THIRTY-SIX
Nathan is somehow both commanding and gentle. He cuts turkey like the head of the household, but he smiles at each young woman and child coming down the line of food.
“Nathan,” I call out, and people turn to look at me.
He squints at me, setting down his knife. “Sadie?”
“We’ve been trying to reach you.”
He comes around the bank of food and stops in front of me. “Who?”
I need to touch him as I tell him, so I fist the fabric of his apron and pull him a little closer.
A corner of his mouth quirks. “What’s going on?”
With a deep breath, I say, “It’s your dad.”
His face falls. “Why? What happened?”
“Nothing yet.” I look him in the eye. “But we need to go.”
He stares at me, but he doesn’t see me, his gaze distant. “My dad? But we—we need more time.”
I shake him by his apron, and he blinks a few times. “Now, Nathan. We need to go now.”
He nods slightly and then hard. “Yeah. Okay.” He unties the apron and tosses it on a table as we walk through the dining hall. On our way out the door, I reach up to snatch a hairnet off his head, and his static-charged hair stands on end.
He follows me to the cab idling out front. Nathan gestures me inside first, a gentleman, no matter the circumstances. I slide only as far as the middle. “New York Presbyterian.”
Nathan gets in beside me. “Go fast. My dad is . . . is . . .” He looks at me.
“He’s alive,” I say. “They don’t know how much longer, though.”
He shifts his gaze out the window. I slip my fingers between his, and he turns back to me. With our hands interlocked, he kisses my knuckles. “You’re here.”
I slide closer to my husband until I’m practically in his lap. I touch his jaw. There’s a layer of stubble from the past couple days. “I’m here.”
“I had no idea about the affair. If I had, I would’ve stopped it.”
“We don’t have to talk about that now.”
“I would’ve done everything differently.”
I tilt my head, curiosity getting the best of me. “You would’ve? Like what?”
“I should’ve come to you when I figured out the abortion. I didn’t, because I was afraid of the decision I’d have to make.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “What decision?”
“You don’t want children.”
I part my lips and frown. I don’t know what I expected him to say, but it wasn’t that. I’ve been struggling with this a while, but I’ve barely said it aloud. “How do you know?”
He shakes his head. “I’ve sensed it for some time. Comments here and there. The distance in your eyes when it comes up. And that day we went back on birth control, when you were out of the room, the gynecologist told me not to worry too much. He said a lot of women who have trouble conceiving convince themselves they don’t want children.”
“I mentioned it to him,” I say, glancing at our hands in his lap. There’s no right way to tell Nate that because I might not be capable of giving him what he wants, I don’t even want to try. “I’ve been having second thoughts.”
“I thought you’d say that. This is what I was talking about in the bathroom. I won’t let you selfishly decide something this big without me.” We sit in silence for a few blocks. Our palms are clammy from clutching each other. “And that’s why I couldn’t bring myself to tell you what was wrong these past few months,” he continues. “I knew if you told me you didn’t want children at all, and I couldn’t convince you, I’d have to make the hardest decision of my life.”
From the way my chest aches, I know I understand the gravity of his decision. He’ll tell anyone I’m the love of his life. But is that enough for him if I don’t want to be a mother?
“By making the choices you have in the past without me, I couldn’t trust that you’d even count my vote.”
I squeeze his hand, not to comfort him, but because I feel like I’m floundering. “I made you feel unwanted.”
“Not unwanted—unnecessary. And I shouldn’t have shut you out, but I wanted to come in to the discussion with a clear head. Not when I was angry or hurt.”
“But we’re supposed to be able to get hurt and angry together. You didn’t let me be there for you for that decision. You’ve made huge decisions without me too, Nathan.”
He swallows. “I see that now. It’s okay to be scared. It’s not okay to be a coward, and I was, and I’m sorry.”
When I see the remorse on his face, I just want to be close to him. I lean in and nuzzle his neck, breathing in his musk. I can feel his fast heartbeat. He’s nervous. Or scared. Forgiveness isn’t hard to find, because I’ve wanted to give it for so long. I’ve wanted to move past this with him. He was the one holding onto things that couldn’t be changed. “I forgive you,” I whisper into his skin. I feel him here. Home. My Nathan. That’s why I can say the words and mean them. “Can you forgive me for not telling you about the baby?”
