“I read up on it. I read all that literature the doctor gave you. I listened to their explanations for how you might feel. I was ready to be there for you. To reassure you that I loved you no matter what. I didn’t need for you to get pregnant. That I—”
“Your feelings were hurt because my self-esteem didn’t take enough of a hit to suit your liking?”
His shoulders deflate. “No, Natalie, I didn’t want to press you, or make you feel like you should react another way. Besides, you didn’t want to talk about it. You didn’t ask me about it. You decided that was how God or nature made you and intended you to be, so we weren’t meant to have kids. You never asked me my personal opinion.”
I push into the building and stare at him, my jaw dropping. “We agreed. We had our careers. Our very important and very fulfilling, at least to us, careers…” I whisper, fading off in stunned silence.
“Yes. We did. And we do. But I wanted to discuss the option of having a baby another way or adopting. But I knew what your thoughts on adoption were. No. No way. Hell would freeze over. You would definitely not adopt a child. The adoptee would not be the adopter of another. Those were your words. I didn’t understand it then; I mean, your life was good with your adopted parents. You did and do love them. Why couldn’t the adoptee become the adopter? It worked for you. Why not pay that goodness forward? I thought maybe it was God, or nature, or destiny’s remedy: we should adopt a child just like you were adopted.”
“You didn’t think that.”
“I did,” he says softly. His gaze finds mine. “I wanted to talk about a lot of things. But you became… fierce with me. With everyone. You seemed to need to prove how strong you are. Which I admire, Natalie. I didn’t want you to feel bad, or down, or sad. But I did want to talk to you. Not be talked at by you. But I was afraid to say anything… I was afraid if I tried, you might think I was criticizing you or something. But I simply wanted to talk about someday in the future, and how we might still be able to have kids. I don’t know. Maybe I don’t want them either. I just wanted the option, and the chance, to talk about it. Maybe compromise or…”
“You can’t compromise. You either have a kid or not.”
He shut his eyes, and seemed so weary, as if he could not handle standing there another second. He shook his head. “I just wanted the right to talk about it with you. Maybe you didn’t need me then, but I needed you. Yeah, duh, you’re the strong one, I guess, in this. But you didn’t seem to notice me. We talked less and less… about that, about our parents, until eventually, I can’t remember the last time we talked about what we were doing for the day, or having for dinner. This is the first time I can remember being honest with you in a very long time.”
He shakes his head. Eyes still closed. “I wronged you. I hurt you. I betrayed you. I hate myself. I hate who and what I’ve become and done to you and to us. But there was something missing and something gone, and you refused to stop and notice. Or talk about it. Or even to acknowledge me.” He opens his eyes and his gaze pierces me. “And I didn’t tell you, so it’s my fault too. I know that. But my mistake did not come completely out of a vacuum. I was frustrated, angry and hurt. And I swear to God, you never once considered if I’d have any kind of reaction to it.”
“You just wanted a perfect, barefoot and pregnant wife in your kitchen. Four or five kids and a good little wifey who didn’t cause you any trouble or embarrassment. No challenges. Or at the least, a polished society wife who could carry off your insane need for rich snobs to like and be impressed by you.”
I spit it out at him, and my venom is toxic. My rising anger makes it easy.
“No,” he says simply. Sharply. He keeps shaking his head. “No, that’s not what I wanted. I wanted you. Police Officer Natalie Ford. I just hoped we could make decisions about our life and our family together.”
“Well, you certainly, epically managed to do that, now, didn’t you, Sam Ford?”
He stares hard at me. We are close, barely two steps apart. He is above me. His shoulders fall and his mouth turns down in a deep frown. “Yes. I did.”
Pivoting on his foot, Sam goes up the steps and inside the little apartment. I stare after him. I don’t expect such an abrupt end to this. It was the most honest we’ve been with each other in months; okay, maybe a year. I am shaking. My hands are trembling and I bury my face in my hands. Did I do that? Did I never ask him? Did I, in my pride over how I dealt with it, never consider how Sam was dealing with it?
But typical me, my anger always trumps my sentiments. The emotions hurt and choke my throat. The anger? It’s quite refreshing. Easy. It clears up my throat and head and just blurts out.
But at what cost? What is the cost for being right?
Chapter Twelve
Sam
I lie there half the night, just staring at the ceiling where the reflection from the outside yard casts odd shapes in shadows. I throw a tennis ball up and down repeatedly as I relive last night. I also relive the last week along with the last years.
Our final conversation keeps playing and replaying in my head.
I had pushed Natalie into having kids. I wanted to try for a baby. I talked her into doing it. She wanted to wait until she was older and had been on the job more. About this same time I pushed for us to move. It was too much. I see that now looking back.
