It Ends With Us

A thickness seems to form in the air around me. It’s suddenly difficult to take in a full breath because for whatever reason, I feel like I need to cry. I just really like this moment and it saddens me that we couldn’t spend the entire pregnancy full of moments like these. It feels good sharing this with him, but I’m also scared I might be giving him false hope.

Now that he’s here and he saw the nursery, I’m not sure what to do next. It’s glaringly obvious that we need to discuss a lot of things, but I have no idea where to start. Or how.

I walk over to the rocking chair and take a seat. “Naked truth?” I say, looking up at him.

He exhales a huge breath and nods, then takes a seat on the sofa. “Please. Lily, please tell me you’re ready to talk about this.”

His reaction eases my nerves a little, knowing he’s ready to discuss everything. I wrap my arms around my stomach and lean forward in the rocking chair. “You go first.”

He clasps his hands together between his knees. He looks at me with so much sincerity, I have to glance away.

“I don’t know what you want from me, Lily. I don’t know what role you want me to have. I’m trying to give you all the space you need, but at the same time I want to help more than you possibly know. I want to be in our baby’s life. I want to be your husband and I want to be good at it. But I have no idea what’s going through your head.”

His words fill me with guilt. Despite what has happened between us in the past, he’s still this baby’s father. He has the legal right to be a father, no matter how I feel about it. And I want him to be a father. I want him to be a good father. But deep down, I’m still holding on to one of my biggest fears, and I know I need to talk to him about it.

“I would never keep you from your child, Ryle. I’m happy you want to be involved. But . . .”

He leans forward and buries his face in his hands with that last word.

“What kind of mother would I be if a small part of me doesn’t have concern in regard to your temper? The way you lose control? How do I know something won’t set you off while you’re alone with this baby?”

So much agony floods his eyes, I think they might burst like dams. He begins to shake his head adamantly. “Lily, I would never . . .”

“I know, Ryle. You would never intentionally hurt your own child. I don’t even believe it was intentional when you hurt me, but you did. And trust me, I want to believe that you would never do something like that. My father was only abusive toward my mother. There are many men—women even—who abuse their significant others without ever losing their temper with anyone else. I want to believe your words with all my heart, but you have to understand where my hesitation comes in. I’ll never deny you a relationship with your child. But I’m going to need you to be really patient with me while you rebuild all the trust you’ve broken.”

He nods in agreement. He has to know that I’m giving him much more than he deserves. “Absolutely,” he says. “This is on your terms. Everything is on your terms, okay?”

Ryle’s hands come together again and he begins to chew nervously on his bottom lip. I sense he has more to say, but he’s doubting whether or not he should say it.

“Go ahead and say whatever you’re thinking while I’m in the mood to talk about it.”

He tilts his head back and looks up at the ceiling. Whatever it is, it’s hard for him. I don’t know if it’s because the question is hard to ask or because he’s scared of the answer I might give him.

“What about us?” he whispers.

I lean my head back and sigh. I knew this question would come, but it’s really difficult to give him an answer I don’t have. Divorce or reconciliation are really the only two options we have, but neither is a choice I want to make.

“I don’t want to give you false hope, Ryle,” I say quietly. “If I had to make a choice today . . . I’d probably choose divorce. But in all honesty, I don’t know if I would be making that choice because I’m overloaded with pregnancy hormones or because it’s what I really want. I don’t think it would be fair to either of us if I made that decision before the birth of this baby.”

He blows out a shaky breath and then brings a hand up to the back of his neck, squeezing tightly. Then he stands up and faces me. “Thank you,” he says. “For inviting me over. For the conversation. I’ve been wanting to stop by since I was here a couple of weeks ago, but I didn’t know how you’d feel about it.”

“I don’t know how I would have felt about it, either,” I say with complete honesty. I try to push myself out of the rocking chair, but for some reason it’s become a lot harder in the past week. Ryle walks over and reaches for my hand to help me up.

I don’t know how I’m supposed to last until my due date when I can’t even get out of a chair without grunting.