“I don’t know about you,” I told him, “but I think this date’s going really well. And, at the risk of sounding cheesy, I really like you.”
Adam chuckled and said, “And I really like you, Halley.”
“You’re probably going to think I’m wacky to say this on a first date, but I have to put this out there. Right away.”
“Okay.”
Adam’s calm and confidence were infectious. This was never an easy thing to discuss, especially on a first date, despite the number of times I’d done it. But Adam’s mere presence and those soft, inviting eyes of his made it easier.
Adam has it, and that made posing the game changer all the more consequential. Because it, as my friend Marian and I defined it back in college, is not just a man’s ability to call up butterflies in your stomach because he knows just what to say to make you feel just what you want to feel . . . and because he has a head of hair you can picture tangling your fingers in during the best sex of your life. It’s his effortless yet genuine charm and his honest smile. It’s the way he leans forward in his seat and actually listens to what you’re saying and the way he laughs when you say something you thought only you would find funny. It’s the cup of coffee he buys for the homeless man outside the coffeehouse, the appreciation for the folksiest of tunes playing in the speakers overhead that he shows by tapping a beat on his thigh. It’s the it-ness he oozes because he is your One. He is the man your parents always hoped you’d bring home and the man you always hoped you’d find—the find of a lifetime.
Adam’s it factor (and those eyes—god, those eyes!) therefore made bringing up this game changer easier, but also terrifyingly risky. What if he wanted children?
“This is something really important to me,” I said. “I think it’s fair you know right away, before we take things further.” I swallowed hard, then came right out with it. “I don’t want to have children.”
Adam didn’t say anything, and neither did his facial expression, so I said, “If that’s a deal breaker, I understand.”
At last he sighed in relief as he said, “I thought you were going to say you were terminally ill or something.”
“Oh no.”
“Good. Because I’m really enjoying our date. And I’d like to ask you on another.” He quickly backpedaled, adding, “Of course, if you were sick I’d still want to take you on another date. I wouldn’t be entirely fond of the whole limited-time thing, but . . .”
“Right,” I said with a smile I couldn’t have hidden if I’d tried. Yet I had to hear an actual answer. “So . . . my not wanting to become a mother—ever—doesn’t bother you? You don’t want to have kids, either?”
“Can I ask why?” Adam asked, plunking both elbows onto the table. His thick eyebrows rose slightly, and one corner of his lips turned up with intrigue.
I gave him the usual laundry list of reasons I gave any guy who asked: no maternal urge; have never seen myself as the mothering type; don’t want to be pregnant; don’t want to be responsible for the creation and development of another human being; like my freedom; oh, and, I suppose, yes, some kids seem to turn out to be terrible monsters, as do some mothers. My own mother comes to mind. Not that I’d allow someone else’s children or my mother to dictate my procreational future. Still, it was something to take into consideration, however lightly. At the very least, it was another bullet point to add to the list.
“Wow,” Adam said when I had exhausted my reasons. “You’ve got this figured out.”
“There’s an expectation placed on women to become mothers. And I think most guys would be surprised to know where I stand, and . . . I don’t want to waste anyone’s time.”
“I get that.”
“It’s a choice for some couples but not all. It isn’t what I want.”
He nodded.
“Are you okay with that?” I asked.
“I’ve never actually given it much thought, never stopped to imagine a life with or without kids.” He shrugged. “I’m okay if you are.”
“You’re okay with not having kids? It’s an important decision.”
I could feel a blush coming on. Talk of the far future on date one, even with Adam, was not exactly comfortable. But if Adam and I were going to pursue a relationship, honesty was of the utmost importance. Especially about something this consequential.
I swallowed and continued. “I know I’m still young,” I said, “and people say maybe I’ll want one in the future. Who knows what could happen. But I have to be honest with you: I don’t want children. Is that a game changer for you? A deal breaker?”