She liked the small apartment that was only a few blocks from where we grew up. Our days as newlyweds were perhaps the best, but I was too clueless and busy back then to even notice. She worked a lot of shifts and crazy hours, but then again, so did I. After being hired at BorderLine, my entire focus centered on my career. We spent what little spare time we had together, usually around the mission, or at different bars. We enjoyed the music culture that thrived around there, as well as a smattering of different hole–in–the–wall restaurants serving everything from oyster bars to burgers. We often walked or took the BART to different districts of the city on the weekends to hang out. We were never bored. There was always something to do, or someplace to go. Chinatown became one of our favorites and we spent most of our Saturday afternoons down there, browsing, and of course, getting dinner. It was always overcrowded, thriving with tourists, and seeing so many colors and traditional lanterns only enlivened the atmosphere. There are endless restaurants, teahouses, temples, fish and fowl markets; not to mention all the merchants peddling almost every kind of herb or other strange merchandise. We always felt like we stepped onto a different continent and were on a vacation, when all the while, we remained within our own city’s limits. We thoroughly appreciated its unique sights, tastes and colors.
I look back now on all those memories and wonder if I appreciated what I had then. Because at the time it wasn’t enough for me. I wanted more. I wanted it all. The company offered me a promotion, which came with a Victorian house on Dolores Street, where we now lived. It’s hilly, quiet and truly spectacular, being so close to Dolores Park. When we first moved there, we often played tennis or soccer at the park. It was a substantial improvement over the lot we remembered playing sports together in. But as time went by, we went there together less frequently. It offered great views of the city and the East Bay, but Natalie was not one to sit around enjoying the vistas. Our house was one of the smallest on a street of grand, old Victorians. We could never afford to live there on our own dime. Natalie didn’t want to move there. She said it was too big and pretentious, and it didn’t match anything about her or her taste. She didn’t like all the gentrification that had taken place over the passing years in many parts of the city. She also didn’t like living in what she felt was a “freaking postcard.” People imagining San Francisco housing pretty much see the very picture of our street. I personally decorated and furnished the house. Yes, typically, the wife would’ve been assigned such chores, but it worked for us. Or at least, I believed it did. However, there was really nothing typical about Natalie ever, and that was what so attracted me to her.
About the same time we were gett
ing moved into this bigger house, I pressured her harder to try and have a baby. It would come in the way of her job, of course, but I argued that it would have to do that at some point anyway. Biology, right? Not my fault. She always tried to resist the biological constraints of being a girl, then later, a woman.
So we started trying to conceive, and nothing happened. I grew impatient. I was ready. I wanted to do this now. I was always like that once I decided my course of action. But duh, there was no controlling this. I did my research, and even questioned my own mom about conception and the like. I know for a fact I drove Natalie nuts. She had no one to consult, and just wanted to let things go on as they were. I insisted we get checked out medically. I don’t know if I regret that now, or not. I mean, if we’d waited another two years, we’d still have heard the same news. News that devastated me. Natalie took the results with complete calm. She had solid control of her emotions. The first few days after the revelation, I assumed she was merely denying what was going on. I even thought she might be holding in her true reaction.
Or not. Really, she didn’t have a strong reaction to it. She shrugged it off with mild disappointment and said she was fine. She simply accepted the news that we could not easily make our own babies.
We got home from the doctor’s office and several days passed before I finally asked her to talk to me about it. I remember that conversation as clearly as I can see the sky outside the window right now. She sat in our living room and finally told me how the news affected her. She shrugged and said she was sorry, but at least, we knew now and we could deal with it. She gave me kudos for insisting we dig deeper into the problem. It was a relief for her just to know. There were no tears, or anger, or further discussion.
And that was it. That was our only conversation about her problem conceiving children.
I was stunned. Not because she could not have kids and I was married to her, but because I realized then what a relief it was to her. She didn’t really care about having kids. She thought it was a sign we just weren’t supposed to. She accepted that without grief or hesitation. The decision was already made for her.
And therefore, for me.
I cared though. I remember how my heart squeezed when we met with her OB/GYN. I held her hand tighter and tighter as we heard the news together. I can still feel the sinking sensation in my guts. I turned to her immediately, thinking she needed me to be strong. I was determined to do that.
But she didn’t need my strength. She shook her head with intensity at the doctor, listening with a sober expression, taking in the news with a seriousness I can’t deny.
I thought we both needed some time to let it all sink in, and to deal with our separate emotions and opinions on the matter. She portrayed, and pretty convincingly, how well she accepted her condition as her new reality. She didn’t want to sit around crying about it, or even discussing it. It was part of who she was and she could accept that without any problem.
The thing is, I could too. I could accept our inability to conceive our own natural child, because there were options. Adoption. Surrogates. In vitro fertilization. I don’t know exactly what, or even how far I’d be willing to pursue parenthood, but I wanted to explore it. I wanted to find out. I figured we could start collecting information and talking about the alternatives before we made a decision together.
