25. Lily
25
LILY
I rubbed my eyes and stared at Ethan who looked calm, not angry the way I expected. I never heard him come in, and I wondered how long he'd been sitting here watching me sleep. My phone, lying on the mattress by Noah who was fast asleep, was dead. I didn't know what time it was or how long I had been sleeping. My neck hurt, and even though I had been so eager to speak with him and find out how angry he was with me, I suddenly didn't want him in the room.
I felt self-conscious and nervous. I was afraid there would be shouting that would wake Noah, or that I would break down crying and when Noah woke up, he would be scared or uneasy with that. Add to that my fears of Ethan taking Noah away from me, and I was a bundle of nerves and wished Mom and Dad were here to be a shield between me and Ethan.
"Can we talk?" he asked, and I froze.
All of the questions I had earlier this evening were suddenly just out of reach. The things that had been on the tip of my tongue were gone. I couldn’t conjure up a single thought other than the gripping fear of losing my little boy and the man I loved all in the same hard conversation. I dug deep and reached for any answer other than "yes", but instead of fight or flight, I found myself like a deer in headlights wishing the car would just hit me and put me out of my misery.
"Lily, I'm sorry."
Ethan's apology wasn't at all what I expected. I thought he'd demand the truth and question me with a thousand things—where I was, how I never told him, what I thought I was going to do for the rest of Noah's life. The words were almost painful because I assumed he was angry with me and would shout or judge me harshly for my mistake. Why was he apologizing to me? I was the one who hurt him this time.
"What?" I mumbled, and then I rubbed my eyes. It had been a long day. For all I knew, this was just a horrible dream and I would wake up to find out what I actually feared happening was true.
"I said, I'm sorry." He looked over at Noah and sighed. Then he continued. "I guess I never really understood how much I hurt you five years ago." Ethan's shoulders dropped as he watched our son sleeping in the hospital bed that seemed to swallow his thin little body.
"I know I apologized for it before, but all of this" —he gestured with his hand— "just shows me how much pain you were in. I know you would never have kept our little boy a secret." He turned to look at me. "It must have destroyed you when I said those words."
My mind had replayed that sentence over and over in my head. When I finally came to terms with the fact that Ethan hadn’t called me a mistake but that he'd called our not telling HR early on in the relationship a mistake, it was too late. I was a mother with a very sick child alone in a strange city, and Ethan was for all intents and purposes a stranger to me again.
His hand reached for Noah's arm, and he rubbed his thumb up and down beside the IV port. I could see the pain and fear in his eyes. Pain because of what I'd put him through, and probably fear over how Noah would recover. Or maybe he was worried I wouldn't let him be around Noah, which couldn't be further from the truth. I wanted Noah to know Ethan. I just wasn't sure how to make that happen with the challenges we faced.
"Ethan, I…" I didn't know where to begin. Nothing I could say would give him back the four years he'd missed with his son. It felt useless saying anything, or even apologizing.
I watched him for a few minutes. He seemed torn, like he wanted to shout at me but knew better. Or maybe he wished I would yell at him, let off all the steam of five years of being alone, being pregnant without him, raising a very sick child who'd been through medical procedures and trauma. I didn't know how to read him anymore. I didn't know if I ever knew how to read him. If I had, maybe we wouldn't be in this situation at all.
"I'm angry with you, Lily." HIs calm statement made me feel ashamed. He had every right to be furious and lash out, but somehow, saying it calmly hurt worse. "You left Denver and you knew you were going to have my baby, but you said nothing. I can't blame you for being upset at me, but I’m hurt that you didn't say anything about Noah."
"Ethan, please, I?—"
"Let me finish, please," he said and he turned to look me in the eyes. I saw his emotion there, beneath the surface. He was upset and hurt, but he was controlling all of that in a masterful way. "I'm not angry you left without telling me or that you tried to do it on your own for so long. I believe something inside you knew you couldn’t do it alone, and that's why out of all the jobs in this country you could have taken, you chose to return to Denver. You wanted me to know."
My gut churned. Deep down, I knew he was right. I could have chosen to stay at Princeton Plainsboro. I could have taken a job in California, or one in Michigan. And while any of them made sense and I had rejected all of them ultimately because I wanted Noah near his Nana and Pop, the true reason I wanted to come home was because I knew I'd have to tell Ethan. Noah needed his father in his life.
"What I'm angry about is why you didn't tell me as soon as you saw me again. Why let me get so emotionally invested in you and dream of a future with the two of us when you had this secret?" His eyes searched me, and I had to look away.
This was the question I had asked myself a billion times in the past few months. Why had I hidden Noah? Not Noah the fetus in my womb, or Noah the toddler who was sick and needing medical care. But Noah, the four-year-old boy who was such a huge part of my life, who needed his father? The only answer was shame and fear.
