Crystal lets go of my belly and sits back on her chair.
“I’m so happy for you, Cathy. Four more weeks, right?”
“Yes. Four weeks.” I swallow hard as I fight to stay on the bright side of optimism, not going near to the depths of fear. “Four more weeks until I can rest easy and truly believe it, you know? Of course, my suitcase has been packed since last week, and all of her clothes are washed. Amy bought her the cutest going home outfit; and—” I smile bashfully as I straighten the hem of my dress. “Am I doing it again? Talking your ears off about baby stuff when you’re supposed to be picking my brain?”
“It’s okay. I’m here to listen to you talk.”
“It’s just…I can’t stop thinking and talking about her. My whole world has become this little girl growing inside me. Nadia is my miracle. Even though sometimes I still can’t believe it. Like, I wake up in the middle of the night and my hands go straight to my belly, and I just lay there, willing the baby to move so I know she’s fine.” I look down at my stomach and caress it as I speak to Crystal. “Dr. Pajaree says it happens sometimes. Women with my condition get pregnant and are able to carry full term without any explanation. I’d like to think it’s magic.” I shrug my shoulders and smile.
“I’m very happy for you, Cathy, but I think it’s time we address Ben and Arsen…” She lets the words hang in the air.
“Yes…I think I can do that,” I answer, fidgeting in my seat.
“Why do you think you cheated on Ben? Why do you think your marriage failed the way it did?”
“Oh, wow. You don’t beat around the bush, do you?”
Laughing, Crystal shakes her head. “No. We’ve made a lot of progress in the past months. I think it’s time we spoke more in depth about Arsen and Ben. So tell me, Cathy. Why?”
“Um…well, I know it all started going downhill after the third miscarriage. And after that, when I couldn’t get pregnant, well…the strain it put on our marriage was lethal. I withdrew from him, from everything, but Ben couldn’t see it. He continued to pretend that everything was okay, that we were going to be okay. It got to a point that his positivity felt like it was choking the life out of me.”
“Go on,” she encourages me.
“Whenever I tried telling him how afraid I was that we were never going to be parents, to tell him about my fears, he would just sweep them under the rug, saying to stop worrying about it, so I stopped trying to talk to him about it. I grew to hate his perfection, I think. Here I was, broken and lost, filled with hatred and jealousy towards other women who could get pregnant by having their husbands just touch them. It was just too much. I felt like I was not woman enough. It was the loss of my dream, the loss of ever becoming a mom that completely shattered me. I wanted to cry, scream, curse at God…I don’t know. And then…”
“There was Ben.”
Yes. Oh, how I wish…
“Yes. Perfect, loving Ben. Not a crack on his exterior, always the optimist. I hated that. I couldn’t talk to him anymore. The more he pulled, the more I pushed away from him. But then I got pregnant for a fourth time after so long, and I thought it was our second chance at happiness.”
“Do you think it was a mistake not telling him any of this?” Crystal asks.
“Um, yes. It was a mistake. I know that now. My friend Amy tried talking to me about it. She asked me if I was prepared just in case I lost that baby as well.” I laugh and look up at the ceiling. “I knew I was putting all my philosophical eggs in one fragile basket, but I really didn’t want to think about it. I knew my marriage was on shaky ground and that all it was going to take for it to fall apart was one soft blow to the core. And it did, although I wouldn’t necessarily call it soft. When I lost th-hat baby, I think I lost my mind as well.”
I touch my belly once more. “I grew to hate everything around me…even Ben. Particularly Ben. I hated when he touched me, I hated when he kissed me, and I hated when he told me that we were going to be fine. I hated it. I truly hated it.”
“Why didn’t you tell him all this?”
“Because by that point, I didn’t care anymore. I-I think I made myself think that I didn’t love him, that I hated him. I did try once…”
“Why did you hate his touch?”
