74. Kendall
Kendall
We’re sitting in front of Magdalena for what is presumably our last couples therapy session. Or at least our last one for a while. She regards us for a few moments quietly.
“You two have done great work. I think you’ve made a ton of progress and some amazing breakthroughs. I think after today, I’d be comfortable seeing you both on an as needed basis if that’s okay with you?”
“Sure,” Kai says while I nod in agreement.
But it can’t be that easy, can it? You just sit on a couch and blab to a stranger about your problems and force yourself to be honest with your partner?
And suddenly everything is resolved, all the hurt I’ve caused is magically fixed?
But I know it’s not that simple. That I’m painting what we’ve been through, everything we’ve endured to get to where we are now in broad strokes.
We’ve done the challenging, heartbreaking work both inside and outside this office to make ourselves whole again.
To make sure this relationship lasted this time.
“Is there anything else you guys wanted to discuss today? Any issues that have come up or things you’re concerned about?” she wonders.
“There is something I’ve been worried about,” Kai admits hesitantly.
“Okay let’s talk about it,” Magdalena acknowledges.
“We’ve talked a lot about our breakup and how it affected us.
But I don’t think you’ve ever really explained why you left,” he comments, glancing at me.
Sometimes I want to scream: I gave you options.
I gave you freedom. I sacrificed my dreams so you didn’t have to.
But it’s no use trying to rewrite the past, trying to make him understand I thought I was doing what was best for him.
And even if that’s what I convinced myself I was doing at the time, I know better now.
And he deserves the truth, the whole truth.
“I mean you said it was because you were scared. Because you wanted me to have my career. But I know you and I know us and I know that’s not the only reason. I think there’s something you don’t want to tell me. And whatever it is, I want you to know we’ll figure it out.”
Shit. He knows and it occurs to me that Kai is so strikingly perceptive and intuitive that he has probably known this entire time. He was just giving me the space I needed to process my own thoughts and feelings.
“I left for a lot of reasons but you’re right, there’s things I haven’t told you, reasons I haven’t completely shared with you.” I pause, trying to gather my thoughts. “I thought we would be too much and not enough for you at the same time,” I admit.
“Too much meaning?” Magdalena asks.
“A newborn right at the start of his career. Trying to juggle work and home and having a family when we were still so young. It would have been really overwhelming.”
“Okay and when you say not enough, you mean?” She’s staring at me expectantly, urging me to go deeper and I realize I want to. I need to get this—all of it—off my chest.
“I was his high school sweetheart. His neighbor growing up. And I knew he loved me—loves me,” I amend. “I just didn’t know if that was enough. Some part of me has always felt like I didn’t deserve him. I was scared that one day he’d wake up and realize he could do better.”
“Ken, you don’t really think that, do you? That you aren’t enough for me?” he asks, shocked and clearly hurt.
“No, not anymore. But I did think that for a while.”
“Kendall,” Magdalena cuts in “You were adopted, right?”
“Yes.”
“And so this fear of not being enough. These insecurities, I would guess a fear of abandonment… Do you think you’ve had these feelings for a long time? Before you started dating Kai?”
“Yeah. I always felt like that about my family. My biological parents. If I’d been enough, wouldn't they have kept me?” I swallow thickly, tears burning my eyes.
“Why couldn’t they love me enough?” Even if no one had the answers and even if they didn’t make sense, I needed to voice these questions.
Because keeping them inside me for all these years hasn’t done me any good.
That kind of rejection, that kind of pain and loneliness.
It never leaves you. It lives in your body and becomes a growing, feeding organism.
Kai turns to me now, resolve in his eyes and devotion in his heart.
I know that look. He’s gearing up to say something that would redefine me, something that would stay with me.
Because that’s just what he does. He loves me and he protects me and he reassures me.
But perhaps more importantly, he knows exactly how I need to be loved.
“Maybe they did love you so much. But maybe they couldn’t love you the way you needed them to.
Maybe they wanted a better life for you than the one you might have had with them.
Who knows. But what matters is that your family chose you.
I chose you, and I’m going to keep choosing you for as long as you’ll let me.
The love that the people in your life have for you is immeasurable.
It was never a question of you not being enough—because to your moms, to Akio, to me, especially, you are everything. ”
He reforms me somehow, reshapes me, makes me whole in places I didn’t even know were fractured. I smile at him. It’s warm and gracious, my cheeks streaked with tears. Thank you thank you thank you my heart sings.
But I have to know, everything. I have to keep going even if it hurts us.
“Did you want him, a baby back then?” I blurt out quickly, before I lose the nerve. He stares at me for a moment, contemplating. I need to hear him say the words.
“Yes, I wanted him. I’ve always wanted kids, you knew that. And I always wanted them with you.”
“But I need to know specifically, did you want this baby, our baby at the height of your career?” Why I need to know his answer, feel the need to keep hurting myself I’ll never understand.
“Yes.” He’s certain. Steadfast. Unwavering.
He always had been. His eyes never stray from mine.
It feels like a thousand knives piercing my chest, a vice around my heart.
A physical blow to my stomach would have hurt far less.
Because I realize now Kai loved hockey with every fiber of his being, but he loved me and Akio more.
How could I have gotten things so wrong?
“Did you?” he asks, his eyes seeing more than I’m willing to say.
