by Lori L. Otto
“Things have changed, Jack, or hadn’t you noticed?”
“I’m not going through this shit again,” I tell her, continuing down the stairs and opening the door. “What kind of fool am I?” I quietly mutter to myself.
“So you’re leaving? Really? You’re leaving me now?”
“I’m going for a run, Emi. I can’t go through this again. I won’t.”
“You can’t run away from this!” she calls to me as I walk out and close the door. I don’t even walk ten paces before turning back around and going back into the house. She meets me in the foyer.
“When did things change? When did this change?”
“When I found out I couldn’t have children!” she says loudly as she turns away from me and goes into the living room. Frustrated tears stream quickly down her cheeks as she sits in the leather chair.
“That doesn’t make sense, Emi!” I walk over to her and grasp her by the shoulders, kneeling in front of her. “You don’t want kids because you can’t have them?”
“I’m not supposed to have them,” she cries softly.
“What?” I ask her.
“I mean it,” she says. “I’m obviously not meant to have children.”
“Why would you think such a thing?” I ask her, taking a seat on the coffee table across from her, holding her small hands in mine.
“Because,” she sobs.
“Because why, Emi?”
“Because he took her from me...”
“Who did?” I struggle to follow her thoughts. “Nate?”
“No. God.”
“God?”
“Yes. He took away my baby and he took away my ability to have any more. I did something, somewhere, sometime... and I’m obviously being punished for it. He’s obviously telling me I wouldn’t make a good mother.” She cries harder.
“My god, Emi,” I squeeze her hands tightly, trying to get her to look at me. “You will make a wonderful mother. What happened to you was an accident. It wasn’t divine intervention.”
“How do you know?” she asks, weeping.
“Your child and your boyfriend were killed by a drunk driver... and you were hurt so badly by that accident that you can’t carry a child. The poor decisions that stupid kid made that night did this to you. God did not do this to you.”
“You can believe what you want. But I think He did.”
“No, Emi, no. You can’t believe that. Please, don’t...”
“I don’t understand why this is happening,” she cries. “I thought when you came back to me that night that you were okay with it just being me and you. And now you’re going back on that.”
“Emi, I never abandoned the idea of us adopting children. You know I want kids. Yes,” I say to her, trying to be as convincing as possible, “you are enough for me. But there is no reason why we have to close the door on the possibility of having kids.”
“There is if I’m going to be a horrible mom.”
“You’re not, damn it.” I drop her hands in frustration and put my head in my hands, trying my best to stay composed. “You can’t do this.”
“I am doing this, Jack. If you want to be with me, you have to be okay with... just... me. Look at the signs. This is not meant to be.”
“Don’t give me this ultimatum now,” I beg her. “I can’t do this.”
“It’s the same thing I asked of you the night I told you. You had to decide if I was worth the sacrifice of the family you’ve envisioned. You came back to me.”
“I came back to you because I knew there were solutions... that this situation was easily rectified. I don’t care that you can’t bare our children. But we can still raise children.”
“No. Maybe you can, but I can’t. Stop telling me what I can and can’t do.”
“But you can! God, Emi, stop being so stubborn!”
“I’m not stubborn,” she argues. “I’m decided. It was decided for me. I am not meant to be a mother. And if you need a wife who is, you need to...” She sighs heavily. “You need to find someone else.”
I shake my head at her and go into the kitchen, pulling out groceries to start making dinner. I refuse to continue this conversation with her.
“What are you doing?” she asks me, standing in the midst of the kitchen, her hands on her hips.
“I’m making us dinner,” I mumble.
“I don’t fucking want dinner!”
“God damn it, Emi!” I yell, carelessly throwing the knife I was using into the sink. “You don’t want kids now. You don’t want dinner. What do you want from me?” I lean over the island with an aggressive posture that she mirrors back to me.
“I want you to stop making all the decisions here!”
“What decisions have I made? We’re having chicken tonight, is that okay?” I say loudly, sarcastic.
“As a matter of fact, no! I don’t want chicken.” She crosses her arms at me in defiance. “All I want is for you to try and understand where I’m coming from!”
“I can’t understand. I don’t want to understand. I won’t. You have to realize how completely unreasonable you’re being.”
“Me? How is what I’m doing any different from what you’re doing?”
“I’m exploring options. You’re leaving us with none.”
“You have options. Stay or go.”
“What, stay in New York or go to Texas?” I know what she’s saying to me. I don’t want to hear it, turn around to face the sink to avoid seeing her mouth say the words.
“Stay with me, just the two of us... or go find someone else who can give you what you really want.”
I bite my lip, incredulous, brimming with anger, hurt, betrayal.
“Alright, I’ll cancel the trip to Texas, but I’m not giving up on the idea of adoption. I’ll put it aside for now,” I tell her, offering the best compromise I can make. I turn around abruptly to drive my next point home. “But I’ll be damned if you think I’m going to walk away from this. Make me the bad guy. How’s this?” I ask her forcefully. “You want to make decisions? This one is yours to make. If you want to leave... if you don’t think this can work... it’ll be your choice to walk away from what we have. I won’t do it.