“It made me think of getting pregnant. It felt like work. I resented it. I resented him. I mean, now that I’ve had time to think about it…I don’t know. It’s too late. What ifs are just life’s regrets.” “Do you think all this would have been solved had you opened up to him after your third miscarriage? Do you think talking to him would have, somehow, stopped you from growing apart?”
I think hard for a moment, finding the answer deep within me. “Yes. I think…I mean, I don’t think I would be divorced right now.”
“But how about Arsen? You mentioned you grew to love him.”
Tucking a piece of hair behind my ear, I turn to look at the window once more. It’s still sunny and beautiful outside. Funny how the sun reminds me so much of Arsen.
“I’d like to think that had my marriage been in a better place, had Ben and I been in a solid marriage with open communication and not so much resentment from my part, that I would not have turned to Arsen. That I would have enjoyed his light flirting, admired his beauty from afar, but that’s it. Never taking it to the next level and actually cheating on Ben. I mean, I remember how crazy I was about Ben during our honeymoon stage. I didn’t even notice other men in the same room. In my world, only one man existed. Ben. I never looked at another man or wondered. Never.”
“But you told me you were attracted to Arsen, very attracted to him before you actually slept with him for the first time?”
“Yes, I was. But there was this huge gap in my life and one day Arsen showed up and filled it. He made me laugh, he listened to my darkest fears, he brought color back into my life.” Turning away from the window, I stare at her. “I don’t think anything would’ve come of it had I not lost the baby, but I’ll never know for sure. When I cheated on Ben with Arsen, he made me feel alive again. He made the pain go away. Whenever I was with him, I felt euphoric. He made me feel beautiful, perfect, and less broken.” I pause and run my fingers through my hair. “Every time I was with him, every time we were together…I was able to forget. The people around me…my friends…my family...I didn’t care about them. All I cared was about getting my next Arsen fix.”
“Do you think that justifies the cheating?”
“No. Nothing can justify what I did to Ben. Nothing will ever justify the cheating. But I cheated, and it’s too late to do anything about it. As cliché as it sounds, all I can do is learn from my mistakes.”
“Tell me since you didn’t answer before. How about loving Arsen? Do you think it was love?”
I blow air out of my mouth. I think that Crystal really wants to kill me. It’s not like I can think about them without feeling the scar that has just begun to heal rip wide open again.
“Okay, this is going to be a long one. Trust me, I’ve given it a lot of thought.”
“I’m all ears.”
“They say being in love and loving someone are two different things, right? I mean, you love your best friend, but you love your husband, right? Falling in love with someone is easy. It’s loving when the newness has worn off, when life gets tough, when things get in the way, when physical passion is gone, that true love remains. When love can conquer it all.”
I reach for the glass of water in front of me, taking a sip because I’m suddenly very thirsty. “When you fall out of love, it doesn’t mean that you stop loving someone. They just don’t make your heart beat faster. You don’t crave them until you don’t know where they end and you begin. I d-don’t know that I ever fell out of love with Ben, but I do know that I fell in love with Arsen along the way. Or maybe I confused f**king and lust for love. I don’t know. I don’t think I will ever know.
“But what I do know is that they both were essential to my well-being. I didn’t realize how important Ben was to me until he was gone. Arsen became the air I needed to breathe, but Ben was my lungs. What good would air be if I didn’t have lungs to begin with?”
“Do you still think about Arsen? Have you forgiven him?”
“I do, but thinking about him doesn’t hurt as much as when I think about Ben. Arsen could easily be blamed because he pursued me, but I think it was the other way around. I think the fault lies all in me.”
I have forgiven him and the way he walked out on me. I understand where he came from and, in a way, he was right. No words of love were ever said between us. No promises made. Whenever I look back to our relationship, I can only be grateful for all the things he taught me, for being my stepping stone. For that, I will always love him. Sometimes I wish I had gotten the chance to tell him how special he was to me, how much I grew to love him. Arsen taught me to move on. To live life and forget. He made me laugh when all I wanted was to stop existing. I will always love him. And also, there’s the possibility that he gave me Nadia.
