“That’s what I’ve heard.” Phyllis thought to the weeks ahead with excitement. “I can’t wait to be part of it all.”
Becca sat back in her chair, her features relaxed as she sipped her drink.
“Did you attend Montford?” Phyllis asked.
“Yeah.” Becca nodded. “Best four years of my life.”
It was an opening Phyllis couldn’t pass up. “You and Will haven’t had great years together?”
“Of course we have,” Becca said, though her brow was furrowed as she looked down at the imaginary spot she was scraping off the table with one long slim finger. “It’s just that we wanted kids so badly.” She smiled sadly. “We got married in college and started trying right away, thinking we’d have our first baby before Will started work on his dissertation. We were planning at least half a dozen, all told.”
“Wow.” A few weeks ago Phyllis would have been floored by such a goal. But after meeting enough of Shelter Valley’s citizens, seeing firsthand how they put family first and actually took the time to enjoy their lives, she wasn’t quite as shocked. Shelter Valley’s straightforward approach to happiness would have seemed naïve to her eve
n six months ago. Now she’d begun to believe in it herself. Despite her failed marriage, she’d had a good experience of family life as a child, and she understood how making family and community a focus, a priority, could create a sense of genuine contentment.
Looking around at Becca’s beautiful impeccable home, Phyllis said, “So what happened?”
“We couldn’t get pregnant.”
Becca’s words were simply stated, but her eyes portrayed many years of heartache.
“We tried everything, went through test after test, procedure after procedure, but nothing worked.”
Phyllis wiped condensation from her glass. “What was wrong?”
Becca shrugged. “They never found anything, really. Nothing that would have prevented fertilization.”
“But you and Will stayed together through it all?”
“We did,” Becca said. “He was wonderful to me, understanding, loving, putting up with me when the disappointment became unbearable.” She smiled.
“He’d take me away to exotic new places, fill my mind with exciting new treasures, keeping me so busy that I’d fall into bed in whatever hotel we were staying at and actually go to sleep.”
Trying to put herself in Becca’s shoes, to feel what her friend had felt, Phyllis frowned. “So what happened?” she asked again. “Why did you and Will separate once you were finally pregnant?” It seemed that her friends had a dream come true in their midst and should be gloriously happy. Not living in two different homes.
Unless the baby wasn’t Will’s?
“I don’t know,” Becca said, her voice wavering. “It’s all so crazy, so confusing.”
“Is the baby Will’s?”
Becca’s eyes opened wide. “Of course!”
“Then…”
“I thought I had to have an abortion.”
Phyllis couldn’t have been more taken aback if Becca had told her she’d had a sex-change operation. There’d been no mistaking the anguish in Becca’s eyes when she explained how she’d always wanted a baby.
“Had to have? Why?”
“I’m forty-two years old.”
And suddenly Phyllis understood. “You were afraid something would go wrong.”
Becca nodded, tears still brimming in her eyes. “I only figured it out myself not so long ago, but I was just afraid, period. Afraid to open myself up to any more love because that meant I also had to open myself up to the possibility of loss. Of being hurt.”
Nodding, Phyllis took a sip of her drink before it got too warm. “I can understand that.”