Did I? Have I ever been as certain about anything as Kai had been about every decision he has ever made?
“Honestly. I don’t know. But I couldn’t survive grieving the loss of him. That much I knew.”
It’s hard to say. As soon as I held Akio, I was positive.
I would never love another thing on earth the way I love him.
But before…the unknown, the waiting, the anticipating.
The time between conceiving him and accepting him as a real thing, as my son.
That time is so foggy to me. It’s hard to untangle from everything else.
Wrapped up in fear and anxiety. All those overwhelming thoughts threaten to take over again.
“What else? Is there more you need to say, Kendall? Things you’ve been holding on to that you might want to release?” Magdalena knows we’re approaching a breakthrough. I can feel it like a chord pulled taut in the room, ready to snap with one revelation.
This is it. It’s now or never.
“Before I left for North Carolina, your dad came to see me. He knew about the baby somehow—"
“What are you talking about?” Kai interjects. “There’s no way my dad could have known about this, Kendall. He would have told me.”
“Well, he did and he asked me not to tell you,” I respond.
“He asked you not to tell me what? What is going on?” he asks, his panicked voice rising.
My head is in my hands now, tears streaming down my face.
I stand up abruptly and start pacing the room.
I feel hot, too hot, like my body is on fire and I’m breathing through a straw.
There isn’t enough air getting to my lungs.
I’m on the verge of hyperventilating and Magdalena and Kai are staring at me with blatant concern and confusion, waiting for me to say something.
“Ken, what’s going on? You’re scaring me.” A tsunami of shame, overwhelming guilt, and panic starts to rage wildly in my chest. I inhale deeply and blow out a stuttered breath. I say it with my back to him and my eyes closed. Because it’s the only way I can say it. The only way that feels safe.
“Your dad offered me money to have an abortion. He told me even if I decided to have the baby, to keep the money and leave you out of it.”
I turn back around to face them, and Magdalena’s face has gone stark white.
“No,” Kai looks at me incredulously. He’s shaking his head, adamant that this did not happen.
“Kai, I’m telling you the truth. And I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.
But I didn’t know how to tell you. I knew your reaction wasn’t going to be good.
” He’s sitting on the couch looking straight ahead, not making eye contact with either of us.
Shock. He is in shock. His hand is covering his mouth while he shakes his head.
“No, no. He wouldn’t do this. I mean, I know it’s my dad and he’s not the warmest guy.
But he wouldn’t do this. He loves me.” He’s staring at me now, awaiting confirmation.
I think his dad did care about him in his own selfish, complicated way.
I also know, all too well, that his father had done this terrible thing and that it could potentially destroy his relationship with Kai.
Both things could be true and they aren’t mutually exclusive.
He looks younger now, terrified. Like the scared, angry teenage version of himself he had worked so long and so hard to banish.
Like this information could break him. I don’t want to break him and I don’t want to lose him. Not when I just got him back.
“Perhaps we should all take a moment to just breathe, process what Kendall has shared,” Magdalena suggests. For a second, I forgot she was even in the room. I sit back down on the couch, but Kai won’t look at me and I don’t blame him.
“I want both of you to take some slow deep breaths. In your nose and out your mouth, let’s try and ground ourselves,” she instructs.
I do what she asks and so does Kai reluctantly.
Inhaling deeply for four counts, holding my breath for seven counts, and exhaling forcefully for eight.
Just like we’ve practiced. “Now Kendall, why don’t you explain from the beginning what happened with Kai’s father.
Let’s give Kai the opportunity to ask questions and clarify things. ”
I rub my hands together and start picking at my nails while I recount one of the most painful days of my life.
“Kai and I had been arguing about my clinic appointment, for the abortion.
He wanted to drive me and I wanted to go alone.
His dad showed up later that day before the appointment. He said he knew about the baby—"
“Wait, how could he have known? I didn’t tell him and I’m positive my mom doesn’t know. She would have told me,” he cuts in.
“I’m not sure, maybe he saw your phone or heard us talking. I have no idea. But he knew somehow. And he didn’t want you to know that he came, that he knew about the baby. He said if I loved you, I wouldn’t destroy your future or your career. He wrote me a check for 10,000 dollars, Kai.”
He’s looking at me, tears brimming his eyes. “And what did you do? What did you say to him?” he demands.
“I screamed at him to get out of my apartment. I told him I would figure it out without his money and he left. I never heard from him again. And I moved to North Carolina a week later.”
“I just can’t believe he would do something like this,” he whispers while rubbing the back of his neck with his hand.
“Are you saying I’m lying? That I made up this entire story? Why would I do that?” I ask defensively.
“No, I just... I don’t understand why he would do this. I can’t make it make sense.”
“It doesn’t have to make sense for it to be true,” I say quietly. “I’m sorry that you’re finding out like this and that it took me so long to tell you.”
“It wasn’t your secret to tell,” Kai observes.
“It wasn’t exactly mine to keep either and I should have told you sooner. I didn’t know how.”
“Perhaps some of these thoughts and questions should be directed at your dad when you are ready to have that conversation, Kai. His reasons for doing things and motivations might provide some insight,” Magdalena says.
“Okay,” he replies. Although I know from experience and the way his jaw tightens, the muscle ticking, that this won’t be a calm discussion. This will be confrontational, ugly, possibly violent. I shudder at the thought.
What have I done?