Nocturne(96)

She leaned close, her face tense, and looked at the tables around us. “Can you please keep your voice down?”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. Then I took another one, because one breath just wasn’t enough. Finally I opened my eyes. She was still there. I tried to think through when this had happened. There’d been a noticeable change in her behavior for almost a year. For several months our sex had taken on an almost frantic quality, and the more she pushed, the more I pulled away.

I hadn’t realized then that it meant she was desperately trying to get pregnant. I only knew that the more she wanted to touch ... the less I wanted to. I knew it and she knew it, but neither of us had actually spoken about it.

“When did you stop taking the pill?” I asked. My voice was ragged.

She avoided my eyes. That was a bad sign. I leaned close, reached out and grabbed her hand. “When?” I demanded.

“January,” she whispered.

I sat back in my seat, feeling as if I’d been punched in the gut. January? She hadn’t even brought up kids again until sometime in March.

I shook my head. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t you say anything?”

She shrugged, still looking away, and then wriggled her hand out of mine. “I didn’t want to talk about it, Gregory. I knew you’d just get scared again. I thought ... if I … if …”

“Scared? It’s not about being scared, Karin. It’s about wanting the same things out of life. I do not want to be a parent. That’s a commitment I’m not willing to make.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. Her next words came out in a whisper. “You’re not willing to make that kind of commitment to me.”

“It’s not about you, Karin. We agreed before we got married. And then when you started talking about it this year, you … I thought we were talking about it. I didn’t know you’d already decided to do it.”

She shrugged. “Not that it mattered.”

“How did this come about? Madeline said something about a fertility specialist? She wasn’t aware that I didn’t know.”

Jesus Christ. As soon as I asked the question, her eyes went red and started to run with tears. Naturally that was when the waiter showed up with our food. Karin quickly wiped her eyes and face, and then made a comment about allergies which I’m sure fooled no one. The waiter put our food down and politely asked if we needed anything else.

“Another round of drinks, please,” I said.

So we sat in strained silence for another ten minutes while our food and then drinks got situated. I toyed with my food and sloshed the ice in the bottom of my glass around. When the waiter finally returned with the second round of drinks, I tossed half my gin and tonic back in one gulp.

“Tell me about the fertility specialist.”

She tossed back half of her own drink. Then she said, “I went to the doctor in March.”

“That’s why you finally talked to me?”

She nodded. “I knew you’d eventually see the bills. From the insurance company.”

I can’t imagine why she thought that. I never looked at them. She could have been seeing a hundred doctors and I would never have known it.

“So you went to the doctor. And what happened?”

She didn’t look me in the eyes. At all. “As it turns out, I’m infertile. Completely. I cannot have children.”

As she said the words, she stared at the floor somewhere to her right. And she began to shake. Violently. I leaned forward, utterly conflicted. What the f*ck did I say to her? Was I sorry she’d been unable to trap me into being a parent? Did I express sympathy? I was sympathetic to her pain. I think? Actually I didn’t think I’d ever been so confused and conflicted in my life. About anything.

When I didn’t move to her, didn’t move to comfort her, she buried her face in her hands and began to sob, silently. I sighed, furrowed my eyebrows, and thought. Hard. I was her husband. I should comfort her. But honestly I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to touch her. I didn’t want to give her any out. I didn’t want to give her any impression that I could forgive her for what she’d done.

But who was I to judge? Who was I to not forgive her? I’d spent the last several weeks committing adultery. And I had no intention of stopping. Whether she let me say the words or not ... I was in love with Savannah Marshall. So I sat there, impassive, paralyzed, and unable to respond with a touch or any words of comfort or anything at all as my wife fell apart three feet away from me.

Right there, at that moment, is the closest I’ve ever come to hating myself.

In between sobs, she looked up at me, her expression desperate. “Can we go somewhere else? Please?”

I waved down the waiter, and said, “Can we get the check please, right away?”

Five minutes later we were standing at the doors to the elevator. Karin turned her back to me, arms folded across her chest, looking out toward the front door of the hotel. I stood there feeling exposed at the bottom of the seven story interior atrium. From where I stood, Karin and I could be seen from the doors and windows of virtually every room in the hotel.

Savannah was on the sixth floor, and I could see her door from here. Could she see me? Was she wondering at this moment what was passing between Karin and me?

I didn’t want to think about that. My life was segmented out, compartmentalized, and the part of me that performed in the tour, the part of me in love with Savannah, had nothing to do with Karin. Having them both in the same place was beyond disturbing ... it set my entire body on edge with tension that I felt deep in my gut.