"I came back, and I knew eventually, I'd bump into you. I never expected it to be my first day of work at the welcome dinner. I thought you'd still be at St. Anne's or maybe you'd have moved away…" I sniffled and realized I was crying. "You were so amazing, Ethan. I mean, I knew I had this secret and I wanted to tell you so badly, but you were so eager to reconnect and fix things. Every time I wanted to bring it up, we got interrupted by something. A few times, it was like you didn’t want to hear what I was going to say."
"I thought you were going to push me away." He frowned and hung his head. The wavy locks I used to run my fingers through were streaked with gray now.
"I thought you'd be angry with me—knew you would." I sighed and rubbed my face, hoping to relax, but until this conversation was over, I knew there would be no relief. "Then I rationalized that I had to wait until this episode with Noah was over. He will be so shocked to learn you're his father, and with the surgery and everything, I just want him to be okay."
"That's all I want too, Lily. Believe me."
I did believe him. I just didn't know how to handle this or how to move forward now. I was stuck in what could have been and not looking forward to what would be. It wasn’t like I could snap my fingers and make all my fears and insecurities go away, and I was sure Ethan had his own fears and insecurities too.
"We have a long road ahead of us," he said, and I was confused.
"What do you mean?"
He looked me in the eye and reached for my hand, which I allowed him to take. It felt awkward, like I was waiting to be let down. But I held his hand and his gaze as he continued. "I'm really hurt and angry, but I'm willing to work through all of this if you are. I had a long talk with my father tonight, and he clued me in on some wisdom I don't think I'd ever have come to on my own. At least not in a way that would have preserved the love we have for each other."
A nurse walked into the room, and I looked up at her. Ethan waved her off, and I suddenly felt overwhelmed. My eyes welled up with tears at his words. Work things out?
"You're going to make me angry a million more times in life. You're going to fail me and break my heart and let me down. You're going to hurt me and we're going to argue, because you're human and I'm a human and I'll do all those things to you." His hands were so gentle with mine, cradling them and bringing my fingers to his lips to kiss, one at a time.
I cried harder, tears of relief, tears of guilt and shame. Never did I expect this sort of reaction from him. Awestruck, all I could do was sob and let him cup my cheek with his free hand.
"Lilian Carter, I am in love with you and nothing you can say or do will ever stop that feeling. If being apart for five years never killed the dying embers, how could this? You might have kept it a secret for a while, but you gave me the best gift any man could ever have." Ethan blinked, and a tear rolled down his cheek. He held my gaze with such strength and passion in his eyes, I couldn't look away.
"Please forgive me, Ethan. You have no idea how long I've been torturing myself for this. Noah needs you. I need you…" My voice cracked several times, but I managed to get the sentence out. I didn't deserve his forgiveness, though he had mine. I knew now after all of this exactly what a scared and insecure heart would do to self-sabotage.
When he made the comment about my being a mistake, he was acting in self-preservation. He didn't mean it. I could see now how badly he regretted that and wished it had never happened. I felt the same way. I acted stupidly in my own self-interest at the time, and now I felt horrible for the choices I'd made.
"I forgive you, Lily, and I love you. And I never want us to have secrets again. I'm sorry if it takes me a while to loosen up and let go of this. I ask you to be patient with me for a while as I adjust to it all. I'm sorry if I have insecurities or if I mistrust you at times as I heal and try to sort through all the emotions I'm feeling, but I want you to know I’m fighting for us. Because I believe we have a future together, and while I don't know what it looks like yet, I want it. Know that I really, desperately want it."
Ethan leaned forward and kissed me lightly, and I let him. I kissed him back, finally feeling the weight lift off my chest. I never expected this to happen, though at times, I hoped against hope that it would. Here we were, weeping together with a desire to make things right instead of fighting and running away. There couldn't have been a better resolution to this entire situation, for us and for Noah.
"How will we tell him?" I asked, leaning my forehead on his. The thought hadn't even occurred to me yet, considering I feared the worst for the most part.
Ethan sucked in a breath and squeezed my hand before sitting back. "I think we start slowly. I'll be around more. If he asks, we'll tell him I'm your friend. He's little enough that he probably won't remember a lot of this, and given his fear of doctors, there's a good chance he'll remember almost nothing of these early years.
"We don't have to tell him it all right away. Let him figure it out for himself. I want him to call me Daddy, but we'll give him time to adjust." He turned to me with an abrupt need in his expression and said, "But I want you to know I will never take him from you, even if this doesn't work out between us for whatever reason. I could never do that to you."
Part of me felt guilty again, that Ethan had experienced the pain of having his son hidden from him. How horrible that must've felt for him. But they were together now.
"I love you, Ethan. I’m not sure I ever stopped. I tried to." I chuckled and wiped my face. "My God, did I try to hate you and be angry, but I just couldn't. You have always had my heart."
"Let's work it out, then. Okay?" He put his hand under my chin and kissed me again, and I threw my arms around his neck.
"Yes. I want that more than anything."
This conversation didn't go at all how I thought it might, and for that I was grateful. We had so much to talk about still and work through, but I believed we would make it. If the worst of it was past and we still wanted each other, there wasn't anything we couldn't get through.