Crossroad to Love (Fab Five Series) - By Anna Kristell Page 0,41

right on that pretty soon, don’t you think?” He pulled her close to him again.

Angie shook her head. “Michael, we have to talk about this. Please listen to me very carefully. This is very hard for me and I only want to have to say it once.” She looked away as she spoke softly, “I can’t have children.” There now, at least part of the tale is told, she thought with a twinge.

Michael looked at her in disbelief. When he finally spoke, it was with great concern. “I am so sorry, Angie, I had no idea. How did you find this out? When did you find this out?’

“I had a miscarriage several years ago. The doctor ran tests to find out why I did not carry the baby to term. Everything had seemed so normal. It seems that I have some sort of problem where my body thinks the fetus is a foreign object and rejects it, causing me to miscarry. Can you imagine how it felt to be told that my own body was rejecting my baby? To be told that I could never carry a baby to term. My body betrayed me, Michael.” Angie began to sob, the old pain returning tenfold.

Michael felt as if all the breath had been knocked out of his body. So she had tried to have a baby with someone else. He could not believe the incredible hurt and jealousy that he was feeling at this news. “How long ago was that, Angie?” he asked her warily. Do I really want to know?

Angie hesitated before she spoke again. Her mouth was parched, her body shaking. The time had come. There was no going back. She had come this far, she had to see it through. “Fifteen years ago, Michael.” She searched his face, waiting for the truth to sink in, waiting for his reaction.

Michael’s face was ashen. What was she saying? What was she trying to tell him? He looked at her with a question in his eyes. Was there another man back then? Or had she carried and lost his baby and not told him? But why on God’s green earth would she do that?

She went on to explain. “Not long after we began discussing starting a family, I found out that I was pregnant. You had gone on that three-week-long business trip. Remember, we had thought it better for me not to go because I was so busy at work. We thought I should not take time off so I could take a long maternity leave when we finally had a baby. I was incredibly happy when I found out. I couldn’t wait for you to get back from your trip so that I could share the news with you. I was so sure that we would be starting our little family and that we were going to live happily ever after, raising our babies together and building a life. The great American dream. I was making all kinds of plans for the nursery already. I couldn’t tell you over the phone with hundreds of miles between us. I had planned a special night for when you returned to tell you.”

“But then, one night, I began cramping and bleeding. I called Mom immediately and she came over and took me to the hospital, where I miscarried later that night. As I said before, the doctor ran a series of tests and the news wasn’t good. I was devastated. By the time you got back home, I was so upset by everything, I was simply numb. There is no other way to describe how I felt at that time. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell you. I thought I could at least spare you from feeling the same pain I was feeling, knowing we had lost our baby and knowing that we would never have a child of our own. If you never knew about the baby, you wouldn’t need to grieve. Believe me, I did enough of that for both of us. So, being in the state of mind I was and knowing how much you wanted children, I filed for divorce, giving you the chance to have a family with someone else. At the time, it seemed like the best thing to do. I will admit that I probably wasn’t in the best frame of mind and wasn’t thinking clearly at all.”

Michael was silent. Angie thought that he would never speak again. He did not know whether to comfort