by Beth K. Vogt
“So you adjust, right?”
“Exactly. Which means our project is going like every other kitchen renovation.”
“It’ll look great when it’s done, even if it’s not exactly like you planned.” Gianna responded to a small “Mommy!” from Avery by pausing long enough to hand her a plastic bag of Goldfish snacks. “When do you and Geoff celebrate your first anniversary?”
“In January.”
“So no plan for kids anytime soon, right?”
“What?” Her question caused me to stumble. “No . . . no plans.”
“I figured. A lot of couples wait nowadays—”
“It’s not . . . not that.” I pulled Winston back from where he’d slipped in front of the stroller, hoping Avery would share her morning treat. I scrambled between which answers to offer Gianna. “I—I had breast cancer and—”
“What?”
“It’s okay—I’m okay. I’m finished with my treatment, but I’m on medication . . . for the next five years. And I’m not supposed to get pregnant while I’m taking it.”
At least that was part of the truth.
“Oh.” Gianna seemed to struggle with what to say. “I didn’t realize.”
I fluffed my short hair. “What? You thought I was just being trendy with this hairstyle?”
My neighbor gasped, and then she snorted, covering her mouth to muffle the laughter that followed. “That’s awful!”
“Um, ‘awful’ is being diagnosed with breast cancer the night of your engagement party.”
“Oh, Jillian . . . no!”
“It was rough.” Where had this sudden burst of honesty come from? “I broke off my engagement with Geoff because I didn’t think he should have to marry me . . . and then we ended up eloping.”
“That’s so romantic!”
Romantic. And awful, just like Gianna had said.
“But you’re all better now?”
“Like I said, I’m fine.” I found myself sharing more. “Geoff was amazing the entire time I went through my treatment. I had a partial mastectomy. Chemo. Radiation. Hence, the short hair and mostly nonexistent eyelashes.”
“You sound really good.”
Maybe I’d let Gianna believe that for a while.
We’d looped the block. As we neared my house, Zach’s truck pulled up alongside the curb.
“Uh-oh.”
“‘Uh-oh’ what?” Gianna scanned the area ahead of us.
“That guy getting out of the truck? That’s Zach, the family friend who oversees the kitchen project for us—”
“That’s nice of him.”
“He drops by to check up on the guys while they’re working—but I don’t see any other trucks. I hope there’s not another problem.” Winston let out a bark, causing Zach to wave. “Gotta go. This was fun though.”
At least that was the appropriate thing to say.
“It was. Let’s do it again.”
“Sure.”
Zach leaned against his truck as I approached, but bent down to greet Winston, who continued to bark and jump until Zach picked him up.
“He likes you.”
“The person he likes the most is your dad.”
“True—because Dad feeds him all the time. Feed him and he’ll defect to you.”
“But I want to keep you and Geoff happy, too, remember? So no feeding this guy.” Zach continued to hold Winston. “I wanted to do a walk-through. See where we are. Have a chance to talk with you before the guys got here.”
“There’s not a problem?”
“No. Why? Did you think there was a problem?”
“I guess I’m more nervous than I realized because I saw your truck and immediately thought you were going to tell me there was some sort of new issue we had to deal with.”
“Nope. All good.” Zach settled against his truck again. “You’re happy with the changes we made?”
“The more and more I see the Corian countertops, the less and less I think about my first choice.” I mimicked his posture, allowing space between us, staring ahead at the house. “Thanks for helping us make the right decision.”
Zach laughed. “Glad to help.”
“You did a beautiful job with the cabinets.”
“I enjoyed designing them for you and Geoff.” He shifted Winston in his arms. “So what else are you thinking?”
“Geoff told me how excited he was when he bought this house. I mean, he knew it was over a hundred years old. That it would need some updating. But overall, he thought it was a solid house. Then we started the renovation and discovered all these hidden problems.”
