Forever and A Day: a Those Who Wait story

by Haley Cass

  Her wife had tilted her head, a small, teasing smile playing on her lips.

  “Well, I’m not saying we need to go out and figure out baby names right now. I understand if you aren’t ready yet, I know it’s a big thing,” her voice was so soft, in the way she had, that patient way. “But… I’m thirty-two, Charlotte. You’re thirty-five. Even if we aren’t going to have our first baby for a year or so, we need to plan it.”

  “I’m not sure it’s the right time,” she’d managed again as her chest seized in a panic she was entirely unfamiliar with.

  Sutton let out a baffled laugh. “Not the right time? You plan more than anyone I’ve ever met,” she assessed and it was entirely true. “You love making plans for the future –”

  She did love planning, loved having a timeline and steps she would be following. It was methodical and satisfying, and she loved being able to see how close she was to a goal or an endgame.

  But the thought of planning this was terrifying. How did she plan for something like this, when she was so unsure?

  “– So, I figured we could make a whole night out of it,” her wife’s voice had been so hopeful, it hurt. “We can have dinner and I have all of these websites bookmarked, and…” She trailed off, the exuberance in her voice slowly leeching out before she tilted her head and gave Charlotte a long look. “And, you don’t want to do this tonight.”

  Her voice was soft and questioning but sure, because she knew, and the somewhat crestfallen look on her face made Charlotte’s stomach twist even more. She hated when Sutton wore anything even relating to that look, let alone being part of the cause.

  She’d leaned back against the counter, a sigh breaking from her lips as she tried to find the right words to explain herself fully. Which was difficult, so difficult, because how was she supposed to do that when she knew that the thoughts swirling in her head would break Sutton’s heart?

  She apparently hadn’t had to say anything, though, before those all too perceptive blue eyes had narrowed up at her. “Do you want to do this… any night?”

  “I don’t know.” The admittance had left her quickly, emotionally, her voice feeling raw. But the worst part was that she could actually see the way the words hit Sutton like a blow.

  From there, the entire evening had gone downhill. Well, more downhill.

  She could so easily picture the way Sutton had blanched, the way she crumpled back in her chair in surprise, before that had seeped into a rare anger.

  “But… we’ve talked about it,” she’d said, her voice low and hurt and betrayed in a way Charlotte had never heard aimed at her. “Years ago. You said – we agreed that was in our future.”

  Which was true. When they were dating, when they’d gotten more sure and more serious – even though if Charlotte was honest, she didn’t know if

  she and Sutton were ever not serious –they’d laid out what they wanted in their lives, and determined if they’d want it all together.

  It had been done in soft voices, intermittent with a lot of laughter, even more kissing, and Charlotte staring at Sutton and feeling like she saw the world as an even more expansive, glorious universe reflecting back at her.

  That universe for Sutton included having kids.

  And the thing was, Charlotte would have to be both dumb and blind if she thought at any point that Sutton didn’t want children, even if they’d never had any sort of conversation about it. And she was certainly neither of those things.

  Her wife practically turned into a pile of mush every time she saw a baby in public; she’d done so long before they’d even considered getting married. Likely for long before they’d even met. They now had eight nieces and nephews and not only did Sutton adore them and love spending as much time with all of them as possible, but she was good at it – at being with them. Soothing them, making them laugh.

  Babies – and toddlers, and children; all of the young ones in their extended family – loved Sutton, too. It was as though she had a magic touch.

  And there, in those soft moments when it was just the two of them away from everything in the world, when having children with Sutton was a thought for the undetermined future, it felt… nice. During those moments in their relationship when they’d talked about their future and children had come up, it hadn’t been hard to think that she would want them, too.

  But, she’d realized in the last few months, that there was a startling difference between the dreamy undetermined future babies with thoughts of a baby with red hair and blue eyes in a world that only existed with their little family, and the actuality of her wife wanting to truly, actually bring a life into this very real, demanding world with her.

  “I’m sorry,” her words had come out in a whisper. “But there are other things to think about, now.”

  There was so much to think about.

  It had been the wrong thing to say though. Especially when Sutton had stood up and wrapped her arms around herself, looking hurt and angry and it spiraled to the point that she couldn’t stop thinking about now as she laid in bed hours later –

  Sutton staring at her, eyes wide after all of her seeds of doubt about ever having a child in the future came out and moments of silence sat heavy between them. “That would have been nice to know years ago.”

  Which, what did that mean? She wasn’t entirely sure, but she knew it made her stomach leap in fear.

  Before she could even figure out what to say, Sutton had shaken her head. “I just… I need some time to think.”

  That had been at seven this evening and now it was – she spared a look at her phone on the bedside table, pursing her lips – almost three in the morning. Eight hours of silence.

  There had been many times in their lives together that they existed in comfortable silence in the evenings. Working either side by side or in separate rooms, or relaxing and decompressing to just be together.

  They’d never existed in a tenseness like this. She’d never been met with a quiet goodnight when she’d tentatively informed her wife that she was going to go to bed. It took everything inside of her to not go into the guest room and… she didn’t know. Do something just get Sutton to talk to her.