Adam cupped his large hand over mine and said, “If you’re trying to scare me off, Halley, you’re doing a terrible job. There’s no game changer here.” He squeezed my hand, then sat back and took a sip of his coffee.
“Seriously. Picture it.”
“Picture it?”
I tapped a finger on the table and leaned forward in my seat. “Picture your future. Kids . . . no kids . . . What do you see?”
He raised his brows inquisitively, sexily, and said, “You.”
It. It was there, without question.
“So, seriously,” he said, “what are you doing tomorrow night?”
I sighed in relief.
No game changer here.
I am thirty-four years old now, and I am as resolute tonight as I was that afternoon at the coffeehouse that motherhood is not written in the stars of my universe. And Adam was on board with that. We agreed on what mattered most to us and could take it to the bank. We’ve been happily married for eleven years, and the topic of children is reserved for referring to Charlotte’s growing brood, Nina and her husband Griffin’s heartbreaking difficulty trying to conceive, and the talent of the cast of Stranger Things. Our thirties are turning out to be as hopeful and as lovely as imagined, filled with that freedom, adventure, and ability to live tethered only to each other. Everything was going just fine, until the game changed. Until everything was turned on its head.
I lean back in the swivel chair and gently shove away from the desk, spinning counterclockwise for a beat before the armrest hitting the desk’s edge halts my brief ride. I tuck one leg to my chest and sigh, replaying the conversation Adam and I just had on the car ride home. It wasn’t supposed to end up like this.
Adam and I have been through valleys before. There was the scary four-car pileup on the 10 I got myself into and broke my arm in. There was the economic recession that affected Adam’s department and salary and nearly cost him his position. There was the emotional roller coaster ride that was Nina’s trying to have a child for a decade. There was the loss of elderly loved ones, the hikes in rent, and the workplace tension that could wedge its way through the front door, resulting in snippy comments and unnecessary home-life tension. It was a marriage that was rife with all the love, frustration, and ups and downs you sign up for when you say, “I do.”
But we’d always come out on the other side. We had our plan. We had each other.
This, though? This changes everything, and for the life of me I can’t see how we will crawl out from under this one.
Letting out a soft, low groan, I tilt my head back and let my eyes fall to my bookshelf. I scan the titles: On Writing. The Art of Fiction. Story Genius. The Elements of Style. The Baby Name Wizard. All tools of the creative-writing trade. The last book, originally bought to assist me in creating character names in my fiction, has taken on a new meaning. My eyes bore into its vibrant orange-and-green spine, and nausea washes over me like a tidal wave. I fold my hands over my stomach and squeeze my eyes shut in disbelief.
A complete game changer.
Two
As soon as we arrived home for the evening, I headed straight for the home office and finished the day’s work at last, later than usual. Afterward I locked myself in the bathroom with a good book and a steaming bath—a respite that was never more needed than tonight. Now my nerves have settled some, but the nauseated feeling that came over me earlier sti
ll lingers.
When my eyes fall to Adam as I enter the living room, the nausea swells once again.
“Sent your e-mail?” Adam asks me.
I finish tying the drawstring of my pink flannel pajama bottoms and nod.
In our rush to make it over to Westwood for dinner at Nina and Griffin’s, I hadn’t had enough time to send my editor the final notes on my article for next month’s issue of Copper, the women’s magazine for which I write.
“Rest assured, the women of Los Angeles will now know that rhubarb’s the new kale,” I answer with mock enthusiasm.
“Phew.” Adam, lying across the length of the sofa, cell phone in one hand, drops his free hand to his stomach and says with a smile, “Good thing. I was about to make myself a celery smoothie.”
“Just wait. Celery will be the new rhubarb before the end of the year.”
I grab the remote from the coffee table and sit in the chair opposite Adam, relieved that the hostile conversation on our ride home has been left in the car. The remaining nausea will just have to subside with time, I suppose.
“You know,” Adam says as I flip on the television, “you could float your résumé around.”
