Page 84 of Worthy of Sunsets and Second Chances

“Do you? I had a double mastectomy and my ovaries and fallopian tubes removed, Eli. I had reconstruction surgery for my breasts.” She levels me with a stare.

Fuck. Oh, fuck.

My insensitive comments and crude joke at Sutton’s house, the way she and everyone reacted make more sense now—and I feel absolutely sick to my stomach.

“Kendra, I’m so sorry, what I said that day, that awful joke—” but she cuts me off.

“It was stupid and you didn’t know. And it was also hurtful, yes, but I forgive you. I know that you weren’t trying to be mean. We constantly jabbed at each other and took things way too far sometimes, and that was one of those times.”

“Still, God, I’m so sorry.” I lean my forehead against hers. “All your pills?” I ask, thinking about the medication I had to bring over for her from the medicine cabinet in her bathroom.

“I’m on hormone replacement therapy, lots of different supplements. I have to manage my body and monitor everything carefully still,” Kendra explains.

I nod my head.

“I could have frozen my eggs, but honestly I was too afraid to do the treatments for that, to wait, and also I couldn’t afford it at the time. I would have had to save up for years. Years I didn’t want to worry that I was going to get cancer like my mom in the meantime. Eli, I can’t give you what you want. The kids, the family, the future. Because of what I did, I can’t have children.” She pulls back and a tear leaks from the corner of her eye, rolling slowly down her face.

“I don’t care,” I state fiercely.

“Yes, you do, you just said . . .”

“No, what you just said changes everything. I care more about having you. You are the family that I need. We have Wren. The two of you make my life complete. I don’t need anything more than that.”

“You can have someone else, more kids. The whole package,” Kendra argues.

“You are the whole goddamn package. There is nobody else. We can adopt more kids if you want, or it can be just the three of us. And I know, I know I am tossing more kid talk at you that I probably shouldn’t be, but I don’t give a fuck. You need to know how I feel.” I smile at her and she lets out a small laugh.

“I just don’t want you to resent me for not being able to give you more kids of your own,” she says sadly.

“There is nothing you could do that would ever make me resent you, ever.” I kiss her softly on her swollen lips.

“Thank you.” She hugs me, burrowing into my chest.

“Now that that’s settled, where are we spending Christmas? I think we should come here with Wren because I don’t have a tree.” I kiss the top of her head.

“What?” Kendra pops up, looking at me with wide eyes.

“I wasn’t exactly feeling festive with you gone, so I didn’t earn any dad points. We have zero decorations over there. You have your pretty tree here. Let’s bring Wren’s Pack ’n Play over and the gifts and do Christmas morning here.” I rattle off my plan with a dimpled grin and a wink, knowing it makes her weak.

“You want to spend Christmas with me?”

“Well I sure as fuck am not gonna spend it without you. Wherever you are is where I am, so that is where Wren is too, obviously.” I smirk at her. “She and I are kind of a package deal now. I hope you are okay with that.”

“I am absolutely okay with that. Honestly it was hard, painful even, to see you with her and know that you had a baby with someone else. I went one way after our summer and you went a totally different direction . . .” She looks away from me.

“Kendra, I’m not proud of the choices I made or the man I was when we were apart. I tried to numb myself, and part of that was by having a lot of meaningless hookups that only ended up hurting me in the long run and now you. If I could take it back I would, but at the same time that means we wouldn’t have Wren. And I could never regret her.”

“Of course not. She is the silver lining to all of it. Speaking of, where is my favorite girl right now?” Kendra asks, eyes shimmering from my confession.

“She’s next door with my sisters. They are making Christmas cookies for Santa. And that means Wren is supervising from her high chair while Sarah and Rebecca do the work and Hannah sings terribly off-key.” I wince.

“Oh, I see. So the real reason you came over here was to escape her singing?” Kendra teases.

“No, I came over here because I couldn’t be away from you for one more damn minute.” I grip the hair at the nape of her neck and pull her into a deep kiss, not coming up for air until we are both breathless.

65

Kendra