Twenty-Three
Twenty-Three
OCTOBER 26, 2021
I tell Grant everything. How I went to the clinic but left pregnant. How I kept the money. I watch as his face pulls in a million directions, the emotions of this long-held secret seeming to break any restraint.
I should have told him, long before today. But at seventeen, I thought our love was stronger than our convictions. Grant proved me wrong. Maybe that’s why I lied to Dean for so long. I knew love required hiding your worst parts.
“One phone call, Tess. One letter. It would have changed everything,” Grant says.
“Would it?” I ask. “I took the money, Grant. I knew your father was a monster. I left you with him.” I take a deep breath as I say the words that I should have said then. “I’m sorry.”
“I was going to come for you,” Grant says. “Then he told me about the payment. I was so angry that another person I loved could be bought by him. I didn’t want his control anymore.”
“I thought you wanted to control me. I thought you stopped loving me because I didn’t do what you wanted.”
“No, Tess. That was never it. I never stopped loving you. I was devastated by you.”
I swallow my nerves, unaware that it was possible to feel more guilty.
“Tess, tell me what happened next,” Grant pleads. “What happened to the baby?”
“I found a family. A good family,” I explain with detachment. “I remember the wife’s name was Iris. I thought your mother would like that.”
Grant is patient as I continue. “I wanted it to be a closed adoption. I didn’t want to have any contact with the family before or after the birth.”
“You don’t even know their last names?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I got their first names, their jobs, how long they were married, but nothing more. I knew I needed it to be like that. It would be too hard otherwise.”
“But now, Tess? Do you still feel that way?”
“I can’t answer that, Grant. You have no idea how difficult it was to make these decisions as a kid.”
“We have a child somewhere, Tess. There has to be a way to find the family. He’s an adult now. Maybe he wants to find us.”
“Grant.” I whisper his name like a warning.
“I know you had to do this all alone, but you aren’t alone now. I want to know my firstborn son.”
I shake my head.
“I bet he has your dark eyes,” Grant says. “And maybe my light hair. He’s probably stubborn because he gets that from both of us. What if he’s in medical school? Or maybe he’s an architect.”
“Stop,” I plead.
“I know this was never a real person to you. It was something you could end or give away. But to me, this is my child and I want to know him.” Grant doesn’t even try to hide the judgment in his voice.
“That is unbelievably unfair, Grant. Fuck you.”
“I have a vote in this situation. I want to know my son.”
“You think this wasn’t a real person to me? You think I’m some kind of monster? He’s real to me,” I say. “He was real when I was deciding to have the abortion. It was an impossibly difficult decision. I don’t know if I made the right choice. But just because I decided against the abortion doesn’t mean it was because I had some sudden realization that it was a real person growing inside me. I always knew that. I always knew that he could become a doctor, or have my brown eyes, or infuriate me the way you do. That’s what made that choice so hard. Your lack of support made it unbearable.”
Grant softens and I wonder if maybe he is beginning to understand. “I know,” he says. “There are things I’m sorry about too.”
“I grew a baby inside of me for months. I felt it move and I wondered about its life. I made the best choice I could think of at seventeen. That was to give this baby a fresh start somewhere else. Without our selfish bullshit screwing up his life.” My voice is full of conviction, absent a single shake.
“We would have been good parents,” Grant tries to justify.
“No, we wouldn’t,” I reply too quickly. “We didn’t support each other. That’s not love.”
“I loved you, Tess.” Grant reaches for my hand, trying to connect us amid so much disagreement. But I turn my back to him.
“Stop, Grant. You need to hear the whole story.”
“The whole story? What else happened?”
I try to find the words to explain the worst day of my life. I’m quiet for too long, but Grant doesn’t make me rush. He waits, patient to hear about this darkness.
“I was almost seven months along,” I say. “My mother was managing the bakery by then. She was exhausted all the time. We both were. She’d leave at four in the morning, so when I woke up that day, I was by myself.”
I start shaking, the pain of reliving this time taking over my body. I wrap my arms around my waist as my eyes drift across the room.
