ALTHOUGH SOME OF the things they’d talked about last night were painful, Grace felt a little better this morning. The call had given her hope that they might be able to work things out between them.
Just as she finished tidying the bedroom and placing clothes in the laundry hamper, the phone rang. Aidan. She hadn’t expected to hear from him so soon. “How are you doing? Did you get any rest?” she asked, falling into her old habit of being concerned for him.
“I did a little, not much. I’m too worried about how I’m going to cope with Emma.”
Should she simply say what was on her mind? After last night, it was worth a try. “I thought that maybe if I drove to Spartanburg today, we could talk about all this, maybe work out a plan for Emma.”
“I’d like that so much, darling. I really believe we can solve this if we try. We can get our life back on track. To be honest, I spent part of the night thinking of ways to fix things, and so if you are willing to come here, I’d like to see you as soon as possible.”
“How is Emma?” she asked.
“She cried when I came near her again last night. She wouldn’t let me put her to bed. Pretty upsetting stuff, but like Lisa said, Emma has just lost her mom. Lisa suggested that I might consider having Emma see a child psychologist. I hadn’t thought of that. For now, I’d like to see if I could gain her trust, have her be willing to spend time with me…with us.”
Grace heard the uncertainty in his words and remembered her promise to herself to keep in mind that Aidan had no family member to confide in or rely upon the way she did. “Aidan, it will take time. She sees you as a stranger, and it will be a big change for her to see you as anything other than that. I’m sure it will eventually work out.”
“If you’re here with me, everything will be fine,” he said, and she knew by his tone he expected her to reassure him that she would be there for him.
She suddenly felt shy and uncertain. She’d never behaved this way around Aidan, this new thing of holding back. She’d always rushed in to support him in whatever he was doing.
“When will you be here?” he asked, and she heard the loneliness in his voice.
His need for her drew her in. The familiarity of that role comforted her, despite their issues. She couldn’t help herself, it seemed. “I’m ready to go now, so about two hours maybe.”
He gave a protracted sigh. “I’ll be waiting right here for you. Truthfully, I spent a miserable night last night without you.”
“Me, too,” she confessed.
“Grace, please drive carefully,” he murmured in her ear.
“I will. I have to pack, then I can get on the road,” she said, as she placed her pajamas in her suitcase.
As she hung up, she realized she would like Aidan to come home with her. Their conversation last night proved they could work on things together, and that lifted her spirits, made her believe they could put their marriage back together eventually. Just on that one subject they had so much to think about, to talk about, and it would be much easier to do it here in their home.
They needed to sit down with a counselor to talk out their concerns about how Emma had come into their lives and how it had affected their marriage.
She climbed into the car, her mind focused on what lay ahead. She had so many doubts about all this. She wasn’t sure she wanted the child of her husband’s affair. What if she couldn’t accept Emma into her life? She felt guilty for feeling that way, but she couldn’t help it. And a part of her resented that he would simply assume that she would be okay with the child he’d fathered without her.
Given the way he was behaving, she wondered how to talk to him about her concern about raising another’s woman’s child and all that meant for her. How could she get him to see her point of view? If they were to get through this with their marriage intact, she and he both had to be totally honest about how they felt.
Hours later, she pulled into the driveway she’d left so hurriedly yesterday. Aidan met her at the door, his arms outstretched. “Oh, Grace. I’ve missed you so much. So much.”
She walked into his embrace feeling his warmth, breathing in his scent. He held her tight as he rocked her back and forth.
“I missed you, too, Aidan. Last night was the loneliest night of my life,” she whispered into his cotton shirt, soaking in the newly scrubbed scent of his body. “Where did you stay last night?”
Still holding her tight, he led her into the house and along the hall to the kitchen. “I stayed here. Lisa thought it might help if I was around when Emma got up this morning. Lisa has gone shopping and Emma is at kindergarten. We’ve got the house to ourselves. Larry Knowles called to say he’d like to see me to start the process of working out the estate details. I want you to go with me,” he said, drawing her into a kiss that made her knees weak with desire.
