Page 128 of Catch a Kiwi
It was terrifying.
“We were married for almost eight years,” I said, forcing the words out. “Eight years of him getting richer and more famous and honestly working really hard, and of me working and learning and achieving something that mattered to me, even if it didn’t seem like much compared to what Felipe was achieving. It was all right, whatever the outside world thought about how much I was supporting him. It was important to me to have something of myself, and I thoughthe got that. There was something I didn’t have, though. Thatwedidn’t have.”
“A child,” Roman said.
The shiver went all the way through my body as I remembered how empty I’d felt. Month after month. Year after year. How empty I still felt sometimes. “Yes. His mum had been talking about children ever since we’d married. Specifically, a son. At first, I wasn’t ready, but a few years in, when the honeymoon was definitely over and I was trying to figure out how to make a good life for myself, for us? It felt like the missing piece. And it was more than that, too. There was no reason I needed a baby, but I wanted one, and I couldn’t rationalize it away. Whatever I got or didn’t from Felipe—I don’t think I expected more, not anymore. I didn’t exactly have much of a model, did I? No dad. Not even that many other boyfriends, and I didn’t always choose well then, either. So it wasn’t about Felipe. It was about—” I had to stop, then.
“A baby,” Roman said. His face had softened, but that was because he cared about me. What was I doing, finally coming back to him and immediately confessing this? Something that would make me seem needier than ever? Something he probably didn’t want at all?
I didn’t know what to say about that, so I just plowed on. “Felipe had married me. He spent money on me. He loved me, I think, as much as he could love a woman, and he wanted a baby. OK, I probably thought it would help us, dumb as that sounds. Once I let myself, though, I wanted it more than anything, but it just … never happened. I went for testing and the doctor told me there was nothing wrong, and finally, Felipe went, too. He didn’t want to, but we knew it wasn’t me. But his sperm count was fine.”
“Odd, then,” Roman said.
“Well, not really. The doctor asked me, ‘Are you having intercourse during your most fertile periods?’ and I didn’twant to answer.” I rubbed my hands over my inner thighs. “Because sometimes we did, but usually we … didn’t. Felipe didn’t seem to need me that way anymore, not the way he had earlier. I thought maybe every man lost interest when his partner wasn’t shiny and new. When I said something, he …” Oh, boy. Could I say this?
“He was a fool,” Roman said. “And you’re not. There’s nothing you can say that will make me think less of you, because I know you.” His voice sure as ever, his eyes green as pounamu. New Zealand jade, shining and strong.
“OK,” I said, and braced myself to let the truth out. “He said that if I’d quit my stupid job and travel to the matches, if I’d love him the way a woman should, it would happen. That it was because I wasn’t committed enough to him. To our marriage. To his success. That I was holding back, and my body knew it. He was doing everything to secure our future, and I wasn’t. And it felt a little bit … true. I wasn’tsurehe was cheating, not back then. He didn’t flaunt it the way some of them did. The major part of me probably knew it, but I was still trying to hide that from myself. I’d made this choice. I needed to make it work. And he swore he wasn’t. He looked into my eyes andpromisedme. But it was a lie. Every time.”
“Right.” A muscle twitched in Roman’s set jaw, and he wasn’t looking understanding anymore. “So what happened?”
“I’m sure you can guess. I finally got pregnant. I didn’t want to believe it at first. I’d tested so many times over the past five years, and I couldn’t stand to be disappointed again. When you’re staring at the stick, hoping so hard, holding your breath, looking and looking for that second line, telling yourself you see it. And then it just … isn’t there, so you wrap the stick in toilet paper and bury it in the rubbish bin so you don’t have to see it anymore. So you can forget how much you hoped. I waited for two weeks like that, trying to push the idea away, bracing myself against … against losing that hope again. But finally, one night, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I did the test. I stood in the bathroom, looked at those two lines, and cried. And right away, along with the joy, I was terrified.”
“Cease to hope,” Roman said, “and you will cease to fear.”
“Seneca,” I said. “But I can’t do that. I can’t stop hoping. I’ve never been able to.”
“For what it’s worth,” Roman said, “neither can I.”
“Anyway.” I had to go on. I had to say this. “I waited weeks to tell Felipe. Up to twenty percent of known pregnancies end in miscarriage. If that happened, I wanted to be the only one who knew. It would be everything I could do to manage my own pain. I couldn’t manage his, too, or his blame. Maybe that was selfish.”
“No,” Roman said. “Sounds like it was realistic.”
“But I missed a second period,” I said. “At that point, it’s more like a five percent chance of miscarriage, and anyway—Ifeltpregnant. I could tell it was real. I was tired and sick, but I was so excited. It was like this secret that I was growing,literallygrowing inside me, and I wanted him to know. Felipe was … he was still the best player on the team, but he wasn’t asmuchthe best, and he’d grown more reckless with that. Driving faster, buying more new cars. Gambling on the races. Coming home late at night. I tried to tell myself that this might make a difference. That when he had this responsibility, it would matter. So I came home early from work the next Friday, cooked a special meal—spag bol, his favorite—lit the candles, put on a pretty dress, and waited for him.”
“But,” Roman said.
“But. He didn’t come home at all that night. At nine o’clock, I blew out the candles, tried to eat the spaghetti, and ended up running for the toilet. I thought,I’ll try again next week,and tried not to think about the question. That if thisdidn’t work, if things didn’t change … could I stay? That would be the moment of truth. The moment of dread.”
“What happened?” Roman asked.
“The next week, we got arrested, and the question didn’t even matter anymore. I was sick all the time then, and I couldn’t have said whether it was morning sickness or fear. Felipe was barely home at all now, shaking me off when I tried to talk to him, telling me, ‘It will be OK. I didn’t do anything wrong. The solicitor will take care of it.’ He was playing better than he had been before, weirdly, with a sort of fierce intensity. The one commitment he’d never broken, and that had to mean something. I thought,Wait until things settle down,but really, I was in a world of my own. I was still going to work, still trying to seem normal, to seem calm. I felt like I had a goldfish bowl around my head, holding in my thoughts and my fears. I was afraid of what would happen if I took the bowl off. If I faced everything. So I closed down instead. I was numb to everything except my body. Except my baby. That was the one spot. That was my hope.”
“The golden bird in the painting,” Roman said. “In the box still, despite all the black-winged things flying around.”
“Yes,” I said. “So I took the vitamins. I found a doctor and made an appointment. I told myself that there was plenty of time to tell Felipe. And, finally, I did. One day, I looked at my belly in the mirror, and I swear, it was rounder. Actually rounder. I’d lost weight, stress and sickness and everything, and the rest of me was thin, but when I stood sideways—Isawsomething.” I had to stop and catch my breath. “I can’t tell you what that moment was like. The bad stuff all fell away somehow, because this was really happening, and it was stronger than anything. I finally told Felipe that night, and he was thrilled. Laughing. Opening champagne. Telling me it was a sign. That this would be over soon, even though the trial had been set by then.”
“But it wasn’t over,” Roman said.
“The trial wasn’t,” I said. “But when we went for the ultrasound—the first time we’d see our baby …” I swallowed. “We found out that she was a little girl. And we found out that …” One more breath. “That she couldn’t live.”
The leapingjoy like streaks of silver inside me when I’d seen the little shape on the screen. Felipe saying, delight in his voice, “There it is. I see it. Is it a boy?”
The legs with their little feet. They were moving, because the baby was kicking. I strained to see more, but I wasn’t sure what I was looking for.
“No,” the technician said. “Looks like you have a little girl.”
“Oh,” Felipe said. “Are you sure? It looks like?—"
