Unsung Lullaby

by Josi S. Kilpack

  “Maybe it’s wrong for me to be so hurt. Maybe it was my own judgments that made you not trust me enough to tell me, but I needed that apology. Knowing that you were with someone else . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she shook her head as if chastising herself. “Did you see the pictures?” she asked, releasing his arm as she changed the subject. He nodded. “Where is he?” she asked.

  He, Matt thought to himself. It was so real. Matt removed the photo from his back pocket and handed it to her. She took it and walked to the counter, where she opened the back of a small silver frame. Then she placed the frame on the counter. Matt looked from her to the photo and back again. She was making a point. It hit him like a rock in the chest.

  Maddie held his eyes as he forced himself to take a deep breath. “What you did was a mistake,” she said in a soft voice. “We both know that. But for two people who have worked so hard to make a baby, this boy is not something to apologize for anymore.”

  Matt straightened, confused at how accepting she was, but not wanting to argue. He knew her acceptance hadn’t come easy. The look in her eyes was one of absolute sadness. But she was working past it. Could he do the same? “I’m sorry,” he whispered again.

  Maddie took a step forward, put a finger to his lips, and shook her head, though her chin was trembling.

  “No more apologies,” she whispered. She didn’t remove her finger until he nodded his agreement.

  They went downstairs to the Wildflower Restaurant for dinner. They didn’t know enough about what lay ahead to make any grand decisions, other than that Matt needed to hire an attorney, but Matt was relieved they were at least working on it. They were both tense, and as the meal progressed the conversation slowed down and finally stopped. It was like discussing a terminal illness—necessary, but heartbreaking.

  When they finished their meals, he walked her back to her room. She stopped in the hallway outside her door and turned to face him. “I’d like to stay one more night,” Maddie said. “I’ll come home tomorrow.”

  “Can I stay with you?” he asked.

  Maddie hesitated and looked at the floor. “I need one more night,” she said.

  He didn’t understand, but he nodded anyway. If she needed one more night, he would give it to her. It was the least he could do. He pulled her into his arms and then pulled back, resting his forehead against her own. It felt so good to be close to her, to smell her and feel her. He raised a hand and brushed his knuckles along her jawline. “I love you, Maddie,” he said. She turned her head, allowing him to kiss her goodnight. He let his lips linger, still hoping she would change her mind and let him stay with her.

  After a few seconds, she pulled back and turned to put the key in the door. “I love you, too,” she said with her back facing him, emotion thick in her voice.

  ****

  Once inside the room, Maddie put her back against the door and dropped her head into her hands as the tears came. Despite all the spiritual assurances and conscious choices she’d made, it had been so hard to keep her feelings to herself, to not scream and rage against all that was happening. She slowly sank to the floor, crying, sobbing, wanting to let out as much as she could. This was the right thing to do; she knew that. But it stung and burned and hurt like nothing she’d ever felt before. She had hoped that seeing Matt and making this choice would help her feel better. But it was still so hard. She was reminded that nowhere in the scripture stories she’d been raised on did it say that doing the right thing didn’t hurt. She hoped as time went by it would be easier. She clung to that hope and tried to focus on why she was doing this. Why wasn’t she driving to Mexico to open a small café? Why wasn’t she going through the Yellow Pages taking notes on good divorce attorneys? Why was she subjecting herself to something so painful?

  Because I love him, Maddie told herself. And because it’s the right thing to do. A warmth filled her chest and reminded her that she hadn’t made the decision alone, and she wouldn’t have to press forward alone either. This is an occasion to rise to, she told herself, taking a deep breath and wiping at her cheeks.

  It was time to rise.

  Chapter 22

  Maddie came home on Tuesday and moved into the guest room. She was home, and she was committed, but she had yet to come to grips with certain aspects of the situation. She was also still healing, physically and emotionally, and needed space. Matt hadn’t argued about the separate rooms, and she was glad. She didn’t want to explain.