He smiled. “I’ve got coffee ready to go, and I went to the local bakery and got your favorite sandwich—Swiss cheese and ham with mayo and mustard.” Without waiting for her reply, he moved to the counter and began making coffee, his back to her as he worked.
“I’m famished. Did you get yourself a sandwich, as well?” she asked, slipping into her old behavior of thinking about him first. Yet it felt so easy, so natural. She shrugged off her concern that he might expect things to go back to the way they were. That couldn’t happen.
He got two plates out of the cupboard and put them on the island. “I did. I ate earlier. The lawyer appointment isn’t until two o’clock, so we have time.”
Grace watched her husband as she organized her thoughts, what she wanted to say. She knew how important Emma was to him, but she needed him to understand how she felt about it all. “Aidan, I think we need to be very clear on what we want to do.”
He looked up from cutting her sandwich in half. “Of course we need to be clear. But I’m not sure if you mean it the way I do.”
“I mean Emma is a little girl who has never lived anywhere but in this house. We live miles away, with a life that we’ve made for the two of us, a life that never included a child, despite our wishes. At the very least, we will have to childproof the house. We’d have to find a pediatrician, a dentist who is good with children—”
“But once she’s over the worst of it, Emma will be fine. Children adapt easily,” Aidan said, as he studied her. “You don’t see it that way, do you?”
“What I see is a child who will need a lot of care and attention in a loving, familiar environment. That environment isn’t our home where nothing is familiar to her. It’s here with her nanny.”
“But what about us? We have been waiting most of our marriage for a child. Now we have one,” Aidan said, a bewildered look on his face.
“It’s not just about having a child in our lives. It’s about doing right for her and for us. That all takes planning and caring, Aidan. And so far we’ve done none of it.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, his eyebrows drawn together as he poured the coffee and brought the cups and cream to the counter between them.
“This is a huge change for both of us. We’ll have to make sacrifices to make sure that Emma is cared for and happy.”
“But that’s the whole point. We now have a child. We are a family,” he said, leaning on the counter.
Grace couldn’t look at her sandwich let alone take a bite. “Aidan, I’m not sure I can accept Emma as my child. I…I… She belongs to you and Deidre.”
Aidan stared across the glossy surface of the counter at her. “She belongs with you and me. Deidre is gone. She is not coming back. She left her child in our care. Deidre wasn’t part of our lives, but we’ve been given the gift. Something good has come out of Deidre’s death. At least, that’s how I see it.”
Grace took a deep breath, preparing herself to offer up what she felt. Crossing her fingers that Aidan would listen, she said, “That’s not how I see it. I need time to accept her into our lives. She is a part of you, and I respect that. But she’s not a part of me. I can’t have a child, and I’m afraid that having Emma with us would be a constant reminder of my inability to have a baby and of your infidelity.”
Aidan blew out an impatient sigh. “Grace, how can I convince you that Deidre was never really part of my life? The only really good thing that came out of that relationship was Emma.”
Her throat choking with tears, Grace tried to find the right words. “Aidan, I need time to sort this out. We need time together, to adjust to having a child in our lives so suddenly. Would it be possible to leave Emma here with Lisa while you and I go home and work this out?”
“Are you saying you don’t want Emma?” he asked, frustration tingeing his words.
“That’s not what I said at all. What I said was I need to be sure that taking Emma into our lives at the moment is the right thing for us. We have so many problems we need to work on. This is all so sudden, and I need to feel that we are doing the right thing. I need us to talk it all out, rather than jump in so fast.”
“The right thing? This isn’t about right or wrong. This is about my daughter, our daughter. Grace, you’re overreacting to all this. Don’t let what happened years ago influence how you feel about Emma. This is our life. We have a child. What we both have wanted all along.”
