Chapter 18
Matt’s early dinner meeting went well; he landed the account. It had taken weeks to convince this man to invest, and Matt was excited to have closed the deal. But the success didn’t mute his continued worries. The closer he got to the apartment, the more he realized how impossible it would be to keep the paternity test to himself much longer. It seemed to permeate his thoughts more and more every day. The little voice telling him to “ ’fess up now” was getting louder by the hour. The thought of telling Maddie, however, made him want to run his car into a tree. Facing his already heartbroken wife and breaking her heart all over again made his blood go cold.
Maddie was watching TV but turned it off when he came in.
“You can keep watching,” Matt said as he put his planner and laptop on the counter. He avoided meeting her eyes, wishing he could just forget this stuff. He couldn’t remember his own parents’ birthdays; why couldn’t he just not think about this too?
Maddie rested her chin on the arm of the couch and smiled. “I think my brain is melting. This stuff is pathetic.”
Matt chuckled and lifted the Crock-Pot lid. “This looks good.”
“Kim brought it over.”
“How are you feeling?” he asked as he replaced the lid and removed his coat.
“Pretty good,” she said with a smile.
“I’m glad.”
“And how was your day?”
Matt shrugged and hoped she wasn’t picking up on the tension he felt was choking him. “Long—but not too bad. I landed that New York guy.”
“Congratulations,” Maddie said. “I folded a whole basket of laundry all by myself.”
Matt laughed, enjoying the banter. It had been a long time. He kept waiting for all this normalcy to help clear his mind.
“Oh, Kim found this when she was doing the laundry.”
Matt turned and looked at what she was holding. He recognized it right away, and his heart stopped. His eyes jumped to Maddie’s face, but it took a moment to realize she wasn’t looking at him with suspicion. However, he felt sure his face was showing his guilt. After a few moments, Maddie’s brow began to furrow, and he felt the last few sands sift through the hourglass of his secrecy.
“Matt?” she questioned. She looked at the paper she was holding in her hand and then back at him again. “What is this?”
The moment had arrived, and not in the least bit how he expected it. He had two choices. He could lie to her and put this off for another week, or he could tell her the truth. Before they married, he had promised himself that if she ever directly asked him, he would tell her the truth. Even then, straight-out lying to her had been impossible. That was as true now as it had ever been. The moment had arrived, and the realization was devastating.
“Matt,” Maddie said, this time with a sharpness in her voice—a demand for answers.
“Oh, Maddie,” he sighed as tears rose in his eyes. He couldn’t imagine what her reaction would be, but he could feel the pain that was coming and found it hard to breathe.
“What?” she asked, and her face was beginning to show her panic. She was sitting up now, and he knew she was trying to imagine what would have him acting this way. He could almost hear her thought processes spinning.
He took two steps forward and sat down in the chair next to the couch. He tried to say a prayer in his mind, but couldn’t find the words. He’d known weeks ago that he needed to tell her then, and he’d ignored the internal prodding. He was a selfish fool to expect help now, when the timing was as horrible as it could be. “There’s something I need to tell you,” he said after a few more seconds ticked by.
Maddie didn’t say a word; she just stared at him.
Matt swallowed and took the form from her fingers. He looked it over and took a deep breath. Staring at the paper, he wished he’d remembered to throw it away. If he had, he wouldn’t be doing this right now—maybe not ever. “Back in high school . . . I . . . messed up.”
“Messed up?” Maddie echoed when he didn’t expound. “What does that mean?”
“There was a girl,” Matt said. “And I . . . uh, she and I . . . slept together.” It was like battery acid on his tongue to say this, and he couldn’t meet Maddie’s eyes. She said nothing, and when he looked up, the shock on her face drove home what a surprise this really was.
“You what?” she whispered, leaning forward.
“I slept with her,” he repeated. The words stung as badly as they had the first time. Maddie pulled back. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Maddie. I went to the bishop. I fixed it, so I didn’t think it was . . . necessary.”