“And now the kitchen is updated. Almost finished, once we get the floors down.” Zach adjusted to my unusual answer to his question. “No one will know we had all those problems—or that you’d wanted French doors. I’m looking around for an extra special back door for you. Trust me on that, okay?”
Maybe that was Zach’s attempt to comfort me while steering the conversation back to neutral territory, but I no longer cared about the renovation.
“Sometimes . . . sometimes I feel like I’m no better than this old house.” I continued before Zach could try to formulate a response to my odd statement—the one I hadn’t even realized I was going to make. Maybe all my honesty with Gianna had been a prelude to this. “I can put on clothes. Do my hair. Makeup. Not that I did that today. And I can hide all my problems. Unless someone gets close, no one knows I’m a year out from cancer just by looking at me.”
That I wore a breast form.
That, despite my attempts to preserve my fertility, I was married to a man who didn’t want children.
But even though I was being truthful with Zach, I wasn’t willing to share those kinds of intimate realities.
Zach scratched behind Winston’s ears. “Sounds like it’s not the house that’s bothering you, Jillian.”
“Everything’s a mess.”
“Everything?”
“I’m unemployed. Harper, my best friend, is moving. And you know I can’t get pregnant because of this medication I’m on.” My laugh was brief. “You were there for that awkward family conversation. I tried to talk to Geoff about adopting, but he said no.” I paused, realizing what I was on the verge of revealing.
Being this honest with Zach was like plowing a car into the house. I needed to stop, hit the brakes before I destroyed the kitchen, the custom cabinets, the new appliances . . . all of it.
I didn’t even want to look at Zach. An apology slipped past my lips.
“Why are you saying you’re sorry?” Zach tilted his head. “You meant everything you said, right?”
“Yes. But you came by to check on the kitchen, not have me dump on you.”
“Look, Payton and I are . . . friends.” Zach seemed to hesitate over the word. “In the past year, I’ve spent some time with your whole family. So why can’t you and I be friends, too? Sometimes it helps to have someone outside the situation—whatever that situation is—to listen. I don’t mind if you talk to me, but have you thought of talking to Payton about any of this?”
“Payton and I have never been close that way.”
“Johanna, then.”
“No.” I’d just leave my reply at that.
“Okay. Well, I think Payton could help you—that she’d want to help you. But I’m here for now. I’m listening.”
If Zach was still game to listen, then I’d take him up on his offer—this time.
“I was just so surprised that Geoff said no to adoption.” I chose my words so I didn’t reveal the whole truth—that Geoff didn’t want children. Ever.
“You two didn’t talk about kids while you were dating?”
That was a fair question.
“At first, I was surprised Geoff asked me out. That he kept coming back.” For a moment, I allowed myself to savor the memory of those early days in our relationship. “And then we were just having fun. Falling in love. We only dated five months before we got engaged . . . and then . . .”
“Yes. For a while, I tried to talk myself out of marrying Geoff. After that came the months life was all about cancer.”
“Maybe this is stating the obvious, but you and Geoff have had anything but the normal struggles of most newlyweds.”
I couldn’t argue with Zach. “And Geoff and I thought the kitchen reno would be fun. We couldn’t have been more wrong.”
“I never said the renovation would be fun, Jillian.” A smile laced Zach’s words. “I said it would be worth it.”
“That’s true.”
“If you could, would you go back to the old kitchen? Undo all of this, knowing the extra cost, the problems we’d find? Have us not finish it?”
“Is this some sort of trick question?”
“No. No trick.”
“I love the kitchen. The cabinets are beautiful to look at—and they’re spacious, so now there’s a place for everything. I hated the dingy laminate floor and the old counters . . . it was all outdated. I can’t wait to see the new wood flooring. And I know that the things I can’t see are all sound, too. It’s an investment that will pay off in the long run.”
“I like what you’re saying.”
