CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
What Now?
Nico
Five years later….
It is my forty-third birthday. Time seems to fly by as you blink your eyes one moment to the next. I would not be a man of honesty if I said I am completely happy with my life. I have lost too much to feign happiness.
I have loved, I have lost. I have watched my friends and family do the same. We have all become stronger through it, but we all know pain.
I have lost a total of five children, five. Reese lost our second baby a week after Tam and Stacey left for Texas. We have lost three others since. I feel like a broken man all over again.
The loss of my children has a bite of its own, but it is the fact that I cannot give Reese the one thing she asks of me that tears me apart. I have watched it literally eat at her. Piece by piece it has chipped at her and chipped at our relationship.
Reese still refuses to marry me, no matter how many times I have told her that nothing else matters to me. I want her. That is all I have wanted from the start.
Now that Reese is going on thirty-one and we still don’t have children, she has really fallen into a depression that I don’t know how to handle. I love that woman. I love her with everything I am. If it were up to me, I would have married her years ago. However, I am a man of my word, so I have waited.
It is against my nature to let this go on this long, but I would do anything for Reese, even go against who I am. Although, I think that is the problem and I have had enough. I want my wife. I cringe every time Reese tells someone that I am her boyfriend. First, I am not a fucking boy and we all know I have taken this thing way beyond a friendship a long time ago.
Her miscarriage last year was the tipping point for me. Reese cried so hard in my arms I lost a part of my heart. I couldn’t let her continue to torture herself like this so I demanded she start birth control. Either she went on the pill or I would start to wear condoms.
I then started the process of looking for a surrogate. It has been a year and we still haven’t agreed on the right surrogate for our baby. Reese also hasn’t agreed to marry me. This all stops.
“It’s your birthday,” Uri says as he walks up beside me. I have been staring off into the distance from the rooftop as everyone mingles for the party. “You should not look like someone kicked your puppy.”
“Easy for you to say, you are forty-seven and still making babies with your beautiful wife. I cannot get my woman to put my ring on her finger,” I gripe and turn to him.
“You still have not told her that Tina is pregnant,” Uri sighs.
“No,” I shake my head. “She is still in a difficult place. I don’t know if this whole surrogate thing is the right decision. She seems to be more depressed, the more we try to go through with it.”
“Nico,” Uri says in that brotherly tone that gets my attention every time. “Reese has healed hundreds of people. All using alternative medicine and methods. This she has done repeatedly, but… she has not been able to do this for herself. Look at this from her shoes. Do you know what kind of challenge it was for her to agree to the birth control you demanded she take?
“She cried to Valentina about this. I love my wife so I didn’t come to you then. Tina asked me not to. This,” Uri points to me. “I can no longer watch. Talk to her Nico or this will become a problem.”
“It already is a problem,” I grunt.
“Then what do you plan to do,” Uri asks and looks me in the eyes.
“I don’t know. Losing her is not an option, but I just can’t watch her go through that shit again. I can’t go through that shit again,” I point to my chest. “It kills me. And to know she has gone through this six times, Uri. Not the five I have been with her for, but six in all. I can’t. I won’t ask her to.”
“This is one I cannot fix for you,” Uri sighs. “I want to but I don’t know how. Tina offered to be your surrogate. Reese told her no. That is when Tina asked me for another baby.”
I snort. “And what a Donati woman wants, she gets.”
“This is true,” Uri chuckles.
“But I have not given Reese the one thing she wants,” I look at my brother through hurt eyes.
“I know Nico, sometimes we have to let go. When we stop squeezing the desire of our hearts, only then does it breathe into our lives. I believe you will be a father. It is just time to let it go,” Uri says and pats me on the back.
It reminds me of something Ellen once said to me. ‘When you let go you will find all you desire. It will not be easy, but it will set you free.’ If only I knew how.