lost our baby. The night I miscarried. That is what Jake had begun to represent to me. I let myself believe that if I could get him back, we could eventually replicate the child we had lost.
But Jake hadn’t lost anything—the loss was mine alone. I didn’t understand that until I finally told Jake about the miscarriage. He looked shocked and sorry, but not broken. I was the only one who’d been broken by it.
My love for Jake may have been real, but that didn’t make him a lifeline. He was a vessel. And there were other vessels. Like Hans.
Maybe I’ll find a partner someday, but for now, it’s not my concern. My priority is my son, who is due in just six weeks. I’m back in our old apartment on the Upper East Side—thank God we only subleased it during our time in Flynn Cove—and I’ve spent the past few months turning the second bedroom into a nursery. I like to drink my coffee in here in the mornings, admiring the way I’ve decorated the space: white vintage-style crib, sheepskin rug, a custom upholstered glider in my favorite blue ticking fabric. There’s a tall bookcase full of children’s classics in the corner and an airplane mobile floating above the navy rattan dresser–turned–changing table. A set of framed safari animal watercolors is spaced evenly across the wall above the crib. It’s a little boy’s dream.
It feels a bit excessive, the amount of effort I’ve put in to decorating the nursery, given we’ll be leaving soon. New York will always have a place in my heart, but for the long term, it isn’t for me. I’m still freelancing—which suits me, I’ve decided—so I can really work from anywhere. Once the baby is a little older and we’re in a good rhythm, we’ll head west. Malibu or Santa Barbara, probably. A house with a view of the ocean. A fresh start for our little family. The two of us.
I saw Jake several months ago, the afternoon we met in Flynn Cove to clear the last of the stuff from the house. It sold quickly once we finally put it on the market, after the divorce was finalized. I hadn’t told Jake about the sperm donor, and when he saw me, my bump just big enough that it was starting to show through clothes, his eyes practically popped out of his head.
“Wow, Sisi…” His jaw hung open.
“The father’s name is Hans.” I didn’t owe Jake an explanation of the details. It had been nearly ten months since our split.
“Good for you.”
“How’ve you been?” I’d asked. “Seeing anyone?” I couldn’t help myself.
Jake gave a soft chuckle. “You know, this is the first time I’ve been single in a decade, and it’s pretty much exactly what I need.”
I smiled, relieved, whether or not I wanted to be. “Still subletting that place in Greenpoint?”