“It’s obvious we couldn’t have done this by ourselves. You’re the craftsman when it comes to wood cabinets. And plumbing and electricity? We had to have experts do the work. It was a hassle—but you tried to shield us from that as much as possible.” Some of the tightness in my shoulders eased. “I guess I’m more satisfied than I realized.”
“Can you say the same thing about Geoff?”
“I’m not following.”
“Okay, I admit that was a bit of a trick question.” Zach’s smile disappeared. “I’ve heard my pastor say that marriage isn’t ever what we plan on . . . The person we marry isn’t the person we find on the other side of ‘I do.’”
“That’s why I broke off my engagement . . . because Geoff hadn’t proposed to someone with cancer.”
“But Geoff didn’t walk away, did he?”
“No.”
“What about you?” Zach allowed Winston to squirm out of his arms, retaining a hold on the leash so he couldn’t escape. “Are you going to walk away from Geoff because you two haven’t figured out the kid issue?”
Zach’s question was a direct hit. “That’s not fair.”
“You, of anyone, knows life isn’t fair.”
“But that’s like asking me if I could be in two places at one time. I want Geoff. I want children. I didn’t know I had to choose. He didn’t talk to me about this before he decided . . .” I stopped. Zach didn’t know everything Geoff had decided. “I mean, he won’t even talk about the possibility of adopting.”
“That’s not the point, Jillian.”
“Then tell me what is the point.”
“You spoke wedding vows with Geoff. I know you were in a judge’s chambers, but that doesn’t make those words any less binding. Did you mean what you said?”
Did I mean the “no matter what happens” intent of our wedding vows? When I stood in front of a judge, just me and Geoff and the specter of cancer and an uncertain future, did I mean it?
“Yes.”
Zach was silent for a few seconds as if to let my answer settle into my heart. “Maybe what you need to do is stop thinking about how disappointed you are—although I can certainly understand why you’re feeling that way. I’m just suggesting you consider a different perspective.”
“What do you mean?”
“Has Geoff told you why he doesn’t want to adopt?”
I replayed our conversations in my head. “Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“He gave me an answer, but really he just shut me down.”
“Then go talk to him. Find out the real reason why Geoff doesn’t want to adopt.”
I stared straight ahead. “His answer also might not change anything.”
“I know that. But at least you’ll have asked him.”
Zach, with his quiet voice and pointed questions, was turning me around, making me face my wedding vows. He wasn’t being cruel or pushy.
He was also reminding me to think less about myself and more about my husband, who so often in the past had thought of me first.
“Can I ask you a question?”
I couldn’t resist giving him a hard time. “You mean can you ask me another question?”
Zach half smiled. “Yeah.”
“Go ahead.”
“What got you through your cancer treatments—the chemo and the radiation? I mean, besides Geoff.”
“Harper . . . she gave me a glass jar filled with positive thoughts. She wrote them out on all these colorful slips of paper and made sure I pulled one out each day.”
“That’s nice. And it helped, reading a positive thought a day?”
“Most days.”
“Is there one of those thoughts that would help you right now?”
“I don’t know . . . maybe.” I closed my eyes, inhaling the scent of smoke. One of my neighbors had started a fire in their fireplace. “How about ‘A single thread of hope is still a very powerful thing.’”
“I like it. Can you find even the smallest bit of hope inside you, Jillian? A single thread?”
“I can try.”
It was the best I could do at the moment.
“That’s a start. One thing I know . . . you love Geoff. And Geoff loves you. Remember that.” He paused. “God loves you too, Jillian.”
Huh.
Zach must have forgotten that the Thatcher sisters didn’t believe in God—although maybe that was changing for Payton. But the idea of God loving someone as insignificant as me? I couldn’t grasp it, but I also couldn’t get angry at Zach for telling me that. Right now, if I could somehow find my way to a big, loving God who could fix the hurt and misunderstanding separating Geoff and me, I would run to Him without a backward glance at my doubts.
“I know you . . . your family . . . that we think differently about faith. But my relationship with God helps me through the hard times.”
