“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. If I’d had the choice, which was removed from me thank-you-very-much, I would have liked to be there with you. What if they had said you were infertile? What if that hit you harder than you anticipated?” She made a gesture of protest, but Chad kept going. “I know, if you were so human as to have a weak moment of discouragement most women I’ve ever met—”
“And here we go again. One more dig about how I’m just abnormal. Why did you marry me, Chad? You knew me—that apparently I’m different. Why did you suddenly decide that you wanted me to become what you could have had in every other woman you’ve ever met? Why?”
For a brief moment, guilt struggled to bore a hole in Chad’s heart. He heard tears in her voice and saw the firm set of her jaw so familiar to him. Anytime she struggled to avoid crying, her normally oval face looked nearly square as her jaw became prominent with tension, and now it looked like the image of Steve Solari. The impatient swipe at the tears in the corners of her eyes told him she’d be pulling out her claws next. Willow despised angry tears.
“I married you because I love you. Just you. Nobody else but you. Boop boop de doop.”
“What?” Willow glanced at him alarmed. “What are you talking about?”
Chad turned onto his parents’ street and pulled up in front of their house. “It’s an old song. Stupid one too.” He wiped a remaining tear from her eyelashes. “But it’s true. I’d be miserable with an ordinary woman. Don’t get me wrong, it might be easier,” he teased, “but it’d be boring. I like who you are, and I don’t want you to be any different, but it’s hard to predict when you’re going to be like everyone else, and when you’re off in your own world. Sometimes, I’m thrown off guard.”
They sat in his truck, gazing at each other, saying nothing, but every word necessary travelling between them—unspoken. At last, Willow nodded. “So, we’ve both been kind of ridiculous; is that what you mean?”
“Can you define ridiculous?” Chad wasn’t about to open the doors for further angst.
“Well, I felt pressured to put my order in for a stork delivery, and you felt left out when I made arrangements to get the stork out of prison without you.”
Laughing, Chad jogged around the truck and opened the door. “Something like that. Can we start this over?”
“Done.”
He handed her a pillow and said, “Stick it under—quick! Before Mom sees.”
Chad opened the door calling, “Knock, knock,” as he always did, and as always, Willow cringed. It seemed so rude to enter a house without waiting to be invited.
“You’re here! I—” Marianne paused, shocked. “Does this mean what I think?”
The sight of Marianne jumping up and down amused them. “Does this mean you’re in the ‘I approve’ camp on the baby question?”
“People don’t approve?” Marianne looked scandalized.
“Some don’t.”
“I have to tell your father—” Chad’s mother began.
“I told him this morning. I was supposed to go get magazines and such—”
“But I knew you’d forget them,” a voice came through the door.
“Christopher! You knew about this and didn’t tell me? I can’t believe you went to work and let me think this was just an average get-together.”
Christopher set a stack of magazines on the kitchen bar and poured a glass of iced tea. “I tried to get here in time to see your reaction, but I left without those stupid magazines…”
For the next half hour, the women worked together in the kitchen making sandwiches, pasta salad, and lemon bars for dessert. The men discussed cradles, life insurance, and the quality of Fairbury’s little league, while the Willow and Marianne created imaginary wardrobes, blankets, quilts, and toys for the anticipated child. Marianne was just as certain that it was a girl as Christopher was about a boy. Chad and Willow listened to their animated repartee with amused smiles, until Willow mentioned the ultrasound.
“Already? I thought they didn’t do those until sixteen or twenty weeks. Teresa Mallory’s girl was twenty weeks, I’m sure.”
“Willow had some testing done, so they wanted to see how everything went.”
Silence hung awkwardly over the table. Marianne and Christopher held a rapid conversation with their eyes and facial expressions, until Chad finally dropped his fork and threw up his hands. “What! Just spill it. Do you have any idea how much we hated when you guys did that when we were kids?”
“Well, when you spring this testing on us… Is the baby ok?”
“Mom, the baby’s fine. Willow knew how eager we were for her to get pregnant, and when the pressure got high, she just decided to find out if there was anything wrong with her that might prevent a baby.”
