A couple of minutes later, she came back on the line. “Okay, Birdie, I’m all yours. Tell me what’s going on.”
“I don’t think I’m okay with not having kids,” I blurted. Just saying it out loud devastated me, let alone thinking about it.
“Fuck. You need me and I can’t get there.” She turned silent for a beat. “Fuck, babe, if I could, I’d be on a plane today, but I can’t leave.”
I gripped my phone harder. “I know. That’s not why I called. I just needed to hear your voice. Winter has shut down on me and then this morning this woman said stuff to me about having kids, and fuck, I’m a mess.” I took a breath and wiped my tears. “I honestly thought I was at the point where I was good with not having children, but now, with this reaction, I don’t know. Oh God, Cleo…. My life is a fucking mess.” By the time I got all my words out, my heart was racing. Every word I said and every thought I had only increased my confusion.
“Okay, slow down and let’s go through this. Your life isn’t a mess; you’ve just got shit to deal with. That’s normal. And as far as you not being able to have kids, we’ve discussed this and you have options. I know they’re not the options you wish you had, but babe, people have worse options. We can talk more about that, but first tell me more about how Winter is handling this.”
She was right; it was normal. And yet, it all felt overwhelmingly messy. But she was also right to be blunt with me, because when I got like this, I didn’t do well with anything but blunt.
“He doesn’t want to talk about it. Not yet. He told me he loves me but he’s fucking mad with me and he needs space until he gets that shit under control. His words exactly.”
“Right, we can work with that. Especially with the bit about him loving you. Where is he today?”
“At his dad’s place, figuring out how to get it ready to rent.”
“And you’re not with him because he needs space, yes?”
“Yes.”
She turned silent for a moment. “Okay, I get that he needs space, but you guys need to talk, Birdie. Even if that’s a fight, you need to start getting this stuff out.”
“I don’t disagree with you, but I’ve never seen Winter like this. He?
?s never pushed me away, ever. I don’t want to force him to talk when he’s not ready and chance him retreating even further.”
“Do you have an idea of when you’re going to initiate a conversation? I don’t think you want to let this go on for too long.”
“We’ve got his dad’s funeral tomorrow, so I’ll wait until Wednesday and see how he is then.”
“Birdie,” she said softly, “don’t avoid this like you’ve been avoiding telling him about the baby. I know it’s painful and I know things will get said that might be ugly and hard to hear, but he’s told you he loves you; he won’t push you completely away.”
I wiped the last of my tears from my cheeks, thinking about what she’d said. Hoping she was right. I was too close to the situation, too invested in it to think straight, so I relied on Cleo’s instinct.
When I didn’t say anything, she said, “As for you having kids, you need to know that I am right here fighting alongside you for whatever you want in life, so if having kids is what you want, I’ve fucking got your back. I will move heaven and earth to help you. And when it comes to Winter, well, we all know that man will do whatever it takes to give you what you want. So you just concentrate on him for now and we’ll all cross that bridge if and when you get to it.”
And there went my tears again.
Good God, this was getting ridiculous.
Madly brushing them away, I said, “I fucking love you, but you need to stop talking now because you’re making me cry.”
I heard the smile in her voice when she said, “I fucking love you too, but I have to go because Mrs Wilson is about to arrive for her weekly physio session and we both know that I need to be centred and ready for whatever crap she’s going to throw at me today. God help me, Birdie. I swear my hands are gonna slip and end up around her neck one day.”
I laughed through my tears. Mrs Wilson was the bane of Cleo’s existence. “Go. Get centred. I’ll keep you updated. And thank you for being the amazing friend you are.”
“Love you, girl,” she said before ending the call.
As I sat and waited for my tears to dry, thinking about Winter and babies and hard times, I also thought about Cleo and friends and how lost I’d be without her. She gave me strength when I didn’t think I had any left. She always had. I couldn’t imagine not having a friend like that. Just like I couldn’t imagine not having Winter by my side.
I might have done my best to keep him out of my life all this time, but I knew now, without a shadow of a doubt, that Winter was the man I wanted to grow old with. And I would do whatever it took to make that happen.
24
WINTER
I surveyed the mess I’d spent today making in Dad’s house. Boxes of belongings sat packed in the living room, overflowing into other rooms of the house. Max had texted me that he wanted to put everything into storage to go through later so we could rent the house out soon, so I’d packed up almost the entire house ready to transport to the storage unit I’d hired this morning. The only rooms left to go through were Dad’s bedroom and his study. I wasn’t sure if I hadn’t done them yet because I was waiting for Max or because it felt too fucking hard to do. He was on his way here now, so I decided to wait for him. I knew there would be belongings in those rooms he might want to look through now rather than later.