Chapter 26
Then
June came, and I graduated from high school and was now enrolled in a community college where I would earn my degree in nursing.
And…I was due any day now to have the baby.
I would spend most of my summer looking for a babysitter when classes started in September.
Though my mom said she’d help, her help came as an exasperated ‘I suppose.’ I’d rather have a flat on ‘no.’
Despite Tammy’s desire to enter culinary, she signed up at the same community college under the same nursing program.
She used the excuse that nursing would ensure her a job after graduation.
Whether it was the case or not, I was happy.
I was going to need her.
Michael’s newfound interest in wanting to try had already fizzled.
He was back to no show most Friday and Saturday nights, traveling for business as he climbed the ladder at Whirlpool.
But now that the baby was due any day, he did at least call in and check on me.
I already had a backup plan—Tammy.
She, after all, was my Lamaze coach. Michael showed no interest in taking the class with me.
The picture of us that Beth took was hung on a wall as you enter our apartment.
Despite the words Michael spoke in my ear, it was a beautiful picture.
Tammy was the only one who ever complimented on it.
My parents felt no need to have one.
To them, my marriage was just as much a charade as it was to Michael. And it didn’t help that my parents wanted no part of Michael in their lives, which Michael used as an excuse never to come to family get-togethers. I doubt he’d go anyway.
Tammy and I had picked Monica for the baby’s name.
Another thing Michael had no interest in.
As Michael’s interest in his family dissipated more each day, I thought of ways to rekindle just an ounce of spontaneity.
I knew Michael loved waterskiing and found a place on Lake Michigan where we could stay for free for the weekend.
Tammy’s uncle owned a resort, sometimes lending it out.
It was Michael’s birthday, and I surprised him with a picture of the place.
The caption read: It’s yours for the weekend.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“I know you’ve been working hard, and it’s time to relax and do some skiing.
There’s a boat there too we can use.”
“When? This weekend?”
“Yes.
Tammy’s uncle said this was the only free weekend open.”
He looked disappointed, and it didn’t surprise me.
He usually never came home on the weekends.
I also knew now he had other girlfriends.
They would call and be shocked when his wife answered the phone.
We had many fights about it. It would lead nowhere, and Michael would only remind me of our situation. To him, he was a knight doing me a favor while I was only baggage.
“I already have everything packed,”
I told him.
There was no getting around it.
We were going, and he would stay the weekend with me—his wife.
And hopefully, I wouldn’t go into labor.
“Can I invite some of my buddies?” he asked.
“Michael, I don’t think that’s a good idea.
Tammy’s uncle is trusting us with his place, free of charge.
I don’t think we should take advantage of that.”
He rolled his eyes and started to walk away. “Well?”
“Fine,”
he said, annoyed.
“We’ll go.”
I should have ended it right there.
The more I fought for us, the more I felt ugly, unloved, and in the way around Michael.
It was hard to find joy in my life, and I feared I wouldn’t be a good mother because of this.
We took my car to the lake house that weekend because Michael refused to give up his Corvette even though we had a baby coming.
He also suggested we drive separately—anything so he didn’t have to be with me.
I told him the sand whipping around might damage the paint on his car.
That convinced him.
I pulled into the drive, and Michael appeared excited.
“Well, what do you think?”
“This is pretty nice.”
Maybe this weekend, I could get him to try again.
Get him to show mercy and affection like he did a few months back.
I would do anything to have him love me.
And that’s the funny thing about love.
It doesn’t work that way. It’s either there or isn’t. But why was it there for me? Michael never gave me a reason to love him. Yet, I did.
As we stood inside the big, open living room, the floor-to-ceiling windows showcased Lake Michigan.
It was beautiful as the water sparkled for endless miles.
I wrapped my arms around Michael.
“Happy birthday.
I love you, Michael. We have it all weekend, so maybe one night we can camp on the beach and listen to the waves as we sleep,”
I said, laying my head on his chest.
“I hope you like it.”
“It’s really nice.
Tell your friend’s uncle thanks.”
