“You look pretty,” he says.
“Thanks,” I say, involuntarily softened by the compliment, though the effect lasts only a few seconds. “So Harper’s gone?” I confirm.
“Yeah. They just left,” he says. “So did you want to go out? Get something to eat, maybe?”
I narrow my eyes, shake my head, and tell him no, I’m not hungry. I hope my implication is clear—how could you think about food right now?
“Okay. Just asking,” he says. “You typically don’t dress like that around the house….”
I wonder if this is a veiled criticism, but I focus on the bigger picture. “We can talk right here,” I say, feeling queasy as I sit on the far end of the sofa.
“Okay,” he says, staring at me expectantly.
“You wanted to talk. So you go first,” I say, ready to hear him out, listen to any and all of his convoluted explanations or attempts to justify a fifteen-year secret.
He nods and takes a deep breath, surprising me with his first words. “I know Josie told you everything…and I just want to say that I was wrong.”
He stops, waits for me to respond. When I say nothing, he continues, “I was one hundred percent wrong. I should never have kept this from you and your parents. It was as close as you can get to an actual lie without lying.”
“It was a lie,” I say, then literally bite my tongue to keep from unleashing so much more.
“Okay. You’re right,” he says, nodding, further disarming me. “It was a lie. And it was wrong. And I’m so sorry.”
I anticipate the but before his lips form the word. “But I swear, Meredith. I didn’t cover that up for my sake.” His eyes are big, round, and filled with grief.
“Who did you lie for, then?” I ask him.
“In the beginning?” he says, dropping his voice. “Mostly Josie…”
The answer is a surprising slash to my heart. “You’re not married to Josie,” I say, thinking that I could probably get past the cover-up for the first few years, but not once he and I started dating. After that, his loyalty to me should have trumped all else.
“I know that,” he says.
I hesitate, then ask him something I’ve always, deep down, wondered. “Do you wish you were? Married to Josie?”
“What?” he says, looking genuinely horrified. “Don’t be ridiculous, Meredith. Of course I don’t want to be married to your sister. Jesus.”
“Are you sure?” I say, unable to halt my tangent. “You never liked her? Not even in the beginning? You always seemed to have a crush on her…or at least she did on you….”
He hesitates just long enough for my stomach to turn. “Okay. Look,” he begins. “A long time ago…I thought she was hot….”
“When?” I demand.
“When we were in high school and college…early on.”
“What about on that night?” I ask, although I’m not sure why this matters.
“Yeah. On that night, too,” he says. “Josie’s a pretty girl. Very pretty. But so what? There are lots of pretty girls.”
“But you never liked her romantically?” I say.
“No. Absolutely not. I never liked her like that. C’mon, Mere. Where is all this coming from?”
“You lied to me for fifteen years, Nolan. And now you tell me you did it for Josie’s sake. What am I supposed to think? How do you think that makes me feel?”
He runs his hands through his hair and says, “Shitty. I get that. But it wasn’t just for her sake. It was for your mom and dad, too…for your whole family. For you, Meredith.”
I make a scoffing sound. “How was it for me?”
Nolan takes a few deep breaths, then says, “Well, let’s see….Just imagine if on the morning after the accident…after we talked in my car…if I had walked into your house and told your family that Josie was out-of-her-mind wasted the night before—”
“And that you called Daniel to come get her,” I cut him off, raising my voice, pointing at him. “Don’t forget that part.”
“I never do. Not for one day,” he says, before taking a few deep breaths, collecting himself. “So, I sit you all down and tell you that story—”
“That story?” I interrupt again. “It’s not a story, Nolan. It’s what actually happened.”
“Okay, Meredith,” he says, sounding weary. “Quit being a lawyer and let me finish. Please.”
“Fine. Go ahead.” I clamp my mouth shut and cross my arms.
“So I tell you all what happened….I tell you that Josie was wasted and I called Daniel to come get her….”
“Okay,” I say, thinking that’s exactly what he should have told us. “And?”
“And what would that have done to your family? How would that have helped anyone?”
I stare at him.
“How would your mom have felt about Josie? Would she have ever been able to truly forgive her? And what about your dad? He just lost his only son and…” His voice trails off.
“And what?” I say. “Finish your sentence….”
“He just lost his only son,” Nolan repeats, “and would inevitably wonder if his alcoholism didn’t somehow contribute to Josie’s drinking….He’d live with a lifetime of guilt in addition to pain….And then there’s you and Josie…What would the truth have done to your relationship?”
“The same thing it’s doing now,” I say, staring down at my lap.
“Exactly,” he says, as if I’ve just made his case.
“But what about us, Nolan?” I ask. “You and me?”
He stares back at me, seemingly speechless.
“Why did you really marry me, Nolan?” I ask, my heart pounding.
“I already answered that. I told you at Blackberry Farm….”
“Tell me again,” I say.
“Because I fell in love with you,” he says, too automatically.
I shake my head and say, “I don’t believe that, Nolan. I think you liked the idea of marrying Daniel’s sister. And I think it made you feel less guilty about what happened that night….It helped you make sense of something senseless and horrible—”
He shakes his head and says no, but without any conviction.
