He doesn’t receive it delicately. He rages at me. It’s a fury I’m sure will ignite the air around us and burn us both alive. “How did you fucking get pregnant?! You’re on the fucking pill!” He rarely curses, he’s beyond angry.
“The pill’s not one hundred percent,” I say quietly. I hold back that it’s zero percent effective when it’s not taken. I feel like a child being chastised for their stupidity. I’ve never felt so small and weak. I don’t like it.
He looks me dead in the eye and commands without blinking, “Have an abortion. I don’t want children.”
My heart drops to the soles of my feet. I can feel my blood growing cold and pooling around it in my shoes. “I can’t do that. I want the baby.” I don’t want a baby. I want his baby. I need this link to him. He’ll change his mind. He’ll come around. Someday, he’ll realize we belong together.
He smiles in disgust and shakes his head. “Fine. Keep the baby, but my name’s not going on that birth certificate,” he threatens. “Put your husband’s name on it. He can raise it.”
His words hurt. I’m the punchline to a joke that no one delivered. It wasn’t supposed to go this way.
But, I’ll take it. At least he didn’t say it was over between us. I’ll never lose. I’ll make him see things my way one day.
Goddamn pathetic sponge
past
Baby number three is delivered under a heavy administration of drugs, and I feel nothing but pressure, no pain. Two pushes, because this isn’t my first go at ridding my womb of an invader, and a belting cry saturates the room.
“It’s a girl,” the doctor says. Well, that’s new.
I know I should look at Seamus, it’s what I did with the other two. I watched his reaction, even though it crushed me. But this time, I look at the baby when the nurse lays her on my chest. She’s covered with a layer of goo that makes me want to gag, and she’s squalling like she objects to the outside world and wants back in where it’s warm. Her obvious displeasure makes me smile a little; it sounds like something I’d do. Then I look over the features on her tiny face, even with her mouth open in rebuttal and her eyes squeezed shut, she looks like me. This warms me to her a bit; finally, I got one who looks like me.
“Hey, baby girl, don’t cry,” Seamus coos.
She hiccups in air, and the cries lessen as if his voice is soothing her. Of course it is, he’s a saint.
His large hand is on her little back, he’s already her protector, when he speaks again, “We’re so happy you’re here and we finally get to meet you, darlin’.”
She settles completely at his words and blinks her eyes wide.
“She looks like you, Miranda. She’s beautiful.” His voice is thick with emotion.
I smile at his words and think Jackpot! This is how I’m supposed to feel after giving birth! I’m supposed to feel at least some sort of connection. And he’s supposed to show me admiration. Finally!
“What should we name her?” he asks.
With the other two, I was unable to speak after birth, choked off by negative emotion and jealousy. Not this time. “Kira. After my grandmother.” Seamus doesn’t know anything about my grandmother, other than she raised me. Not because he hasn’t asked, but because I’ve always kept her to myself and refused to talk about her.
“Kira is perfect,” he agrees.
But as soon as Seamus picks her up and cradles her in his arms and the nurse says, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a prouder daddy,” my temporary happiness comes crashing down around me.
She’s not his.
Loren should be here with me to share this moment.
This whole dramatic, picture perfect scene is a fallacy. An illusion.
She’s mine.
Not ours.
Just mine.
And that’s terrifying.
What if Seamus finds out before Loren warms up to the idea of us, and I’m left to raise her alone?
I feel sick. My head is caught up in the undertow of deceit. Usually, I can breeze my way through shit like this, but today is different, maybe it’s the hormones.
And then the whole twisted plot is only made worse as I watch Seamus holding my daughter. He’s talking to her so softly I can’t hear him, but I can see his lips moving, and I know by the look on his face that every word he’s uttering is a promise. Promises he’ll keep until the day he dies. I can feel the love rolling off of him in waves. And it’s all for her. All of his attention. All of his commitment. Another child has captured his heart.
And she’s not even his.
If I had a conscience, I’d tell him.
Instead, I let the full weight of losing, not what’s ours, but what’s mine, my dream of a new life with another man, to him. And I feel more alone than ever.
Sonofabitch, I’m relieved I asked them to tie my tubes now that this production is over. I refuse to go through this mindfuck again for any man.