“Prevent a baby? Something was wrong? What did the doctor say?”
Chad looked at Willow to explain. All he knew was they’d discovered incomplete ovulation and given her something to help. The discussion had been interrupted so many times that he still hadn’t heard how they’d fixed it. Willow told the story of the ovulation kits, the ultrasounds, and how one dose of Clomid had solved the problem.
“Clomid? Are you serious! How could you let her Chad? That stuff is so dangerous! She could be carrying a litter—”
Willow’s jaw dropped, and it was instantly obvious that she was unaware that it still held partially masticated sandwich. After a second or two, she swallowed and took a long drink of her lemonade. “A litter? Chad, what is she talking about?”
“Sometimes Clomid has the side effect of releasing several eggs instead of just one or two. It’s rare, but it happens. That family in Iowa was one…”
“So does that mean triplets or even quadruplets?” Willow looked stunned.
“The McCaugheys had septuplets.” Christopher didn’t like the look on Willow’s face. She was clearly stunned, but anger filled her eyes.
“Seven babies. At once? Are you kidding me?”
“I can’t believe Chad agreed to it,” Marianne began.
Willow cut her off abruptly. “He didn’t. I made the decision on my own.”
“Didn’t the doctor mention the risk of multiples?” Chad hadn’t expected Willow’s surprise. As careful as she was to ask questions about everything, and with medical disclosure laws, surely the doctor mentioned the possibility.
“He mentioned multiples, but it sounded like twins. I never realized—”
“You did ask him Chad?” Marianne had obviously missed the part where Willow didn’t inform her husband of her decision.
“I didn’t know, Mom. Willow went alone.”
“She what!” Shocked, Chad’s mother turned to Willow, indignation clouding her features, eyes, and unfortunately, her judgment. “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking,” Willow began as she stood and tossed her napkin on the chair. “I was thinking that I was sick and tired of the pressure. Everyone, and yes that includes you and Chad—Dad was probably the only exclusion—kept hinting, asking, pushing…” She swallowed hard and raised her eyes to the shocked faces at the table. “I was sick of feeling like I’d failed this family, my friends, and my husband. He brought home page after page of what could be wrong, what we should try to make it ‘work’…” She choked down tears. “I felt like a breeder filly. It was horrible and I just wanted it over.”
Before they could respond, Willow turned and rushed from the room, the front door slamming shut behind her. Christopher stood calmly and shook his head as Marianne began to protest. “She’s right, Mari and you know it.” He stepped around the table and leaned down murmuring into his son’s ear. “It’s time to put your mother back in her rightful place as mother, not confidante and buddy. You brought another woman into your marriage, son, and you brought the last woman most women are confident competing with. No woman wants to feel like his mother has a place in their bedroom.”
Chad and his mother stared after Christopher as he left to find Willow.
“Um
Mom—”
“Your father’s right. I never thought I was interfering that much. I didn’t say anything about all the physical labor, the adding more and more work… I didn’t say anything about a lot of things because I knew it wasn’t any of my business, but the baby…”
“I brought it up. I sensed that she didn’t want to talk about it all the time. I assumed it was because she was as disappointed as I was. She wasn’t, Mom. She has this faith.”
Chad dropped his head into his hands. Marianne didn’t know what to do to comfort her son. Torn by her contribution to the miserable ending of what should have been the best lunch of the year, she patted his hand and dabbed at her eyes, smearing mayonnaise across her cheek as she did. What she didn’t expect, was Chad’s admission of fury.
“I’m just so angry, Mom. She left me out of this. She went through that examination alone; she made medical decisions that could have caused complications, and I wouldn’t have known to tell the doctors. She does this and—” he groaned. “She goes off half-cocked and makes these decisions without any kind of thought to others who are involved or will be. It’s so infuriating.”
