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“I see that now. I really do. I did try that day on Skype, but it didn’t work out…” He tugged her fingers closer into the palms of his hands. “Grace, I want to explain something that might help you understand where I was coming from, what I was feeling and thinking.”
The look of vulnerability in his eyes touched her. Aidan had always seemed so in charge, so capable of taking care of anything. Yet now she saw the exhaustion in his eyes, the worry lines around his mouth. She didn’t say a word while she waited for him to continue. Her only movement was to gently squeeze his hand.
Aidan took a deep breath to steady his racing heart. Looking into her clear blue eyes, he was reminded of the day they met. He’d been waiting for an excuse to talk to her, and her math problems gave him an opening. He still remembered how she chewed her lip as she listened to him, the way she was doing now.
“You and I have wanted children all our married lives, and I was so certain that we would have them. Then, when it became clear that we couldn’t, I was as brokenhearted as you were. The only difference was that I felt I needed to be strong for you, to protect you from the pain of knowing there wouldn’t be a baby for us. I came home every day, saw the sadness in your eyes and felt helpless to do anything to ease your sorrow.”
“You have no idea what it was like, because you were busy or away from home,” she said, tears shining in her eyes.
He touched her cheek, wiping the damp spots with his fingers. “I left you to fend for yourself because I wasn’t doing well with it, not just for me but for you. I wanted you to have a baby even more than I wanted a baby for me.”
“But you didn’t tell me that. You left me to believe that I was the one suffering the most, facing up to my sadness.”
“That’s where I went so wrong. I should have talked to you about my pain, my loss, instead of shielding you from it. I believed I was doing the right thing, but I realize now I wasn’t. Grace, there hasn’t been a day that I didn’t wish with all my heart we had a child, our child,” he said.
“We should have been more open about our feelings,” she said. “When you found out that Emma was your child, I needed you to understand how I was feeling. Not just the sense of betrayal but also how left out I felt by your need to charge ahead and do what you believed was best.”
“As difficult as this is for me to say, I was so happy to learn that we had a child. All I could think about was bringing our child home to be here with us. I know I handled it badly, but all I wanted was for us to be a family. I had a child who could make that happen, who we could share. The circumstances were not what I would have wished for. But in my mind, it was the next best thing. That’s why I rushed into it, organizing everything, thinking that I could fix your loneliness, your need for a child simply by taking charge of Emma’s life.”
She nodded slowly as her eyes moved over his face.
He felt her gaze like a blessing, a loving thought exchanged between him and his wife. “I could have waited and I should have. I should have left with you that first day so we could talk this over. It was so stupid of me. And the worst of it is that I can’t go back and fix any of it. I can’t take back your pain at feeling left out or the loneliness my crass behavior caused you.” He squeezed her hand gently, willing her to believe him. “I can only try and make it up to you now.”
“Then why wouldn’t you see an adoption lawyer with me?”
He wanted to tell her what she wanted to hear, but was it true? Did he want to adopt? “I’m not sure. I guess I felt that, after all our efforts to have a child, the way our life had been taken over by the desire to have a family, I needed a break from it all. I needed you to myself for a little while, needed you and I to be a couple devoted to each other.”
