I knew what was happening. I knew he was emotional. That he hadn’t wanted Dr. Park to see his tears. But all I felt was rage.
Here I was, lying in a hospital bed, my insides having just been invaded, and there he was, sulking in a corner.
“Leo.”
When he didn’t move, I lost it.
“Could you please turn the fuck around?”
He did. I saw his eyes were red. “I can’t do this anymore,” he said.
I felt my insides boil.Hecouldn’t do this anymore? He wasn’t doing anything. I said as much.
“That is so not fair and you know it, Lauren. I don’t want to spend our marriage this way. It’s too painful. I think we maybe need to say enough is enough.”
I felt breathless with his words.
“You just want to give up?” I felt enraged, tormented, even, that he didn’t understand what that meant, that he wasn’t looking at everything I had already given up, everything I had already sacrificed. That for him it was as easy as:next.
“I don’t consider it giving up,” he said. He was calm, rational. I wanted to kill him. “I consider it not prioritizing this fictional baby over ourselves.”
“She’s not fictional.”
“Lauren,” he said. I saw something soften in him. “How much pain do we have to go through?”
“There’s no we here,” I said. “You’ve done nothing. I’m the one in the hospital bed. I’m the one on all the hormones. I’m the one who can’t exercise or drink for half the goddamn month. And you think this is your choice?”
It was nasty, mean-spirited. I was angry. I felt betrayed by him, abandoned. I felt what women throughout history have always felt—in service of someone else. That he could just decide not to have a baby, and I was powerless to get now what I so desperately wanted.
I thought about my ticket then. I thought about this opportunity I have. But I also knew it wouldn’t work. Even this ticket couldn’t fix it. What would I do? Go back to twenty-five? But I didn’t want a baby. I wanted a baby with Leo.
We’d still do three more wishful-thinking IUIs after that, but when I think about our story, when things turned over, I think about that last retrieval.
The truth is nothing was ever the same afterward—and every month since, Leo has given up a little bit further. And I’ve resented him a little bit more.
I head downstairs to find the kitchen already a mess. Pans, bowls, blueberries popping on the stovetop, and butter melting on the griddle.
“How’s Leo?” Dad asks. He looks at me sideways.
“No idea,” I say.
Dad nods. “It’s not easy being apart like this.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say.
I feel a bitterness spring up in me. Something that’s been hidden now made front and center.
“Copy that.” Dad goes to the freezer and pulls it open. “How do you feel about chocolate chips in the morning?”
“Decidedly pro.”
We don’t talk much more after that. We move around each other easily. Dad finishes up the batter; I make the blueberry syrup.
I add the chocolate chips in when the belly begins to bubble, and we eat at the breakfast table, just like we have so many times before.
I realize today is my third wedding anniversary.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