“I was in so much pain. My body bent in half when I felt this warm sensation. At first, I was embarrassed. I thought I’d peed my pants.” I half-laugh as I say, “There are so many disgusting things about pregnancy that no one talks about.”
When I start speaking again, all humor is erased. “I remember reaching into my underwear and pulling my hand out. It was covered in sticky, red blood. The cramps got worse and worse, sucking the air out of my lungs with each wave. I stood up and a gush of blood streamed out. My pajamas were soaked.”
“I didn’t have a car,” I explain. “I didn’t have a cell phone. The last thing I remember was thinking I’d try to knock on the neighbor’s door. I never made it out of our apartment. My mother found me unconscious when she got back from work.”
Grant’s eyes are focused on mine. I don’t know him well enough anymore to decipher the emotions on his face.
I continue. “I remember waking briefly on the way to the hospital. There was so much blood everywhere. They couldn’t stop the bleeding.”
Grant seems afraid to ask, but he does it anyway. “What happened, Tess?”
“They performed an emergency C-section and took him away. I was hemorrhaging. The bleeding wouldn’t stop.” My voice is flat, almost as if I’m relaying a news bulletin instead of the most terrifying day of my life. “I don’t remember much. It’s like this highlight reel of terror. I went in and out of consciousness. I woke up the next day and my mom was there. But the baby was gone.”
“They took him while you were in surgery?” Grant asks, confused.
“No, Grant.” My eyes well over with tears as he finally seems to understand. I shake out the painful words anyway. “The baby died.”
Grant looks away. He may not have known about the baby before today, but the pain he feels at hearing about his death is evident. Finally, Grant asks, “And you? Were you okay?”
“No,” I reply. “I’ve never been okay. Not since the day I left this room.”
“I should have listened to you,” Grant says. “I should have at least checked on you. If I had been there, everything would have been different.” Grant’s arms wrap around my shoulders and I find myself collapsing into his chest.
“Even if you had stayed, he still would have died,” I say. “You would have given up everything for nothing. It’s better this way. Your life is better.”
Grant shakes his head. “I should have been there with you. If I’d been there, maybe he would have lived.”
I look away. “I was never meant to be a mother. We were never meant to be a family.” I gesture to the space between us and I feel the air pushing us apart. “It’s different for you. You wanted to be a father. You get to have a good family now. We would have been a mess.”
Grant swallows as he says, “I could be a good father, but I’m not. I spend too much time away from the twins. I rely on Cecilia for too many things. Maybe, with us, it would have been different.”
“No,” I say, clear in my statement.
“I think you would have been a pretty great mother.” Grant says it like a compliment, which makes me slow my words because he clearly doesn’t understand my feelings.
“I’m not a lesser person or a lesser woman because I recognize that I don’t have the capacity to be a mother. My life is complete without children. I don’t need judgment for feeling that way. I don’t need your pity.”
“I don’t pity you,” Grant says quickly. “It feels like everything I say is wrong. I hate that you went through so much alone.”
“I wasn’t alone,” I say, softening. “My mother was there. The couple that I never wanted to meet came to visit me at the hospital. They brought flowers, a bouquet of goldenrod in January because on my intake form for the agency I said they were my favorite.”
“They were being kind,” Grant says.
“I didn’t deserve their kindness. I couldn’t keep their baby alive,” I say, my voice cracking.
“Tess, don’t do that to yourself,” Grant says softly.
“I’ve made peace with my life,” I say, recovering. “Even the rest of that horrible day.”
Grant looks into my eyes and squeezes my hand. “Tess, what else happened?”
“In order to stop the bleeding, the doctors had to perform a hysterectomy.” I stumble over the last word but recover with a deep inhale that I hold inside unnaturally long.
I’ve never spoken publicly about the reason why I don’t have children. It’s a question I’m asked frequently and my answer is always some variation of the same: “Family planning is a private, personal decision. I’m happy that you don’t ask the male candidates about their decisions and I wish you’d extend the same courtesy to me.” I usually get an embarrassed laugh and a quick topic change.