Michael’s arms were weakly held around me, and I could tell he was itching to get out of my embrace.
So, I squeezed tighter.
“So, where’s this boat?”
He broke our hug and went out the back door to the lake, finding the boat tied to the pier.
“Hey, I arranged for us to be here for your birthday and told you I love you.
Are you going to say anything to me?”
I was angry and tired of being ignored.
I was tired of sounding jealous when all I wanted was his attention.
“Are we going to fight about it here? I thought we came here for a good time.
If you want to fight, we’ll go home.”
“Why? So that you can leave and stay with your girlfriend?”
I had had it.
And maybe we could fight without all the apartment neighbors hearing by being here.
“Michael, I’m still your wife despite how you qualify our marriage.
I want a little respect and affection from you.
Is it too much to ask?”
He stood up from the boat and placed his hands on his hips.
“You know, Jill, maybe I would give you a little affection if you weren’t such a bitch all the time.”
“How can you say that? All I do is love you and take care of you.”
“Oh, and I don’t? Who pays for you? Who’s paying for your college? Who gives you a place to live? Who’s giving up four years of his life to help you? Who stuck by you when you got pregnant? Surely not your parents.
Not your brother.
Who gave you their credit card to buy baby shit? I don’t see anyone else doing those things for you.
And all you do is bitch at me.”
“Stop it,”
I cried.
“You know what I mean.
Why can’t you love me?”
I was crying hard, and once again, my efforts were pointless.
He twisted everything in his view to look like a martyr.
He was the one sacrificing everything, while I stayed home and cried night after night, knowing he was with another woman.
The mind games never ended with him.
I didn’t want to apologize, but I knew it would be like this the entire weekend if I didn’t. I was out of fuel and had lost the ability to fight with him. I wiped my eyes. “I’m sorry. I’ll go make dinner,”
I said and turned to walk back.
As I made dinner, the tears never stopped.
I was waiting for a miracle that would never come—Michael running back to tell me he was sorry.
Tell me he loved our unborn baby and me.
Tell me, thank you for the weekend.
But all he did was convince me that I had ruined his weekend.
I heard the boat take off, and I hoped he was only leaving to clear his head and that he would be back soon.
The dinner I had prepared was ready, and he still wasn’t back.
The sun was about to set, and I wanted us to watch it go down over the water together.
I blew out the candles on the table, walked outside and down to the pier, and sat with my feet dangling in the water.
Monica was kicking inside me, and I talked to her since she was the only one there.
“I’m trying, baby.
I am fighting for us.
I hope you don’t hate me when you’re born for putting us in this situation.
But I promise I will love you enough for both of us.
Your daddy may not be fond of me, but I bet he won’t be able to resist when he sees your little face. I already love you. So, don’t you worry about that.”
I heard a boat coming in the distance, heading in my direction.
It was Michael.
I held my breath and prayed we would make up and salvage this weekend when he returned.
The boat slowed and drove into the wake, and I stood as I waited for him to cut the engine and tie off the boat.
I didn’t know if I should run to him or stay on the pier.
He looked up once at me and still appeared to be angry.
“Michael, I’m sorry.
Dinner’s ready.”
He didn’t say a word, and a jet ski drove into the wake.
It was a girl in a bikini wearing a life jacket.
She pulled up to the boat.
“You ready?”
she said to Michael.
“Yes,”
he said and jumped on the back with her.
“The houseboat is just a few miles out.
You’ll need a life vest.”
Michael climbed back into the boat, took one from the cabin, and then climbed back on with the girl.
“Michael, where the hell are you going?”
He said nothing and looked at me with disgust.
She pulled the jet ski around, causing rippling waves as the exhaust from the jet ski sprayed in my face.
When I opened my eyes, I watched the two of them disappear under the sunset—the sunset I wanted to watch together—to a houseboat somewhere in the distance.
I sat back down on the pier…and cried.
The sun had long set, and the water stilled like glass.
Somewhere out there was my husband on a houseboat with another woman.
This fight had to be the last straw because I wouldn’t make it.
