My Biggest Mistake

by Leddy Harper

  I didn’t stop walking until I reached their front door, dropping to my knees and covering my face after ringing the doorbell. I didn’t notice the lights flickering on or hear the worried voices from inside. I didn’t register the door opening or the arms that circled around me. And it wasn’t until I opened my eyes and realized I was inside that I became aware of how cold my skin was from the dropping temperatures outside.

  Panicked eyes searched mine as soft, warm hands covered my face, confusing me with the comfort of her touch and the apprehension of her stare. “Talk to me, Idelette.”

  I shook my head, wondering how I’d made it that far, how I’d managed to walk from my house to Donnie’s parents’. “It’s over,” I breathed out. “It’s over and I can’t fix it.”

  She hushed me and wiped my hair off my face, but never once allowing me to take my eyes off her. “Everything can be fixed. Just tell me what happened. I’m here for you. I’ll always be here for you.”

  I couldn’t open up to her. I didn’t have the strength to tell her what I’d done, but her gaze never waivered, never left my face, and what it made me feel…what emotion it set in me…gave me no other option than to be honest for the first time in years. I didn’t go to Dorothy for comfort, I went to her for the truth. I went to her because I had no one else, and I knew she would be the last person to turn her back on me, no matter the indiscretion. She may have been tough on me, but I knew she loved me unconditionally—the way a mother should.

  “Two years ago,” I started with a calm voice, sounding nothing like me, “I found out I was pregnant. Something happened with the IUD, I have no idea what, but I was pregnant, and I knew I couldn’t handle it. My head was already so cloudy, so dark, I was so depressed, and I knew I would never survive another baby. I felt trapped in my depression. Lost, never to be found. I had no hope, no feeling of finding my way out. I didn’t know what was going on with me, but I didn’t have the strength to find out. I caved. I left to have an abortion behind Donovan’s back, because I knew he would never be okay with it. I knew he would tell me everything would be okay, and that once I held our baby in my arms, I would feel better. I knew that’s what he’d say…it’s what he told me when I found out about the twins. But I didn’t feel better. I felt worse. I felt darker. I felt even more lost than ever before.

  “I couldn’t have the baby. I knew if I did, I wouldn’t have survived. It wasn’t that I was ready to end my life, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before I reached that point. And the very last thing I wanted was to leave another baby behind. Or to look at it and resent it. I couldn’t handle the thought of not loving it the way it deserved. As much as I thought about just carrying it and giving it up for adoption, I knew I couldn’t. There was no way I’d survive nine months of it growing in me. I wouldn’t have been able to take care of myself the way I needed to in order to keep that baby alive inside of me. And no matter how bleak my life looked, I couldn’t give birth to a baby Donnie and I made out of love, and then pass it off to someone else.”

  My calm exterior broke, opening the floodgates for more tears, tears I didn’t know I still had left in me. I felt empty, broken, a shell of the person I once was. No. Not a shell…ashes. Dust. I was decimated, yet the tears continued to come.

  “I thought I could do it and then come back. I thought if I had the abortion, it would make me do what I needed to in order to be me again. But it did the opposite. It devastated me. I didn’t feel worthy of my kids anymore. I didn’t deserve Donnie’s love after what I did to his baby. I wasn’t a mother. I wasn’t a wife. I was nothing. Nobody. So I went and had my tubes tied. I thought that would be my punishment. After what I did to my baby, I didn’t deserve more kids, so my penance was to never have another one. But by that point there was no coming back. There was no saving grace or rainbows on the other side. Just blackness. Emptiness. Pure self-hatred.

  “That’s why I was gone for so long. That’s why I couldn’t come to anyone. I couldn’t talk about it, I couldn’t seek the help I needed, because I didn’t think I deserved it. And once I finally began to think I did, to think I was worthy of what I once had”—my voice broke and what little composure I had left in me shattered—“it all fell apart. Donnie knows about the baby, and he’s turned his back on me. Just like I knew he would.”

