And we were in the throes of love.
We were not about to settle it down.
I tickled her slightly at the ribs, bending in to brush my lips across her temple. She giggled some more and when I pulled back, I admonished, “I forbid you from teaching our children corny jokes.”
Greer’s eyebrows drew inward, her expression morphing from amusement to confusion. “Children?”
“Yeah,” I laughed. “The two or three kids we’re going to have and to whom I forbid you from ruining with corny jokes.”
Greer leaned back from me, her tone hesitant. “We never discussed kids.”
“Not directly,” I agreed. “But you love kids, and I love kids. When people get married, they have kids.”
“I love other people’s kids,” she replied softly, and that was the first indication that things were not going to be okay.
We got into a long debate. I realized I did not know Greer as well as I thought I did. I learned that the woman I was about to marry did indeed love children, from babies to toddlers and even rambunctious teenagers.
“But I have a career,” she explained. “The type of work we do… it’s not conducive to raising children.”
It went quickly from debate to argument. It became sexist on both our parts. Ashamedly, I realized I had assumed she was the one who, after giving birth, would naturally stay home with the children while I continued my CIA career.
Greer pointed out that she did not want to give up her career.
Not even to have children with me.
“Someday,” she said in a wistful tone as a means to appease me. “Someday, when I’m ready to retire… we can think about it.”
“We’ll be too old for kids,” I snapped.
“I’ll retire early. When we’re in our early to mid-forties, it’s still plenty of time—”
“Don’t,” I said sharply. So sharply, she slammed her mouth shut.
I didn’t want to hear her excuses. I didn’t want to hear a plan that was foolish and not within my line of thinking. I didn’t want to wait until our forties to have kids.
I wanted a family, and I wanted it now. It’s why I loved Greer. I wanted to build a forever with her, and to me, that meant children and the proverbial picket fence and a golden retriever. When we issued words of love, devotion, and commitment, and we talked about being together always, I’d just assumed it meant in a way that would build our legacy together, which included children.
Except it didn’t mean that to her.
We fought like we’d never fought before. We both staked positions firmly in the ground and refused to budge. I begged her to give it some deep thought, and she cried that she didn’t need to. She wanted her career right now. It was so antithetical to what I wanted, I couldn’t understand how she didn’t want the same as me. It felt like the deepest betrayal.
Our discussion broke down, me angry and Greer frustrated. I slept on the couch that night.
The next morning, I’d hoped maybe she would have thought about it more. Would be willing to change her mind for me.
Instead, she came into the living room with red, swollen eyes, like she’d been crying all night.
I’ll never forget her last words to me.
“I can’t be what you need. You deserve more.”
I know she’ll never forget my last words to her. “You’re right. I do deserve more.”
And like that, we were over.
I showered, packed my stuff, and left. I didn’t look back.
The next day I sent her an email arranging a time I’d get the remainder of my clothes and personal effects. She never responded, and she wasn’t there when I showed up. I was broken.
I didn’t see her again until I rescued her from that basement cell in El Salvador.
I move to the minibar and check out the contents. I consider a bottle of Jack, but I really don’t want it. It would only serve to put off the inevitable.
My head swivels, and I look at the interconnecting door. There are so many things that bother me about Greer. It’s the fact I loved her so thoroughly, and yet she ended up being a stranger to me in the end; it’s the fact that I’m still drawn to her in inexplicable ways. I’m bothered and annoyed by my renewed feelings, and yet the thing that bothers me most is that I’m not sure I ever once, in the past twelve years since we split, wondered what this did to her.
I was so focused on my own heartbreak, and I was so intent to place all blame on her shoulders that it was very easy for me to assume—making her even more of a villain—that our breakup had no effect on her at all. I’d assumed all these years that she simply moved on and had a happy life without me.