Page 70 of Cinderella Screwed Me Over
Robert exhaled, managing to convey with the sound how frustrated he was. “Anyway, all I’m saying is that I grew up with seven kids, and I’ve always wanted to have a big family. It’s crazy, but it’s fun. And we’ll have them all close together so they always have someone to play with.”
“You’ve got cases piled up all the time. How are you going to have time to take care of six kids?” I put a hand on my chest. “I’m not raising six kids by myself. I’m not even going to raise one kid by myself. Not to mention we can’t afford to have that many kids.”
“You can work from home. We’ll buy a fixer-upper. With how great you are at your job, you’ll find a way to make it nice.”
As nice as that vote of confidence was, frustration welled up in me. Cleary, he didn’t get what I did. “I can’t paint over bad plumbing or holes in the wall. And there’s no way I could work from home while taking care of kids. Don’t you remember what it was like last week at my parents’ house? DevinandAnne were about to go crazy taking care of Levi. He just cried and cried and nothing made him happy.”
I shook my head. “I can’t do that. I’m not even sure if I can do more than one baby. Then there’s the whole issue that most of the time my job involves working in the home I’m renovating.”
Robert tossed the flyer back down on the table. “We don’t have to figure everything out right now.”
I didn’t want to talk about it anymore, either. But in the back of my mind, I knew this was a problem we couldn’t ignore forever. I told myself it was okay, though. This was what people meant when they said relationships were about compromise. We just had to find the right balance.
A couple more months went by. I was working on a condo project that was hectic and stressful, and Robert had more and more cases piling up. We looked at homes whenever we could squeeze time into our crazy schedules. I kept telling myself we’d figure everything out. We did love each other, after all.
Flash forward to my twenty-sixth birthday. I sat by myself at Little Italy for thirty minutes, waiting for Robert to show up. He’d said he wanted to do something just the two of us, so Steph and I were going to celebrate the next day.
As I was waiting, I kept thinking about the conversation Robert and I’d had a few days before. The conversation where he’d gone on and on about how great it was that his mom had stayed at home to take care of him and his brothers and sisters. He’d followed it up with, “Maybe we should look for places in Longmont once we have kids, so you could be close to your mom. Then it won’t be so hard when I’m not home.”
“That would mean we’d both have at least an hour commute each way,” I’d said.
“But if you stayed home, then I’d be the only one doing the commute.” It ended the same way it always did. With Robert saying, “It’s not something we have to decide now, but I think you’ll find you want to stay home once we have kids.”
And maybe he was right. But there was also a chance he was wrong.
When Robert finally walked up to the table, I felt like crying. Everything suddenly felt wrong and I didn’t know what to do about it.
“Sorry I’m so late,” he said. “I know you hate waiting, but you know how it is. One thing leads to another…” He leaned down and gave me a quick peck before sitting across from me.
My breaths came out shallow, and my nerves were all jittery. “I was starting to think I’d be celebrating my birthday by myself.”
“Well, I’m here now. And I don’t want to wait any longer to give you your present. I’ve been excited about it all day.”
“What if I don’t want to stay home with our kids?” I blurted out. “What if I only want a small family, and I don’t want to move out to the suburbs? Lately, your hours have been crazy. This is the first time I’ve seen you all week, and I have a feeling it’s only going to get worse.
“I don’t want to be some housewife with kids hanging off me, wishing I would’ve said something before it was too late. These are some big issues, and I’m not sure we’re ever going to agree on them.”
Robert blinked, obviously taken aback by my words. “We can figure that out later.” He recovered and placed his hand over mine. “Now, just wait until you see your present.” He reached into his coat pocket.
“Robert, I don’t know if I—”
“Darby Quinn, will you marry me?” He pulled out a black velvet box and popped open the lid.
I stared at the ring. A simple silver band with a solitaire diamond winking in the middle.
If he’d asked me the day before, I would’ve said yes. I wanted to say yes now. I knew he was passionate about his job. So was I. Sure, I wasn’t keeping innocent people out of jail—of course, he wasn’t all the time, either, which still bothered me a little bit—but I loved my job. It made me happy. But he thought what I did was a frivolous waste.
As I sat there, my dream bubble bursting, I realized Robert and I didn’t want the same things out of life, either. Not just with the kid issue, but where we wanted to live, how we wanted to raise our kids (six if he had his way), the lifestyle we’d lead. I’d tried to be understanding about it, but the fact that he was always late drove me crazy.
There was also a struggle over visiting our families. He rarely had time to go with me to see mine, yet we managed to make it to his twice a month. And when we did visit his family, he’d disappear to hang out with his brothers, leaving me with his sisters and mom, who I had nothing in common with.
If only one of these things had been an issue, maybe we could work them out. All of them together were too many.
Tears filled my eyes, and the pain in my chest made it hard to breathe.
I can’t believe this is happening.
Robert moved the box closer to me. “Darby, say yes already. I’m starting to get worried.”
