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That made him feel awful. “I should have bought some for you.”
“You bought me plenty of books,” she told him, smiling. “Pregnancy books, mostly, but also some great beach reads. Don’t worry, I was charging things to your expense account the whole time.”
He laughed. “I’m glad to hear it. But then why no parenting books?”
She hesitated. “I guess it was hard for me to face,” she said. “I was struggling with the idea that you might not be around when the babies were born. I assumed that those books would have separate categories of advice for single parents versus people who were parenting with a partner, and I felt like I wouldn’t have known which section to read. It would have made me confront the question I really didn’t want to ask myself.
“I’m sorry you felt like you had to question it at all,” Adriano said quietly. “I shouldn’t have made you feel that way.”
“Tell me why,” she said. “You were so excited to become a father at first, and then that just went away. Is it because it was me? Because it didn’t happen with a surrogate, the way you thought it might?”
“Oh, Amy.” He couldn’t believe she had thought that. “Of course it wasn’t because it wasyou. I was happy to be doing this with you.”
“You didn’t seem very happy.”
“That wasn’t because of you.”
“Then what was it? I need to know.”
“You need tosleep.” This was a long, involved conversation—surely they would be better off having it after she had gotten a bit of rest?
Amy shook her head. “I’m not going to be able to sleep until I know the answers to some of these things, at least,” she said. “Every time I start to drift off, the questions pop up in my head again. And every time, it leaves me wondering whether I’m making the right decision by trying so hard to include you in the babies’ lives. What if you don’t care as much as you say you do?”
Adriano felt sick at the fact that this was even a question for her. At the same time, though, he understood exactly why she felt the way she did.
“I know I haven’t given you much reason to trust me,” he said. “The fact that you’re even giving me a chance to explain myself means the world.”
“I’d always do that much,” she told him quietly.
“It was just—being sick the way I was—I know it was only a reaction to the treatment. It wasn’t even that I really got sick. But it made mefeelmy disease in a way I just hadn’t until that moment. It made me understand that there was something wrong with me in a whole new way.”
He sighed. “You’re a doctor. I don’t know if you can understand this—what it’s like to reallyfeelthe fact that you might be dying—but I guess if there’s anyone in the world who can understand what it’s like, maybe it’s you. Before I started treatment, I knew that my body was failing me. I knew it mentally. But feeling it was different. It really scared me.”
“I can understand that,” Amy said. “I’ve seen that happen to plenty of people. Of course it would scare you.” She held out her hand to him. “You could have talked to me, Adriano.”
“I didn’t have the words to talk to anyone. I wanted to talk to you. But you were already pregnant by then, and the only thing I was able to think was—what if getting pregnant was a mistake? What if I died, and you were left alone with the babies? What if my illness ripped me away from my family?”
He expected her to point out the contradiction in the fact that he had dealt with that fear by pulling away himself, but she didn’t say anything. She just went on listening.
“I know my response was wrong,” Adriano said. “I shouldn’t have handled feeling the way I did by leaving you to cope on your own. I knew that even as I was doing it, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I feel awful, knowing that I did that to you. I felt awful every single day I was doing it. But with each day that went by, it became a little harder to face the wall I had put up between us. It became a little easier to lie and tell myself that you had changed your mind—that you’d seen me as sick as I was and decided you didn’t want me to raise children with you. I was afraid you must think of me as too big a risk.”
“I could never have thought that, Adriano,” Amy said. “I knew the risk going in. I would never have changed my mind. I understand your perception changed, but mine never did. I knew all along that you had Barks-Howard’s, and I—”
She let out a sudden gasp and bolted upright in bed.
Adriano was at her side in an instant. “What is it? Are you in pain? Do you want me to get the nurse for you?”
“No, it isn’t that,” she said. Her cheeks were suddenly bright, and she was gripping his arm so tightly that he worried she might draw blood. “The picnic basket.”
Adriano was perplexed. “The picnic basket?”
“Where is it?”
“I think it’s still by the lake.”
He didn’t understand why that would matter, but apparently it did—she looked crestfallen.
“You didn’t bring it?” she asked.
