41. Kendall
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Kendall
NOW
“Where’s the sunblock?”
“It should be in the side pocket,” I tell James, pointing to the side of the tote bag he’s rummaging through. He dips into the hidden pouch to his right and retracts his hand with the plastic orange tube gripped in his fist. He grins at it, victorious.
“Sophia,” he calls, getting her attention after a wayward kite claimed it for a whole thirty seconds. “Come on. You need to put some on before you play.”
“Daddy! Can I fly a kite?” She juts her index finger toward the clouds, a gust of wind lifting said kite in a long swoop before it glides across the air once more.
“Yeah,” he answers, his laser focus on applying the lotion on her face. “After we get the lotion on you.”
“Don’t get it in my eye!” she warns. Which is exactly what he did two summers ago, and she screamed claiming her eyes were on fire.
After several attempts to rinse her eyes and tamp down a meltdown, the tears came to a stop with a lollipop in her hand.
It was a mistake she’s never let her remorseful dad forget even to this day.
“I won’t,” he assures. He looks up at me with an eye roll, and I have to purse my lips to keep the laughter from escaping my lips. He works the lotion through the creases from her scrunched-up scowl before announcing, “Okay. All done.”
Just as James finishes and wipes at the greasy remnants into his palms, we’re approached by the first of many of his coworkers we’re going to have to make small talk with today.
“Hi, Diane,” James says as a middle-aged woman with shoulder-length curly black hair approaches us. She has a toddler perched on her hip and another child around Sophia’s age latched onto her free hand.
“Hi, James,” she responds. She turns to me with a smile, and though she doesn’t have a free hand to extend in my direction, she greets me cordially. “It’s Kendall, right?”
“Yes. Hi.” I remember meeting her once or twice at the company’s Christmas party. Though all we’ve exchanged in the past are a few hellos, I know she’s someone who works fairly closely with James. “How are you?”
“Good,” she answers with an exasperated sigh, showing she’s not actually as “good” as she says she is.
She nods at her full hands and adds, “Just counting the minutes until my husband gets here.” Even though she appears flustered and at the tail end of her patience, there’s a glittering sparkle in her eyes.
One I’m assuming comes with the joys of motherhood, no matter the challenges it brings.
I wonder if I have that sparkle. I wonder if I ever even had it.
If I ever gave myself a chance to bask in all that being Sophia’s mom has to offer without feeling guilty or ashamed.
“Is Malik coming later?” James asks.
Diane nods. “We had a little fridge emergency, but he should be here in an hour or so.”
“Kite, Daddy!” Sophia cries, giving his arm tug after tug.
“I think there are a few over there,” Diane informs us, pointing to a small stand with drinks and other snacks.
“I’m going to go check it out,” James informs me. “You good?”
I nod.
“Okay.” James stoops down to get to eye level with Sophia and Diane’s daughter. She’s shy, half of her hidden behind Diane’s hip, but she looks at James and Sophia with curiosity, nonetheless. “What’s your name?”
“Maddie.”
James smiles. “Maddie, would you like to come with us to get a kite?”
Maddie looks up at her mom for approval. “Are you sure?” Diane asks James. “You really don’t have to.”
“It’s fine,” James answers, brushing off her concern. “I can give you a little break, and Sophia’s a pro at making new friends. Unfortunately, those stranger danger tactics don’t work with her.”
Diane nods. “Thank you,” she says with a breath of relief.
James leaves behind our large tote bag, the contents almost spilling over with the extra towels and snacks we stuffed it with, and takes off with the girls.
Diane and I watch as Sophia and Maddie link hands, skipping away while James talks to the attendant manning the kites.
He keeps a watchful eye on the girls when they start giggling and twirling in circles.
“He’s a good dad.” She moves her baby from one hip to the other and smiles at me.
I nod. “He is.”
“Have you thought about having another? I’m sure your little one would love a sibling.”
The question hits me like a train, and I’m sitting on the tracks, thinking the whole railway system is out of commission.
Only to learn it’s alive and well. I should expect these questions.
Sophia’s getting to the age where a second child would be in order, if not well past it.
I’m still of child-bearing age, though another year or two, I’d be pushing it.