Zach was treading softly, not wanting to offend me. And he hadn’t. He was saying, “This helped me. Take it or leave it.”
Part of me wished that if I turned over all those slips of paper from the glass jar Harper had given me, if I pieced them together, I’d discover a map that led me closer to God . . . or offered me the ultimate words of comfort so I would be fine without Him.
Today, this morning, I would ask Geoff why.
But first he had to wake up.
I’d found my husband asleep next to me in our bed, dark circles under his eyes, his brown hair matted to his forehead. Geoff hadn’t even taken the time to hang up his clothes but tossed his khaki pants and button-down shirt on the wooden chair beside his dresser. The longing to be near me hadn’t kept him in bed this Saturday morning—the sheer inability to wake up had.
Fine. I’d take it.
I’d stayed next to him for a while, appreciating the warmth of his body beside mine. The sound of his breathing. Resisting the urge to turn and curl closer to him. Rest my head on his chest. Touch his hair.
Even there, in the stillness of our bedroom, the questions snuck in, disrupting what little peace I’d gathered while lying next to my husband and pushing me from the bed. Geoff, my Geoff, with his jokes and his laughter and his kindness . . . what were his reasons for saying no to children? To expanding our family to include a son or a daughter?
Two hours later, I’d made breakfast—now brunch—in our almost-complete kitchen, the cement floor beneath the plastic covering cold on my feet. A quiche—using Johanna’s favorite recipe. And the coffee would be hot and fresh, if not fancy. Winston had enjoyed a brief walk in the neighborhood, the cold hurrying us back into the warmth of the house. Now, at last, Geoff’s footsteps sounded on the stairs.
“What time is it?”
“Ten thirty.”
Geoff brushed his hair back, a
djusting his glasses. “Sorry. I must have been really tired.”
Was he apologizing for being home?
“You’ve been working hard, what with those extra projects. And I know you’re already prepping for the conference, too.” I pressed my lips together. I wanted my response to be pleasant, so shorter was better.
“Yeah. Just preliminary stuff, but I want to give it my best, you know? I’m researching the topic options, as well as presentation methods.”
“Good idea. I took Winston for a walk. Wanted the house to be quiet so you could sleep.”
“Thanks.”
“Coffee?”
“Sure.”
“Are you hungry? I made a quiche—Johanna’s recipe. And fresh fruit.”
“I thought something smelled good.” Geoff nodded. “Sure.”
He settled onto his heels, calling to Winston and scratching behind his ears, as I prepared the coffee and filled our plates. We pretended everything was fine. Easing our way around the kitchen. Around each other. Around the remnants of conflict that shadowed our days. We carried our breakfast into the dining room, Geoff sitting at the head of the table, me sitting next to him.
The room filled with silence. No easy banter. No laughter.
Maybe I should let go of my plans to talk to Geoff. Choose to relax. Have a pleasant day. See if I could get my husband to smile again. To look at me again.
No. This was a chance to talk—possibly our only opportunity, with Geoff so intent on avoiding me.
I waited until he was halfway through breakfast—and on his second cup of coffee—before broaching what had happened a week ago. By then he’d at least made eye contact with me, even if he hadn’t touched me.
“I was . . . I was hoping we could talk.”
“Talk?” Geoff stiffened. “About adopting?”
I had to give the man credit for not dodging at least part of the issue.
“No.” I shoved aside my plate. “I wanted to talk about why you don’t want to have children.”
Geoff gulped his coffee. He lowered his eyes. “Is this so you can argue with me? Tell me all the reasons we should have children?”
“No.” I risked resting my fingertips on the back of his hand. How I’d missed being close to him. Physically. Emotionally. Even when he’d come home late at night and slipped into bed, he’d kept his distance, no longer drawing me close to him, curving his body around mine. He didn’t pull his hand away now, but he didn’t turn his palm up to curl his fingers around mine, either.
