“There’s something I need to tell you, but I don’t know where to start and I’m scared about what you’ll think.”
He finds my hands and laces his fingers with mine. “Tell me anyway.”
“Backstory first, or blurt out the major part?”
“Whichever you want.”
I squeeze my eyes closed, take a deep breath, and quietly say, “Stephanie and Stella are actually my kids; Scott and Sylvia adopted them.” My body is as solid as a rock while I brace myself for whatever reaction Marc will have for the bomb I just dropped on him.
He’s quiet for a few seconds and then, “No wonder Stella didn’t like me. She got that shit from you.”
A laugh pops from my mouth before I can help myself. “Marc.” His name comes out as a bit of a whine.
He kisses my neck quickly. “What? You needed to laugh, so I made you. Tell me what happened so I can wrap my mind around it.”
I take a few moments to enjoy how light this feels because it won’t last long.
“Roger never wanted kids. That was the one thing we consistently and majorly disagreed on because I did want them. I still do,” I softly add. “But Roger didn’t want to be a father. He didn’t want to raise kids, teach them the game he loved, or teach them how to be a good person. He was totally against it, so much so that he always wanted a vasectomy, but I always talked him out of it. Or, asked him to wait to get one.
“When I told him I was pregnant, he was in disbelief because we were extremely careful. Way more than any other married couple, especially at our age. It took him less than five minutes to suggest that we let his brother and his wife adopt our kid. No matter what I did or said, Roger wasn’t having it. He didn’t want the baby.
“But I did. That started a lot of tension with us. We were already fighting some, but it got worse. He had no reason except that he simply didn’t want to be a father, which was
supposed to be good enough, and it would’ve been if I didn’t want to be a mom. Roger spent all his time trying to convince me to give our baby to Scott and Sylvia while I tried to convince him that he should want it as much as I did. When I learned I was having twins, that’s when the shit hit the fan. Roger was even more adamant. He couldn’t fathom one kid, much less two, and he felt like that was even more reason to let his brother adopt them.”
Marc squeezes my hands. “Wait. Why did he think that Scott and Sylvia would so easily adopt the babies?”
Right. “They’d been trying to have kids for years without success. That made it a perfect reason in Roger’s eyes to hand over our babies because they were desperate to have kids, couldn’t have them, and we weren’t desperate like them. The idea sounded nice. Giving a gift like that to people as good as Scott and Sylvia...” My voice trails off.
“But?” Marc pushes quietly.
“I didn’t want to do it and it pissed Roger off. For me, something good was happening to us, but for him, I was ruining everything while robbing his brother of something he wanted more than anything. The arguing and the fighting got so bad that I almost left him. I went to that game hoping we could talk things out once and for all, but if he couldn’t accept that I was keeping the girls, then I was going to leave him. We got into an argument that morning and I told him that. I think that’s one reason why he was so agitated during the game. He never was, but that day, he was in everyone’s faces, starting fights, and not being himself. I was hoping that was a weird sign that we were going to work things out, but....”
“He died,” Marc fills in and I nod.
My voice drops even lower as I remember with such crystal clarity what I was like afterward. “It ruined me. I felt guilty for thinking about leaving him. It seemed crazy that we were arguing like we were. And I missed him so much. I already had a solid seven months worth of missing who he normally was with me and then he died and I didn’t even get the Roger who argued with me all the time. I didn’t leave the house. I couldn’t get out of bed. Sylvia had to make sure I was eating and taking care of myself by basically coming over and helping me.
“When it came time to have the girls, I felt completely unprepared and I had no desire to take care of myself, much less those two. Roger got his way in the end. They were with me when my water broke and before we left for the hospital, I asked them if they would adopt them and raise them as their own. They had to answer me before I left. They couldn’t believe it.
“No one knew that Roger was fighting me tooth and nail over me keeping the girls and that he wanted them to have the girls anyway. So, I told them that I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t raise them without Roger. I said that I didn’t want them. That right now was the worst time, but they were here and they deserved better than what they would get if they were to have me as a mom. I told them that they deserved the chance to be parents. They could name them. They could get their lawyer on it right away and I’d do whatever it took for those girls to be theirs. I promised to have no say. They said yes just to get me to the hospital.
“I know that because when I refused to hold or look at Stephanie, who came first, that’s when it hit them that I wasn’t kidding. It was the best and worst decision I ever made. My relationship with my parents was already a little rocky because they didn’t want me marrying so young and didn’t really like Roger, but when I gave away their grandchildren, that was the last straw for them. They didn’t want what would be a fake relationship to them, so they disowned me, basically. But it all worked out.
“Scott and Sylvia are fantastic parents and those girls haven’t ever wanted for anything. I’m glad I could give them that gift. I’m happy I did it because it feels like that’s the way things should’ve happened, but at the same time, I wonder what things would’ve been like if Roger did want them. Would I have let Scott and Sylvia adopt them? Would I have been able to take care of them? Would he have died at all?
“Either way, it’s good that they took the girls. When I was released from the hospital, I went home and stayed there. I had already quit my job and school before the twins were born because I couldn’t handle it. There was nothing left for me. I couldn’t get over him dying and leaving me all alone. I was elbows deep in a depression I couldn’t get out of, and there’s no exaggeration here. For two years, I didn’t leave my house unless I particularly felt like it.
“Scott and Sylvia paid my bills, raised my kids, who were now their kids, brought me groceries, cooked me dinner, cleaned my house, washed my laundry, the whole nine yards. That’s what I meant when I said that he took care of his family. He most certainly didn’t have to do that, and half the time, I wish he didn’t. Knowing they both helped me so much overwhelmed me and made me feel guilty.
“I didn’t have much to do with the girls those two years. Sylvia didn’t bring them over to the house when she came, and I didn’t want to see them anyway. One day, she showed up with a pair of two-year-olds. There’s just this particular look on her face she gets when she’s fed up. I expected her to go off on me, but she didn’t. She just handed me the girls, turned around, and left. Later, she came back and told me that she knew it was hard, but she had two girls and she wanted them to know their Aunt Lizzy.
“That was the first day of me putting my life back together. It wasn’t easy and I cried more times than I can count.” I take a deep breath. “There you go. That’s my story.”
ELIZABETH LOOKS OVER her shoulder at me when I don’t say anything. She wants a reaction from me.
“I think you’re amazing.” She frowns, which isn’t totally unexpected. “People give up their kids for different reasons, and regardless of what I or anyone else may think, you said something important and something that matters more than anything else. Those girls are with people who love them more than anything, they’ve never wanted for anything, and they’ve always been taken care of, and you made sure that’s what they got when you weren’t sure if you could do that for them. So, yeah, I think you’re amazing.”
She rolls her eyes as she faces Roger’s stone. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.” And then, quietly, she adds, “I think he would be disappointed in me.”