And, though I know it’s bulldozing past social etiquette norms, these questions are commonly asked among young couples.
So why do I feel like I’ve been derailed from my vulnerable and inconsistently happy life?
And what about what James wants? We never talked about having another baby.
With our marriage having been in the peril stage for the last few years—maybe even still—that wasn’t ever a topic either one of us dared bring up.
But what if he wants another baby? A playmate for Sophia or just an urge to watch our family grow bigger?
And I’m the one deterring him from his dreams.
Dread fills my body like it’s this slimy liquid running through my veins. It grows cold beneath my skin, making me shiver under the warm July heat. Diane looks at me with a kind smile, completely unaware of the panic riddling my body.
I plaster a fake smile in her direction and say, “We haven’t really talked about it.”
“Do you want more kids?”
I catch James’s reflection through the mirror in our bathroom. He’s on his side of the double sink, his toothbrush hanging from his mouth with a ring of white foam around it. He takes a moment to rinse and wipe his mouth, and he faces me.
“Do you want more kids?” He asks the question with caution.
And it may be a diversion tactic, deflecting the same question in my direction, and I can tell he’s scared, worrying this subject may be too sensitive to glaze over.
But it’s been eating away at me since we got home.
I thought I could shove it aside, bring it back out when I feel more ready to talk about it, but I can’t seem to ignore it.
I managed to get through the day with it gnawing at my insides, but now, it’s sitting front and center between us, screaming at us for some attention.
I look directly at him, the mirror and our reflection no longer acting as a buffer. Those walls are down, demolished with the hopes of them never coming back up.
“I asked you first,” I quip.
He slides closer, one hand on the hard counter, the other at his side. “It’s really not up to me.”
“Of course it is.”
He squeezes my arm. “You’re the one who would be having a baby if we decided to…have another. It’s your body that’ll be going through the pregnancy and labor and recovery, so no, it’s not up to me.”
“Okay then,” I counter. “Let’s say for argument’s sake, you’re the one to have the baby—”
“Like a seahorse?”
I roll my eyes. “Sure, like a seahorse. Would you have another baby?”
“I don’t know,” he answers truthfully. “I think maybe yes. Only because I grew up with three siblings and I would want that for Sophia, but…”
I nod, a slow and sad up and down motion that feels as pathetic as it must look. “Okay.”
“But that doesn’t mean anything, Kendall.”
“Yeah,” I whisper.
Of course it means something. It means everything.
It means he’s settling. He’s already decided that, regardless of what he wants, he’s going to give it all up just to keep the peace in our house.
Because both he and I know it’ll break us.
It’ll break us like it broke us before, and neither one of us knows if we’ll survive it.
I don’t even know if we survived it the first time.
Another round, and I don’t think there would be anything left of us to salvage.
He forces my eyes on him, stooping lower so he’s in my line of sight. “I mean it, Kendall. Since we aren’t seahorses and you’re my human wife, that scenario doesn’t apply to us. So, I want whatever you want.”
“Okay.” I know he means it. If I choose not to have another baby, he’d stand by that decision as if it were his own.
I barely offer a smile and trudge into the bedroom, leaving James behind to muddle over our conversation alone.
My mind swirls into a hurricane of what-ifs.
I start to wonder how things would’ve been if we didn’t even bother with birth control after having Sophia.
If any thought of family planning wasn’t even considered and I popped out another kid or two.
Would James be happier? Would Sophia be better off?
She’d have someone to grow up with. Siblings to fight with and play with.
While I’m an only child, James has given me enough insight to what a full house would feel like.
I’ve watched his relationship with his brothers and sister bleed into our own lives.
I don’t think he could live without them, and now, he wants all of that for Sophia.
“I don’t want another baby.”
My body had moved on autopilot. I slipped into bed with no memory of getting there.
I know I rubbed some lotion into my hands because of the greasy feel of them.
And I somehow managed to plug my phone into the charger without knowing it.
James’s voice brings me back, the plush comforter surrounding us with his hand cupped over my knee.
“I want this,” he stresses. “I want us. I want you and Sophia and this home we built together.”