  “Idelette, sweetheart,” Dorothy said for the first time since I opened my mouth to spill my secret, my burden, my biggest mistake, “you can’t blame yourself. You can’t hold on to this pain. You did the only thing you felt sure of. It was out of desperation, and I’m sure Donovan will see that. There’s no way he can look at you and think you’re capable of hurting him on purpose. Just give him time. He’ll come around.”

  “How do you know?” I finally looked up and saw the moisture in her eyes.

  “If his father could forgive me, then he can forgive you.”

  My head swirled, not able to comprehend her words.

  “We all do things out of desperation, things we would never do with a clear head. Things we would never think to do if we were in the right frame of mind.” She took in a deep breath as her eyes shifted somewhere behind me, losing focus as if she were lost in a memory. “Do you remember the other day when I told you that I was only trying to help, when you thought I was only pointing out things you did wrong? I told you that I felt you were young, and I only wanted to make sure you were able to handle it all at such a young age.” She licked her lips and her gaze settled on our joined hands. “I was young once, too. I married Allen when I was eighteen, knew from the first moment I saw him that I was in love and I was going to marry that man. And I did. He was a good Christian boy and so we didn’t have sex until our wedding night. It was my first time, too.

  “After about four years of marriage, I started to notice the neighbor. He was slightly older than me, and showed me a lot of attention while Allen was away at work. I liked the attention. It was different than what Allen gave me. Not that my husband didn’t show me affection or give me attention, but it was different. One thing led to another, and an affair began. We carried on that affair behind the backs of his wife and Allen, for over a year before I found out I was pregnant.”

  I felt my eyes open wide, searching her face for answers to questions I wasn’t ready to ask. Her focus remained on our linked fingers as she tightly swallowed, causing her throat to expand and contract harshly. I knew this couldn’t have been easy on her—she had never opened up to me like this before. There was a shift in our relationship and I felt it in my soul.

  “Abortion wasn’t something people talked about back then,” she continued, sniffling as the words came out. “It wasn’t like it is now. I did think about it, knowing it wasn’t Allen’s baby. He didn’t want anything to do with it. He was married and had no desire to leave his wife, and he told me he’d pay for me to get rid of it. But I didn’t want to. I felt ashamed to do it. So I waited, hoping it would just go away.

  “One day, I got really sick and Allen took me to the doctor. I didn’t want to go because I knew what was wrong with me. I was pregnant and upset, and I wasn’t eating right or sleeping normal. I wasn’t taking care of myself. But he made me go and I was too much of a coward to tell him why I was so sick. That’s how he found out about the baby. Of course, he was excited. Elated. Over the moon because he’d been wanting children…I was the one who wanted to wait. I mean, I was having an affair, I knew that having a baby would end that. So I told him the truth. I came clean with him.”

  She wiped her tears from her face and then turned to me.

  “Donnie?” I asked, already knowing the answer but seeking confirmation.

  She nodded. “I told him I’d get an abortion, but he adamantly told me no. He told me the baby was a gift, given to us for a purpose, and that we should treat it as such. My pregnancy wasn’t easy, but Allen stuck by me through the whole thing. And after he was born, I was finally able to see what Allen had meant by a gift. Donovan brought Allen and me closer. We were able to wo
rk on ourselves, our marriage, and become stronger. I truly believe that wouldn’t have happened without Donovan.”

  “That’s…an amazing story, but what does that have to do with me? I mean, I had the abortion. I didn’t do the right thing.”

  A weak smile formed on her lips as she reached out to wipe a stray tear from my cheek. “It’s not about doing the right thing. It’s about doing the right thing for you, and making that choice fit into your life. I made the wrong choice by having an affair and getting pregnant, but we made the best of it, and stayed positive. And if Allen could forgive me of my indiscretions, I know Donovan can forgive you of yours.”

