I didn’t know what to say. How to tell him the truth. I focused on the orange tip of his cigarette as it flared with his next drag. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
“I’m not,” he said, exhaling. “I’m looking out for you. I don’t want you to get sick.”
“That’s because you care about me, and I care about you, too.” I tried to snatch the smoke from him, but he held it over his head.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Put it out, Manning.” Warmth rose to my cheeks as he stood there defying me. I’d had enough of the disgusting habit. “I’m serious.”
“I’ll come inside in a sec. I’m almost done.”
“Maybe that,” I snapped, pointing at the cancer stick in his hand, “is why we can’t have babies. Did you ever think of that?”
He jerked back as if I’d suddenly sprouted a second head. “What?”
“In case you haven’t noticed,” I said, raising my voice, “I’m—not—pregnant. And after sixteen months of trying, it’s time to stop pretending this isn’t real.”
Manning had frozen in place. Slowly, he squatted to put out his cigarette. “Nobody’s pretending.”
“Aren’t you?” I asked. “Don’t lie and say you haven’t noticed how long it’s taking.”
“I’ve noticed, yeah, but I just figured it takes us a little longer than others. We have time.”
“You don’t get it,” I said, tears overwhelming me. “I can’t get pregnant.”
“We don’t know—”
“I do. I do know. I’ve been to the doctor and she did an exam, and she thinks I’m . . .”
He stared up at me, his eyes wide. “You’re what?”
“Infertile.”
I looked down at him, at the cigarette butt pinched between his fingers. It was a fucked-up thing to blurt out. It was even more fucked up to blame him for this when I knew it wasn’t his fault. He’d been nothing but supportive and didn’t deserve to be ambushed. I wasn’t sure why I’d done it, but I got a strong sense of satisfaction when he ashed out the cigarette. Maybe that was why I’d suddenly needed him to know—to put a stop to his worrying.
“When was this?” he asked.
“Does it matter?” I asked, sniffling.
“Yes.”
“January.”
“And you never thought to mention it?” he asked. “That was months ago.”
“Of course I did. It’s all I’ve been able to think about. I didn’t know how to tell you, though. I was scared—”
“No shit, Lake,” he said, standing. “That’s why you should’ve told me.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Yes it is. How am I supposed to be here for you if you shut me out?”
He reached for me, but I stepped back. If he held me now, I’d never get the rest of it out. “I wanted to get a second opinion first,” I said. “I didn’t want you to hurt the way I’m hurting unless I knew for absolute sure.” I inhaled a shaky breath. “But when everyone around me is getting knocked up out of nowhere—Tiffany, Val, Blue—”
“Blue’s a dog, Lake.”
“She wasn’t supposed to get pregnant, and neither was Val. But I am. We deserve this.”
“Do you have any idea what it’s like inside my head?” He tapped his temple, his jaw tight. “I think about you all the time. I’ve told you before, I want every one of your thoughts.”
I’d already heard that same speech once today. Manning needed to know everything about anything to do with me—that was no surprise. “Then you can thank Corbin for convincing me to talk to you.”
“Corbin?” he asked. “What the fuck does he have to do with this?”
“Nothing.” I didn’t want to keep my conversation with him from Manning, but as soon as I said it, I realized I’d made it sound as if I’d said all these things to Corbin first. “I didn’t tell him any details, just that you and I have been trying—”
“You talked to him about this?”
“I’m saying no, I didn’t.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, but it felt like one. I bit my bottom lip. “Not really. When he saw how I reacted to Val’s news, he put two and two together and guessed we were having trouble.”
Manning shoved his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. “Lake, you don’t ever talk to anybody but me about something like this, especially not him. Especially not before you talk to me.”
“I didn’t discuss it with him,” I said, exasperated. “We talked about getting pregnant, that’s all.”
“And you told him we were having trouble? Before you and I have even opened the door to that conversation?”
I thought of how tense I’d been watching Manning and Tiffany talk alone. I wrapped my arms around myself. “I guess.”
“It’s none of his goddamn business.”
“He was trying to help. For God’s sake, he was on your side. You act like he’s trying to come between us, something I thought we’d moved past.”
He snorted, pulling a pack from his pocket. “I could give a fuck about him. He’s no threat to what you and I have.” He slid out another cigarette. “But when we’re talking about the most important thing in our lives, I come first. You come first. That’s it.”
“But—”
“You have no argument here, Lake. You’re in the wrong.”
Frustration boiled up in me so fast, my chin trembled. So what if I was wrong? Didn’t I have the right to be? To get upset for no reason? To know I’d messed up and not want to acknowledge it? I might be infertile. I was trying to tell Manning this was the end of a future we’d counted on.
I pinched my robe closed at the neck. “Enjoy your fucking cigarette,” I said as I turned back for the house.
17
With each step away from Manning, my chest stuttered with the threat of tears. I headed toward our bedroom, but I knew he wouldn’t be far behind. I needed a minute alone, so instead, I ducked into the one room he’d be least likely to look for me.
The “temporary” office that had ended up staying for years.