At first, Marianne was tempted to agree. She wanted to commiserate, justify, and advise, but Christopher’s admonition pricked her heart. “I’m not the one to talk about this with, Chad. I’ve already caused enough problems. I had no idea but—” She swallowed, choking back emotion. “You’re right. Dad’s right. We all put a lot of pressure on her. Because we weren’t saying, ‘why aren’t you pregnant yet,’ we didn’t think we were, but I can see now why she felt that way.” Marianne stood, hugged her son, and turned to leave the room. “I’m very sorry. I’m new at this mother-in-law thing, and I failed miserably. Please forgive me.”
“Willow! Wait up.”
She whirled to see Christopher jogging down the sidewalk after her. “What—”
“I want to talk to you.”
“Please, Dad, I don’t think I can take any more scolding right now.”
Smiling, he took her hand and led her around the block and down the street to a small park with a shaded bench. “I didn’t intend to scold. I wanted to see if you were okay.”
“I’m a bit ashamed of myself. I can’t believe I spoke to Mom like that.”
“My Marianne is not usually a meddling woman. This has been a very unusual thing for me to watch.” Willow started to respond, but Christopher stopped her. “No, wait. Listen to me. We’re all learning how this works. I’ve only been a father to children I’ve raised. I drove Chad away from me for years, and thanks to you, I have him back again. I don’t know how to be a father-in-law. I don’t know how to give the kind of counsel that I know my son still needs without seeming to interfere in his family. And, as is my normal behavior, I withdraw and wait for it all to smooth over. Marianne is the fixer. While I stood back and waited for my children to get over their hurts and difficulties, praying like crazy for them, Mari was in there talking to them, listening to them, and keeping those lines of communication open.”
Nodding, Willow agreed. “I can understand that.”
“I have a feeling that this wasn’t all about Marianne’s surprise at you going to the doctor alone.”
“It wasn’t. Chad and I had an ugly argument on the way over here.”
“About the same subject?” Christopher could, with incredible accuracy, predict what each had said and why. Unlike his wife, he wasn’t emotionally swayed by the situation. He saw the strengths of each side of each argument and the weaknesses as well. Using what he considered simple logic, he picked apart Chad’s defense, Willow’s offense, and left her dumfounded when he finished.
“It was wrong to go alone?”
“You and Chad are not individuals anymore. Not in areas like this. You are an individual in your personal likes and dislikes. You don’t have to prefer blue just because Chad does. He doesn’t have to like roses over snapdragons just because you do—”
“Actually, that’d be the other way around…”
Christopher laughed. “You like denim and he likes lace or vice versa. Those are personal preferences and as an individual, you don’t have to be a clone of each other; that’s not what I’m saying. However, in marriage, there are areas that you must be one—of one mind. You must think and act as one when it comes to your family, and I’d say that increasing that family counts.”
“I thought I was. He wants children, and I wanted to do that for him. I wanted to stop the constant pressure, yes. That’s why I went alone. I didn’t know what would happen, and it would only upset him until he knew answers.”
“And it would save you grief while you were waiting for those answers,” Christopher finished, an understanding tone to his words.
“Basically.”
“You denied him the right to help carry this burden, Willow. You took from him the chance to see his child at the earliest stage of development. You took from him, the opportunity to pray for you, to hold your hand during the examination, to protect you from what could have been a very unscrupulous doctor. You stole those from him.”
“I did?” The confusion on Willow’s face combined with the pain in her eyes nearly broke Christopher’s heart. He loved his daughter-in-law, and hated that he had to hurt her by speaking the truth.
“You did. I know you didn’t mean to. Somehow, I think your mother left you alone in your decisions unless they directly involved her.”
“She did.”
“I think,” her father-in-law continued, standing and taking her hand again as he led her toward home, “I think I understand. I’ll talk to Chad.”
“He’ll forgive me,” she said simply. “He always does. When will he tire of always having to do that?”
“My son was wrong too, Willow. Chad put you in a terrible position. You didn’t act out of selfishness or indifference. You acted out of love and self-preservation. While your actions were wrong, I think you might have made other choices had you not felt backed into a corner.”