I wanted to have a child. I still do. But Natalie didn’t ask me. She accepted her diagnosis as our diagnosis and acted like I had no feelings or thoughts about it. I felt like a monster for being so disappointed in her body. I wasn’t trying to change what reality was; I wanted to discuss our goals together, and what we wanted, if we dared to try another way. I wanted her to acknowledge how much it affected me too. She didn’t open the discussion up to me. She expected me to be fine with the knowledge that we most likely could not conceive. That was the new reality and I had better get on board.
I grew to resent her for that. She so cavalierly decided I couldn’t be a father. I wanted then, and still want to be a father. But more than that even, I wanted to talk to her, or fight with her, or cry with her, just to feel something with her about it. For me, it was a startling development in our life together. But I wanted to deal with it together. I wanted her to care about what I felt and thought. I just wanted her acknowledgment that it affected me too.
But she wouldn’t. Natalie refused to talk about it. She didn’t want to tell anyone and she asked me not to. Including Dustin and my parents. It was her body, and I needed to respect her decision.
I understood that, so I didn’t tell anyone, despite the slowly growing black knot inside my heart. I was angry. She shut me down. She didn’t even try to find out how I felt. So looking back, I guess I shut her down too.
She started to irritate me more. Every little thing she did started to grate on me, and since I could comment on those things, I did. Natalie being a mess? Always. Only now I nagged at every little thing she didn’t put away, and cupboard she didn’t close. Looking back, I see I used all the petty stuff to argue and pick fights about, when really, it was the bigger issue she forbade me from discussing that I wanted to fight about. That was the source of all our bickering. I wanted to argue, fight, cry, or voice my thoughts. I’m not sure what I needed to do. I just wanted for us to deal with it together.
But I picked at her. I criticized the long hours she worked being a cop. And repeated how dangerous it was. I acted as if everything that gave her a strong identity was somehow not good enough for me. I complained that I wanted her to be a more traditional–acting woman than she was. I blamed my career and socializing as the reason I needed her to change. So naturally, she chose not to come with me to anymore dinners, or meetings, or charity events, or even nights out at Davies Symphony Hall to hear the San Francisco Symphony, which used to be the one thing Natalie liked to do. That was a favorite of Jayden’s too and therefore, something I was frequently invited to.
Each time she refused to go to one of my work outings I harped on her for days afterwards. I dissed her about being a cop, and claimed that was half of why not having kids didn’t bother her.
I let things go, but I actually did not let anything go. She started to freeze me out when I got too rude about her job, or pressured her to be more supportive of mine. I listened to Jayden razzing me about my image. I insisted I needed to bring her to those stupid, pointless socializing events that happened outside the office. And there were a lot of them. I usually went alone and resented every single moment of them. BorderLine has a rabid, crowded and vicious internal political scene. Jayden’s dad, the long-time CEO, likes things that way. He thinks it keeps his executives and managers in stiff competition, trying to improve and outdo each other. It is like a micro-capitalistic society inside the company. Image is very important. There is a lot of client schmoozing involved with our jobs. Hence, the parties, dinners, symphony, and concerts that I had to attend. Natalie wanted nothing to do with any of it. She attempted to at first, but the last year she didn’t even try.
Things deteriorated rather quickly after that. We lived in the same house, and we were together, but not at all. We led completely separate lives. Sex became something ferocious between us. A lot like one of the old sports competitions. Now we were trying to best each other. The crazy part is, we did it a lot and the sex was fantastic. Hot. Almost to the point of being unable to move or walk after going at each other so hard. Both of us were trying to dominate the other. Not exactly a loving expression for how we felt about each other. The bed was just another arena in which we competed. Right up until the last few months, when it completely stopped.
I get up off the couch, my thoughts drowning me. Standing before the window, I am looking out over the quiet, rural country of the Hendrickses’ small farmyard. I didn’t have sex with Chantal because Natalie and I hadn’t been intimate in a few months. I also didn’t do it because she can’t get pregnant. I didn’t do it because she is a cop either. I didn’t do it because she wasn’t girlie enough for me, or wi
lling to play the good little wifey role that my job functions tried to peg into her becoming. I realize now, why I did it, as I stare into the yard. I finally have words for why I did it.
I hang my head as the truth glares at me. I did it specifically to hurt Natalie. I did it to punish her because she wouldn’t listen to me. I felt ignored and trapped by her decisions. Like I had no right to voice my feelings.
I shake my head as if we’re in a pretend conversation. That last conversation was the factor in helping me formulate how I could do something I never intended, or even considered doing. I don’t cheat. I don’t have trouble keeping my shit in my pants ever. Contrary to my actions, being faithful has never been hard for me, or even optional. I just was that way. I was happy to be faithful.
Leanne Davis - Natalie (Daughters Series #2) Page 17