Guilt trickles into the cracks of my heart, and I hate that I’ve brought James to this point. He’s reconciling with all the things he’s going to let go, giving in to my wants and needs as a desperate way to make this work.
“But—”
“I mean it. You and Sophia are all that matter to me.”
James has never pushed like this. Passive has been his game plan for a really long time.
But it wasn’t always like that. He used to be passionate and sure until fear forced him to be otherwise.
Into a person who barely scratched the surface.
This James in front of me, the one who is willing to go to lengths for me to understand the gravity of his words, is the man I met.
The man who used to be my boyfriend. Who used to court me with chai latte dates and risqué encounters on the living room couch.
After years and years of pushing him away, he disappeared.
And it took a moment of desperation for him to come back.
“I don’t want to have more kids,” I confess with a trembling voice.
A tear slips past my cheek and falls off my chin.
He wipes it with his thumb. The words, though they feel like a blade cut into my heart, tumble off me.
I feel lighter, completely bare and vulnerable.
I realize then that my fear is this could quite possibly be his deal breaker.
He could excuse all the cold shoulders and the silent treatment, even all the arguments, but not wanting a bigger family is where he’ll draw the line.
I’ve seen it before, where couples don’t discuss future topics when they absolutely should have before getting married.
Like finances or where they’ll set roots or religious-based decisions, and kids align with those difficult to have conversations.
And what if that’s James? What if this is where he’ll draw the line?
But he does nothing of the sort. Instead, he scoots forward, pulling me into his arms and whispers against my temple, “And that’s okay.”
“But I don’t want you to hate me for it, and I don’t want Sophia to resent me for having to grow up alone.” I lay my head on his shoulder, and my tears start to land in dark spots on his shirt.
“I’m not going to hate you for it, and Sophia…she’s going to be fine. She has us. And Sadie.”
I bury my face in my hands and continue to sob.
All the times I cried alone, letting my tears fall onto my pillow or hiding behind a longer-than-usual shower among echoey tiles, I never realized how badly I needed to let those tears fall with James by my side.
I feel so silly now, not wanting James to ever see me like this when it’s bringing me closer to him than ever.
“I’ll get a vasectomy,” he tells me. He brushes a lock of hair off my face, and he tells me the words as if he’s been considering it for quite some time now.
And maybe he has. Maybe this was part of him deciding what he wants for us.
He put our marriage first, and this is the conclusion he came up with.
“You will?”
“Yeah,” he answers. “Why not? Men get them all the time, and you had Sophia. I think it’s my turn to do…something.”
“You’re really okay with it?” My hand finds his, and I run my fingertips over his knuckles.
He leans into my touch, linking our fingers together, and I know he’s doing it to assure me.
He’s not going anywhere. And some silly procedure to prove to me how important our family is to him isn’t going to send him running for the hills. He’ll do it with a proud smile.
“Look, I know getting a vasectomy doesn’t solve our problems, but I want to do this. And we need to trust each other enough that we aren’t sugar coating things. I’m being completely honest with you when I say I want this. So let me do this for us.”
He’s right. We need to trust each other. We aren’t making decisions in an attempt to pacify the other or mollify our relationship. And while it took us a while to remember this, I’m flooded with relief knowing we’re back here.
“Okay,” I finally say. “Thank you.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t need to thank me.”
“I want to,” I respond. “And I’m not thanking you for getting a vasectomy or agreeing to not have any more kids. I’m thanking you for just…being you. You’re putting us and our family first, and I want you to know how much I appreciate that.”
I always thought thank you’s were offered out of courtesy and good manners.
I never realized how sometimes, it can be an expression of honest gratitude.
I don’t want James to think I’m saying thank you as a means to maintain civility or to exercise the manners my mom instilled in me.
I want him to know how much I appreciate him.
I’ll do more than words. I’ll express my gratitude through actions over the course of our marriage, but for now, when my appreciation is spilling out of me, my words will have to do.
“Thank you,” he says, “for being you. I love you so goddamn much, and I will do anything for you.”
It’s true. He would. He would walk through fire, cross oceans, climb mountains. And I would do all of it for him. That’s always been the honest truth. It was just buried under our grief without either one of us knowing.