Diane Chamberlain - The Lies We Told

It was another minute before he got into the car himself. He turned the key in the ignition, then glanced over at me. “Seat belt,” he said.

I buckled myself in and he pulled away from the curb.

“How do you feel?” he asked. “Do you want me to stop at the store for anything on the way home?”

I shook my head. The ache in my throat dwarfed the dull pain in my uterus. “If you’d stayed married to her, you’d have children now,” I said.

“Maya, don’t.”

“How can I not?”

“I’m not married to her. I don’t love her any longer. I love you.”

“But if you’d stayed married to her—”

“Stop it.” He turned the corner with such force that we nearly ran over the curb, and I reached reflexively for the dashboard.

I pounded my fist against the car door. “What’s wrong with me?” I asked the air. “Why is it so hard for me to have a baby when every other woman on earth can have as many kids as she likes?”

“That’s bullshit. You have plenty of company and you know it. Please stop beating yourself up over this.”

“Every single one of my friends has kids now,” I said. “I’m cut off from all of them. I buy them baby gifts. I try to keep up the friendships and I know they try, too, but it’s impossible. They have nothing in common with me anymore. They pity me.”

“Right now, you’re pitying yourself,” he said.

“Well, so what?” I snapped, hurt. “When do I ever pity myself? Let me have five minutes of self-pity, okay?”

We never argued. Never. Yet this felt strangely good and necessary. Cleansing, in a way. But when we came to a stoplight and I glanced over at him, I saw how tired he looked. I saw the lines that creased his forehead. The pink cast to the whites of his eyes. This was not only my loss.

I reached over. Rested my hand on his biceps. “Adam,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right, My,” he said with a sigh. “We’ll get through it.”

Adam tucked me into our king-size bed and handed me an ibuprofen and a glass of water. I swallowed the pill, then sank back into the bed. He leaned over and kissed my forehead. “I know this has been much harder on you than I can even imagine,” he whispered. “I know that, and I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I said. I opened my mouth to say more, although I wasn’t sure what words I expected to come out, but he pressed his fingers lightly to my lips.

“Get some sleep,” he said.

I was asleep before he had even left the room, and in my dreams, I saw Frannie sitting in her wheelchair, smiling at Adam.

I have eighteen children now, Adam, she said. Too bad you didn’t stay married to me.

TWO DAYS LATER, ADAM AND I SAT ACROSS THE DESK from my obstetrician, Elaine, in her office. I much preferred being on the other side of that desk, talking to my patients. Educating them. Reassuring them. But my fight for a baby had put me on this uncomfortable side of the desk now more times than I could count.

Elaine thumbed through my chart where it rested on the desk in front of her. She settled on a page, running her finger down it, stopping at the midway point.

“I noticed something during the D and C that made me curious,” she said, “and I see that you didn’t answer this question on your health sheet when you filled it out a couple of years ago.”

“What question?” I asked.

“Did you ever have an abortion?” Elaine looked at me over her reading glasses.

I hesitated. I hadn’t been asked that question before, at least not in front of Adam.

“No,” Adam answered for me, and for a moment, I let the answer hang in the room between the three of us.

“Why?” I asked Elaine.

“Well, there’s some scarring in your uterus that looks like what we might see, on a very rare occasion, from an abortion. Scarring can cause difficulty with conception and especially with holding on to a pregnancy. But since you’ve never had an abortion, that’s clearly not the prob—”

“I have.” I cut her off. “I had an abortion.”

“What?” Adam leaned away from me in his chair as though I’d burned him. “When?”

“When I was a teenager.” I looked at Elaine, but could feel Adam’s startled gaze resting squarely on my face.

“Were there any complications?” she asked. “An infection?”

I remembered pain that went on and on. Pain I’d ignored. I’d had more pressing things on my mind. “I don’t think so,” I said. “I had what might have been excessive pain, but I was too young to question any symptoms.” I would never tell them how young. Fourteen years old. My father had taken me to the clinic, and I remembered the drive home, even though I’d done my best to block all memories of that day from my mind. Daddy had been so quiet in the car. So quiet that I was afraid he no longer loved me. Finally, when we neared our street, our driveway, when we neared the moment that would end his life and tear mine apart, he said, “This is between you and me, Maya, honey. It’ll be our secret.”

Oh, God. My lost babies. They were my fault. I’d certainly thought about that abortion as I struggled to get pregnant, and I’d never forgotten that first baby, taken from my body only after I’d begun to show.

“Does this mean.” I cleared my throat, unable to ask the question burning in my mind. Next to me, Adam still sat stiffly in his chair, but he reached over to cover my hand with his. I felt so grateful for him, and so undeserving. “Does this mean there’s no hope?” I finally managed to say. “That even if I’m able to conceive again, another miscarriage is inevitable?”

“Not necessarily,” Elaine said, “but it probably does explain why you’ve lost three pregnancies. The in vitro took this time, and you’ll have to talk to Dr. Gallagher about trying again. I’ll send him my report from the

D and C and you can talk with him about the pros and cons of giving it another go.”

I thought of the months of hormone shots. The always-iffy implantation. The waiting to know if I’d conceived. The hopes raised. Dashed. Raised again. All of that would be nothing compared to the anxiety of once more being pregnant, then waiting for that fist to tighten around my uterus. I didn’t know if I could go through it again.

I felt sick to my stomach by the time we got to the car. Neither of us said a word until we’d pulled out of the parking lot into the street.

“I’m sorry,” I said then.

He didn’t take his eyes from the road. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

I hesitated. “It’s something I don’t like to remember. And abortion’s not supposed to have anything to do with fertility, but … I think I was afraid it … that it did have something to do with it. I mean, I got pregnant then, and now, as an adult, I have so much trouble conceiving, so I’ve always had this niggling fear that it was somehow related. Now it looks like it is.” My voice broke. I’d already felt responsible for our not having a child, worried that Adam blamed me, subconsciously or not. Now he had a concrete reason to do so. “I’m sorry, Adam,” I said again.

“Please stop apologizing, Maya.” The muscles in his jaw contracted. “I’m just pissed off you didn’t tell me. We’ve been trying to have a baby for three years—without much luck—and now I discover that you’ve kept a pretty damn significant piece of the puzzle from me.”

“I know.” I started to apologize again, but caught myself. “I wasn’t intentionally keeping it from you,” I said. “It’s something I’ve tried to forget. I …” My voice trailed off, and I turned my head to look blindly through the window. There was no excuse I could give him that was good enough.