  When I left my house, I had no idea where I was going, but my feet took me where I belonged. Even though I feared what Dorothy would say to me, how she would treat me after knowing what I’d done to her son, to her family, to her grandchild, I never expected what she gave me.

  She gave me peace, unexplained, unapologetic peace. And I hadn’t had that in a long time. I had spent too long fearing the proverbial other shoe. I worried about the dead end, the impeding doom. And for the first time, I didn’t have the weight of those on my back. I felt free. I felt at ease. I felt peace.

  And I got it from the one person I never expected.

  Angry pounding woke me up the following morning. It was relentless. After the third time, Dorothy stepped into the living room where I had slept on the couch and asked if I could get the door. I already knew who it was, but I couldn’t tell her no, no matter how scared I was at the thought of facing Donnie.

  I opened the door while keeping my eyes cast down, not wanting to meet his gaze for fear of losing the little bit of strength I had. I wasn’t sure if Dorothy called Donnie, or if it was the other way around, but somehow, he knew where to find me. He knew where I had gone, and he decided to bring me my suitcase.

  “The keys to your car is also in the bag. The car is in the driveway. Feel free to pick it up whenever. I won’t be home, so you won’t have to worry about that. And everything I could find that is yours I put in your suitcase.”

  I nodded, still unable to look him in the eyes. “Thanks. I’ll probably pick the car up soon, so I’ll have it for when the kids get out.”

  “You’re not picking them up,” he ordered harshly, sucking the air right out of my lungs.

  My eyes finally drifted up to his, expecting to find anger, but instead, I found undeniable grief. “Please don’t punish me anymore than you already have—anymore than I already have. Please don’t keep my kids from me, Donnie.”

  He shook his head and then ran his hands through his mused hair. I could tell by the dark circles beneath his eyes that he hadn’t gotten enough sleep last night. It was yet another reminder of my betrayal. “You made this decision. When you killed our baby—murdered my child—you made the choice to not be a mother.”

  “That’s not what happened, Donnie, and you know it. You know what I was going through. You know that wasn’t what I wanted to do. You’re mad and I get it, but please don’t do this. They won’t understand.”

  “I’m not mad, Edie,” he said, and his words didn’t sound mad, they sounded devastated. “I’m hurt. I’m sad. Trust me, I don’t have the will to be mad. I feel lost and confused. I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember—so long I can’t even remember my life without you, or what it felt like to not love you. But now…now I hate you. I never knew it was possible until last night. I love you and hate you all at once. And I don’t know what to do about that. But this isn’t punishing you. This is me figuring out what to do. Much like how you took your time to figure out how to live with yourself after killing our child. This is me taking my time to figure out how to live without you after you aborted my baby.”

  My body felt too weak to respond. I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t move. Hell, I couldn’t even fall into a heap on the floor, even though that’s all I felt like doing. I didn’t have any strength left in me to do anything but stand there and shake my head.

  Hands came from behind and clasped my shoulders, moving me out of the doorway. Dorothy stood in front of me, between my body and Donnie’s. “Don’t you dare come here and speak to your wife like that. Not in my house, young man.”

  “Fine, I’m leaving,” he said curtly.

  “And you won’t walk away from your mother, either. You will stay here until you and Idelette work something out. I don’t care if it takes all day. You clearly aren’t in the right mindset to go to work, so don’t even try to use that excuse. You have a family that needs your attention. You have a wife that needs some peace. Give it to her.”

  I had heard his mother speak in many different tones, using many different voices ranging from sweet grandmother to stern parent, but I had never heard her speak with such anger before. It even frightened me. I didn’t know how Donnie felt, but I knew it was enough to scare me into listening to her.

  “Nothing is going to get resolved today, Mom.”

  “I don’t care if it takes you the rest of your life, you will listen to her. And you will do what is right by your family.”

  “Oh, like she did what was right by her family when she left? When she…” He didn’t finish his sentence, but I didn’t need him to. His words cracked before trailing off, filled with painful emotion.

