Okay, but still…
“What if you can’t holler? What if you go into labor?”
“Randi has agreed to stay with me for the last month of my pregnancy.”
Will slammed back in his chair, feeling as though he’d just been punched. She’d really thought this through; it wasn’t some rash decision. She meant it. She wanted him to leave his home. To leave her. She’d already made plans for his replacement.
Desperate, Will searched for anything that could justify his staying right where he was.
“You’re trying to push me away because you’re afraid of losing me,” he blurted, gaining hope when he thought about what he’d just said. It made perfect sense. “Just like you didn’t want to love the baby because you were afraid…”
With tears brimming in her eyes, Becca shook her head. “A month ago you might have been right,” she said. “But not anymore, Will. A month ago, maybe even a week ago, I would have been too scared to ask you to leave, even though I already knew then that it was the right thing to do. You need some time to yourself, the freedom to figure out what you really want out of life.”
“I don’t want to move out.”
“I know.” She smiled, but her lips were trembling.
“And I don’t particularly want you to go, but even more than that, I don’t want you to stay.”
Will tried to understand—mostly so he could talk her around. “I just don’t get it,” he said, frowning.
“Don’t you see?” she asked. She stretched her hands out to him, then pulled them back, clenching them together in her lap once again. “If you stay, I’ll never know whether you’re here because it’s expected of you or because you really want to be here.”
She had a point. But he was willing to take his chances, anyway. He didn’t want to move out.
“I need the time, too,” she said, jarring him. “I need to know that my desperation to have you here is because I love you, not because I’m afraid to be without you.”
Oh, God. This was bad.
“I’m forty-two years old,” she told
him, leaning forward as she implored him to understand. “I’m going to be a mother, to have another life dependent on me, and I’ve got to be strong enough, courageous enough, to handle that. I can’t live my life in fear.”
He searched desperately for a rebuttal, for reassurances that this wasn’t necessary, but she just kept on talking.
“Last week, when we went to have the ultrasound, I ruined what could have been an incredible experience by being afraid, every second, of what that doctor might find. While you were busy rejoicing over every finger and toe, over the little mouth that yawned, I was frantically counting heartbeats.” Holding her belly, she continued, “Not to mention the days beforehand that I lost worrying about going to the darn thing—and all for nothing. Those were days I could have enjoyed.”
“Everyone worries now and then, Bec,” he assured her. He had to say something. To try.
“I need the time,” she said again, shaking her head as she looked down at her hands. She raised her eyes to meet his, and he saw tears in them.
“You aren’t sure why you married me. Well, I’m not sure why I married you, either.”
He wasn’t prepared to hear that. Will’s stomach felt like lead.
“I was graduating from college, had no clear place to go, was afraid to be alone. We’d been together for years. You were safe. The known quantity.”
“It had to be more than that!”
“Maybe. I was young, immature.” She shrugged.
“It’s time I grew up, Will.”
She was grown up. An entire town relied on her, and she handled it just fine. Hell, she’d grown up long before he had, accepting their barrenness while he’d still been kidding himself that it simply wasn’t the right time for them to have a baby. She’d faced the facts.
But looking at her now, he knew it didn’t matter what he believed. What mattered was what she believed about herself.
That thought hit him squarely in the gut. She was right. He did need the time, just as she did. To figure out what he believed about himself. What he wanted. Who he was underneath the roles he played. He owed it to her, to himself, to their child.