“Daniel was like a brother to you,” I say. “So you wanted to try to fix things for my family.”
“Our family,” Nolan says. “It’s our family now.”
I tell him that is beside the point.
“No,” he says, his voice rising with frustration. “It is the point. You’re my family, Meredith. You and Harper and your parents and your nutty sister and the baby she’s about to bring into this world. You’re all my family. And I love you—”
I cut him off and shout, “Okay. But are you in love with me?”
He groans in frustration, then says, “I don’t know, Mere. You make it pretty hard to be sometimes.”
I take this as a no, and press onward. “Were you ever?”
“Yes,” he says, then quickly downgrades his answer. “At least I think so….”
“You think so?” I demand.
“Yes. I think so…but…maybe not,” he says, wavering, clearly in anguish. “Maybe you’re right….”
I nod, his admission filling me with both intense relief and profound sadness. “That’s what I thought,” I say.
“But I do love you, Meredith,” he says, reaching for my hand. I give it to him, then meet his gaze. “And I would do absolutely anything for you and Harper. Anything. Isn’t that enough?”
I stare at him for a long time, thinking that this is really the crux of our crisis and the question I’ve been asking myself for years. Is it enough to be partners and parents together? To share the same history and values—and most important, a deep and abiding love for our daughter and family? Can all of that sustain us and overcome the elusive missing piece that I’ve never been able to quite put my finger on, other than to know it’s just not there?
I desperately want the answer to be yes, and for a second nearly convince myself that I can will it to be so.
But deep down, I know it doesn’t work that way, at least not for me. I feel my answer crystallizing in a way it never has before.
“No, Nolan,” I finally say, shaking my head. “I’m sorry…but I just don’t think it is.”
chapter thirty-three
JOSIE
It is Thanksgiving Day, and exactly two weeks after Dr. Lazarus shot me up with a vial of Gabe’s sperm. It is also the day upon which she told us we could take a pregnancy test and expect reliable results. I wake up and head straight to Gabe’s room, finding him shirtless in front of his closet.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” I say, grateful that we are spending it together, no matter what our results turn out to be.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” he says, eyeing the box of First Response tests in my hand.
“Should we do this now?” I say, holding it up and giving it a little shake. “Or wait until later?”
He shrugs, selecting an unlikely green rugby shirt that he’s had since college. “Your call,” he says. “I’m ready when you are.”
“Maybe we should do it later,” I say, waffling. “So we don’t ruin Thanksgiving if it’s negative?”
“Would that really ruin Thanksgiving?” Gabe asks in such a way that I think, not for the first time, that he secretly hopes the test is negative. “I mean—we’re just sitting around with my parents and your mom. And we’re not going to tell anyone today either way….Isn’t that what we decided?”
I nod. “Yeah. That’s what we decided…but I’ll definitely be disappointed. Won’t you?” I say, scrutinizing his face.
“A little,” he says. “But honestly, I’ll be more surprised if you are pregnant. What did Dr. Lazarus say we have? A twenty percent chance?”
“Yeah. At best.”
“Right,” he says. “So if you’re not—and you’re probably not—we just try again. And maybe she gives you some fertility drugs this time.”
Rationally, I know he’s completely right. It’s just one month, one try, albeit a fairly expensive first attempt. I think of all the couples who try for years before they get a positive test, going through round after round of IVF, and know that I haven’t earned the right to feel anything close to a sense of hopelessness. And yet I still have the feeling that this might be it for me. My one and only chance. And that if it doesn’t happen this way, right now with Gabe, then it might never happen at all.
When I try to articulate this, I expect Gabe to reassure me—or tell me I’m being melodramatic. But instead he nods, and says, “Yeah. I know what you mean.”
“So you feel that way, too?” I ask, my heart sinking.
“A little,” he says, sitting next to me on the edge of his bed. “I mean—I think you’ll have a baby eventually…I just don’t know that it will be with me.”
My stomach flutters with disappointment.
“Because of Leslie?” I say. Not because she’s been at all difficult or jealous through this whole uncharted, unnatural process. To the contrary, she has handled everything with grace and generosity—which has only made Gabe like and respect her more.
But he shakes his head and says no, it has nothing to do with Leslie.
“Then why?” I ask him as I sit on his bed.
He gives me a frank look and says, “Well. Because of Pete.”
I shake my head. “No. Pete’s cool with it, too. He’s really rooting for us,” I say, thinking of how supportive he’s been over the past few weeks, calling to check on me and even wishing me good luck before my insemination appointment.
Gabe smirks and says, “Give it up, Josie. He likes you. A lot.”
“I know he does,” I say. “And I like him. But he agrees that we need to keep things…compartmentalized.”
“All right,” he says. “So what are we waiting for, then?”
“I guess nothing,” I say, staring at the box in my lap before slowly removing the cellophane wrapping, pulling out one fortune-telling stick, then squinting down to read the fine-print instructions on the back of the box.