  She had to be up for work in three hours, she’d been up for over twenty hours, and she couldn’t sleep. Not when she felt like this. Not when the most solid thing in her life, her marriage, felt like it was at the closest to fraying that it had ever been.

  The back of her throat felt thick and scratchy, and she didn’t think there had been a time where she’d been more upset in their marriage than she was at that moment.

  Exactly how much time would her wife need to think? Because Charlotte was itching with everything she was to go to her now, even if she didn’t know quite how to make sense in words – at least, words that wouldn’t break Sutton’s heart.

  But Charlotte didn’t do anything by halves; when she wanted something, she wanted it with everything she had. And the very specific thing she couldn’t get over about having a baby was… a big one.

  She turned onto her side, only getting more agitated as she couldn’t get comfortable like that, either.

  If she couldn’t get comfortable for one night like this, what was she going to do if –

  She froze entirely as the bedroom door opened, before her body melted in relief. Charlotte wasn’t facing the door but she didn’t have to be to know the soft footsteps approaching the bed; she could place them anywhere.

  And she thought it was much in the same way that Sutton didn’t have to see her in the dark to know that she wasn’t sleeping as she slipped under the covers, settling naturally into her place in their bed. “Just because I can’t sleep without you doesn’t mean I’m not upset.”

  She knew her wife meant those words, but… she couldn’t help but feel reassurance flowing through her veins, her shoulders untensing just at feeling Sutton climbing into bed with her.

  “It doesn’t mean that I don’t feel like you lied to me,” Sutton added, and the pain and
anger in her voice was impossible to mistake. It felt like a knife to the stomach. “Because I know that having kids isn’t for everyone, but you said it was what you wanted, too. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time,” she confessed, as if it was a secret. “And I’ve had so many ideas and possibilities to talk to you about. So, now, I feel –”

  Her voice seemed to break, bleeding from anger to sadness in a way that twisted the knife. “Like you’ve been avoiding this and dodging having to talk about it, and I can’t remember the last time you’ve done that, and I just…”

  She trailed off, her voice wobbling and Charlotte couldn’t stand to hear it. Even though Sutton was upset, she didn’t know if she had it in her to listen to Sutton feel so desolate and not do anything. Even if she was the cause.

  Twisting, she propped herself up on her elbow as she slid her other hand out instinctively to reach for her wife. Who was laying on her back, biting her lip hard as she clearly tried to reign control over her emotions.

  Her eyes were dark and shining with tears, but her jaw was set in the way that told Charlotte in no uncertain terms was she angry.

  It was that last part that stopped her hand as soon as her fingertips brushed over Sutton’s tank top. Instead, her eyes trailed over her wife’s face, her heart in her throat, and there were many things she wanted to say.

  But what came out surprised them both, “I didn’t lie to you.”

  Sutton’s forehead furrowed momentarily in confusion, before she shook her head. “But you – you said before that you wanted this, and now you don’t –”

  “I did mean it. And sometimes I do think about it. About having a baby,” she interrupted, her own heart leaping into her throat at the admission, and her fingers twitched where they were against Sutton’s side, wanting to take hold of her sleep shirt and relish in the feeling of her. “I didn’t lie to you but I… I have been avoiding it.” It took everything inside of her to force out, “Because I’m scared.”

  The words, the truth, hung between them and perhaps dodging the topic was easier, but it wasn’t possible now. Especially not when she could see how much it hurt Sutton.

  That heat, that anger, seemed to melt away minutely right before her eyes, as Sutton stared at her. Charlotte’s gaze dipped as she took a deep breath through her nose and held it, focusing on the tendrils of red hair that had escaped Sutton’s loose ponytail and instead touched over her collarbone.

  She hated that admission. For many reasons, but more than anything because while she didn’t have to put on a brave face in front of Sutton, she knew her wife viewed many of her actions as fearless. And Charlotte liked it; she loved the way Sutton looked at her when she prevailed against anything that could possibly deter them.

  It had been over six years since she’d come out to the public and that had been the last time she’d been so afraid of anything. And this… this fear felt even more overwhelming than that had. So much harder to explain.

  “What are you afraid of?” There was surprise and genuine curiosity in Sutton’s tone.

  Charlotte wasn’t sure at what point in their relationship that was all it took to coax her into almost anything, but here they were. Despite the unsettled feeling still curling in her stomach, she tilted her head to look back into her eyes. “Recently, I…” Her voice shook and she pressed her fingers into the mattress for stability to admit, “I’m afraid that if having kids isn’t going to work out, that I’ll lose you. And I couldn’t bear to lose you.”

  The words were thick with tears that she didn’t want to allow to fall.

  Instead, she turned her face to rub at the fist she used to prop her head up, wiping them away before they could properly exist.

  And the hand she’d left at Sutton’s side was immediately covered by her wife’s, the warmth encompassing her own, with the slight jut of her

  wedding and engagement bands a bit colder and all the more comforting for its familiarity.

  “You’re never going to lose me.” Her assurance was strong and immediate, and it loosened that knot in Charlotte’s chest, her breath leaving her on a long exhale.

