Sweet Revenge

Penny took a bite of the pie she was eating. “That’s the thing. You can’t do it for him and you can’t push him out into anything.”

That had been a few weeks ago and I tried to let Penny’s advice sink in but I wasn’t sure it fit Ted anymore. He was just so mean and almost sadistic at times. It felt like it had little to do with him being depressed. He was always laughing and goofing off with his friends. It seemed like he wanted to be around everyone but me half the time.

But our sex was still amazing. That had never let up. And the weirdest thing that I couldn’t wrap my head around was that since Ted had become different the sex had actually become even better. Maybe it was that I craved the intimacy with him even more because I felt that our emotional intimacy had gone astray. I wasn’t sure but it was drilling a hole in my brain to find out.

And now on top of everything, I’d just come back from the doctor to find out that I was pregnant with twins. Twins…the doctor heard two separate heartbeats. They were both healthy and strong. I was going to be a mother… a mother…

I felt so blessed. I’d always wanted to be a mother. And now I was going to have twins. I couldn’t believe it. The feeling was overwhelming, but that was because there was actually a plethora of feelings going through my head and my heart. I’d wanted to be a mother since as long as I could remember. My own mother was so phenomenal, so loving, and so perfect that I wanted to be just like her. I dreamt of one day having a daughter or a son that I could love and cherish the way I’d been cherished.

And now it was going to happen.

But what was Ted going to think about it? What would he really think?

We’d never discussed at length the possibility of having kids before, though we’d both agreed that we wanted kids. With Ted the conversation was always short and sweet. He would say that kids were great and he was looking forward to it, but that it was more of a few years down the road. I knew that he didn’t want kids right now. But sometimes things happened where surprises came along that you weren’t expecting by a long shot. And this had happened to us. And now we were there to get everything together to make this happen. It would require sacrifice and commitment on both our parts, but I was ready for it. I was excited for it.

I did not think that Ted would be so pleased and I was right.

“What?” Ted asked when I told him the news. You would have thought I’d slapped him upside the head; the look of surprise was so quick and so full of repulsion.

“I’m pregnant,” I said again. “With twins.”

I began clearing away some of the dishes. I’d sent the crew home early because I wanted to have this conversation after dinner and I wanted the two of us to be alone.

“I don’t believe it…” Ted said.

He stood up and began to pace back and forth.

“Well, this is good news, right? Are you as happy as I am?”

I knew the answer but I wanted to put the best face on this that I could.

Ted paused in mid step and looked at me. I could see the confusion rolling across his face as if he didn’t know what to say. I knew the answer already. He was deeply saddened, possibly enraged by the news, but he knew that I was very happy and he was playing for my benefit. I wasn’t sure if he just didn’t want to hurt me, or if there was another reason for his confusion. But I desperately wanted to find out. What was in his mind?

“Yeah,” Ted said. “That’s great news.”

“Tell me how you really feel,” I said. “Please talk to me.”

Ted glared at me. “How do I feel? Well, fine. I’ll tell you. I think this is something we were planning on years down the road. I like to think that everything has its own place and timing and this screws the hell out of a lot of the things we had planned.”

“How?”

“How?” Ted exclaimed. “How do you think?” He demanded. “How am I going to work on building a business if I have kids to take care of? You going to stop working suddenly to take care of them? Or are you going to do like other rich people and just pawn them off on the staff? Yeah, that will be a great way for kids to grow up, being raised by people that their parents employ.”

“We will work it out,” I said. “There are a variety of ways we can work our schedules so that one or both of us is always here.”