We’d never wanted to put much effort into it, assuming it’d one day move to a more permanent spot in the house. There was just a desk, a small filing cabinet, and a computer. These days, I only came in to clean.
I rested my back against the door and looked around what might as well have been an empty room. It was small, just big enough to take a baby through the toddler years before we moved him or her into the next room.
I put my hands over my mouth and sobbed into them, hoping Manning wouldn’t hear. I’d expected him to be devastated about my news, but instead he’d focused more on the fact that I’d kept it from him. I understood why that upset him, especially since I’d opened up to Corbin of all people, but there was a chance we might not have children. We weren’t getting the family I’d promised him and myself. That was a reason to be upset. That was why he should’ve been smoking all along. His money concerns hadn’t even scratched the surface of what we were about to face.
I walked to the middle of the room. The moon lit up the dark, and even as my eyes blurred with tears, I couldn’t keep my imagination from filling in the blanks around me. Picturing the space as a nursery was easy because I’d done it many times over the years. We’d paint the walls. Put a crib in the corner by the window, because Manning had spent part of his life without one and was obsessed with making sure every room had plenty of light. My parents would’ve filled the room with gifts, and Manning and I would’ve been in here all hours of the night, the baby in my arms or his as we rocked our son or daughter to sleep.
Manning had asked if I’d thought of names—of course I fucking had.
He made me feel like a princess. His love turned me invincible, setting the world at my fingertips. Or so I’d thought. I’d taken that for granted, and now it was time to crash and burn.
The door opened behind me. I didn’t need to hide my crying from Manning, but I hated for him to see me this way. He took my tears as hard as p
ossible. They hurt him in a real way, and over the years, he’d bent over backward to make them stop. Like the time right after I’d moved in and found a fallen baby bird out back. He’d helped me put it in a shoebox—trying to be as delicate as he could with his enormous, fumbling hands—and driven us to the animal hospital. Another time, I’d come home from school and tearfully relayed a seminar about the declining elephant population, and he’d promised to take me to Africa one day to see them in person. Then one winter when I’d been miserably sick and crying for no reason, and he’d held me, even knowing I was contagious.
Tonight was no different. The more I held back, the harder my body shook. Manning came into the room and turned me by my shoulders, pulling me into his arms. I didn’t stand a chance. Pressed against him, surrounded by his warmth and comfort, I released all the pain I’d been trying to shield him from the past couple months and beyond.
“Birdy,” he whispered into my hair. “Please don’t cry.”
“I can’t handle this,” I told him. “I can’t do it on my own.”
“You can do it. You can handle this.” He squeezed me so tightly, for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. “But you never, ever have to do it on your own. I’ll always be here.”
“I’m so sorry,” I sobbed into his hoodie.
“What for?” he asked. “This isn’t your fault.”
“I should’ve come to you right away. We’re supposed to be a team, and I broke that promise.”
“I get that you were scared,” he said, rubbing my back, “but you have to understand. I never want to be shut out, and I sure as hell don’t want anyone else to be let in.”
“I know,” I said, looking up at him. “I won’t do it again. But Manning, did you hear what I said out there?”
He moved a couple strands of my hair off my wet cheek. “I heard.”
“What if this is my fault?”
“It’s not.”
“But I took that pill. In New York, after I left your hotel room, I took the morning-after pill. What if I hadn’t? What if that’d been my chance to give us a baby?”
He peeled me back by my shoulders, shaking me a little as he looked into my eyes. “You know it doesn’t work like that. We don’t deserve this because you did what you had to do years ago.”
“I promised you so much—children, a family, a future—and now I don’t think I can give it to you.”
“You are my family.” He slapped the back of his shoulder. “I burned you, my star, right here on my fucking skin. You have already given me the world. The goddamn universe.”
I shook my head, and my voice broke as I said, “Not without a baby.”
“Lake, listen to me carefully. I love you so fucking much. You hear me? As long as I’ve had you, it has never once crossed my mind that my life isn’t complete. All I want is what you want. If you want a baby, we’ll have a baby. If you want a litter of mutts, then lucky us—we’ve already had our first one.”
“I want a baby,” I said, “with you.”
He inhaled through his nose, and for a terrifying moment, I thought he might break down along with me. Instead, his expression cleared. “What’d the doctor say? What’s the issue?”
“She thinks I have endometriosis, but she won’t know for sure until she performs a laparoscopy.”
“What is that?” he asked. “I don’t know any of those terms.”
“I don’t even understand it myself. I was in shock when she told me.”
“I should’ve been there.”
I tried to steady my voice so I wouldn’t scare him any more than he already looked. “Endometriosis is a disease that causes my uterine tissue to . . . well, I guess the tissue has sort of blockaded one of my fallopian tubes. Literally keeping your sperm and my egg apart. And there are cysts on my ovaries—”
“Jesus, Lake.” He released me to run a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up. “You’ve known this for months?”
“It sounds more painful than it is.”
“But is it?” His face fell as he nearly whispered, “Are you in pain?”
I wanted to tell him no, not ever—as far as my protective bear was concerned, I was perpetually floating on cloud nine. But I also wanted to be honest. “Some women have a lot of pain,” I said. “I’m lucky that I don’t. It’s only slightly more severe around my periods.”