“But I’ll tell you right now, Emi. You do that? You choose to leave me? It will be the last time. There will be no coming back. I have seen you walk away from me too many times. I have... hurt... too much for you already. And I have already lived this fight.” A lump in my throat nearly destroys all my resolve. I swallow hard, afraid that she will decide to leave me. I don’t know what I would do without her.
She stands across from me, still defiant, holding back more tears.
“It’s your choice to make,” I finish. “Take your time.”
“I guess I have a lot to think about,” she says quietly.
“I guess you do.”
“I’m going home.” She grabs her purse. “Goodbye, Jack.”
Is this what it will feel like? “Goodbye.”
A few hours later, I hear the phone ring as I’m crawling into bed.
“Hello?”
“I just wanted you to know that I love you,” Emi says, her voice heavy with sadness. “I didn’t want to go to sleep without you knowing that.”
“I love you, too, Em.”
“Good night.”
“Good night.”
~ * ~
A week later, I take Emi’s hand into mine as we walk back from the subway station to my house. “You were really good with him tonight,” I tell her with a smile. Chris and Anna had invited us to see Eli and have dinner, and we put on a good show, acting as the happy couple to Emi’s brother and sister-in-law. They had outlined for us what we would be doing at the end of the month at our godson’s christening.
“I don’t want to talk about this tonight,” she warns me, not angry, but clearly not happy, either.
“How much longer are you going to drag this out?” I ask.
“I’m not deciding on what color shirt to wear, J
ack,” she says sarcastically, letting go of my hand. Her following statement was much softer. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, just so you know, Anna only wants me to be Eli’s godfather if we intend to be married, to set a good example for him. She told me when she asked me. We may need to come up with something soon.”
She nods. “I know.”
When we get back to the house, Emi lingers at the passenger door of my Volvo, holding onto the handle, waiting for me to unlock it... waiting for me to take her to her loft.
“Emi,” I say to her, go to her, taking her into my arms and kissing her. Her eyes squeeze tight, tears finding their way out. “I’m going crazy without you.”
“I know.” Her kiss is desperate.
“I need you.”
“I know,” she repeats, her fingers entwined in my hair.
“Stay with me tonight. Please.”
“I don’t know what to do,” she cries again. “I don’t want to give you false hope.”
“Are you really thinking you can walk away from this?” My hands cradle her face, lips touch hers once more.
“I don’t know if I have a choice.”
“You do. Emi, you do. Don’t you love me?”
“You know I do.”
“Then stay. Stay tonight. Stay forever.”
“I can’t.”
“I don’t think I can take you home,” I tell her.
“I’ll take the subway,” she says. “But I can’t stay. I would hope you’d respect that decision... and take me home.”
“I won’t.” I shake my head, standing my ground.
“You can’t control me,” she whispers. “It’s my life.”
“It’s our life,” I correct her.
“No,” she swallows. “It’s mine.” She turns toward the street and walks away, toward the subway.
I should have stopped her. I should have offered her a ride home. I should have done a million things in that moment to appease her, but as she inched further away from me, physically and emotionally, I realize it might be time I start to let her go.
She could have ripped my heart out with her bare hands, and it would have hurt less.
~ * ~
One evening a week and a half later, Chris stops by to drop off a few DVDs he had borrowed. I invite him in for a beer and a game of pool. Of course, I had ulterior motives. I hadn’t seen Emi in over a week. It was like Europe all over again, with sparse text messages a few times a day. The only difference this time is that I was clued into the seemingly-impending breakup.
“So, what are Anna and Eli doing today without you?”
“You mean with Emi?”
“Yeah,” I feign awareness.
“I think they were going to run some errands. Try to take Eli out in public for a test run,” he laughs. “He’s still crying when anyone other than me or Anna tries to get close to him. Emi’s trying to break him of that.”
“How is she doing today?” I ask. “With Eli, I mean.”
“He was awake for a good 15 minutes before he realized she was holding him. Then he just wailed. Anna had to calm him down, but he finally fell asleep. Emi was rocking him when I left this morning.”
How could she think God didn’t want her to have children? It still seems unfathomable that she could believe such a thing.
“Is she okay?” Chris asks me. “I thought she seemed... I don’t know... something... when she stopped by a few days ago. I didn’t think anything of it, but Anna mentioned it to me after she left. That she thought something was wrong.”
I was sure my attempt at a smile gave me away. “I think she’s fine. We’re just going through some things. It’s fine.”
“What’s up?”
“Really, it’s nothing,” I lie. In one of the few texts she sent me, she had asked me to keep this between us. I had given her my word. I had already said too much.
“You know now I’m just going to ask her.”