“But what you did back then is now influencing everything in our life, in my life. You had an affair, which you didn’t tell me about. You find out you have a daughter from that affair and I’m supposed to jump onboard without a moment’s thought or hesitation. I’m your wife. I was your wife before Deidre and before this child. I need you to support me in this, to give me time to adjust.”
“I don’t know what to say. You want me to leave Emma here while we go home and work on you adjusting to having a child in our lives when we’ve waited years for this opportunity. I don’t get it,” he said.
“This child is not ours. She’s yours and Deidre’s. Not mine. I can’t simply ignore what you and Deidre did to my life, to my faith in you. It’s this simple. Either I’m part of this decision or I’m not,” she said, anger rising through her.
“Grace, I can’t abandon Emma. And that’s what it would feel like if I went home with you now. But if you stay here with me, I’m willing to spend time working through this with you, reassuring you in any way I can.”
“I don’t want reassurance. I want to be involved in deciding what is best for her and for us. Don’t you see?” she asked, feeling miserable and alone. “If you’d been willing to adopt a baby, we’d be a family now. Taking Emma into our lives would be different, if we already had a child.”
“Grace, where is this coming from? Are you afraid that I am taking Emma out of some sort of loyalty to Deidre?” he asked, his dark eyes intent on hers.
She shrugged in defeat. “What do you want me to say? We can’t seem to talk about this without you presenting what you want and expecting me to go along with it.”
“That’s not true! I want you to be part of this, but I can’t abandon my daughter.”
She wondered if he’d heard any of the words he’d just spoken or saw their effect on her. Probably not. Aidan wasn’t ready to accept anyone else’s ideas on this. How long that would last, she didn’t know. Perhaps coming here was a mistake. “For the umpteenth time, I’m not asking you to abandon your child.”
“Then what are you saying?” he asked.
“I want you to listen to my side of things. I failed you by not having our baby, and it’s clear that you want your child. I’ve always wanted my own child, my baby. It didn’t happen. We don’t always get what we want, Aidan,” she said, her voice failing her as sobs shook her whole body. Through her tears, she searched for her purse. “This was a mistake, my coming here. A mistake.”
* * *
“DON’T SAY THAT, GRACE,” Aidan pleaded, going to her and holding her while she cried. He’d been so glad to see her when she drove in the driveway. Last night’s conversation had been so open and caring, yet so laden with things that neither could say. He’d been thrilled to have her return to him, and he’d foolishly believed they could agree to have Emma return home with them.
Holding her close, he whispered, “I never meant to hurt you. I am as confused by all of this as you are. Not long ago I was running my business, we were having a little break in Charleston and life was good. And, yes, I didn’t jump on the adoption thing right away because I felt we needed a little time to catch our breath, get our lives on track before we began the search for a child. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to adopt. I wanted us to take our time.”
“And that’s what I’m asking you to do now. What difference will a week make in Emma’s life? Isn’t a delay while we talk this out better than our marriage suffering and Emma being caught in the middle?”
He held her shoulders as his eyes searched her tearstained face. “Grace, I love you. I didn’t realize that you felt this way. But you don’t know how it felt last night to watch Emma, to feel that visceral connection to someone, someone who is totally dependent on me, what I do and how I do it. For the first time in my life, I’m confused, uncertain. And yet I’ve never felt this alive. Emma’s a lovely little girl and I’m sure you will fall in love with her. Just wait until she gets home from kindergarten.”
“I—I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“Why not? She’s a part of our lives.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” She glanced at him and the sadness in her expression crushed his heart. “You want us to include a little girl in our lives and to overcome the damage caused to our relationship by the fact you had an affair without being clear on what all this means to each of us.”
“I guess I don’t get it. I want to, but every time I say something it comes out all wrong,” he said, feeling lost, adrift and afraid that he was about to lose her.
“I need to know that my feelings matter,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“They do!” Was that the problem? Was she feeling left out? She shouldn’t feel that way. He wasn’t leaving her out. “Your feelings have always mattered—”
“Let me finish. I need for us to take this slow, to talk this out together before we decide to take her home with us. This is a big decision for both of us. It will change our lives, our relationship, forever.”