  Matt walked in the door after work Thursday evening holding the mail. Maddie was making cookies, and when she saw the mail in his hand, she stopped. They had gone through this exact routine the two previous afternoons.

  “Is it there?” she asked, looking from the mail to her husband.

  “I didn’t look yet.”

  “Well, look,” she said, wiping off her hands on a dish towel as she turned to rest her hips against the counter. Getting so much rest over the weekend seemed to have helped her healing a great deal. She was taking Motrin to control the pain and was feeling better every day. She had medical leave for two more weeks, but had talked to her boss about coming back part-time next week. She worried about spending two more weeks with nothing to distract her. Emotionally she was still running the gamut of ups and downs. One minute she felt ready and peaceful, and the next she was mad again, feeling ripped off and bitter. She longed for it to even out—so did Matt.

  Maddie watched Matt’s hand move one letter at a time as he sorted through the stack. Then he stopped, and her heart seemed to stop with him. He looked up and their eyes met.

  They seemed to take a breath in tandem, and then Matt pulled a butter knife from the drawer and slit the envelope open. Even though Maddie knew the results were positive, she couldn’t help but hope she was wrong. It would be so much easier for them to not have this complication. They could be like Abraham and Isaac, taken to the very moment of obedience, only to be let off the hook. She hoped and prayed for that as Matt’s hand pulled the paper from the envelope.

  “Well?” Maddie asked after watching Matt scan the paper for several seconds. Matt shook his head. Did that mean it was negative? Without meeting her eyes, he put the letter on the counter and went out the front door, slamming the door behind him. That was pretty much his answer. She picked up the paper and read it, though she wasn’t surprised. Her heart began beating again. She looked at the door where he’d just exited but wasn’t in any state to catch up and comfort him.

  She baked another pan of cookies, but the apartment began feeling rather claustrophobic. Leaving the hot cookies on the counter, Maddie grabbed her coat and went out for a walk. Matt’s car was in its parking space, so she circled the apartment complex, scanning the area for her husband. She also watched the kids playing, the moms chatting, and the cars moving past. Her life was about to change—it was a powerful thing to face. Surprised with herself, she realized she wasn’t feeling angry or resentful, just apprehensive for now.

  After a while she sat down on a bench across from the small park and watched the people come and go. Some boys were kicking a soccer ball back and forth, enjoying the snow-free March weather. They looked about nine or ten, the boy’s age—they still didn’t know his name. A shiver went down her spine, and she let out a breath. It was difficult to imagine this was for real. But she was calm, and she was at peace, and she knew those two things—especially right now—were a gift.

  When Maddie got back to the apartment, almost an hour had passed. Matt had beaten her home and picked up where she’d left off with the cookies. She sat across the counter and watched him remove the cookie sheet from the oven.

  “You okay?” he asked in a careful tone. He was always careful when he spoke to her these past few days. Even though she hadn’t said as much, he knew she was here because she’d chosen to be, not necessarily because she wanted to be.

  She shrugged and picked up a cookie from the rack. It was still warm and she broke it in half, popped a piece in her mouth, and looked at him,
“Aw oo?” she asked with her mouth full.

  He shrugged as well. “I was still hoping, I guess.”

  “Yeah, me too,” she said once she’d swallowed. “But I feel bad about that. I mean, it’s not his fault.”

  Matt’s mouth tightened, and he nodded.

  She realized that her statement also implied that it was Matt’s fault. “I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s okay,” he said. He removed the cookies from the sheet. “It’s just so . . . I don’t know . . . embarrassing, disgusting, unfair, weird.” He took a breath. “You were right—I’ve lived a life I didn’t deserve. I should never have served a mission. I shouldn’t be here at all.”

  Maddie agreed with what he said, and yet . . . “For whatever reason you had the chance to serve, we’ll never know or understand why—but we can still be grateful for it.”

  Matt nodded but said nothing.