And now he’s gone.
“Marriage is work, Cathy. You have to work at it every single day that you’re together. You can’t ever slack. It’s hard being married. You go through great times, you go through terrible times, but it’s all about what you make of those experiences. How you deal with them that sets you apart from other couples who throw in the towel. Committing fully to your partner and giving your all. Because divorce is easy, it’s the easy way out.”
Oh, life. Are you really that simple?
“Yes…but sometimes it’s not easy. Whoever said marriage was easy must have been high on Disney cartoons.”
“Good one, Cathy. So tell me before it’s time for you to go, what would you have done differently?”
I think hard for a moment. “I would have been honest with Ben from the beginning instead of pushing him away.”
And that’s the truth.
My truth.
I just wish I’d realized it a long time ago.Four weeks later.
At peace.
A sigh of relief.
I can finally breathe.
I’m speechless and in awe.
I’m amazed.
Hoping with all my soul and wishing with my whole heart has finally paid off because I’m holding in my arms my future, my happily ever after. And, somehow, I know my life will never the same.
I’m whole.
I’m complete.
As I stare at my precious baby, I can’t stop myself from crying. My body is shaking fiercely from the gut-wrenching sobs escaping my mouth, and I don’t care because I’m thankful, so thankful. Wiping away the tears flowing freely down my face with the back of my hand, I stare at the wrinkly miracle currently sleeping in my arms. She feels so small and fragile. I’m afraid that if I move or hold her the wrong way, I could hurt her.
She’s mine.
All mine.
My Nadia.
My hope.
And even though it’s just the two of us in this moment, I don’t care at all. She’s all I need, my reason to exist, and I will do everything in my power to make her happy. Anything and everything.
I bring her closer to my chest as an almost primal instinct takes over me. The urge to protect her and to shelter her from all the ugliness of the world becomes my number one priority, my goal in life. Gone are the thoughts of my divorce, of unworthiness, of my failed relationship with Arsen…they are all gone. There’s no room for selfishness when you have a defenseless human being depending on you.
“Hi, pretty Nadia.” I lift her to my face so I can smell her sweet baby scent.
So clean, so pure.
“I’m your mommy.” I kiss her precious lips and fight the need to cry once more. “Can I tell you a secret?” I whisper in her ear, “I love you so, so much, my little ray of hope.”
I hear my dad clearing his throat. I lift my eyes and watch him approach the hospital bed with a smile on his face. “She looks exactly like you when you were a baby.”
A tissue in his hand, he leans over and cleans my face since my hands are importantly tied up at the moment. With eyes that shine because of unshed tears, he smiles tenderly at me. “She’s just as gorgeous as her mother.”
I feel a knot in my stomach. “Daddy, how can I love her so much when I’ve just met her? Is she real? Is she really mine?”
“Yes. She’s all yours, my baby girl.”
“I’m holding her, smelling her, kissing her and I still cannot believe it. I’m afraid this is a dream. One that will end when I wake up, leaving me all a-alone.” My voice breaks.
My dad sits on the edge of the bed and wraps an arm around my shoulder. “Stop, Cathy. She’s real. It’s time for you to finally enjoy being a mother, baby girl. It’s time to let go of all those ghosts.”
Looking up at my dad, and then down at Nadia, I let the truth sink in. She is real. I’m her mother.
Her mother.
After Dad leaves for the night, I prop up against the wall with pillows behind my back. With my gown open at the front, I watch transfixed as Nadia latches on to my nipple, suctioning breast milk. It’s such a simple thing, watching your child feed from your body, but it’s also magical. Listening to the gentle sounds she’s making soothes my soul.
I laugh as I remember walking to the maternity ward, pushing Nadia in the portable crib, and asking the nurses to teach me for the second time that day how to breastfeed her. After they warned me that I shouldn’t be walking, my nurse Lili, sat me in the rocking chair and taught me the procedure all over again as I promised that this was the last time.