“No. Absolutely not,” she said strongly. “He has no interest in her whatsoever.”
“I don’t get that.”
“I don’t, either.” She was shredding her own multigrain roll, so that seeds pattered onto the paper wrapping that lay open on her lap. “The ironic thing is, he was hot to have more children. His pressure was one of the things that damaged our marriage.” Wow, did she want to tell him this?
“You didn’t want a brother or sister for Cait?”
“It wasn’t that. I did agree to try, but I was in grad school and the timing was lousy. We already had problems, and some of the pressure was coming from his parents. As it was he didn’t have much time for Cait.”
“His parents?”
“He’s an attorney. Did I tell you that?” When he shook his head, she smiled wryly. “Family law firm. Colt is the third generation to make partner. No surprise there. Believe it or not, he’s Colton Callahan the Third. He suddenly decided—or his parents decided, I’m not sure which—that it was time we hatched a Colton Callahan the Fourth.”
“Good God,” Richard muttered. “Caitlyn Callahan wasn’t good enough?”
“Apparently not. After all, she was only a Caitlyn the First. His parents weren’t what you’d call warm. They never made me feel as if I measured up. For one thing, in their world the wife didn’t work. She entertained for her husband, she served on the boards of charities, she put on fundraisers for appropriate causes. College was fine, good. Graduate school unnecessary.”
“And you stuck to your guns.”
His approving smile turned her to mush. “I did.”
“Wasn’t Colton in law school at the same time you were in grad school?”
“No, I was an undergrad when we met, but he was already in his second year of law school. Not thrilled when I got pregnant.”
“I don’t suppose you were, either.”
“No, of course not. But…” She looked down, evading the warmth in his eyes. “Once I felt her move, I was a goner.”
“So you ended up divorced before you could get pregnant again.”
Decision time. Did she really want to get this personal?
“It wasn’t that simple,” she said, stalling.
When he reached out and removed her sandwich from her hands, she realized she was mangling it. He rewrapped it, his eyes never leaving her face. “In what way?”
“I had endometriosis. Increasingly painful menstrual periods. It turned out the scarring was so severe, it would be difficult to impossible for me to get pregnant.”
His face hardened. “Tell me the son of a bitch didn’t leave you because you didn’t get pregnant on demand.”
“I think it contributed, but that wasn’t the whole story. We didn’t have much marriage by then.” Colt hadn’t taken well her rejection of his sexual advances when she hurt too much. She’d needed pampering and sympathy he never thought to give. Didn’t care enough to give, Molly had come to believe. Their marriage, their family, increasingly became for show, while at home they hardly spoke. “I’ve suspected for a long time that I never would have married him if we’d waited.”
“If you hadn’t gotten pregnant.”
She nodded.
“Ditto for me.” He wadded the wrapping for his own sandwich and tossed it from hand to hand. “I think Alexa got pregnant on purpose.”
“What?” Molly gaped at him.
“I never asked her. I mean, she was having my kid. I didn’t want to stir hard feelings we’d never be able to bury. But I knew. She was unhappy about me going away for college. She’d wanted me to stay close—the community college or Western Washington. I wasn’t breaking up with her—we talked vaguely about me coming home some weekends, you know how it is—but I was desperate to go away. I’d been recruited by half a dozen West Coast schools, and I chose UC Berkeley. I could hardly wait to go. Reality is, I wouldn’t have come home much. Not with airfare from California. Lexa knew that. She was taking the pill.”
“And you trusted her.”
“Yeah. I trusted her.”
Neither said anything. The silence was oddly comfortable, even companionable. Molly reached for her sandwich again and began eating this time.
“That’s why you’re antiabortion for Cait, isn’t it? Because you know what it’s like not to be able to get pregnant when you want to,” Richard finally said.
His insight surprised her. Why not tell him the whole truth? That she couldn’t get pregnant again, ever? That she’d had a hysterectomy? Because it was too much. He didn’t need to know. I will not live vicariously through my daughter to that extent.