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“What about your parents?”
“More concerned with getting wasted than with the kids they kept spittin’ out like jackrabbits.”
Jeeezuz. The bottom drops out of my stomach. Grey meets brown and I’m hit by the conviction burning in his eyes, blown away by it. This is what determination looks like. I sympathize, I do. And yet as a woman who wants children, it hits me on a personal level.
“But…but…but…” He’s reduced me to a stammering idiot. “Didn’t your wife want kids?”
“Not when we got married. She was all gun-ho about her career. I explained it to her a thousand times and she promised she understood. But then I was only twenty-two, she’s five years older, so she probably thought she could change my mind.”
“How did she feel about the vasectomy?” His cool gaze bores into mine. “Holy shit, she didn’t know?”
“I told her I wasn’t having kids.” His full lips are set in a tight line, his dark scruff covered jaw locked.
Hiding my shock is out of the question. Face-palm. How to handle this? I understand his point, but to omit a bombshell of this magnitude? Talk about a matter of trust.
“Calvin,” I say über gently. “I completely sympathize with your plight, I do, but you can’t believe that a marriage based on an omission that important could survive the aftermath.”
Unapologetically, his heavy-lidded gray gaze holds mine. Sometimes I really do admire his arrogance, how self contained he is. If only a microscopic piece of it would rub off on me, maybe I could start to put my life back together. I can see the wheels turning in his eyes, past hurts and old argument coming to the surface and retreating. He bites the inside of his cheek, a clear sign of his discomfort.
“I was young. If I were to do it over again…I don’t know.”
“I give you more credit than that. I think you would tell her. As a matter of fact, I think it would lighten that yoke you carry around your neck if you told her that you regret it.”
“Not happening.”
“Suit yourself,” I reply with a shrug and close my eyes.
An age later, I hear him say, “Why?”
I crack open my eyes one at a time to find another lovely scowl doctoring his face––although it looks more like frustration this time.
“Why do I give you credit?” He answers my query with a quick nod. “Because I’ve learned the hard way to judge a man’s character by his actions, not his words.” He holds the eye contact longer than I find comfortable. I turn my back to him and pull the blanket up to my neck. “Now stop chewing my ear off and let me get some sleep.”
The next morning I wake up with the sweet scent of clean man filling my lungs and soft puffs of air hitting my temple. After wallowing in confusion for a few seconds, it dawns on me that I’m snuggled in the nook between Calvin’s throat and armpit. Right before mortification can set in, I catch a soft snore. I can’t resist the temptation to listen for a while, the feeling bittersweet. The sound wraps around my heart and squeezes painfully. Tears pool in the corners of my eyes.
The memory of what I had and what I lost, the knowledge that I may never have it again, hits me like a freight train. That’s the thing with grief. It’s fickle and selfish. It doesn’t follow any rules, and shows up when you least expect it. One limb at a time, I slowly peel myself away, retreat to the bathroom, and shed my tears in private.
On the drive back home, Calvin remains in quiet contemplation for most of the ride. I determine this must be the result of all the disclosures of the night before. Maybe he regrets telling me. Maybe he’s had second thoughts about whether I can be trusted with such personal information. Whatever the reason, I feel this pressing need to clear the air between us. I would hate for him to worry that I’m someone he needs to protect himself from. Though, in the end, I can’t muster the courage to broach the subject.
By the time we pull into the garage, close to nightfall, we’re all dog-tired. I slide out of the Rover and go to grab my bags but he beats me to it.
“It’s okay. I’ve got it.”
“Let me,” he mumbles, directing the words at some unseen point in the distance. As he reaches the door, he stops and turns, his shuttered eyes meeting mine squarely. “Thanks for coming.”
The words ‘what are friends for’ are on the tip of my tongue but they die on my lips. We’re not friends. We’re just two people thrown together by circumstance. Before I can do something really stupid like persuade him into talking about what’s bothering him, I remind myself that in two months time I’ll be gone and his life will continue as if we’ve never met.
