Unsung Lullaby

by Josi S. Kilpack

  Or so she’d thought.

  Now, the spirit of the ancients—if you believed that stuff—had brought the notebook back to her. With a little luck, she might be able to get child support after all.

  She looked at the list of names and wondered where those boys were today.

  Matt Shep

  Zack Lawson

  Jack Bernstein

  Tim Thompson

  Greg Vander—something

  Then she shrugged. Didn’t much matter where they were or what they were doing, they had to be better off than she was. She’d call her caseworker at the DCSS office tomorrow and see what she could do with this information.

  She couldn’t help grinning as she went to the small refrigerator. She needed a beer to celebrate. Better yet, a whole six-pack.

  Chapter 4

  Knock, knock,” Maddie called out as she pushed Kim’s front door open. She was three steps into the room before her sister-in-law appeared from the hallway with her coat in hand. It had been only a week or two since Maddie had seen her, but her pregnant belly looked like it had doubled in size since then. Kim was the only woman Maddie didn’t resent for having babies—well, not as much, anyway. But she knew the coals Kim had walked across to get where she was, and that knowledge made it impossible for her not to share in Kim’s joys.

  “Hey there,” Kim said. Her ash-blonde hair was long and pulled back into a ponytail, as it was most days. Even without makeup, her smile lit up her face, and her blue eyes were welcoming. She put her arms in her coat as she crossed through the kitchen. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” she asked.

  “They had upper management meetings this afternoon. Those of us low enough on the totem pole of corporate politics got to leave early. I brought those movies back.” She laid the two DVD cases on the counter in the kitchen.

  “Oh, thanks. I forgot you had them. We’re going for a walk; want to come?”

  “Um, sure,” Maddie said. She followed Kim, now pushing a stroller that had been hidden by the counter between them, out the back door and down the ramp Allen had built last summer. Maddie didn’t remember her older brother being all that handy when they were growing up, but he apparently had a knack for putting boards together.

  Once outside, Maddie zipped up her leather coat before leaning over to say hello to Lexie, Kim’s two-year-old daughter. Lexie’s cheeks dimpled as she said hi and waved her gloved little hands at her Aunt Maddie. She had a book in her lap and, after her greeting was finished, turned her attention back to it, pretending to read.

  “It’s too cold for a walk.” Maddie pulled the coat collar up to her chin and pushed her hands into her pockets.

  “It’s the warmest day we’ve had in weeks,” Kim said as they turned from the driveway to the sidewalk. “We’ve got to get our exercise in while we can.”

  “Whatever you say,” Maddie replied, wishing she hadn’t pinned her hair up today. She’d have liked the insulation of hair covering her neck. But she could use the exercise. Though she avoided the scale, her clothes told her she was at least thirty pounds heavier than she had been when she and Matt got married. She hated the puffy look it gave her, and knew she should try to drop those pounds, but there were so many other things to worry about.

  As if reading her mind, Kim said, “It wasn’t until Jackson was in the hospital that I lost the extra weight I gained with him.” Maddie was surprised at the candor. Jackson was Kim’s son from her first marriage. Almost four years ago, right after Matt and Maddie had gotten married, he’d spent weeks on life support before he finally died from injuries suffered in a car accident. He’d been seven years old, and the loss was devastating. Kim didn’t talk about him very often, at least not in a casual way like this, and Maddie felt uncomfortable with it somehow. “I’m not getting any younger,” Kim added as they rounded the corner.

  “Neither am I,” Maddie said. She let out a breath, noticing she couldn’t see it. Maybe it wasn’t that cold after all. She just wasn’t used to being outside.

  They were silent for a minute or so before Kim spoke again. “How was the shower Wednesday night?”

  “Horrible,” Maddie said, not wanting to relive it, yet anxious to tell someone how it had felt. But she couldn’t find the words, so it was a fruitless moment of excitement to think she could somehow unburden herself.

  “I talked to your mom this morning. She’s worried about you.”

  Maddie let out a breath. “She’s always worried about me.”

  “As any good mother should be,” Kim said.

  They turned another corner and were now walking with the wind at their backs. Lexie started singing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” and Maddie smiled at the sound, even though it made the constant ache just a little stronger.

  “I know. Mom wants so badly to help me,” Maddie said. She remained silent for a moment, weighing out how far she wanted to go with this conversation. “I told her not to ask me to go to showers anymore. It’s the third in four months—I can’t take any more.”

  “So you’d rather not be invited at all?”

  Good point, Maddie thought. Kim had a way of keeping things annoyingly logical. Maddie knew she would feel left out if she wasn’t invited. She groaned out loud. “I’m so tired of this, Kim. I want a new story; I don’t even care what it is, but I’m tired of telling this one.”

  “Are you still against adoption?” Kim asked. “I mean, if you really want to move on, it’s a good option. Four years is a long time, and you’ve tried everything else.”

  Again, right to the heart. “I don’t want to adopt—neither does Matt. But like you said, things aren’t working, and I’ve been thinking more about it,” Maddie admitted. “But I tried to bring it up a few days ago, and Matt shut it down.”