“Fuck.” He ran his hand down his face, the way he did when his gears were turning. “All right,” he said. “We’ll handle this. When’s your next appointment?”
“I haven’t made it.”
I hadn’t realized I’d crossed my arms over my stomach until he took my hand. “We need to, baby. No question.”
“My gynecologist wants to do a laparoscopy—it’s minimally invasive surgery. It’ll tell us more.”
“Surgery,” he repeated.
“It’ll most likely be outpatient and I’ll recover within a couple days,” I reassured him, the memory of my visit returning. I was pretty certain I’d only begun to regain composure because I couldn’t quite believe we were having this conversation.
“We’ll call her to schedule in the morning,” he said. “Did she mention our options?”
“Options?” I asked. “There are no options. We just have to keep trying.”
“IVF?” he asked. “Is that what people do next in our situation?”
Breaking this news to Manning hadn’t gone anything like how I’d imagined. I’d thought discussing our options would come much later. “What do you know about IVF?”
“Not much,” he said, “but enough that it concerns me.”
“I haven’t really thought about it,” I admitted. “I didn’t think you’d be ready to hear any of this.”
“Not crazy about the idea of involving drugs and needles and labs.” He brought my hand to his mouth, kissing my palm. “After all, I vowed to protect every inch of this body. If it’s what you want, I’ll support it, but . . .”
I frowned, my cheeks tight with dried tears. “But what? The money?”
“No. This is why I work hard—to give us options. I don’t want you to rule out adoption, though. There are babies and children out there who need the love of a good mom and dad.”
I couldn’t handle it. I started bawling all over again, shivering so hard that Manning had to bring me back into his embrace. He rubbed my back, shushing me, trying to calm me down. My tears weren’t sad. They were shock—that Manning would even consider adoption, and so quickly. They were guilt—that I’d assumed he’d never be open to it. And they were relief—this wasn’t a deal breaker for him, and I could finally start asking myself what I wanted. Maybe our destiny was to give another child a safe and loving home. Maybe a son or daughter whose parents wanted better for them—or who didn’t deserve them, the way Manning’s hadn’t deserved him or Madison.
“You’d really be okay with that?” I blubbered.
The words must’ve been unintelligible in my state, but of course Manning understood me. “This is our life, Lake. We can do whatever we want. We’ve never followed the conventional path. If we aren’t meant to have a biological child . . . I mean, I can’t lie. Yeah, that’s hard news to take. I know how much you want that. I do, too. But it isn’t the end of the line for us. Not even close.” He tilted my face up with his knuckle. “Even if we have to make the difficult decision that it’s just going to be you and me for the rest of our lives, I’ll continue thanking the heavens. Every day. Won’t you?”
My muscles loosened, and I finally let myself melt in his strong arms. It would be easy not to believe him, or to go on doubting what we had, but deep down I knew the truth. Manning wouldn’t lie to me about this. He was enough for me—why shouldn’t I, alone, be enough for him, too? Any other blessings fate sent our way were only more reasons to be grateful.
“Every day,” I agreed.
I let Manning hold me in a nursery that might never be. I wasn’t sure how to be okay with that yet. Tonight, I’d perch on my great bear’s ba
ck and let him carry me around the universe until I was ready to open my wings again. We were two stars forever locked in a triangle that only seemed to hurt us. But at least we had each other. I didn’t know how long it’d be until I was ready to soar, only that Manning would support me when I was—and that I’d one day find the strength to do it.
Summer Triangle
Fall 2012
18
I slid my hand up Manning’s shaft, palming the leathery knob. “Like this?” I asked.
Manning stared as I stroked his stick shift. “Nice try,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Sex won’t get you out of this.” He nodded at my feet. “Now, release the clutch smoothly as you feed in throttle.”
With a sigh, I made my fourth attempt in fifteen minutes to drive a stick shift. Manning’s truck jerked back and forth before I hit the brake. “I suck at this,” I said.
“You’ll get the hang of it.” He started in again on downshifting and listening to the engine and friction points. The sun shone through the windshield, showing the crow’s feet around his eyes, the two lines that formed in his forehead whenever he spoke about something that mattered to him. Like driving a manual.
Maybe I wasn’t getting the hang of it because I kept losing myself in how sexy Serious Manning could be.
“Got it?” he asked.
“Today is one of those beautiful fall days that’re gone before you know it,” I said.
He covered my hand with his, ignoring me. “Now, put it in first,” he said, pushing the stick to the left and up, “and slowly release the clutch.”
“The sun is shining; the temperature is that perfect place between warm and cool. Let’s go out on the lake.”
“All right,” he said. “Drive us there.”
I stuck out my tongue at him. We made it farther down our driveway this time, rattling over the gravel as the truck shuddered. But at the entrance to the street, I slammed on the brakes in a panic, vaulting us forward as we stalled.
He scratched his chin. “That was better, I guess . . .”
Something in the Way: A Forbidden Love Saga: The Complete Collection Page 103