  “Now what?” Maddie asked after a few moments. “We need to tell your folks, talk to my folks, and the bishop.”

  Matt started dropping balls of cookie dough on the cookie sheet. “I know,” he said. “I’m almost looking forward to talking to the bishop and getting his advice, but my parents . . . and yours . . . I don’t know how I’m going to do that.”

  Maddie didn’t either, and she didn’t want to be there when he told them. Her parents already knew, of course, and she’d told Matt so. But he still needed to talk to them himself. Thinking about other people’s reactions made her stomach tighten up. She imagined his parents looking at Matt and then at her, the blasted pity in their eyes. Then hugs and platitudes and evil looks at Matt. She wouldn’t mind the evil looks toward Matt so much. Then again, maybe they would be achingly compassionate toward Matt—that might be worse.

  Matt slid another pan in the oven, and Maddie knew she needed to change the subject or leave the room. She could feel the emotion building but didn’t want to lose it right now. She was saved from making a decision when the phone rang.

  “Hello?” she said, after the second ring helped her find the cordless phone on the couch.

  “Maddie,” Allen said, a sympathetic tone to his voice. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, forcing a smile while thinking how much more sympathetic he would be if he knew the whole hardship she was trying to deal with. “How are you guys?” She hadn’t talked to Kim, or anyone other than her mother, for almost a week. Things were too weird.

  “Well, Kim had our baby this morning,” he said. She knew he was curbing his excitement for her, and she was both grateful and irritated by the consideration.

  “Congratulations,” she managed to come up with. Maddie had been at the hospital shortly after Lexie had been born, back when she and Matt were grateful Matt had finished school before they’d gotten pregnant. It hadn’t been so hard to accept the Lord’s will back then, and they were sure that within a few months they would make their own announcement. Kim had been so happy, she’d told Matt and Maddie to get on with it, make a best friend for Lexie. It seemed lifetimes ago.

  “Maddie?” Allen asked. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she hurried to say, putting on a smile for Matt’s benefit and raising the level of her voice in hopes to put her brother at ease. “I’m really happy for you guys.”

  “Well, thanks,” Allen said. But she knew he could feel her lack of enthusiasm. He probably regretted having called her, much like she regretted having him call. “I better call the grandmas,” he said after another awkward pause.

  “Okay.” Maddie hung up the phone. The worries about telling other people what she and Matt were facing were paled by a sudden onslaught of emotion. This was the baby that would have been her child’s playmate. They might have even been in the same grade at school. The pain was forced front and center—again. Her eyes started to fill, and things were getting heavy. Matt took the phone from her and pulled her into a hug.

  “What a day,” Matt whispered as he stroked her hair.

  “I think I’m going to go lie down,” Maddie said. She made to move away.

  “Actually—why don’t we go out instead?” Matt suggested. He stepped back but remained holding her arms.

  “I’m not in the mood.” The bed was calling to her. There were tissues there and chocolate in the nightstand drawer. Her incision ached. She was exhausted and depressed and wanting nothing more than a pain pill and a dark room.

  “Exactly,” Matt said. “Neither am I. But we’re going to go through this for the rest of our lives, and we need to find a way to deal with it better. So let’s find a way to make these things less painful.”

  “Like how?” she asked, reluctant to dismiss her feelings, and clueless as to what could make this less painful.

  “Well, what’s something we can do for ourselves? A reward—something we’ve wanted to do for a long time?”

  “The only thing we’ve wanted to do for a long time is have a baby,” Maddie said. She looked at the floor and wiped at the first tear.

  “Surely there is something else we want out of life—anything.”

  Maddie searched her thoughts but could come up with nothing. “I can’t think of anything else.”

  Matt looked crestfallen. “Me neither—that’s kind of pathetic.”