“Well, that would probably be best.” My smile has faded by now, the stress of the fight, of our distance, wearing on me. “And then you can let me know,” I murmur, shaking my head. “Just ignore me. Of course I don’t want you in the middle of this.”
“Middle of what? Come on, I’m in it now.”
“She’s gotten it in her head that God doesn’t want her to be a mother,” I scoff. “So she’s written off any future of children.”
“What?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.” I nod in agreement.
“Your sister is not always practical, and she’s not always open to listening to reason,” I tell him, knowing he recognizes this. “This could be it,” I add with a sigh, defeated, shrugging my shoulders, unable to keep my eyes from watering. “She’s put out this ultimatum... I have to be willing to let go of my hopes for kids if I want to stay with her. It’s... just... bullshit. I can’t do that. I won’t.”
“Man, Jack, I’m sorry. I had no idea. You’ve got to talk some sense into her. You can’t let her walk away. You’re the best thing that’s happened to her in... well, maybe ever.”
“I know. She’s not listening... and she asked me not to say anything. But I honestly just can’t keep this to myself any longer. It’s killing me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“It’s not up to me,” I tell him. “I told her I wouldn’t leave her... but that I wasn’t going to give up on building a family of our own, either. I told her this choice had to be hers.”
“Let me try to talk to her,” he offers.
“No. I don’t want her to feel pressured. I need to know that this is her decision, and her decision alone.”
“What, did you two divide and conquer today?” Emi asks Chris, startling us in the basement. “The door was unlocked,” she says to me. She walks over to her brother and hugs him lightly. “Jack,” she forces a smile.
“Emi,” I smile back. “We were just–”
“Talking about me, I know,” she says.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her.
“Chris, can you excuse us? Anna mentioned you were going to bring her dinner.” Her tone is direct and commanding, her posture confident.
“Of course, Emi,” he says, waving briefly at me on his way out. “But listen, you were great with Eli... you’re great with kids, Emi.”
“Chris, don’t.” He nods and walks upstairs.
Her presence demands my full attention. She pushes the billiard balls to the other side of the table and pulls herself up on it, crossing her legs and clasping her hands under her chin.
“They were working us, you know,” she says. “Chris and Anna. She sent him over to talk to you. I came as soon as I found out.”
“He already knew?”
“Yeah. I told Anna in confidence... but she told him.”
“And what was her take?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “Like you, I wanted this to be my decision. I need it to be.”
“So you’ve made it?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m here.”
“Okay,” I say, sitting down on a folding chair in the corner. “What can I do?”
“There has to be a middle ground,” she says. “You’re going to have to meet me half-way on this.”
“And where exactly is half-way on an issue of kids or no kids? It seems pretty black and white to me.”
“I need you to work with me here. I’m going to need a little faith. I don’t have a decision yet... but I’m trying desperately. What’s stopping me is that I know what I want the decision to be... and I can’t reconcile everything to get there yet.”
“What do you want it to be?”
“Of course, I want us to stay together.”
I let out a loud sigh of relief. “What do I have to do?”
“It’s simple really.”
“Okay.”
“I just need for you to explore the possibility of no children.”
“A
nd what will you be doing?”
“Exploring the possibility of adopting them.”
“I have to be honest, after the past few weeks, I’d much rather explore the possibility of no children then the possibility of no... you. But Emi, I just don’t think it’s reasonable to ask me to do that.”
“But can you?”
“I don’t guess I have a choice.”
“I don’t feel like I do, either.” She’s silent before speaking again, softly. “I went ahead and re-booked the flight to Texas.”
“We don’t have to do that now, yet...”
“I don’t want to put it off.”
“Okay, fair enough. What brought all this on?”
“Well, I was with Anna today. And all of a sudden, she had some interior design emergency, and she needed to leave. And thank God, Anni-Emi was already there to watch Eli. She abandoned me with him. It nearly killed her to be away from him, but she did it... she made up this elaborate story... for me...”
“And how did that go?”
“Well, he lived.” I laugh lightly and smile at her encouragingly. “And he didn’t cry once while Anna was gone. He took a bottle from me. He let me rock him to sleep. I changed him.” Her smile is serene as she talks about her day. “I even think I made him smile... maybe I imagined it.”
“I doubt it,” I assure her. “You do that to people.” We stare at each other, sharing a long pause.
She tucks her knees into her body and wraps her arms around her legs, resting her chin on her knees. She cocks her head slightly. “I don’t know how this is going to turn out,” she admits. “But we have to try.”
“Yeah,” I agree. Even though nothing is truly resolved, I feel as if a weight has been lifted. I have a modicum of hope for us, at least.
“I know this doesn’t fix us,” she says, “but I was wondering if we could take a night off from this.”
“From what?”
“Our differences. Everything that’s been keeping us apart.”
“Of course,” I tell her, crossing the room to go to her and taking one of her hands into mine. “What did you have in mind?”
“I need to know that you still trust me,” she says quietly.