As he spoke, Willow shook her head. “I don’t know. I might have, but then again, I might not. I’m used to thinking and doing for myself. I don’t know if I would have thought that fixing my body was Chad’s territory too. I remember finding it weird and a little annoying when he brought home all that information about what might help or might be wrong.”
“I think,” Christopher tried again seeing that his meaning wasn’t clear, “had the lines of communication not been ‘pressure sealed,’ the subject might have come up naturally. You would have seen where Chad was going with things and why you might want him with you. No one is faultless here, Willow.” Christopher paused in front of his home. “But neither is anyone fully to blame. You both made mistakes. Marianne made mistakes.” He swallowed. “And I made the same mistakes I always do. I hid my head in the sand and waited for the storm to pass. Please forgive me.”
Chapter 13 3
August—
The exhaustion is overwhelming. My doctor warned me of the nausea, but I’ve hardly noticed any. However, the sleepiness… I have never been so sleepy. I wake up and make food, milk the goats, and then I take a nap. I get up, drink some water, rush to the bathroom, and check the plants and sheep before I go to bed again. Later I wake up and finish some work, putter around with Chad or wait for him to get home, and fall asleep again. The doctor says it’s normal. I feel terribly lazy, but when I can’t work anymore, I assume I need the sleep so I sleep.
The doctor showed us the little TV screen today. On the screen were two ovals. Two separate ovals. My plans to find a midwife and stay home like Mother are over. I carry twins. Two babies. Chad will not agree to my staying home to give birth—especially with the apparent risks that people assume with two children. I am not sure why, but with the doctor and nurses squawking and clucking like my chickens, it was easier just to agree. Dr. Walston has referred me to Dr. Weisenburg in Fairbury. It makes the doctor visits less of a nuisance I guess. They want me in there every four weeks!
&nb
sp; Meanwhile, although I shouldn’t be “showing” yet, there is a definite change in my physique. My favorite summer shorts, much to Chad’s disappointment, do not fit. I’ve stashed them in the drawer for next year, but Mom says that I probably won’t fit into them ever again—especially after twins. I’ve made me two high-waisted dresses already—just to get the band away from my stomach. I think Chad is sick of them. He asked me twice this week if I didn’t think we should go shopping and get me some new clothes or at least some maternity patterns.
Oh the maternity patterns—they’re horrible. I cannot stand them. Everything is either too revealing or too much like wearing a sacque. Yuck. So, I’ll be designing something for me, but I don’t know what yet. Aggie said that she wants a copy of every one of my patterns for their next child. She also recommends I find a way to make a few pretty things “nurseable.” She says most nursing clothes—I didn’t know they had special clothes for nursing—are just as awful as maternity. Oh boy. A whole new design realm.
And, on that topic, I’m excited about the spring line for Boho. I really love what we came up with, and now that they’re almost done, I’ll be able to get started on my own clothes. There are fifteen pieces this year. I had a hard time balancing separates and one-piece items, but once I looked at everything together, it looked great. I think any little girl would have fun wearing clothes that are both cute and practical. That practical side is harder to achieve than the cute, though.
It’s time for another nap. Another one. How will I survive nine months of sleeping? Will Chad get tired of filling in for me? He’s already working on the new barn, he’s ordered the new chickens, and he’s got a dozen more ideas. Our lives are busier and more complicated than ever, and now two babies are going to need our attention. I can’t carry both on my back all day like Mother did with me. Even Chad can’t—not with him gone half the time. Somehow, I’ll have to find a way to make that work. Somehow.
Willow loaded Jill’s truck with produce, soap, candles, and strawberry preserves that were canned in their now heath department-approved kitchen. Chad, caught up in the excitement of dollars and cents, suggested that they sell all the strawberry preserves and buy jam at the store for half the cost and bank the difference. Willow nodded, said it was worth considering, and the next time she went to town, brought home a jar of strawberry preserves from the store. The following morning, she spread each half of a piece of toast with the two options and asked Chad to choose which they’d serve at their table.
Past Forward- A Serial Novel: Volume 4 Page 24