“I love writing,” I say in defense of my position at Copper.
“I meant to some other magazines,” he clarifies. “Ones you could feel invested in. Where you could write what you really want to write.”
“It’s taken me a long time to get to where I am,” I point out, slightly agitated.
“I know. But you and I both know the articles you’re usually assigned aren’t exactly . . . your passion.”
“I know, Adam. I just have to pay my dues,” I say with a cavalier shrug.
After years of working one random job after another, the goal being to make rent and pull some weight around here, I finally found actual writing work three years ago at a local women’s magazine. I’d done some stints for other magazines and a small local newspaper, but none of them had required penning my name to anything more than tax forms and paychecks. When Copper, whose circulation was small but growing, offered to take me on as a junior contributor, I jumped at the opportunity. Three years in, I still enjoy the work, and I put my best foot forward. But Adam’s right that I’m disappointed with my current standing at the magazine. Though I’m contributing to a number of articles each issue, I don’t feel the passion that, pretentious as it may seem, I think a writer should feel about her work. I want that passion, that inspiration and unadulterated dedication to what my heart desires to create and share. I want to write about topics that matter to me, that move me, that move my readers.
Look at Adam. He’s worked around the clock to get to where he is today, and while he’s smart as a whip, he wouldn’t have made it if not for his passion. He saw promise in a start-up that makes software to teach children how to bring their drawings to life with animation. With a vision and his passion, he took a pay cut to leave Disney and fill the start-up’s marketing director position. Its success is now cosmic. He loves what he does, and every single day he is a reminder that if I put in my time and keep sticking to what I’m passionate about—my writing—I’ll have my own cosmic success someday.
“I did get to write that piece about women making significantly less than men in the workplace,” I mention to Adam, upbeat. “I really enjoyed that.”
“I know you did. It was a great article.” He smiles. “I just want you happy, Halley.”
“I am.”
If writing about kale, ballet flats, and how to most effectively spring clean gets me the occasional topic I want to sink my teeth into, like the diversity of what happiness is to different women, or how to overcome self-doubt, or what a work-and-home life balance means in a world that’s on a constant fast track, where everyone’s jockeying to be the most liked on social media and striving to have the biggest to-do list, then I can pay my dues. To write about the things I want to read, the things that move me, the things that matter to me, I can start with the fluff. And then, hey, maybe I’ll take my own advice, get over self-doubt, find the time and courage, and take my years of experience in the magazine world and finally pen that novel. It’s an idea.
“TV show or start a movie?” I ask, scanning through the never-ending list of Netflix options.
Adam doesn’t respond. He’s typing on his cell phone. I repeat the question.
“Doesn’t matter.” His eyes stay on his phone.
“We don’t have to watch anything,” I say.
He moves in his seat some, one arm now crooked behind his head. “Sorry, it’s Nina.”
“Say thank you again for dinner.”
“She says we should’ve taken the leftovers.”
“She’s the expectant momma. She can use them more than we can.”
A smile spreads across Adam’s lips, and his fingers type a response.
Nina and Griffin had had tonight’s dinner planned for weeks. There was something special that they had wanted to share with Adam and me, and we were not to be late. Nina was preparing coq au vin and it was, in her words, “a terribly difficult dish to prepare.” It deserved all the promptness its consumers could extend.
Nina is a whiz in the kitchen, the perfect housewife who is also the perfect working woman, an editor at a midsize publishing house. What can’t Nina do well? (Months ago Nina would have argued ‘make a baby’—what most women should be able to do—but after ten years of trying, she has, at long last, managed to pull that one off, too.)
In college Nina and I ran track together and became very good friends. She is two years my senior. During those final years, I sorely missed having her just a few campus apartment doors over, but we kept in touch. (Dating her older brother kind of aided in that.) We jogged, shopped, and grabbed a coffee together whenever we could, and I’ve always considered her my sister. Not just because she is now, in fact, my sister-in-law, but also because I get along with her just as I do with my actual sister, Charlotte. Nina’s easy to be around, and she’s one of the kindest, most positive, and most genuine people I know. She’s a lot like her big brother. I love her to death. And, yes, as someone who can’t do more than whip up pancakes and scrambled eggs, I’m more than punctual when she’s wearing the chef’s hat.
