Jen, Quinn’s friend, someone that I thought was my friend, kept news of me from her. And I guess that’s what I wanted at the time. I wanted to disappear, fall into a hole. Hibernate. Sleep through my dark night. Avoid the pain and the nightmare. I wanted to wake, maybe a year later, when the sun was out and everything is warm and new. When the divorce is done and the pain is a distant memory. But life does not allow those kinds of concessions. Life is cruel. Like kicks you when you are down. Life wakes you with the sound of your sister delivering two ominous words: “Dad’s dead.”
So I tried to start making a life with Wade. I took him to see my parents – a big disaster that was – and let him meet my friends. Judd was obviously going to divorce me – it was only a matter of time. Wade and I had sex only a few times over the next month. I was feeling so guilty for the mess I’d made and the damage I’d done, and that affects your sex life, believe me.
And then the baby came. I was already a day late on my birthday and I wasn’t too worried about that, sometimes I am a little late - but time dragged on. I tested myself and there she was.
I tell Wade. I don’t know if he’s going to be excited. I thought that it had to be his, but it turned out it couldn’t. He tells me that he got tested after a nasty rash a few years ago and they said that he’s sterile. So the baby is Judd’s and I have no way of telling him.
She stops for a second, gathers herself.
Wade asked me if I still wanted it. That shocked me. Judd knew I wanted to be a mother, but I’d kind of given up on that because we couldn’t conceive again. And here I am, at the worst possible time, carrying Judd’s baby, and Wade knows that I’ll be connected with him forever after that and he’s suggesting... Crap. He says that he’ll support me either way, but Wade doesn’t see her like I do, like Judd eventually does. The baby isn’t his, she’s Judd’s, and that’s starting me thinking about what I’ve done. My relationship with Wade was based on excitement and this big adventure, and all of that changed when the baby came into the story. Wade wasn’t what I needed anymore, but I guess it took me a while to see that. And I knew that Judd and I were probably finished, but I didn’t want to let him go either.
So I finally rang his mother. She knows what I’ve done, I can tell, but she doesn’t say anything. She says that Judd’s father has died and they’re sitting shiva, that Judd is there, and maybe right now might not be the right time to see him. And she’s right about that. How could I load this onto him at a time like that? But I felt I had no choice. He had to know, I owed him at least that. I haven’t been honest with him for so long, for over a year. I can at least be honest about that – about our baby.
I find Judd and tell him. I haven’t seen him since my birthday and god, he looks so hurt and alone and I did that to him. Here I am, with Wade and now with the baby I’ve always dreamed of, and he’s got nothing and it’s like I’m rubbing his face in it. But I’m not.
Wade is no father. I’m lying awake all night and I’m thinking about that. I’m thinking that I had something with Judd and I threw it away for Wade and maybe that was a big mistake. I want to talk to him, but Judd won’t see me, he won’t call me. I’ve never felt so confused and alone.
I don’t know. The doctor says maybe it was stress. I certainly had a lot of that. But I’m bleeding and I call Judd and he gets me an ambulance and the next thing I’m in the hospital. I’ve called Wade too. He should know what’s happening.
Judd is there and he’s saying all the right things and I can see the kindness in his eyes that I’ve missed for so long. He still loves me, I can see it, but I think that I’ve caused too much damage for him to forgive me. Wade shows up but I’m already starting to think that I’ve made a mistake. Judd is angry that Wade is there, and I get that. I’m sorry that I’ve called him, and I try to tell Judd that, but he’s just too angry to see it, I guess. Judd and Wade get ejected from the exam room by the doctor and I don’t see Judd again until later, when I’m about to head home.
Wade comes into the exam room, after I’d got dressed. I can tell what he’s going to say, even before he says it. It’s on his face, plain and clear. He tells me what he’s thinking, what I’m thinking too – that we can’t be together anymore, that we’ve gone as far as we can go. I still love him, I guess, but we both know that we’re not going to last. The baby isn’t his and really he’s not father material. I cry after he goes because I don’t want him to, but I do as well, and I’ve made such a mess of things and now I’m alone and I have no one and I’m pregnant. I’m afraid and I still am because everything is still a mess and I don’t know about the future and I still can’t hope for something with Judd because I’ve hurt him and I deserve to be alone.