He laughs, slapping the box out of my hands and giving me a little shove off the bed. “C’mon. Like you haven’t done this before,” he says. “Quit stalling and go find out if you’re knocked up.”
—
LESS THAN FIVE minutes later, after I’ve peed on a stick, carefully capped it, and left it on Gabe’s bathroom counter, I walk back into his room and give him a blank stare. He stares back at me, equally expressionless, and takes a guess. “Negative?”
I shake my head.
“Positive?” he says, his voice rising with disbelief.
I shake my head again, then tell him I don’t know. “I didn’t look….Would you please go check it for me?”
He nods and stands, looking pale, a tough feat with olive skin.
“Wait,” I say, reaching out and grabbing his arm. “What do you want it to be?”
Gabe swallows, hesitates, and cleverly avoids answering the question. “I want you to have the baby you’re meant to have….”
“C’mon. That’s a cop-out,” I say. “Do you hope it’s negative? Or positive?”
He takes a deep breath and says, “Okay…I want it to be positive.”
“Why?” I ask, my heart racing.
“Why?” he says. “What do you mean why? Why would we have done all this if we didn’t want it to be positive?”
“So you don’t have cold feet?” I ask. “Not even a little bit?”
Gabe shakes his head and says, “I’m nervous, yeah. And it’s a little crazy what we’re doing here…a lot crazy….But fuck it…at this point, I’m all in.” He shrugs and gives me one of his rebellious looks.
“Fuck it?” I say, feeling queasy. “Fuck it?”
“You know what I mean….” he says, smiling. “It’s too late now.”
“But it’s not too late if it’s negative,” I say. “You’d be off the hook….We wouldn’t have to try again.”
“True,” he says, nodding, clearly making a big effort to be patient with me. “But if it’s positive—”
“How would you feel?” I grill him.
“I don’t know, Josie,” he says, shaking his head, staring into space. “Happy…excited…shocked…scared shitless…a lot of things.”
“But no regret?”
He shakes his head. “No. No regret.”
“Do you promise?”
“I swear,” he says, holding up three fingers, even though he was never a Boy Scout.
“Okay,” I say, looking at him sideways. “Because, Gabe, I have to tell you something….”
“Yeah?” he asks, squinting back at me with apprehension.
“I actually did look at the stick,” I confess, my heart beating wildly in my chest.
“And?”
“And it’s positive.”
“Shut the hell up,” he says, dashing to the bathroom. He returns one beat later, waving the stick with its unmistakable two bright-pink parallel lines. His eyes are shining and his face is lit with pure happiness, an expression I honestly never expected and have seldom seen him show.
“Holy shit,” he says, throwing his arms around me, squeezing me so hard I can’t breathe. “We’re having a baby.”
“Yes,” I say, laughing and crying at once. “We’re having a baby.”
—
I’M PREGNANT. I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant.
For the next several days, I repeat the words in my head, over and over. Gabe and I talk of little else, both of us struggling to digest the magnitude of what we’ve undertaken. Yet the whole thing continues to feel surreal—and I have the sense that it won’t begin to really sink in until I share the news with at least one other person.
In the past, I always imagined telling my family first, then close friends, then the rest of the world around three months. Then again, I also always imagined following the traditional order of things—as in love, marriage, baby carriage—and that’s clearly all out the window now.
So a few days later, I decide I
might as well go really unorthodox and tell Pete the news first. In part, it’s a pragmatic decision, as we have plans to hang out for the first time in several weeks, and I know he’ll likely ask me if I’m pregnant (not that that stopped me from fibbing to Sydney when the subject came up at recess and I told her that I hadn’t yet tested). But more important, and for some inexplicable reason, I actually just want him to be the first to know.
Out of respect to Gabe, I call and make sure that it’s okay with him as I’m driving over to Pete’s house.
“Shouldn’t we wait for a heartbeat?” he asks.
“I don’t think I can wait until then. Besides, I’m sure he’s going to ask….”
“Well, it’s your call. Whatever you want to do is fine with me….”
“So you haven’t told Leslie?”
“Nope.”
“Are you going to tell her?”
“Well, eventually,” he says with a laugh. “It’ll be sort of hard to hide it, right?”
I decide not to parse his words or grill him about whether he wishes he could hide it from her, and simply tell him that I’ll call him later.
“Okay. Later,” he says, hanging up way too abruptly.
I roll my eyes, reminding myself that the fact that I’m carrying his baby doesn’t mean that he’ll suddenly change his personality.
—
A FEW MINUTES later, I walk into Pete’s house. He beams at me and says, “It’s so good to see you.”
“You, too,” I say, telling myself to wait for the right moment to break my news. But before I even remove my jacket, I blurt it out.
“I’m pregnant,” I say, getting what I’m pretty sure is my first wave of morning sickness.
He looks at me, startled, a smile frozen on his face. “Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack…or an unwed pregnancy,” I say, a joke Gabe came up with a few nights ago.
I watch the news sink in, his expression turning glazed, then somber. “Wow,” he says. “That was fast.”