  She squeezed her hand hard, feeling Sutton there with her for a long moment, before she forced herself to speak the thoughts – the insecurity –

  that had taken root inside of her months ago. “I’m worried.” She squeezed Sutton’s hand a little harder to get the strength she needed. “That I’m going to be a bad mother.”

  There. There it was.

  And by worried, she truly meant terrified. Because she was fairly certain she already knew.

  “What?” The sincere disbelief in Sutton’s voice was almost a comfort and she knew even before she turned to look at her what she would look like. With blue eyes wide, shaking her head. “You’d be such an amazing mom, Charlotte.”

  There was such a certainty in her voice that she so desperately wanted to agree. Because she could make plans for entire cities, countries, even, and be sure that she was doing the right thing. But not with this.

  “No, you will be an amazing mom,” she corrected, her gaze searching Sutton’s while her stomach twisted.

  Because Sutton had an innate sweetness, an innate sense of nurturing, that Charlotte couldn’t replicate in the least.

  “Your mother is… supermom,” she settled on, rolling her eyes at herself, but it was so true. “She’s the epitome of what a mom should be and you have all of those same –” She vaguely gestured at her wife with the hand she’d been propping her head up on, before she pushed herself to sit up next to Sutton against the headboard. “– perfect mom qualities and you aren’t even a mother, yet!”

  Sutton was already shaking her head, the fingers threaded through Charlotte’s holding tighter as she opened her mouth, but Charlotte shook her head to stop her.

  “Please, just…” She took in a deep breath, because it had taken her months to get to this point, and she couldn’t stop now. “Look at my mother.

  At both of my parents. I spent more time in my childhood with my nanny

  than either of them, with how busy they were. By the time I was fourteen, I saw my parents twice a week.”

  And that was on a good week, she silently added with a scoff, even as she felt her hands shake a little. It wasn’t even that she resented her childhood or wished her parents were different; she hadn’t even wished it at the time. She hadn’t known anything else. It felt – fine. Normal.

  “They were off running their businesses and I didn’t miss them, Sutton.” She implored her wife to understand something that only in her mid-thirties seemed to be making an appearance in her psyche. “I don’t miss them, now, when I only see them a few times a year. We’re all busy and that’s perfectly fine for all of us.”

  When it came to the person who had shaped her the most, it was undoubtedly her grandmother, and even then… the vulnerability that seemed to choke her though, and she couldn’t add anything onto her thoughts.

  Sutton’s thumb brushed softly over her knuckles, before she felt her shift and her warm body was pressed against Charlotte’s side. “Your parents aren’t bad people. And even so, you aren’t them.”

  She closed her eyes at the feeling of Sutton pressing her soft lips in a lingering kiss against her shoulder. “No, they aren’t bad people and they love me in their own way,” she agreed, her breathing feeling a little shallow, before she shook back her hair and looked at her wife. “But they were busy and absent and they raised us as if that was normal. Which was fine for me.

  But it’s not the parent I want to be.”

  The kind I’m positive I would be, hung unsaid but they both knew it.

  Sutton’s forehead crinkled in that earnest way she had, as she looked up at Charlotte from where she propped herself up. And she lifted her hand up to rub her thumb softly over that spot in the center of her forehead, even as a humorless laugh left her.

  “And I know you’re going to say I won’t be and that you’ll truly believe that,” she murmured, fee
ling this love for Sutton and her staunch belief in her sit comfortably in her chest. But she couldn’t bring herself to agree with her, even if she wished she could. “But how can I not be absent?

  It’s already hard to balance schedules, even with just you and I.”

  They always did their best to make time for one another. But since becoming a senator, her hours had gotten longer, work just that step more

  intense, and they already had to plan events, travel, and special occasions months in advance.

  Her stomach twisted with the thought, as she bit at the inside of her lip and trailed her eyes over Sutton’s face slowly, stroking her hand down her cheek. “And what about future elections? The presidency? If I get elected

  –”

  “When,” Sutton interrupted, nudging her face softly against her, pressing more firmly against Charlotte’s hand.

  Even though she was being serious and trying to truly explain her fears, she couldn’t help but grin at that, “If I get elected,” she continued,

  “That’s even less time I’ll have. And then what?” She slid her fingers down Sutton’s jaw, tipping her chin up. “You’ll be an amazing mother, but what happens when I just can’t do it all? You’re left having the weight of raising our kids without me being there. I can’t…” she cut herself off. “I won’t do that to you.”

  Her insecurities spilled out between them and she had to swallow back this ache that settled in the back of her throat at it all.

  “What happens when I fail them?” She whispered. What if I fail you?

  She just couldn’t bear to do that.

  “You won’t,” Sutton assured her and the sheer belief was so intense in her voice, even as her voice was soft. “I have faith in you.”

  Her eyes fluttered closed at the soothing sound of her voice as she let out a quiet, teasing chuckle. “You always have faith in me.”

  It never seemed to matter what the subject was; Sutton never faltered.

  Even when perhaps she should.

  “And I haven’t been wrong yet,” she countered, tapping Charlotte’s bare thigh just where her pajama shorts ended, as if to emphasize her point.