Page 2 of Your Two Lips
The truth settled like the autumn mist in Seattle. Not quite rain, not just fog. It clung to me, and I inhaled it. I still did the usual things, but it was always with me, and I could no longer ignore it.
At my last doctor appointment, I learned the benign fibroid tumors were back again. Diagnosed as a teen, all the treatments tried and failed. Laparoscopic surgeries to remove the straying uterine tissue and related scars were the most aggressive yet, but in the end, they also failed. She recommended a partial hysterectomy sooner rather than later.
I hadn’t told Joel yet, probably because I was holding out for a miracle while hope slipped through my grasping fingers.
His shoulders slumped as he walked over to the couch and fell onto it, putting his head in his hands. Seeing him slouch forward that way threatened what fire I had left.
“If you didn’t love me anymore, you should have told me.”
His head snapped up. “I never said I didn’t love you.”
“You think you can love someone and casually screw another? You’re telling me I fell in love with a man who puts on a show and then sleeps with someone else. No Joel, that’s your father.”
“Don’t talk about my father.” His eyes bored into me. “My mother has everything she wants. She is well taken care of.”
Ah yes, money. The great balm for all sins according to this family’s world.
“Joel, you’re having sex with someone else.”
“Only when you couldn’t.”
What? I concentrated. The loud whoosh of blood rushing in my ears was in the background as the wordsonly when you couldn’trepeated in my mind, getting louder and louder. He’d done this before? Here? In Palo Alto? Was that why he hadn’t pressured me? I swallowed the bile rising in my throat and tried to focus.
“She’s not the first,” I said.
Joel looked away, but not before the truth was there in his eyes.
“Emily, you know my family has a lot of expectations.” He jerked himself up from the sofa. “I’m expected to step into my father’s shoes and run a huge company. I am expected to produce an heir to do the same for me one day. This is who I am. It’s who I’ve always been.”
“We planned a future together, a wedding, the kind with commitment and monogamy. At least, that was the future I was planning. If you weren’t on board, you should have told me!”
“Are you still on board? Do you want to keep trying to have my baby and marry me, my family, really?”
Pausing, I peered down at the three-carat engagement ring winking at me from my finger. I had loved Joel, or who I thought he was. I wanted children. I wanted to be pregnant and experience the miracle firsthand. I wanted to be the first to know about it, feel it moving, and protect it with my body. There were only a few firsts in this world, and I yearned for these to be mine.
My feet stuck to the ground, and my throat was dry. I wanted everything to work, tried my best to make it work, but it wasn’t going to. According to his parents, I had never been good enough to be the mother of the next generation of Carters. I guess they were right.
I was smart. I had an education and a job I loved. I had friends and a loving family. My parents’ money came from a combination of their demanding work and great luck. It wasn’t as much or as old as the Carters’, but enough to be generous and not worry about it.
I wasblessed. But the fear I had been running from since that recent doctor appointment slammed into me. If I couldn’t have a baby, this thing that should be so natural for my body, would I ever not feel broken? Would I ever be enough?
A hysterectomy at twenty-five. Alone.
Joel stood tall with his hands on his hips. “Answer the question, Em. Do you still want to marry me?”
I inhaled strength as I met his eyes. “No, Joel. I don’t think I do.”
2
EMILY
Present
The soothing scentof lavender permeated the air at the upscale spa where I’d worked for the past month.
“Ready soon?” ReeAnn poked her head into my room. I nodded, trying to absorb the calm that always surrounded her.
“Let me change, and I’ll meet you by the door.” Light tan scrubs added to the serene atmosphere of the spa at The Elliott Inn and gave me flexibility of movement when doing massage therapy. The work was physical and satisfying as my clients shook off the week’s stress. I made people feel better for a living. I could do worse things in the world.
