“Thanks for grabbing her while I was in the shower.”
Rosalie had passed out, her head lying on my arm, her arm tossed out with complete abandon. “Look at this,” I whispered to Ani, marveling at Rosie’s ability to fall asleep in the silliest positions.
Babies were so amusing. I tried to dwell on the lighter side because something in Ani’s face looked absolutely grave.
It made me hold the baby a little tighter. Thoughts rose in my head, possibilities that this life was all a dream, one that could be taken away at any moment. Even with all my confused thoughts, I didn’t want to lose Ani or Rosalie. I was facing a wall of pure fear that I had no idea how to climb over.
I set the baby in her crib, covered her up, and quietly turned on the monitor. We filed silently out of the room and closed the door.
“It’s a nice night,” Ani said. “How about we go outside?”
I followed her onto the tiny brick patio. Moonlight was streaming over the little yard in bright stripes, washing everything in a white-gray glow, hitting the overgrown but crazily-blooming rosebushes in a way that looked ethereal.
We sat side by side on a garden bench. She reached over and held my hand.
“You’re such a good guy.” She looked sideways at me. “So kind, so good-hearted.”
I’d lived long enough to know that any sentence a woman speaks that starts with “You’re such a good guy” isn’t going to end well.
“I’d do anything for both of you,” I said, choking up. She looked sad. Somehow, I knew what was coming.
“I know that.” She went silent. The garden crickets’ song, usually so peaceful, seemed now to be a high-pitched whistle, the kind a coach blows when a player screws up on the field. “That’s why I can’t let you do this.”
“Ani, no.” I turned to her. “I meant what I said. I take care of people.” Why wouldn’t she just let me do that? At least this was something I could do to solve a big problem. From that perspective, the decision was easy and clear. I might feel a sense of dread, but at least I didn’t feel the horrible helplessness I did when Liv got sick and the entire world bottomed out.
“I don’t need you to take care of me.”
I jerked up my head, thrown by her words. But there was more.
“Between my jumping in impulsively and you trying to save me, we could get into this for all the wrong reasons.”
I heaved a sigh. She’d stabbed me with the first comment and then finished me off with the last. “So I’m a little reluctant, okay?” I stared straight down at the bricks, noticing for the first time all the little weeds that had managed to grow in between the cracks, and how I’d failed to take care of those. “I’m working through it.”
She nudged my arm, gently forcing me to look at her. “I swept you up in this whirlwind. You were the guy on the plane who turned into a Good Samaritan. You helped me through the most difficult moment of my life, and you kept being there. You got pulled into the undertow when you weren’t ready.”
“I’m the judge of whether I’m ready or not.” But inside, the terrible pitching of my stomach told me that what she was saying was spot on. I’d let myself get swept along, and it had been a wild ride. But my head was whirling.
“You’re noble and good-hearted, but I don’t want to marry someone to keep my baby. I want to marry someone because I love them, and they love me. Marriage is not something you do for any other reason, Adam. I learned that lesson the hard way.” She stood up. “I can’t marry you.”
I was bleeding here. Plus, she’d saidmybaby, not our baby, and that jarred me. “The risk of losing Rosie is too high to stick to the fairy tale script. I’m sorry I can’t give you all sunshine and flowers, but I can work this out.”
I struggled to think. I’d tried to give everything I had. Hadn’t I?
It was natural to feel a little reluctant under these circumstances, I rationalized. I wasn’t like Ani, plunging headlong into adventures. A year ago, I was practically an inanimate object. I’d come a long way, but I didn’t know what else I could do not to feel a sense of caution here. I had no idea how to tell her that.
What do you want from me?” came out instead, all my frustration pouring out into that one sentence.
“Something you can’t give,” she said flatly. “All of you. Someone filled with joy and happiness at the prospect of spending their life with me.” She closed her eyes and blew out a breath. “I deserve that.”
She stood up straighter. The moon was shining on her, lighting her up. Even now I marveled at her beauty. And her certainty. It sank in that she was right—she did deserve better than me, someone who had taken every step with extreme caution. I dragged my fingers through my hair. I couldn’t figure out how to turn this around. I couldn’t stop my sense of panic that things were moving way too fast.
She watched me with an eagle eye, knowing like she always did more about me than I did myself. “From the outside,” she said, “welooklike a fairy tale. A perfect couple, a perfect baby.Rosie is beloved by both of us. But you and I—I can’t love us enough for both of us and hope for the best. I won’t. It’s not fair to either one of us.”
She walked over to me like she did when she was ready to jump into my arms. Instead, she stopped and pulled me to her, holding my head against her and wrapping her arms around me.
She was right.
Maybe I simply wasn’t capable of fully loving someone ever again.
