As he made love to me with so much feeling, so much intention, I promised myself I would tell him the truth. This had gone on long enough. I was betraying him, and I couldn’t do it anymore.
I cleaned up the town house and went to the grocery store to get everything I needed to make my grandmother’s chicken divan that Adam loved so much. I bought him his favorite IPA from a local brewery, put my hair up the way he liked, and wore a dress that showed a little more cleavage than usual.
And then I prayed that he would forgive me, that he could understand, that I would be forgiven for treating the man I loved most in the worst way I could imagine. Even in the moment it seemed kind of foolish. Who could possibly understand what I had done?
When we sat down at dinner, candles flickering between us, I took a sip of wine and a deep breath, and said, “Adam, I have to tell you something.” I paused and looked down into the plate I knew I wouldn’t touch. “It’s hard to say, and you aren’t going to like it.”
He eyed me warily, and I could almost hear what he was thinking. Deployment affairs were not uncommon. I almost felt offended that he would possibly think I would do such a thing—until I remembered that what I had actually done was so much worse.
I took a deep breath and reached for his hand. “Adam,” I said. “I wish with everything I had that I had told you a long time ago, when we met.” For the briefest of moments I considered telling him I couldn’t have children. Then he couldn’t be mad at me, right? But I couldn’t lie to him anymore. “I don’t want to have children now.” I paused and said more softly, “Possibly ever.”
I felt his hand go limp in mine before he pulled it away. He didn’t say anything for a long moment. He took a bite of his chicken, wiped his mouth, put his napkin back in his lap, and stared at me.
I could tell by the look on his face that he was thinking I couldn’t possibly have said what he thought I said. “I don’t understand.”
“I just can’t, Adam. After my dad died, I swore up and down I wouldn’t put myself in that place again. I wouldn’t love with all I had only to be heartbroken.” I paused. “I went against everything I had ever told myself by falling in love with you, but I just can’t do this, Adam.”
The look on his face was something between shock and betrayal. “But we’ve been trying to have a baby,” he said. “We tried for months.”
I bit my lip. “Well . . .”
“Well, what?”
“I have an IUD.”
Now I wasn’t having any trouble reading his look. It was a look that said he didn’t know me at all. He stood up calmly and smoothed his napkin, setting it on the table.
“Adam, please,” I said. “Let’s talk about this. I want you to understand.”
“Understand?” he said, emotion filling his voice. “Understand? What I understand is that you have let me think for months and months that we were going to have a baby. I worried myself to death, tiptoeing around your feelings, trying not to make you feel pressured, trying to build you back up after those negative pregnancy tests. And all of it was a lie. How could you, Sloane? What else have you been lying to me about?”
I was crying now, realizing this was even worse than I’d thought. I had never seen him look angry like this.
“Adam, I love you with all my heart. Please don’t forget that.”
He shook his head. “Sloane, I don’t even know who you are right now.”
He turned, and I was afraid he was going to walk out the door. I was desperate. “Adam, please!” I said, sobbing now. “Let’s talk about this. You have to listen.”
He shook his head. “I don’t have to do a damn thing.” He walked toward the bedroom, which made me feel a little better, and said, “Oh, and while we’re being honest, I absolutely hate chicken divan.”
It was like he had slapped me across the face. I scolded myself. I had just told the man I had lied to him for our entire marriage, and I was offended he didn’t like my chicken divan?
I wanted to go after him, but I didn’t. He was too angry, too betrayed. He wouldn’t even be able to hear me. So I sat at the table, not daring to move, and watched the wax from the candles melt into a puddle on my antique dining table. I watched them and cried until I couldn’t cry anymore, until the flames were gone. When the last light flickered and the room went dark I wondered if my relationship, like my candles, had burnt out.
THIRTY-TWO
safe place
ansley
I was the last one awake that night. I would likely be the last one awake for quite some time, trying to come to grips with the fact that my mother was gone. It was an inexplicably vulnerable feeling. That’s the word that describes it best of all. It’s a longing of the heart, a fear of the soul, a realization of the mind that your last truly safe place, your last harbor in the storm, is gone. I had felt it excruciatingly when Carter died, been through it maybe even worse when my father died. This death was the last blow, the final straw.
I sat out on the front porch for a long time thinking about her, about what she had meant to me, what she had said to me, the advice she had given me. No matter what, I had always taken Mom’s advice to heart.
I thought about Jack and about Caroline saying he would always be our family. I thought about Georgia