I had a baby coming any day, and I knew Michael would never change, no matter what I did.
I was going to file for divorce. And what made it worse—it’s what Michael would want. The only thing that would make him truly happy.
I continued crying inside, curled up on the window seat while watching the moon reflect across the lake.
I considered going home.
He would need to find his way home when and if Michael returned.
Which would constitute me being, once again, a bitch.
I couldn’t justify why my broken heart and shed tears made me a bitch. But that’s what my actions had warranted. I was nothing but a bitch, according to Michael.
I thought I had shed the last tear when I got up, packed the car, and left around midnight.
However, five miles down the road, I pulled over when I could no longer see.
The dam broke, and I lay, crying hysterically, over the steering wheel.
I had failed.
And now, my only choice was to move back home with my parents and have my baby.
I had convinced them that Michael and I were happy and things had all worked out.
Now, they, too, would see the charade.
I wiped my eyes and drove back to the house I grew up in—where my daughter would be raised now.
The door was unlocked when I quietly walked in and padded upstairs.
Time had only shortly passed, but it felt like years when I stepped inside my childhood room.
With its posters and school memorabilia, it still looked like a teenage girl who lived here.
I wished to be a teenager again and do everything right this time.
I would never let myself fall in love with Michael.
. . . . .
A week had passed, and I still hadn’t filed for divorce.
I told my parents we just needed a break.
Mom seemed to understand.
Dad, as usual, rolled his eyes and said, ‘If you want to dance, you must pay the fiddler.’
Tammy and I visited the mall several times, but it was different.
Instead of shopping for shoes or purses, we picked out a breast pump.
I was now three days overdue and hadn’t heard a thing from Michael.
I wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t care or was afraid to face my parents.
It was both. Though I told myself I wanted to divorce Michael, each day, I feared having divorce papers served to me. Mom would keep her silence as to what I was going to do. But Dad would throw his opinion whenever he could.
“What are you waiting for? Either get divorced or don’t.
Decide.
You wanted to be an adult.
You can’t go back to being a kid.
It doesn’t work that way.”
“Dad, I’m not thinking that…”
“That’s the problem.
You don’t think.”
“Dad…I’ve been trying to make it work with Michael,”
I said, my voice strangled on the edge of crying.
“That’s another thing a man doesn’t want when he comes home.
Fighting.”
“I don’t mean fighting, fighting. I mean…”
It was useless.
My dad would always be old-school to this and never understand how lucky he had it.
“What makes it so hard for him? He carries on as he always did.
Yet, I’m the one making his life hard? He’s not exactly making my life a picnic.
If anything, I’ve made life easier for him. He no longer has to feed himself, clean his home, shop for groceries, or write the checks for the bills. Deal with the cable guy when he can’t get the ballgame he wants. Buy new underwear when his have holes. I pick up his suits at the cleaners, and I do everything. I gave the man more time to fly all over the country and party with his friends, whom he calls business associates.”
“That’s your job,”
Dad said, and it only made me more furious.
He hated Michael, yet he had defended him over his daughter? “How do you expect him to get promoted and climb the ladder?”
“You just don’t get it, do you?”
He laughed, and it only made me appear childish in his eyes.
Life was real now, and I wasn’t ready to handle it.
“Well, he was doing just fine before I came along.
It would just be nice to be loved and appreciated. I…”
A sharp pain tore through me, and I buckled over. “Aww!”
Mom rushed to my side.
“Jill, are you okay? Arthur, don’t be upsetting her,” she said.
“Aww.
It hurts Mom.
I think I’m in labor.”
“Oh, dear.
Arthur, get the car ready.
Is this your first pain, honey?”
“Yes.
Mom…I’m scared.
How bad will it be?”
She helped me to a chair as Dad went to get the car.
“Honey, this will be the least painful of becoming a parent.
Trust me.”
Another pain shot through me, and I couldn’t imagine anything worse—had all the things Scott and I had done growing up become more painful than this?
“Come on, let’s go,”
Dad said, popping his head in the front door.
