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“I wish I would have known.”
She lets out a cheerless laugh. “Do you? Think back and be serious. Do youreallywish I would have told you I was pregnant when you were, what, one month into your freshman year on a full college scholarship?” She starts shoving our trash back into the take-out bag. “I’m glad I didn’t tell you.”
“Hey, wait a minute.”
She shakes her head. “There’s no way to be wrong or right about this. I understand why you wouldn’t have wanted me to go through with a pregnancy at the time. I would have been crazy to suggest it. Iknowit would have been a disaster. I know that.” She takes a deep breath. “You never lied to me. I knew you were leaving. Those months after you left were so hard, but in the end I decided that I couldn’t get rid of our baby or hand him over to someone else to raise. And to keep him, I knew I had to let you go.”
“Did you hate me?”
“Sometimes,” she says without hesitation. “Sometimes I’d catch a person looking at me in a judgmental way, a few times people made comments…I’d feel ashamed and resent you for it. I wasn’t too happy with you when my ankles were swollen or when I’d look in the mirror and see a walrus staring back at me either.” There’s a hint of a smile before she sobers. “But I had a few really bad days...Just scared more than anything.”
“I’d imagine you were scared every day.”
“No.” She shakes her head with authority. “You think you know what scared is until something truly terrifying happens.” She looks up to the sky and lets out a frustrated breath. “The sun’s already setting and I have so much more to tell you.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
She stares at me for a moment, probably trying to figure out what exactly I mean by that. And I don’t know the logistics, the hows or the whens—I realize it makes no logical sense—but still, I already know I’m going to be where they are, where my son is.
“There’s something you need to know about Ethan. There were complications with the pregnancy and we, he…He had to have surgery while he was still inside of me.”
I feel my breathing slow. “What was the matter?”
“Aortic stenosis. It’s a congenital heart condition where the left ventricle of the heart becomes dilated and basically dysfunctional.”
“And the surgery worked?”
“So far, so good. It’s amazing what they can do now. The surgery can basically alter the outcome of the condition when it’s done very early. The survival rate is pretty dismal for infants when it’s not detected early on.” It takes a minute to register that she’s rubbing my back, making soothing circles, comforting me. “It’s a lot to take in, I know.”
“Tell me how it happened. Everything.”
“Um, ok.” She doesn’t stop rubbing circles on my back as she tells me about the clinic up here, being rushed to the hospital in Ann Arbor, meeting with all the fetal heart specialists, waking up from the surgery, and the long wait to see if he’d be healthy at birth. “The goal is for the balloon catheter they insert to expand the valve, which results in better blood flow, which can give the ventricle the ability to develop in a normal way. When Ethan was born, the doctors felt the size and function of his left ventricle was adequate. So while he’s not entirely out of the woods, the surgery was a success.”
I can’t get the words out at first. I just sit there shaking my head from side to side. “I’m so sorry you went through all of that on your own.”
“I wasn’t alone, I had Janelle.” She takes her hand off my back when she adds, “But I was lonely for you back then.”
* * *
Charlotte
It says a lot, the fact that I’m finding it so easy to rattle off the details of Ethan’s surgery and health history. His diagnosis, the surgery, all that time he spent in the NICU? It was devastating, confusing, frightening—the absolute lowest point of my life. But I’d rather go on about it all night than to talk about us, about what’s going on here right now, about how this is going to play out.
I got carried away there for a moment, telling him I’d been lonely for him when I was scared out of my wits in the hospital. And what was I thinking rubbing his back like that? I should have just gone ahead and licked his neck while I was at it.
I scoot away, trying to be subtle about it, leaving a foot or two of space between us. For all I know, Simon is here for the day and that’s it.I’m not going anywhere. I can’t let myself read too much into those words.
When I opened the door to find him standing there with his hands in his pockets, I felt like I was in a time warp, and the feelings I had for him when I was no more than a girl came rushing back. Dressed in black jeans, a worn Cubs t-shirt and beat up Vans, he looked like my Simon, not the impeccably groomed man from his online professional profile. Taking him in, my mind went back to nights in the woods, hot days spent on the bank of the river, stolen moments in his tiny bedroom, crammed in together on his twin bed.
I remind myself that I haven’t been touched by a man in nearly four years. That’s all this is. The one and only date I went on with a guy from my Cognitive Psych class didn’t even end in a goodnight kiss. Gah. Now my mind is on kissing, and I have to hop off this crazy train because there’s a whole lot more than my feelings at stake here. I owe it to Ethan to do this right. I want Simon to be in his life. I’m not going to mess that up by throwing myself at a guy who, for all I know, has moved on. Picturing that blonde’s face does the trick.
I keep talking, careful to keep the conversation in neutral territory. “Ethan still sees his specialists every six months for follow-up care, and all of his regular providers, like his pediatrician, physical therapists, pediatric dentist…they’re all on site too.”
“Has he had any setbacks?”
I nod my head and feel my shoulders sag under the weight of the memory. Last winter was rough. “He had a stubborn respiratory infection last year, and those can be really dangerous for kids like Ethan. He was in the hospital for a few days.” When I see the stricken look on Simon’s face, I feel the need to reassure him. “He’s healthy, he’s doing great. I just have to be careful about exposing him to infections, so I make sure every little nick and cut is cleaned and bandaged, keep him away from anyone who’s sick with a cold, and he has to take antibiotics before dental work or any other procedures as a precautionary measure.”
“Sam—” He stops abruptly, shaking his head. “Is he, uh, small for his age?”