She couldn’t be suggesting that he walk away from Emma, leave her here on her own without family, could she? “But Grace, Emma is my responsibility. I love her and I can’t walk away from her.”
Grace sighed. “I’m simply suggesting that you come home with me—Emma will be fine with Lisa for a little bit—and we work out a plan, look at our options. And if we decide to become parents, we find a kindergarten for Emma. We get our house ready for a little girl.” She paused, then said slowly, “And we start proceedings to adopt her…if that’s what we decide we want to do. In the meantime, she’s safe and content here with Lisa.”
He frowned in surprise. “Grace, there is no decision to be made about whether or not we take Emma. The decision is when and how,” he said, his heart surging in his chest as he began to see what was going on here. Grace was worried over things that were easily fixed. “You and I and Emma will be a family. Together we will arrange for everything Emma needs. You will be a wonderful mom.”
Grace’s expression was despondent as she looked at him before turning away. “I am not Emma’s mother. Her mother just died. If we’re to be Emma’s family, if that’s the best resolution for all of us, you and I first have to be together on how we’ll do it. If we’re not, we’ll only make your daughter unhappy. Is that what you want?”
Hurt, like a dull blade, jabbed at his heart. “I don’t want anyone to be unhappy, especially not you,” he said, feeling the situation slip out of his control. Where had he gone so wrong?
“Then come home with me. Call Mr. Knowles and reschedule your meeting.” She took his hand in hers, her skin warm and inviting. “We have so much to consider. If we are to get through all of this, we need to go to counseling.”
“Counseling isn’t necessary if we love each other and want to be a family. Grace, don’t do this to me. I already feel guilty that I had an affair and that I didn’t know about Emma. I could have been here for her, but I wasn’t. I can’t make that right. But I… We’ve got a chance now to do what she needs.”
“Your lack of involvement in Emma’s life was Deidre’s decision and out of your control.”
He clutched her hand tighter. “That’s true. And now I’ve got a chance to make it up to her by being with her. She’s just a little girl. She’s confused and missing her mom. I can help her. You can, too.”
Grace pulled her hand away. “Aidan, it’s clear that you and I can’t resolve this standing here. Please come home with me and let’s work this out between us.”
“I love you with all my heart, Grace. But I can’t leave Emma, not right now.”
She turned her face to his, the look of longing in her eyes cutting straight to his heart. “Is that it? You’re going to stay here with Emma rather than coming home with me?”
Aware that things were going terribly wrong, he fought to make her understand. “Grace, it’s not that simple.”
“It is. Either you love me enough to put my feelings first, or you don’t.”
“That’s not fair! I do love you.”
She stepped away from him. “But not enough. Not enough to make you change your mind. I came here to convince you that we needed to sort things out, for our sakes as well as for Emma’s. It’s pretty clear to me that I’ve wasted my time,” she said, her voice catching.
“You haven’t wasted your time. I do want to talk, but I can’t leave Emma here by herself.”
“She’s not by herself. She’s with the one person in her life she loves best. You said yourself she is shy around you, doesn’t trust you. If you gave her a little time, it would be better for both of you. While she’s adjusting to her life without her mother, you and I could be working out a plan that provides for Emma’s needs.”
“Providing for her needs? Are you suggesting we aren’t what Emma needs?”
“I’m not suggesting anything, only that we sit down, just the two of us, and work this out between us,” she said, her voice so soft he could barely hear her.
“Why did you come here if you weren’t willing to help me bring Emma home?” he asked, barely hiding his annoyance. “Was all that talk about having a child just talk?”
“How dare you say that? You really don’t want to change anything at all. I came here to talk this out and you’re being totally selfish and unreasonable,” she said, turning to go, her shoulders rigid.
When she got to the door, she turned to face him. “So I guess that’s it. There is nothing left to talk about. I’m going home, Aidan.”