  “Well, maybe it’s time for him to get over it.”

  Maddie considered that as they walked in silence for a minute or two. Kim made it sound so easy. Maddie watched other moms pushing their own strollers while kids played outside, enjoying the warm day—well, warm for January, anyway. Once again she felt left out.

  “You know the worst part?” Maddie asked a few seconds later. She didn’t give Kim a chance to answer as the internal dam that had kept all these things held inside began to creak and groan under the pressure. “The way one dream after another keeps dying. You give up having to plan a vacation around a possible pregnancy. Then you give up making a special announcement dinner for your husband, since it’s all you two talk about anyway. Soon after that, or maybe before, I can’t remember, you give up being intimate for the fun of it. Then you give up the vacations to pay for the treatments. Every Christmas you get pictures of your friends’ kids, and each year they grow and change. Matt and I don’t even have family pictures. What’s the point?

  “Meanwhile you blame your partner—until you find out you can only blame yourself. You become bitter toward other people’s pregnancies and feel guilty for it. In time the images you’ve had of pushing swings and tying shoes fade. You can’t see yourself holding your own child anymore. After a while you stop talking about it because you’re tired of sympathy. You stop having sex with your husband because it’s a worthless waste of energy. Your entire future seems paused, while everyone else’s keeps going forward. Then you start to wonder about unsticking that pause button by taking someone else’s child. What if I resent the child because it isn’t mine? That scares me to death. Adoption seems so obvious to everyone else, but it’s hard for Matt and me to even feel excited about it.”

  They had stopped walking sometime during Maddie’s monologue, but Maddie hadn’t noticed. Kim stared at her in silence, and Maddie felt a blush creep up her cheeks. It wasn’t like her to unload her feelings. She looked away just as Kim stepped closer and wrapped her arms around Maddie’s shoulders. The gesture took Maddie off guard. “I’m so sorry, Maddie,” Kim said against Maddie’s coat. “I can’t even imagine.”

  Tears filled Maddie’s eyes as well, and soon she was crying on the
sidewalk, oblivious to the cold or to Lexie’s stream of chattering. Kim continued to hold her, to cry with her, and Maddie realized how much she needed the support of her friend. After almost a minute, Kim pulled back and wiped at her eyes. She held Maddie’s hands and looked her in the eye. “I know you hate it when people say this, Maddie, but the Lord has a plan for you. It’s not what you thought it would be, and I know you feel cheated, but there is a plan in this.”

  Maddie did hate it when people said that kind of thing to her, but she knew Kim was trying to be helpful. She shook her head and wiped at her own eyes, wishing she’d opted out of mascara today like Kim had. “I’ve always had a hunger for children. I’ve had names picked out for my kids since junior high. I lived a good, clean life, served a mission, waited for the perfect man, did everything I was supposed to do to get to this point in my life where I could have the right family at the right time with the right guy. All I ever wanted to be was a mom. Yet here I am, a career woman—like it or not. I feel more than cheated, Kim. I feel lied to.”

  “I know,” Kim said. “I’ve been there. Not exactly as you are now, but I’ve shaken my fists at heaven. I’ve wondered where I went wrong, why God was so angry with me. But life went on, and the plan for my life has continued to unfold, like yours will.”

  “But why would God give me such a strong desire and then pull the rug out from under me time and time again?”

  “Maybe you’re supposed to adopt.”

  Maddie let out a breath and looked away. “So why would He give Matt and me such adamant feelings against adoption?”

  “Maybe you did that yourself.”

  A stiff breeze blew wisps of Maddie’s hair around her face, and they started walking again. Maddie looked at Kim, offended by the comment, but unsure why. There was truth in those words. Certainly everyone wanted to have their own children. Had she and Matt taken the desire too far?

  “I have some good friends who adopted their son,” Kim continued. “They don’t resent him, they rejoice in him—maybe even more than other couples because it was such a trial for them. They don’t feel ripped off, they feel they received an amazing gift.”

  “But the real mother is out there somewhere. Someday the child will probably look for her. That would kill me.”

  “You would be that child’s mother. The baby would be yours: named by you, rocked to sleep by you, sealed to you. It would call you Mom, it would paint you pictures at school, and it would be your child, in every way but genetics. Yes, another woman would give birth for you, but it doesn’t negate who you would be to your baby.”

  When she said it like that, it made sense. But Maddie was still hesitant—very hesitant—to embrace an idea she and Matt had been so opposed to. Besides, genetics were a big deal. How many people charted which of their child’s features took after their own? How many personalities were explained by “Just like dad” or “My mom’s the same way.” She didn’t want to give that up and settle for something less. “I don’t know,” Maddie said. “Matt’s more adamant than I am. He won’t even talk about adoption.”

  Kim was quiet for a few moments. “Are you guys okay? I mean, other than this—are you guys okay?”