  Maddie forced a smile and nodded. It was pathetic. They’d been married four years. Most couples had possessions or activities they enjoyed or saved up for. But not them. They didn’t plan trips or get excited about saving up for a really big TV. They used to, before fertility treatments had overwhelmed their life. But making a baby had replaced everything else. It was the only thing they wanted. The chocolates in the nightstand drawer started calling louder.

  “Remember when we went to Liza’s wedding in Logan, and we stopped at that steakhouse at the bottom of the canyon.”

  Maddie thought a minute. “Mad Dog?”

  Matt couldn’t help but laugh. “Maddox, I think.”

  Maddie nodded. It had been a couple of years ago, but she remembered.

  “They had that bison steak you loved.”

  “And real mashed potatoes,” Maddie added, pushing the self-pity away a little bit.

  “And that pie thing, with raspberries. And those rolls.”

  “Oh, those rolls were good.”

  “Should we go?” Matt said. “Celebrate our infertility?”

  Maddie’s stomach sank and her eyes narrowed. “That’s not funny,” she said.

  Matt shrugged. “It could be funny if we’d let it be funny.”

  “No, it can’t,” she said stubbornly.

  “How many couples with kids can drive an hour on a Thursday night to get dinner at the best steakhouse in the state?”

  “I’d rather have kids to bathe and put to bed.” The self-pity was making a strong comeback.

  “But we don’t—yet—so let’s find a way to make other people’s success less heartbreaking by making ourselves have a good time.”

  Maddie pondered the idea. It felt like a betrayal somehow, but she wasn’t sure what or who was being betrayed. She didn’t want to go, and she didn’t really want to be with Matt right now. But she hadn’t wanted to come home from the hotel, either. She’d made the choice to do it because it was the right decision. She could do it again.

  “Let me change my clothes first,” she said.

  Matt smiled, and she smiled back. It was a step in the right direction.

  Chapter 23

  The next day Matt called an attorney, who would then call the caseworker in New Mexico to get the ball rolling. Matt met him and signed the initial paperwork that afternoon, planning to meet again as soon as the attorney had been brought up to speed. It was in this meeting that they learned the boy’s name, Walter Begay Hudson. Walter? Maddie had thought when Matt told her. Who named a baby Walter? But she said it over and over again, trying to get used to it.

  On Sunday morning Matt met with the bishop. “How did it go?” Maddie asked when he came home. She could tell Matt had been e
motional, though he was now subdued. She was lying on the couch reading a John Grisham novel—one of the few authors she enjoyed who never mentioned babies or pregnancy in his books. She’d been rereading his books all week long. The women’s fiction that she had always loved was still too hard.

  “Pretty good,” Matt said as he loosened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt. “He assured me that feeling guilty about not being in the child’s life and having served a mission wasn’t necessary—I’d done everything I could do on my end. That made me feel better. We talked for a long time, and he made a point of letting me know that all I can do now is do my best from here on out. I also asked to be released from my calling with the Young Men.”

  “Why?” Maddie asked, laying the book on her lap. “You went through the steps, it isn’t a worthiness issue—even the bishop emphasized that.” She was impressed with herself for being able to see it, and gave herself a little mental pat on the back.

  He came and sat down on the other end of the couch. Lifting the blanket covering her legs, he took one foot in his hand and began to massage it. The debate swirling in her head faded fast, and she relaxed despite herself.

  “I think my energies would be better served somewhere else.” He looked up and met her eyes. “With you, perhaps.”

  She didn’t respond—wasn’t sure what to say. He loved his calling, and the young men he served with loved him back. He looked at the foot in his hand and continued. “The boys need someone who can be a role model, show them the right path to take. I don’t see how I can give them that right now. There is so much ahead of us now, so many things to prepare for.”

  So many things ahead of them was right. They had to tell their families, and they had to prepare for the possibility that Walter might come for the summer. They’d been in this ward for three years. The members knew them. They were their friends. She imagined the looks, the continuous questions, the humiliation—and her heart sank. “Yeah, I see your point,” she said in a whisper. “Maybe we should move.”