“Not necessary?” Maddie said, her voice shaking. “That’s crap, Matt. I had every right to know.”
“Part of repentance is living your life as if the sin didn’t happen. The bishop encouraged me to live my life that way,” he explained, wishing it didn’t sound so trite to his own ears. “I took his counsel seriously.”
“What does that paper have to do with it?” she demanded, pointing at the form he’d forgotten he was holding.
“Um . . .” He hung his head. He did not want to do this to her. Not after everything that had happened. When he spoke, his voice was shaky, and the words came out as if in slow motion. “I found out recently that the girl had . . . a baby, and I had to take a paternity test to find out whether or not it’s mine.”
Maddie was silent for several seconds. He couldn’t even hear her breathing and didn’t dare meet her eye.
“You have a kid?” she finally said. The edge in her voice raked down his spine like fingernails on a chalkboard.
“I don’t know,” Matt hurried to say, wanting her to hold on to the hope that it wasn’t his. That hope was a lifeline to him. He wanted it to be a comfort to Maddie as well. He looked up. “There are four other guys being tested.”
Maddie recoiled and put a hand over her mouth. He realized how horrible it sounded. That he was one of five men who had been with this one girl was disgusting to him, but even more so to her.
“Maddie, it was a mistake—such a big mistake. I went to the bishop, and she promised both of us she wasn’t pregnant. She promised, Maddie. I did everything I could to make things right. She was from New Mexico. I had no idea she had a baby—I’ve never seen her since the meeting with the bishop. I was eighteen years old and it was such a stupid thing to do, I risked everything in my life and future—I just . . . I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“Oh my gosh,” she said, and she stood up, wrapping her arms around her midsection and closing her eyes. He reached out to her, but she slapped his hand as soon as it touched her. “I can’t believe this.” She wiped at her eyes, looked around the room, and walked toward the front door.
“Maddie,” Matt said, standing and turning to keep her in sight. “I’m so sorry. I can’t believe it myself, and I feel horrible, and I wanted to tell you and didn’t know how and was so scared that—”
“When did you find out?” Maddie suddenly asked, turning to face him again.
He paused and swallowed. “A few weeks ago,” he muttered.
“And you didn’t tell me?” she asked. “You knew this was coming, and you didn’t tell me? If I hadn’t found this paper, would you have lied to me forever?”
Right now, if he had believed he could have kept it from her, he would have. But it was past that point, and he now knew why he hadn’t told her this sooner. “I didn’t lie to you,” he said. “I never told you I was a virgin.”
“Oh yes, you did,” Maddie spat between clenched teeth. “When my old roommate called me to tell me they canceled the temple ceremony and had to be married by a bishop—you agreed it was horrible.”
“That was different—I had repented and I’d been forgiven and I had no reason to believe there was anything more I should have done.”
She glared at him and continued as if she hadn’t heard a word. “We’ve talked about how immoral the world has become and how grateful we were to have the gospel a
s a lifeline through it. We’ve been very open on this subject for four whole years, Matt, and you’ve worked hard at making me believe you were someone you most certainly are not. You served a mission, Matt—that’s supposed to mean you’re a certain kind of man.”
“I repented, Maddie. If I’d known she was pregnant, I realize everything would be different,” he said, willing her to understand what that meant. “But repentance is also part of the lifeline of the gospel. Because of my sin, I came to understand how powerful the Atonement is. I made such a horrible mistake, committed the kind of sin that could have ruined my life and the one after this—but then I went to the Lord, Maddie. I’m a better man for having learned so much. It was wrong, and if I could go back in time it would never have happened—but it did. Part of the man I am today is because of that mistake and the way I made it right.”
“Don’t patronize me and try to tell me this was a good thing,” she said. Her chest was now beginning to heave as she cried harder. “And don’t try to justify this. You knew what I believed, and you let me believe you were something you were not—that’s a mean, terrible lie! And then you didn’t even tell me when you found out about . . . this.” She stepped forward and slapped at the paper he still held in his hand. Matt watched it flutter to the floor.
