Page 40 of For One Moment With You
‘That last night of our honeymoon… I don’t think we were as careful as we might have been.’ I paused. ‘And I know it’s sooner than we planned. But it will be amazing,’ I said gently. ‘This time next year, we’ll have a baby.’
Already I wanted to tell everyone, never mind that it was early days. But the joy I’d felt was marred by Gareth’s silence. At the time, I’d told myself that he’d get his head around it. We were married. We’d agreed we wanted children. OK, so this was sooner than he wanted, but now that it had happened, I wanted to believe that he’d come around to the idea.
After I’d broken the news, an uneasy silence had fallen between us. Then that evening, while I was cooking, Gareth came into the kitchen.
‘Tilly? Look, we really need to talk about this.’ He sounded far from happy.
‘Gareth, I know it’s happened faster than we planned.’ As I looked at him, I frowned. ‘What is it?’
‘I thought we’d agreed to wait,’ Gareth said. ‘Look at us. We live in a small flat. We both work. We’re hardly ready to be parents.’
‘I know. But it’s a bit late to say that now,’ I said.
‘Tilly…’ Gareth spoke in a voice I hadn’t heard before. ‘I’m not sure about this. Like really not sure.’
A cold feeling came over me. ‘What are you saying?’
‘Having a baby is going to change our lives.’ He sighed. ‘I thought we’d have a few years to do our own thing. I wanted to have those years.’
‘We can still make plans,’ I said persuasively. ‘It’s just that we’ll have a baby with us.’ I frowned at him. ‘Life doesn’t stop when babies come along, Gareth.’
‘Babies change everything.’ He folded his arms, his face was unreadable.
‘In a good way,’ I said quietly, sitting down next to him. ‘I thought you’d be pleased. It takes two to make a baby, Gareth.’
‘You think I don’t fucking know that?’ he said angrily. ‘Did that conversation we had mean nothing?’ He stood there, silent for a moment. Then he turned to look at me. ‘I’m sorry, Tilly. I know you won’t agree. But the way I see it, this just isn’t the right time.’
I stared at him, shocked. ‘What do you mean by that? I’m pregnant, Gareth. It’s not like there’s any going back from this.’
‘There are options,’ he said tightly. ‘Maybe we need to seriously consider them.’
Getting up, I felt sick as I folded my arms around myself. ‘You’re talking about terminating the pregnancy?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s one option. You should think about it – after all, this isn’t just about you.’
I was gobsmacked. ‘This isn’t just about you, either.’
Refusing to look at me, he picked up his keys. ‘I need to get some air. I’m going out.’
‘Where?’ Suddenly, I felt powerless. ‘You can’t go out. I’m cooking supper – and we need to talk about this.’
‘I need to clear my head.’ As he went out to the hallway, I heard the sound of the door opening and closing.
Standing there, I was in shock. Then I felt a tear trickle down my cheek. There was no way I was terminating my pregnancy just to suit Gareth’s lack of readiness for fatherhood. I mean, we were married. We’d talked about having children. Admittedly, it was sooner than we’d planned. But his response had shocked me.
I held my hand protectively over my belly. I couldn’t believe that Gareth cared so little. If it had been Adam… Yes, I barely knew him. But I knew he wouldn’t have behaved the way Gareth had just now.
The magnitude of what I’d committed to was catching up with me. Here I was, just eight weeks into our marriage, and already I had cause to seriously question it.But I’d had doubts before, I reminded myself. I had no one to blame for the position I found myself in. No one, that was, but me.
It was a major red flag in our relationship, one I kept to myself, pinning on a smile when we met up with Lizzie or my parents, determined that none of them would know what was going on between me and Gareth. I was also waiting to have my twelve-week scan. But after my parents had organised our magical wedding and spent a small fortune on it, I couldn’t bring myself to disappoint them.
Meanwhile, behind closed doors, Gareth and I were at an impasse. To me, terminating my pregnancy just felt wrong. Meanwhile, for the first time being totally honest with me, he admitted he didn’t want children – not just now, but ever. And what saddened me most was that had I known this for sure before the wedding, I knew it would have been the dealbreaker.
I held onto the hope that Gareth would get over the shock and change his mind. That we’d sit down one day and he’d apologise, tell me he’d been an arse. That of course he wanted children; that we’d get back to where we were before I was pregnant. That he’d do his best because we were a family.
Waiting in vain, I watched him go about day after day with a face like a thundercloud. Not sure I could endure much more of this, I thought about leaving him, bringing my baby up as a single mother. I had all the love in the world for this child I was carrying. It didn’t need Gareth’s love.
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