“She okay?”
“Yes, Arthur.
She’ll be fine.”
“Mom…I’m scared.
Don’t leave me.”
“Baby, I’ll be there.
Come on, let’s go have this baby,”
she said and helped me to the car.
It was real.
The real life of Michael and me, being married and having a baby, felt nothing like the fantasies I had only nine months ago.
This real-life of Michael and me was broken and painful.
We weren’t together, and I no longer felt special in anyone’s eyes.
I was just another knocked-up teen about to have a baby—alone.
“Tammy,”
I cried out through another pain.
“She has to be there.
She’s…aww…she’s my coach.”
“All right.
I’m sure we have time to stop and pick Tammy up.”
“Oh, hell, we do,”
Dad spat at Mom.
“She’s not having that baby in this car.”
“Arthur, it’s her first.
It will be some time.”
“What? No.
I want it over with now!” I yelled.
“There you go, scaring the poor girl,” Dad said.
“You two, stop!”
I couldn’t take their bickering.
I just wanted the pain to go away.
I wanted Tammy with me, and I wanted Michael.
I wanted him to be there when our daughter was born.
But I didn’t mention his name. I was afraid Mom and Dad would start another fight, and all I wanted was some peace—somewhere.
Dad had us to the hospital in record time, and Tammy and I were now in the delivery room.
Mom couldn’t believe I was already ten centimeters dilated.
As they told us in Lamaze class, the pains never came and went.
My labor pains came and never let up.
It was one big hurt, and I swore she would be an only child.
“Okay, Jill.
It’s time to push,”
the nurse told me, and Tammy held my back as I bared down. “Aww!”
“Breathe now, Jill. Breathe,”
Tammy said.
“Screw that breathing shit.
Just get this baby out. NOW!”
“Push.
Push, push, push, push, push, push,”
the doctor said as his fingers pulled down on my opening.
“Here she is.”
Not a second later, my baby girl’s cries came wailing out, and I never heard a more beautiful sound.
They handed her to me, and she was pink and perfect…and mine.
Everything I went through with Michael came down to this moment.
She was meant to be here.
She was meant to be mine. And…she was meant to be Michael’s.
“Oh, Jill.
Look at her,”
Tammy awed, and we were both crying.
“I know.
Oh, my God.
I’m shaking.
I can’t stop.”
“That’s normal,”
Tammy said.
“Remember? They said that would happen due to the hormones.”
Mom and Dad came in soon after, and whatever occurred moments before was now forgotten with this perfect baby.
There was no way I could ever look at her and see her as a mistake.
Mistakes didn’t look this perfect.
Mistakes didn’t feel this wonderful.
And it was as my mother had said. Giving birth to her would be the easiest thing about her. Because I realized I had created something that could destroy me—because I loved her so much.
I had survived her birth, and all I could think about was how I could ever survive if I lost her.
Or to see her in pain or heartbroken.
I would never let her know what it felt like all those months I carried her, as I knew her father never wanted us…this.
She would be enough.
I was exhausted and had no idea how much time had passed.
Mom kissed me on the forehead and told me how beautiful Monica was.
Dad even said the same and called me pumpkin before they both left.
Tammy stood beside the bed, holding Monica when the door opened.
Michael.
She looked at me and then the baby.
Michael looked…sunken.
His face was unshaven, his eyes were lifeless, and he looked as if he lost weight. He was holding flowers, balloons, and a pink bear.
Tammy handed me the baby and said, “Call me when you’re ready to be released.
You can stay with me if you want.”
“Okay.
Thanks, Tammy.”
She kissed Monica’s little head and touched my hand.
Her eyes raised in an expression that Michael and I should talk.
She turned and gave Michael a quiet hello before leaving the room.
“What are you doing here, Michael?”
“Scott said you had the baby.
Wow, can I see her?”
His eyes went to the bundle in my arms and then back to me.
There was a sad reserve in them.
Almost like the night, I told him she was a girl.
“When did you see Scott?”
“April…”
“Shut up, Michael.