He nods. “Yes. I was never trying to be your enemy.”
“I wanted the baby, but it was the wrong time for us.” My chest stutters when I inhale, and I squeeze my eyes shut against the tears to keep talking into the warm space between his jaw and neck. “I want one now, but I’m afraid I can’t give you that. I can’t stand to disappoint you month after month, possibly even years.”
“What’s the alternative? We don’t even try? We break up?”
“I don’t know.”
“You chose me once over a baby,” he says. “Would you do it again?”
I swallow. There’s never been any question that Nathan wants this, but I have to as well. I can do it a lot of different ways—naturally, or with medical intervention, or by adopting—but I have to want to be a mother for myself. Not because he wants me to. “I choose you, and I want you to choose me back. Even if I can’t give you what you want most in the world.”
He cups his hand against my cheek, keeping me there. “I love you, Sadie. You’re what I want. You can close off your heart, but don’t forget—I know how to tear you open. I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again and again until you realize I will never, ever let you abandon me. And I will never, ever abandon you.”
It isn’t until we walk into Ralph’s hospital room that the reality of what’s happening hits me.
Nathan’s aunt greets us with mascara under her eyes. We each take a turn to hug her. “I just got here,” she says.
Ralph is gaunt and the color of his hospital-green gown. He already looks halfway underground. He slits his eyes open and nods. I want to turn into Nathan’s chest and hide and cry. Ralph and I aren’t father and daughter by any means. The way Nathan was the last few months, cold and distant, is how Ralph has been his whole life. But he’s still family.
“You don’t got family of your own?” he asked me at dinner once, while Nate was in another room.
I wiped my brow. Ralph and I hadn’t spent much time alone. “I do.”
“They’re no good? Nathan gets bent out of shape when I ask.”
“He’s protective.”
“Maybe he thinks I’m going to try and be a dad to you. I’m not. Not that kind of guy.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I have a dad. Not a very good one, but Nathan and I have learned to live with what we got.”
“You saying I’m not a good dad?”
“I think you are, actually.” It was the truth. The man couldn’t tell Nathan he loved him, but I knew he did by the way he looked at him. Nathan had always blamed hi
s dad for ignoring his mom so long, she’d had no choice but to go away. “Seems to me like maybe some things got mixed up along the way.”
Ralph eyed me closely. “He thinks I didn’t love his mom. I did. Too much. It was hard to watch her fall out of love with me.”
“So you pushed her away instead,” I guessed.
“She would’ve stayed no matter how she felt,” he said, looking away from me. “Now, she’s happier. Lives in California with some guy who has money.” I thought that was the end of it, but before Nathan returned, Ralph said, “If you ever think he’s falling out of love with you, stop him. Before it’s too late.”
I don’t think Nathan will ever understand the space Ralph put between himself and his wife, but I do. For whatever reason, he couldn’t make her as happy as he thought she deserved. Even if I understand it, I don’t want it for us. Nathan and I will have to work harder to be happy with ourselves so we can be happy together. To communicate, especially when it feels impossible.
Today, Ralph doesn’t seem well enough to speak. He’s alive, though. Nathan hugs his dad for a few long moments. He tells him he loves him, sits, and holds his hand as I hold Nathan’s.
Ralph falls back asleep, even though we’ve only been there five minutes. Nathan slouches back in the chair but doesn’t take his eyes off Ralph. “I should call my mom.”
“I’ll do it,” I say. “Stay here just in case.”
His expression is blank as he looks up at me. He pats his lap. “Sit with me?”
I smooth his hair back and kiss him on the forehead, his skin warm under my lips. Familiar. “I will. After I make the call.”
I pull up his mom’s contact information on the way to the cafeteria. She answers my call right away. “Sadie. This is unexpected. Everything okay?”
“Yes,” I say. “Well, no. Ralph is—” I pause.
“Oh.” Neither of us speaks for a few seconds. “I wish I could be there.”