“I still can’t believe you and Nick are getting a divorce! It doesn’t seem possible. You guys have always been perfect for each other!”
Her words stung. There was a silent accusation there that I only picked up because I knew her so well. I focused on doling out the cookies. “Obviously not. We fought all the time. I couldn’t make him happy and he couldn’t make me happy. You haven’t been around us much in the last couple years, Fi. It’s been bad.”
She let out a patient sigh and reached for more Legos. “Come on, Kate. You know better than that. You guys weren’t perfect for each other because you never fought. You were perfect for each other because you can still love each other even if you’re fighting.”
“But I’m so tired of it. I’m so tired of disagreeing about everything, of always being on the defensive. I’m sick and tired of hating myself.”
Her gaze snapped up to catch mine and her eyes glittered with the gravity of the moment. “Then stop.”
“That’s what I’m trying-”
“No, I don’t mean get a divorce so you don’t have to deal with him anymore. I mean stop fighting with him. Stop being defensive. Stop disagreeing and disrespecting him.”
I tilted my chin stubbornly. “It’s not that easy and you know it.”
“It is, Kate. Be in control. Be in control of your words and actions. Take control if it doesn’t come naturally to you. Do something other than throw away a perfectly good man and a perfectly good marriage because you’re tired of going through what every other married couple on the planet goes through.”
Her words landed with the subtlety of an atom bomb and I wanted to dive into my cabinets for cover. How dare she. “That’s easy for you to say. You have Austin.”
Her gaze that had been firm yet gentle narrowed dangerously. “You think we don’t fight? Kate, everybody fights. Just wait until you throw a couple kids in the mix.”
Her words were like a kick in the gut and I physically recoiled. Annie danced around my legs, sensing trouble.
Fiona pushed to her feet, the chair scraping back against the floor. “Kate, I’m sorry.”
I shook my head, desperate to keep the tears at bay.
“I didn’t mean that,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean… Damn.”
Gigi and Jack giggled and scolded their mom for using a bad word, but she ignored them. She took a few careful steps toward me. Her empty hands looked emptier than usual and the anguish on her face was clear.
I held Jonah against my chest as if he could rub some baby germs off on me. Maybe if I snuggled with him long enough, held him in my arms long enough, maybe then my body would know what to do.
Maybe my uterus would wake the hell up.
“Kate, please,” she pleaded. “I’m sorry.”
Fiona and I had known each other for a long time and we’d always been straight with each other. We weren’t as close as Kara and I were, but only because we didn’t see each other every day. And Kara and I were childless; we could get together almost whenever we wanted. Fiona didn’t have that kind of freedom. So even if she didn’t know the minutia of my life, she knew all of the big stuff.
She always knew the big stuff.
Like how long Nick and I had been trying to have a baby. She was the first person and only person I told when we started trying. I hadn’t been able to hold in my excitement.
I’d thought it would be easy.
Fiona had been with me the whole time. Encouraging me. Crying out of frustration with me. Giving advice and suggesting tricks she’d looked up on the internet. And getting furious when I couldn’t stand the failure anymore.
Because that was what it came down to. Failure.
What was wrong with my body?
Why could every other woman in the world get pregnant except me?
Was this the universe trying to tell me I shouldn’t be a mother? That I was somehow unfit?
That I was somehow unworthy?