I don’t want to hear about you and April.”
I looked away and began fussing with Monica’s blanket.
“No, Jill.
I wasn’t with April.
I ran into her at the grocery store.
She congratulated me.
Jen and Scott told her your parents brought you in. Why didn’t you call me?”
“Are you serious? You’ve had a week to call me.
Why didn’t you?”
“I wanted to.
I did.
You know how it is with your parents.
I’ve been here for almost three hours.
In the parking lot—I was waiting for your parents to leave. I swear, Jill. After April told me, I bought you and the baby these,”
he says, setting the balloons and flowers on a table.
“Here, I hope she likes it,”
he says, setting the pink bear beside Monica.
“Can I hold her?”
Why’s he doing this? I was ready to end this.
I don’t know if I can remain strong enough now.
I will need my strength to raise this baby.
“Michael…”
“Please?”
Against my better judgment, I handed her up to him.
He took her in his arms like she was precious glass.
“Oh, God.
She’s so tiny.”
He moved with small bounces and looked at her.
“How was it? Is everything okay? Is she healthy?”
“Yes, Michael; she’s healthy.
Everything went okay…”
“I wanted to be here.
I promise…I did.”
“I don’t believe you.
What about that girl you left with on the jet ski?”
“Nothing happened, Jill.
I promise.
It was just a party boat.
Once we got there…”
“What? What happened, Michael?”
“Nothing.
It was just a bunch of people partying on a boat.
I swear.
Nothing happened with her.”
“How’d you get back then?”
“Ah…I woke up, not remembering much.
And someone brought me back to the house.”
“Give me my daughter back.
I don’t believe you, nor do I want to hear it.”
“Please, Jill.
Hear me out.
I felt like shit for what I did.
I was going to make it up to you.
I promise.”
“You had a week to call me.
You didn’t.
So, I still don’t believe you.”
My hands reached for my daughter.
He looked at her and then began to cry.
I was confused and wasn’t sure how to process it.
Be mad? Be sad? Be Strong? I couldn’t let him get my hopes up again.
I couldn’t fall in love with only the fantasy again.
“Jill,”
he said, and his voice cracked as he cried.
“I’m going to get it right this time.
Believe me.”
“Michael,”
I said and looked away.
My throat ached from the large lump forming.
“I can’t keep going on like this.
It’s not fair to me and now to her.”
“I know.
It’s going to be so different.
I will make you happy—I promise.”
“But, Michael…do you love me?”
I was mad now for asking.
Because I knew he didn’t.
And now, I was going to hear the truth.
“I know I don’t show it.
But…I do, Jill.”
I waited for more.
I expected, ‘Yes, I love you, Jill,’ but it only came as a, ‘I do.’ Would that be enough? He did love me, but couldn’t say the words? He was here.
That alone was unexpected.
“What do you want, Michael?”
“Don’t go back to your parents or move in with Tammy.
Come home, Jill.
I want you and the baby home with me.”
My heart was breaking.
Michael wanted us home, but I was still afraid.
I was crying, and the baby blues had already set in.
I didn’t need this on top of it.
“Michael…I…”
“I’ve been thinking.
The apartment is too small.
Let’s buy a house.
A house to start our family.
A house with a backyard and trees.”
All through his words, my tears never stopped.
It was everything I’d ever wanted to hear from him.
But would it last? Was he willing to try this time? “Please, Jill.
You won’t regret it—I promise.”
He bent down and kissed my lips, still with Monica in his arms.
“She’s beautiful.
Thank you for giving me such a beautiful daughter.”
I cried harder.
Michael’s beautiful words ached deep inside me.
It was as if my lungs were coming up for air, and I was breathing life again.
The nightmare was over, and a new life was there, waiting for me.
I just had to take it and believe him. It wasn’t just about me anymore, and I was torn between giving my daughter a family with a mother and father or raising her on my own and never living in fear of what if.
And that’s the thing about fear and what-ifs—no matter what side of the coin you choose, fear and what-ifs exist on both sides.