Her words were like a thousand swords. There was no explanation other than he didn’t want to hurt her—but he had to try anyway. “I should have told you when I got the first notice. I know that, but the timing was bad and—”
“And this timing is good?” The emotion made it hard for her to breathe, and he tried again to reach out to her. She backed up and went to the coat closet. “My whole world was just flushed down the toilet, and now you’re telling me that not only are you not the man I thought you were, but you might be a father to some other woman’s child? You’ve lived a life you didn’t deserve—didn’t earn.” She pulled her coat from the closet. Her movements were slow, reminding him how unhealed her body was. She couldn’t be thinking of leaving?
“Maddie,” Matt begged.
She put her coat on, slipped her feet into a pair of sandals at the bottom of the closet, and headed for the door.
“Don’t go,” he said, trying to hold back the sobs rising in his chest. “Please don’t leave. Let me explain.”
She turned to look at him once more. The anger, the betrayal, and the sheer sadness in her eyes burrowed into him. “I’ve heard enough,” she spat as tears coursed down her cheeks. “Don’t you dare tell me how I’m supposed to handle it.”
The slam of the door echoed through the apartment. Matt slowly sat back down. He dropped his head in his hands. How could he do this to her? All his justifications and excuses were brittle and crumbling. What kind of man allowed these things to happen? He felt small and worthless and wished he could disappear.
He considered calling Allen and asking him for the blessing he’d offered at the hospital, but couldn’t do it. Having just lived through Maddie’s reaction, he wasn’t ready to steel himself for another one. He’d ignored the promptings the Lord had given him. It was impossible to feel as if he were still entitled to guidance.
Chapter 19
Maddie drove and drove, eventually finding herself at the same lookout point she had gone to six weeks earlier after leaving the baby shower. It was the first time she’d driven a car since the surgery, and she was glad her meds had decreased enough that she was able to. Staying in the apartment with Matt would have been more than she could stand. She had to get out.
A light snow was falling, and she parked the car so it faced the city, turning off her lights. There weren’t many tears once she left the apartment. She was too angry, too shocked, and too beaten to cry over yet one more tragedy. She kept repeating their conversation over and over, feeling smaller and sicker and more useless every minute. It was hard to decide which part hurt the most. That he’d lied to her? That he’d been with another woman? That he could be a father—that was it. That was the hardest part. The irony was piercing: Amid all their attempts to have a child, he may already have one. But the rest was no less cutting. How could this happen? she kept asking herself over and over again.
Maddie had had serious relationships before Matt, and she’d always been the one who had broken them off. She had been picky—and then she’d started dating Matt. He seemed so perfect. He was the poster child for everything she’d ever wanted in a husband—kind, sensitive, generous, and absolutely devoted to the gospel. She’d always felt she knew him inside and out—and yet he wasn’t who she thought he was. How could she be so stupid? What else didn’t she know about him? If he could lie about this, what other lies had he led her to believe?
There were a million questions she wished she had asked. Who was this girl? When had it happened? How could he allow it? Why hadn’t he found out before now about the child? How could he convince himself it wasn’t necessary to tell her? And most of all, what were they going to do now? No, she corrected herself, not us, him. What was Matt going to do now? She’d survived the loss of her pregnancy, the chance to be a mother, but this—this divided them. Matt could be a father. The future, already so vague and empty, looked darker and blacker than ever. There was no voice in the back of her head egging her forward, calling out encouragement.
A lesson given years earlier came to mind: “When you feel least like prayer is when you need it the most.” Instantly she rebelled against the idea. When she’d awakened after the surgery, she’d been angry and felt at the lowest point a person could go, but that paled in comparison with this. At least back then she felt she still had a husband to depend on and grow with. Now that was gone too. Where was God in any of this? If He loved her, like she’d always believed, how could He allow this to happen? After everything else, why this?
