May 2013
Our first anniversary snuck up on us like a thief.
One second we’re walking down the aisle, going on our honeymoon, and the next we’re in May. If every year of marriage is like this, then we’re golden.
Instead of celebrating with a nice dinner at a fancy restaurant we were staying in. Our townhouse had quickly turned into our cozy getaway from the stress of work and life.
We ordered Chinese takeout. The small boxes were scattered around the table. This entire week at work had been brutal. Likewise for Wes. The only thing that kept me upbeat was knowing our anniversary was waiting for us that weekend. The two of us were wearing sweats. The atmosphere was laid-back and casual and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
“Goals for this year?” I asked.
Wes leaned back in his chair. “Make partner.”
“Of course, of course.” I finished the last of the orange chicken and pushed the box aside. “Anything else?”
“To always be happy. With you.” He took a drink, tilted his glass in my direction, and gave me a cheesy wink. “What about you?”
My throat suddenly became dry. Without a doubt we were happy. Every day I seemed to love him more and more. I wanted to extend that love. I wanted to start a family. How Wes felt about starting a family remained to be seen. In the beginning of our engagement, kids were brought up, but always in the distant future. For me, the distant future was upon us. For Wes, it might still be years away.
This urge, this desire, didn’t come out of nowhere. It had been brewing in me for months. Every time I saw a mother pushing a baby in a stroller, holding a child’s hand in the grocery store, or watched a mom or dad hold their child’s hand or whisper comforting words in their ear as they got stitches or shots, a part of me cried out for that.
I’d always thought that I would never love anyone else in the world the way I loved Wes, but something told me being a parent would easily trump that love. What would it be like to have that much love for another human being?
“I was thinking…” I started out slowly.
Wes lifted a brow and waited patiently for me to continue speaking.
“I was thinking that maybe we should try for a baby.”
“A baby?” he asked bluntly. His question was said with no emotion, almost as if I were asking if he was going to do the dishes or take out the trash.
It threw me off guard for a second. I hadn’t known what his reaction would be, but deep down I’d hoped that he would be a little interested in the idea. Just a little.
“Well, yes,” I replied.
He sat back in the chair heavily and frowned at me with confusion. My stomach dropped; this was not how I expected this to go. At all.
“Look,” Wes began slowly. “We’ve always vowed to be honest about everything, right?”
I nodded. Suddenly it seemed that that vow was biting me in the ass. Dread and apprehension clashed together and danced down my spine.
“I don’t want kids,” Wes finally said.
He shrugged and gave me a half smirk, as though it was a decision that could never be reversed no matter how hard I tried.
“Never?”
“Never.”
I was shell-shocked. I blinked rapidly “Why not?”
“Do I need a reason?”
“Yes.”
“Come on, Victoria.” A laugh escaped him. He raised his hands. “What do you want me to say? I don’t want kids.”
“I want you to tell me why. I don’t want kids because…” I trailed off. “Fill in the blanks, Wes.”
Abruptly he stood up from the table, taking his plate with him. I followed him, not ready to lay this conversation to rest.
“Tell me why,” I persisted. “I want to talk about this.”
“We already did.”
“No, we kind of did and then you flipped out.”
“I didn’t flip out!”
He dumped the remaining food into the trash. “Why are we even talking about this?”
“Because it’s important to me. Because you asked me what my goals were for this year and I told you and now you’re angry with me. That’s why we’re talking about this.”
Wes turned around, his hands curled around the lip of the counter. All happy anniversary vibes had disappeared, replaced with anger.
Like every normal couple, we’d had our arguments. We’d disagreed. But those moments never seemed to last long enough to make a dent in our relationship. One of us always caved.
But in this case, I was willing to make an exception; this was something that I really wanted.
“You need to let this go,” Wes said, a slight edge to his words. “You’re like a dog with a fucking bone.”
“Then just give me an answer!”
“I don’t want kids because I don’t want the responsibility,” he said like an explosion.
Silence. The TV blared in the living room, but in the kitchen it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
“I have too much on my plate right now to think about having a child, Victoria.”
“There will always be too much on our plate. There will never be a right time to start a family.”
“If there’s no right time, then why try?” Once again, he shrugged. That gesture was seriously starting to piss me off. It seemed lazy to me, as if he saw my frustration and anger and just didn’t really want to take the time to fix everything.
I took a step back. His words had struck my heart. “Well,” I breathed, “there you have it.”
“I would ask if that’s a problem, but clearly it is.”
“Of course it is! I want kids!”
Wes crossed his arms. “All right, say we have a baby. What are you going to do when it’s born? Continue to work and abandon it?”
His words were said with such venom and hatred I flinched.
“What are you talking about? I would never abandon my child.”
Wes rejected my words and shook his head. “We’re not having a baby.”
Wes was shutting the conversation down. I turned and walked away.
“Victoria! Come back.” He caught up with me and wrapped his arms around me from behind. “I’m sorry. I want our child to have the best. I want it to have all our attention. My caseload is getting heavier by the minute and I’m afraid that I couldn’t give a child the love and affection he or she deserves. That’s all. I didn’t mean to make you cry, all right? Even if we tried for a child, look around. Right now it’s just the two of us and yet we’re outgrowing this townhouse. We need a home—a place to settle down.”
Wes painted such a beautiful picture. It was so alluring, so perfect that I found myself agreeing.
“Then I’ll give my two weeks’ notice to the hospital.” The words slipped out of my mouth before I could really think about them.
Wes’s eyes brightened. “You’re sure about that?”
“Yeah,” I said anxiously. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. “Absolutely.”
Wes stopped in front of me and held my face between both hands. He smiled as he leaned in and gave me a gentle kiss. One filled with promises and hopes for our future. When we pulled apart I rested my head against his chest.
“So we’re going to do this?” I whispered into his shirt.
“We’re going to do this. But I don’t want to rush. I want us to get a house and settle into the perfect home that we can call our own.”
There was so much excitement brewing inside me. It was impossible to wipe the beaming smile off my face.
Together we cleaned the kitchen, exchanging secret smiles every few minutes. I was wiping down the counter when I looked in the direction of the living room. I did a double take at the large, framed photo of the two of us on our wedding day. Hopefully, in a year, there would be a framed photo of our baby right next to it. I swiped my phone from the counter, turned, and looked at Wes. “Hey! Look over here, Future Father of my children.”
Wes whipped his head around and I snapped a photo. If I had to title this photo, it’d be one simple word: Before.
Before kids.
Before exhaustion.
Before that perfect family I wanted us to be.
This chapter of our life was coming to a close. A new one was waiting to be written and I knew it would be unforgettable.