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The recliner that was usually so comfortable hurt my back. I shifted in the chair. “Like what?”
“Fighting all the time.”
“We don’t fight all the time.” Of course, it came out confrontational. I waited for Kyle to smile at the irony. His lips remained flat.
“We should be supporting each other through all this, but we can’t because we’re on different pages, so we end up doing and saying hurtful things. Things we regret.” His chin quivered, and his next words came out shaky. “I’ve accepted that we’re never going to have kids. If you can’t come to terms with that, I don’t see how we can make this marriage work. It may already be too late.”
His words brought me to my feet. “What exactly are you saying?”
“You need to figure out what you want more: me or a baby.”
I swallowed hard, wondering what he’d say if I told him I wanted the baby more. Would he ask for a divorce? We stared at each other without speaking. A picture of my parents on the shelf behind him caught my attention. They sat at the counter in their diner. My mother’s smile radiated happiness. My father slumped in his stool with his head hung low and his lips pressed tightly together. I had always thought he was trying to stifle a laugh, but today I wondered if he was trying to hide his disappointment.
“I’m going to leave, figure out what I want, and give you time to figure out what you want,” Kyle said.
“We’ll figure it out together.” I inched closer to him, but he dropped the duffel bag off his shoulder so it acted as a buffer between us.
“This is something we each need to figure out on our own.”
With four long strides, he crossed the room, then opened the front door and closed it gently behind him. The soft way it clicked masked the fact that he was slamming the door on my dream of becoming a mother.
Chapter 15
Exhaustion overtook me after Kyle left, and I lay down on the sofa to nap. I told myself he was bluffing and he’d be back. Several hours later, the front door banged off the wall guard, waking me from a deep sleep. I sighed with relief, happy Kyle was home but too tired to sit up. “Please don’t make me choose between you and a baby.”
Footsteps on the hardwood too light to be Kyle’s approached the couch. “A baby? What are you talking about?” Dana stared down at me.
A blast of cold air had sneaked in with her. I pulled the blanket up to my chin. “What are you doing here?” Outside the living room window, the sky over the mountains glowed a brilliant shade of red. I had slept the day away.
“You look like hell.”
I couldn’t argue with that. I hadn’t changed out of my pajamas.
“Where’s Kyle?”
“He left.” Saying the words out loud took my breath away. He wasn’t bluffing. He was gone.
Dana’s phone rang. She pulled it from her coat pocket to see who was calling but didn’t answer. “What do you mean?”
“He left me.”
Dana slipped out of her jacket. Instead of tossing it on a piece of furniture, she hung it on the closet doorknob, which was her way of showing support. “You had a fight. He’ll be back. It happens.” Shetapped on my legs with the palm of her hand until I moved them and she could sit.
“It was more than a fight.”
“What happened?”
I gripped the blanket tighter. “It’s a long story.”
Dana bent to remove her boots. When she finished, she curled her feet under her. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Was it about IVF?” she asked.
I sat upright. “How do you know about that?”
“Dana. Can. Read,” she said. “I saw the card and magnet on your refrigerator.”