  “And maybe that’s why you need to talk to her.” Dorothy stepped out of the way, giving him room to come inside.

  Donnie moved past her, and his steps proved just how much he didn’t want to. He continued to walk until he was outside on the back patio, where I followed him before taking a seat.

  “I know this is hard for you—”

  “Oh, do you? Do you really, Edie?”

  I let out a sigh and hung my head, my chin hitting my chest. “How can you possibly know what I went through, and not think I understand?”

  “I didn’t say it was easy for you. But you can’t possibly know how I feel about it. We made a baby, Edie. Both of us, yet you’re the one that made a permanent decision about its life by yourself. It was just as much my kid as it was yours. Yet I didn’t have a choice in anything.”

  “It’s my body, Donnie,” I fought back. “Mine. My brain. My hormones. I am not just an oven for your offspring. The effects of carrying a child doesn’t end once it’s born. It doesn’t just go away. If I were healthy before I got pregnant…that would’ve been one thing. But I wasn’t. I was mentally unhealthy. Unstable. I couldn’t have possibly carried a baby to term. And even if I did, what would’ve happened to me in the end? If I’d had the baby, given you another child, and then ended up slitting my wrists, would you have felt better about that?”

  “No! God, stop it, Edie. No, I wouldn’t have felt better.”

  “Well, that’s probably what would’ve happened.”

  “Or…you could’ve sought help. You could’ve come—”

  “I wasn’t ready!”

  “—to me, told me you were pregnant, and we could’ve dealt with it together.”

  “You’re not listening, Donnie,” I pleaded, barely holding on to my sanity. “You see it as so black and white. It’s not. It’s greys and shaded areas and black holes. I wasn’t ready to deal with it. I wasn’t ready to accept what was happening to me. Why can’t you understand that?” I stared into his eyes, his sad, glassy eyes, and silently begged him to understand. “You will never know what it was like for me back then. Not until you get so lost you think the only way of escaping is to end it all.”

  His jaw twitched as he looked away, blinking his eyes rapidly to dispel the tears I saw brimming the lids. “There had to have been another way. All I keep hearing is how lost you were…and it makes me feel like you didn’t want me to find you.”

  “If things worked out the way you wanted them to…you would’ve found me. And I would’ve been lifeless. And there would’ve been no way to bring me back. I did what I thought I had to in order to keep myself alive. And I’m sorry if you think the life of an unborn child is worth more than mine…”
<
br />   “That’s not what I meant. There had to have been a way to save you both. To have both of you here with me right now. Because all I have now is one less child to love, a wife that’s half the person she used to be, and a broken heart. I have a broken home. I have a…” He leaned forward and pressed his face into his hands as he sobbed. “I have a broken heart, Edie. It doesn’t work anymore. It beats but it has no purpose anymore.”

  There is something about watching a man cry that makes your insides twist into knots. But when that man is the love of your life, and he’s crying because you broke him, he’s crying over the broken heart you gave him, your insides don’t just knot up, they die. They stop working and turn cold. That’s what happened to me as I sat there silently with tears spilling down my face, watching the strongest man I ever knew fall apart in front of me.

  “I don’t know what you want me to do,” I whispered, unable to find my voice.

  “There’s nothing you can do. That’s just it, Edie,” he said as he turned his head to face me, “you can’t do anything. Nothing you do or say will turn back time and make this right.”

  “So then, that’s it? You’re done? You’re just going to pull the plug on us?”

  “You took a part of me, and killed it. You pulled that plug…not me.”

  “But we were… I told you about…” I couldn’t find any words. My brain wouldn’t form a correct sentence. “You said you understood. You said you talked to someone and they made you see what I was going through. We were going to get counseling. None of that matters anymore? You don’t want to fix us anymore?”

  His face hardened and his brow creased as he looked me right in the eyes and said, “You killed my baby, and you can’t give me any more. You have made every decision for me for the last two years. I’m making this one—for me.”