The words of Allen’s blessing came back to her, the admonition to cling to her husband and support him. Is this mess what the blessing was referring to? If God had wanted to prepare her, had really wanted her to stand by her husband through this hell, He should have prompted Matt to be honest in the first place. Or helped her be more liberal in her views of right and wrong. She had always believed that premarital sex was a sin and a sign of weak character. Now that belief seemed to be working against her. She felt like the butt of a cruel joke, the only one left out of what everyone else already knew. Matt’s explanations came back to her, tempting her to consider that he’d sought forgiveness—but she refused to soften.
The emptiness was overwhelming, and yet she couldn’t ignore the habitual instinct to pray. She’d always been a prayerful person, and with nothing else to cling to, she leaned forward and rested her forehead on the steering wheel. She took a deep breath and began to speak, though the anger still rolled within her.
“What did I do to invite these things into my life?” she whispered as the tears began to fall once more. “I’ve lived right, I’ve kept my covenants, and I believed I would be blessed for those things. I believed I would avoid heartache by following Your footsteps, and yet I’m drowning in things I never imagined.” She paused, waiting for a lightning bolt to strike her down or perhaps for a burning in her bosom to push her forward—something to remind her of her Heavenly Father’s love for her.
She felt nothing and raged inside at being ignored right now, when she needed comfort the very most.
“I don’t know what to do,” she continued, her hope for an answer fading. “I feel as lost and alone as I ever have.” Still she felt nothing. He wasn’t listening, was He. Had she always prayed to such nothingness? She’d had spiritual experiences before. Had they been in her head? She’d never needed solace like she did now, and it wasn’t there. Perhaps all the other comfort she’d received had been a figment of her imagination after all. “Answer me!” she demanded, slamming her fist against the dashboard. “Give me something to work with!” Nothing happened. With a heavy sigh, she wiped her eyes and sat back up, staring through the water spots of melted snow covering her windshield.
&nbs
p; Their wedding day came to mind, and she pictured Matt’s face as he’d knelt across from her at the altar. Life had been so wide open back then. Yet he’d been keeping such a horrible secret from her all along. The multiplied reflections in the sealing room were an eternal symbol, and the hope of generations yet to come. But there would be no future generations—at least not from her. She’d been trying to make progress in her feelings toward adoption, the lifelong sharing of the child she raised with another woman who would do the one thing she couldn’t—give birth. But now she also had to somehow reconcile that Matt might have a child without her? It made her stomach burn to think about it. When was enough, enough?
She lowered the seat and curled around herself as the tears started again.
“What am I supposed to do with the rest of my life?” she whispered amid the sobbing. The heater hummed, and the snow covered the windows, closing her in. She shut her eyes and let out a deep breath, wishing she would fall asleep and never wake up.
If infertility was supposed to be her destiny, did she have to have her face rubbed in it like this? How could she embrace that and move forward after being lied to and betrayed by the one person who, until now, she’d felt was part of the solution to her sorrows? Why had she tried so hard to live right if she was just going to end up paying for Matt’s sins? Nothing made sense. She reached forward and turned up the heater. If this was the life God wanted her to live, He should have prepared her for it.
****
She woke up with a start, not knowing where she was, feeling a great deal of pain. It took a moment for her to realize she was in her car. The snow had obscured the view out of her windshield. The clock on the dashboard said it was after three in the morning.
Her belly was killing her, but she’d left her meds at home, and she didn’t want to go back there. She considered going to her mother’s, but trying to explain this to her was impossible. Maybe Kim’s—but that was an equally bad idea. Kim might be Maddie’s best friend, but she was also Matt’s sister. Maddie wasn’t ready to tell anyone what she still hadn’t made sense of herself. The sheer humiliation of telling people what Matt had done made her face heat up with shame. She turned on the windshield wipers, relieved that there was only an inch or so of soft powder. She needed her pain pills, and there was nowhere else to go but home.
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