She looks up, looks me in the eyes. She’s been crying, but he voice stays firm, strong.
Wade has left me, and I check out of the hospital and I find that Judd has done everything, handled the insurance. He’s my husband and I’ve treated him so badly. He’s still my husband.
And then Judd sees me at the motel, when I’m checking out. He says that he realises that we’ve lost each other, that he lost me. He tells me that he’s going to stand by me. He says that even though he knows that our marriage is over.
She stops talking to the Uptons, stops telling her story like she’s outside it all, looking in. Now she leans in toward me. Her words are for me alone, and I listen now, harder than I have ever listened, to her – or anyone.
It didn’t really hit me until I got home – to our apartment. It was quiet and dark and empty. And the first thing that struck me was something that was missing: that photo of us on the trip we took to Thailand, remember? Our fourth anniversary. We were trying for a baby and we thought that would be perfect. A place that was far from all the stress at home. We thought that if we just got lost in each other that a baby would come naturally. I guess it seemed like desperation, but it also seemed right. I put that photo away, in the spare room, after you left. I couldn’t look at it, couldn’t look at any of them. And when I got home my eyes went straight to where it used to be.
There I am, standing there, in the kitchen, and I just… I just fell apart.
I was so alone and lost. I lost you because I broke your heart, and I lost Wade because he broke mine. And so, there I was, alone, with no one, and it was all my fault. I did that. I did that to myself. I did that to you, I did that to us. I sacrificed us, because I was unhappy, and what did that achieve in the end?
Now the only person that was so desperately unhappy was me. Wade had already moved on. Judd had slept with Penny. And where was I?
She is shaking her head. Tears fall. Her heart brakes again. I remember back after I had found them together. I remember back at the desolation that descended upon my life, how I was rejected, replaced, unloved. I remember the empty ache in my soul. I’ve never been able to connect to another person, not fully, but I feel that I can now. I feel that I can connect to her, the way that she felt then by the way that I felt when she left me for Wade.
I’d ruined your life, Judd. I’d ruined mine. And now I’d probably have ruined our daughter’s life as well. We should have been a family, but because of what I’d done to us that wasn’t going to happen.
I was crying all the time – crying your name. I needed you, Judd, more than I’ve ever needed you. I prayed you’d come back. And you did. You came home. You held me. You forgave me. You took responsibility for us. You didn’t run. You didn’t hide. And you cried with me. I’ve hardly ever see you cry – and not like that. You opened yourself up to me and it was beautiful, Judd. It was what I’ve been waiting for, for so long. You became my husband, I think for the first time, my real husband, the husband I’d always longed for. And only after it was too late.
You rescued me.
I remember, back at the hospital, the exact moment when I saw what I had done and what it meant. It was when I realised that you were there for me. You rescued me then, too – but I didn’t know it until later.
And then, on the s
treet, after I found out about you and Penny, you came to me again. You rescued me again.
You are my husband, my love and my life. And I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry that I hurt you like I did. I don’t have the words to explain how sorry I am.
She finishes and we keep looking at each other. She’s sad and she’s terrified that I won’t love her anymore and somehow I love her all the more for her bravery and I want to hold her and forgive her and tell her we’re going to be alright. And at the same time I’m putting myself back there, thinking how she could have done this to us, how could I have allowed that to happen, how did I miss all of those things that happened with her. I hate what she’s done, but I hate myself more for what I did to her to place her there. And somewhere in all of those emotions, another part of me feels nothing, looks on with a familiar detachment which is comforting and frightening all at once.
“Judd,” Grant says quietly, “tell Quinn what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling.”
I tell her: “I was devastated. I guess I still am. I know things weren’t the best between us, a lot worse than I realised, but I wasn’t prepared for that. I couldn’t understand why you would do that to me, to us. It nearly destroyed me. And you’ve