He should wake up for midnight feedings and research strollers and coach Little League teams. He should paper thighs with Band-Aids and make spaghetti five nights in a row. He should change diapers and set up plastic swing sets and fill up an iPhone with videos. He’s that man. It’s almost as if it’s already happened.
“And I know you do,” I finish.
“Daph—”
“It’s OK,” I say, looking up at him. “You said we should be honest.”
Jake nods. I see him swallow. When he speaks, his tone is measured. “I do want it,” he says. “I’ve always pictured myself as a father. But life hasn’t turned out the way I imagined it. Not really at all.”
There is a sadness in his voice, a sort of melancholy I don’t normally see in him, not even when he speaks about her.
“You shouldn’t have to give up the things you want,” I tell him.
Jake smiles. He squeezes my hand. “I want you,” he says.
When I was young, back when my heart was an illusion of health, I figured I’d become a mother. There was no real want or desire attached to it, maybe I was too young for that anyway, it just seemed obvious. At some point—some far-off point in the future—I’d fall in love and get married and have a baby.
But life took a detour. And since we veered off course I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about what I would have wanted if we hadn’t. Does it matter? There is only this life. This very one we are living. And in this one, children never made their way in.I kept expecting them to—to wake up one day and think:I need this. Now.But it hasn’t happened yet.
“I think you have to really ask yourself if you can give that up,” I say. “It’s not a small thing.”
Jake pauses, thoughtful. “So the answer is no? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I’m saying I don’t know if I’ll ever want to open that box.”
I can see Jake struggling, processing this, and part of me is angry. Because we’re already engaged. Because he’s already committed to this. Did he do it because he assumed I’d change my mind?We’ll get married, of course she’ll want a baby.
“Daphne,” he says. He grabs both my hands in his. He looks straight into my eyes. “If all I got was you, it would be more than enough for me. I just want to know what you want your life to be like. I want you to always make choices based on what you want, not what you think you can or can’t have.”
He leans across and kisses me. I feel his lips on mine—solid and centered. But I can’t help but feel as we sit there, the day passing all around us, that he doesn’t get it. What I want doesn’t exist. Not here, not in this life. And the next best thing is not ignoring that reality. The next best thing is acceptance of what is. If I can’t be healthy, I do not want to pretend I am. I want the ease that comes from acknowledging that I’m not. I want the truth.
I often wonder what our responsibility is to other people, how much we owe them. Whose job is it to look out for our own happiness. Us, or the people who love us? It’s both, of course. We owe ourselves and each other. But in what order?
As I look at Jake sitting across from me I feel the desire to protect him palpably—I feel it down deep into my bones. Andthen I consider something else, something that is hard to look at but impossible, now, to ignore. I wonder if I’ve been seeing that desire—honoring it, recognizing it—and calling it love.
Protection and love are not the same thing. Love says,I will try and I will fail. Love says,Despite. Love says,And yet and yet and yet.
And then I think about Jake, about everything he has endured, about everything that happened in his life before he ever met me. I wonder if we are both trying to rescue me, and what happens when we realize we cannot.
Chapter Thirty-Three
It’s a hundred degrees outside.”
Hugo and I are at the Silver Lake Reservoir, walking the flat loop with Murphy. The dog has a spring in his step today, and the pace is brisk. After a few minutes, I tug him to slow down.
It’s after seven, but the sun is barely descending. It’s almost summer in Los Angeles. Everywhere there is growth—the water is clear, the weeds are green and blowing in the breeze, and the flowers are little pops of yellow all around us. Overhead, a bird calls and dives, skimming the surface.
Jake is out of town for a few days on a work trip to New York, and I have the apartment to myself. So far it’s been a lot of reality TV and takeout for one in the air-conditioning. Saber has shown no interest in leaving the cool sixty-eight degrees, so today it’s just Murphy and me.
“Don’t be dramatic,” Hugo says. “It’s seventy-eight, tops.”
He’s not wrong, but even in a sundress and sneakers, I’m sweating. I can feel beads of moisture hanging at my hairline.
This is mine and Hugo’s first solo outing since Jake and I got engaged, which was a month ago already. I told him on the phone. He seemed genuinely happy for me. We’ve texted some, but things have been more reserved between us. I thought when I saw him today our behavior would be reflective of our online exchanges—short, no details—but he’s still Hugo.
Jake and I haven’t started planning a wedding, but we agree it should be small. Twenty people on the beach, maybe drinks and dinner after in the sand. No fuss. Not a lot of money spent. Just intimate and beautiful. Good food, good music, good wine.
“Well itfeelslike it’s a hundred degrees.”