“So what’s this special news?” I asked a glowing Nina during dinner earlier tonight. She carried off the pregnant look like a model.
Griffin held out the bottle of wine, offering a refill, and I obliged, saying, “It’s not twins, is it?” I tried to read Griffin’s expression, but I got nothing more than an indecipherable smile.
“Twins?” Adam said, voice rich with intrigue. “Oh, Nina, is that it?”
“No, no, no.” Nina immediately quashed the suspense. “Baby Rylan is solo.”
“Well, is everything fine?” I asked.
Nina briefly glanced at Griffin, then looked to Adam and replied, “Yes. Everything’s fine.”
Adam reached for my hand under the table and gave it a squeeze. He was wearing a genial expression.
“Nina and I,” Griffin began, “would like to . . .” He looked to his wife, who sat straight yet comfortable in her seat. Her dark-brown hair, which had been cut into a severe bob for as long as I’d known her, now hung in glossy waves, touching her shoulders. Grown out, it is what Nina refers to as her “mom hair,” whatever that’s supposed to mean.
Nina set her glass of ice water down. “We’d like to ask you two to be Rylan’s godparents,” she announced. Immediately, looking straight at me, Nina added, “It doesn’t mean you’d be his legal guardians in the event Griffin and I . . .” Her face twisted into a grim expression. “We know you guys don’t want children. Griffin’s brother and his wife agreed to guardianship. You guys being Rylan’s godparents would be more symbolic. To see him through whatever spiritual journey he takes, to be his mentors—”
“To be the ones who give him random gifts and take him to Disneyland just because,” Griffin added with a chuckle.
“I know it m
ight seem early to ask, seeing how he’s still a bun in the oven, but—” Nina said, and Griffin excitedly cut in.
“We figure we’ve been waiting ten years, so what’s a few months early?” he finished. Nina and Griffin shared an enamored look, clearly elated they were finally where they’d always wanted to be.
“Oh, Nina, of course. Griffin”—I dabbed at my mouth with the cloth napkin—“we’re honored.”
I was surprised not to see Adam’s face express the joy I was sure we both felt at being granted such roles in our nephew’s life. It was just . . . blank.
“And of course you’ll be a part of the baptism,” Nina added, rubbing both hands across her small bump, a habit most pregnant women seem to adopt, unaware, but one that I’m sure Nina does more than most. This was her now, the moment she’d been waiting for so long, and I was undoubtedly happy for her, and to be a part of it. But why, for goodness’ sake, wasn’t Adam showing the same sense of joy?
“Absolutely,” I said enthusiastically. I patted Adam’s leg.
“Absolutely,” Adam repeated, although his tone lacked an appropriate level of enthusiasm. “Anything we can do for Rylan, we’re here for you guys.”
As Adam and I sat in the predictable evening freeway traffic on our way home after dinner, Adam, in a low, somewhat chilling tone, said, “If being Rylan’s godparents meant we’d have to become his legal guardians in the event of a tragedy, what would you do?”
“What?” I said to his unexpected question.
He turned the radio down so low I could no longer hear the heated discussion about the arctic shelf on NPR. Adam repeated the question, tone just as cold.
“I don’t know,” I spluttered. “What’s the point of the question when that’s not something we’re dealing with? I’m elated to be Rylan’s godmother. I’ll spoil that kid with love and toys and Disneyland trips”—I laughed—“and he’ll have a life rich with love. And if something awful were to happen to Nina and Griffin, I think Griffin’s brother and his wife would fill the role as parents perfectly. There’s no need for hypotheticals.”
Everything the Heart Wants Page 3
