The Good Widow(46)

I’ll never know.

I guess I was afraid he wouldn’t say that. That he’d leave me. And I loved him. God, how I loved him. And I wanted to be his wife. And I wanted to be a mom. And there was a chance. Maybe not for multiple kids, but at least for one. Because I could be that one in five.

And if I wasn’t, I thought the longer we were together, the more it upped my chances—not necessarily of having a baby, but of keeping him. Because I loved him in a way I’d never loved anyone. He got under my skin in the best and worst ways. So instead of telling him what I’d heard as I sat on my ob-gyn’s table in my paper robe, I said, “Four kids sounds wonderful.”

Because it was true; it would be.

But we didn’t have four kids. The only four we experienced was the number of years that went by without children.

It was New Year’s Eve when I finally told him. We’d been married for a little over three years at that point. Lots of unprotected sex had been had. There was no baby. James wanted answers. And for some reason, at 11:58 p.m. as one year was about to turn into the next, I decided to give them to him. I couldn’t start off another year with lies.

Let’s just say we didn’t kiss at midnight. Or for a while after that.

James was so angry. I’d never seen him that mad before. He called me a liar. He said I’d trapped him. That he’d have never married me if he’d known. I cried. And when I screamed at him that he’d only wanted me for my offspring, he told me I was the biggest mistake he’d ever made, and if it wouldn't cost him half his 401k, he’d have divorced me. He shattered the mirror hanging on the wall next to me with his fist, and I retreated into a stunned silence. And suddenly our argument shifted into what he’d done instead of what I’d done. And I let it. He finally apologized profusely, literally down on his knees, and swore to me he was sorry if he’d scared me. That he wasn’t violent. That he didn’t mean what he said. I chose to believe him.

Our marriage was never the same again. We were a broken version of what we’d once been. I’d betrayed him. He’d told me I was a mistake while shards of glass splintered in the air around me. Neither of us could undo the terrible thing we’d done. And he changed. The man I’d said my vows to was replaced by some other guy, a guy I didn’t like very much.

But I tolerated him. Because I’d made him like that. The temper. I had given it a reason to take up residence in our relationship. The holes he made in the wall with his fist? The broken objects he smashed in a rage? The angry words he couldn’t take back? Those things represented the children he’d never have.

We went to specialists—reproductive endocrinologists, holistic healers, psychics. We tried acupuncture, hypnotherapy, in vitro fertilization.

And with each negative pregnancy test, the space between us grew wider. He was adamant about not wanting to adopt. The children needed to be his. One of the times we fought about it was when I printed a bunch of information about international adoption off the Internet. He ripped it to shreds. I fell to the floor, picking up the pieces of paper, shutting my eyes and trying to conjure the man I’d fallen in love with. The one who used to bring me two pints of my favorite ice cream on his way home from work every Friday night because he knew one wouldn’t be enough. The man who’d written me a poem and recited it to me on our second anniversary. The husband who’d once told me when we were playing one of those what-if games that he’d still love me even if I lost all my hair in a freak accident.

On the last morning I saw him, our recurring argument happened again. It came up every 28 days or 280 days, depending on when he chose to wield it like a weapon in his arsenal. And that particular morning he’d found the test in the trash can. I thought I’d buried it deep enough down under tissues. But I’d been in a daze when I tossed it. Because I’d been so sure that I finally might be pregnant. I’d been in this fertility yoga class for a few months. And I felt different, so different that I actually bought a test instead of waiting for my period to show up as it always did. But then, after I’d peed, there it was, that single pink line.

And I’d been so mad at myself for telling him. For letting him hope with me. I’d shared the changes I’d felt in my body—the tender breasts, the cramps in my lower abdomen. And I had felt all those things. But they’d been phantom pregnancy symptoms. A surprisingly common occurrence in women who are waiting to take a test, I’d learned when I looked it up. After I’d stared at the white plastic in my hand, my hopes crushed when that single pink line appeared. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him. To confess that my body had failed us once more. But I’d planned to—when the time was right.

He came flying into the bedroom with his white knuckles around that stick.

“Goddamn it, Jacks! I thought you were sure this time! When were you going to tell me it was negative?”

I sat up tall in the bed and tried to collect the right words. That I hadn’t told him because I couldn’t bear to disappoint him again. That when that lonely pink line appeared, I had lain on the bathroom floor and given up. On myself. On the notion that we could create a baby together. On us. And I was terrified that he would see it all on my face. So I had said nothing.

“James, I was going to tell you . . .”

“Enough with the fucking lies!”

Like an allergic reaction to his roaring voice, tears spilled from my eyes.