Most people assume I’m focused on my career. They don’t know that I never had a choice.
I think about how Dean and I talked in circles for years. I told him my career mattered. I told him I didn’t want to be a mother. But he kept pushing. He wanted to understand and that only made me more defensive. My beliefs shouldn’t require justifications. But really, I didn’t want to think about the shame and regret that swirled around so much loss at such a young age—my baby, my uterus, my future. And every time Dean asked about a family, I masked the pain I felt inside with frustration that I needed to explain myself again.
When Dean and I first started sleeping together, he asked about my period. I remember uttering a response about how my periods were always irregular. It was a partial truth, and all the explanation he needed. Because it never came up again. After all our years of marriage, he never once wondered about the absence of tampons in the house or any sex scheduling around cycles. And every time he asked about a baby, I never answered with the truth because I was angry. I let that anger build and it rightfully pushed away the husband I loved.
As my breath releases, I say, “I shouldn’t be able to have kids. It’s the way it was supposed to work out.” Tears stream down my cheeks.
Grant cups my face and wipes them away. “No, Tess. None of this worked out the way it was supposed to. I should have called.”
“You should have called,” I repeat, nodding.
“Is it too late?” Grant asks.
“Too late for what?”
“To admit I made a mistake?”
I begin to shake my head, but Grant stops me, reaching for my hand and winding his fingers around mine. “We’ve both made too many mistakes, Grant.”
He squeezes my hand. “I shouldn’t have left you, Tess. I may not have agreed with your choice, but I should have fought for our relationship. I should have showed you how much I loved you.”
“It’s too late,” I say, refusing to look in his eyes. I wonder if he can tell I’m lying.
“If it’s too late, then I won’t tell you that being with you feels like home.” Grant holds me tighter, words I’ve waited decades to hear washing over me. “There’s never been a place, not this house, or any house I’ve ever lived in, that feels truer or safer than sitting next to you,” he says. “I’ve spent my life convincing myself that I’m fine without you. I’ve lied to myself and said what we had wasn’t real. No one meets the love of their life at eighteen.”
I stare at the floor as I say, “We are such different people, Grant. We’ve always been different, but those differences have grown since we’ve been apart.”
“At the first debate, you started reciting statistics about juvenile detention centers because you were nervous. You always recite facts to calm your nerves. You did the same thing when you started rambling about sandwiches the first day we met.”
I look at Grant and the corners of my mouth rise into a slight smile.
“There might be some differences”—he rakes his hand through his graying hair—“but we are the same people.”
Our eyes connect. One of Grant’s arms wraps around my waist, pulling our bodies together. His other hand moves upward, eventually cradling the back of my head as his fingers weave into my hair. He says the words I’ve waited decades to hear. “I love you, Tess. I’ve always loved you.”
He pulls my face toward his. Our lips melt into each other’s and all of a sudden, our hands are moving everywhere, searching, frantic to connect with skin. Our hands follow the paths they created so many years ago, the muscle memory of intimacy.
His tongue dives into my mouth and I moan briefly. My arms wrap around his neck and my voice cracks slightly as I say, “Grant, we lost so much.”
“We make up for it now,” he says.
I lean in to his hard body, feeling our hearts beat against each other. There’s an added confidence to his motions that makes me swallow harder. It feels like a dream being with Grant. One I don’t want to end. My mind and body are consumed with this man I’ve loved for so long, making it hard to think of anything else, especially not the people outside these walls who we’ve destroyed.
I feel his fingers on the zipper of my dress. It would be so easy to let him continue. To let our bodies reconnect after decades apart. But somehow, I pull back and stop.
His hands pause and his eyes flutter closed. When they open, they meet mine and he smiles.
Our faces are inches apart as I say, “I don’t want to feel guilt when it comes to you. We’ve hurt people who loved us, Grant. They deserve better.” I take a step back as I say, “One of us is going to be governor next week. We have to slow down.”
“Slow? We’ve waited twenty-five years. No person, no campaign, has ever mattered more than you, Tess.”
I’m not sure if I agree, but I nod anyway.