  Maddie shrugged. What did okay mean? “There isn’t anything but this,” she said. “This whole infertility thing is who we are—it defines us.”

  “Wow,” Kim said. “That’s scary.”

  She stopped walking, and Maddie turned to her. Scary? What did she mean?

  “You and Matt are married, Maddie. You’re a team. This is only one play in the game. It makes me nervous that you think this is all there is between you guys.”

  When she put it that way, it did sound scary, but Maddie couldn’t see any way around it. She was starting to feel like the lecture was going too far, though she couldn’t deny that Kim had her best interest at heart. “We just want this so bad. We got married to make a family, and we can’t. It’s a pretty major hurdle in our relationship. Matt blames me, I know he does, but he won’t say it. It simmers between us all the time. I can feel it.”

  “Have you told him you feel this way?”

  “What’s the point? He’ll just deny it. He’ll say there’s no distance, no blaming. But I live with it every day—the little part of him that won’t let me in.”

  “He loves you, Maddie. The fact that you aren’t talking to him about your feelings is wrong, and he might surprise you. He needs to know your thoughts, and you need to know his. Babies are hard. They test you in a whole new way, and you need to be solid, strong with each other before you step up to the challenge. That means you have to trust one another with your feelings.”

  “I don’t know how. Strong—solid—those sound like pretty big words.” She didn’t say out loud that she believed a baby would fix everything. Not having one was why it had all fallen apart, so why wouldn’t having a baby put the pieces back together?

  “Tell him what you’re feeling,” Kim said. “Open your mouth and let the words come out. He loves you; he’ll listen.”

  Lexie started to whine about wanting to get out of the stroller, and Kim started to walk again. Maddie followed a step or two behind. They didn’t say anything more about it, the moment lost. But the words were not forgotten, and Maddie found herself stewing in them all the way home.

  She wanted more from her marriage than what she and Matt had—she wanted what they’d started with. They had once been best friends, longing to be together every minute possible. At some point their friendship had become a partnership centered on this one goal they both had, and then the partnership had become strained. She tried to remember when things had started to change, but there didn’t seem to be a single transitioning moment. It had just happened. She found it hard to believe that making it better wouldn’t just happen too. Regardless, she suspected Kim was right. She and Matt had to make things better. She just didn’t know how.

  Chapter 5

  Maddie frowned as she pulled in next to Matt’s car. He usually arrived home around 3:30, yet, since she’d gotten off early today, she hadn’t expected that he would be there already—another symptom of how disconnected they were from one another. She had hoped to have some time alone to consider the things Kim had said. Then again, maybe putting it off would do no good. “Tell him what you’re feeling,” Kim had said. Maddie took a deep breath and stepped out of the car. She could do that much, couldn’t she? If it didn’t work, she could always go back to the silent sorrow she’d become so good at.

  Matt was sitting at the kitchen table working on his laptop when Maddie came in. “Hi,” he said without looking up. “You’re home early.”

  “Management meetings.” She pulled a chair out from under the table and sat down. He stopped working on the computer in order to write some checks and punch numbers into the calculator as if she weren’t there. She surmised he was paying bills. There was a subtle tension between them, a bubbling beneath the surface, and it saddened her. Matt was usually the first one to reach out, and she was usually the one turning her back on his offerings. It was sick and twisted and yet comforting in a strange way to feel so much power. The thought made her heart drop. Had things gotten so bad?

  Looking up, she took advantage of his distraction and really looked at her husband. His light brown hair had darkened during the winter, and though cut short, it needed a trim to restore the style. His strong jaw framed his face, and the hint of a five o’clock shadow showed across his chin. He was a good-looking man in many ways, but his best feature was his eyes. He had the most beautiful dark blue eyes—navy eyes, a stark contrast to her brown ones.

  “I hope it has your eyes,” Matt would say when they talked about what their child would look like—a topic they’d spent hundreds of hours discussing over the years.

  “No way,” she’d counter. “Your eyes are so blue—like the ocean.”

  Thinking about those conversations brought a lump to her throat and tears to her eyes. All those discussions seemed so silly, so petty, an
d so sad. When Matt placed his hand over hers, she jumped. Looking up, she met his eyes and saw the same pain, the same heartache reflected there. Her first impulse was to pull away, to stomp out from the room and regain her composure, but Kim’s words echoed back. She took a deep breath and said a silent prayer that she would be up to this.

  “It all feels so final this time,” she whispered, the words hard to get out. She had made it a habit over the last year to not share her feelings with Matt. In a way it felt like a betrayal to trust him with her thoughts.

  “It seems stupid we could have felt so positive about it after all the disappointments we’ve had,” Matt said. “I feel like an idiot.”

  His candor disarmed her, and the emotions she’d unloaded on Kim began to roll forward again, sweeping her away with them. “I’m so sorry, Matt,” she said with her eyes overflowing. “You could have all the kids you want,” she whispered, so quietly that she thought for a moment he didn’t hear her, since he didn’t respond. Admitting it out loud, however, made it hurt even more.