“Ummm, that’s a pretty easy yes or no question,” I tease, but find my laugh constricted by the breath I’m holding.
His chuckles. “Yes, I do. They remind me that there’s hope for humanity. As long they keep coming into the world, we have a future. You know?”
“So, you want children one day?’ I ask, genuinely curious but acutely aware of the flutter of apprehension in my gut. I don’t know why his answer should matter to me. But it does.
“I don’t know…. From the time I was ten until I was twenty-two, every decision I made was based on what was best for my brothers. I was in medical school and too busy trying to survive that to do anything I wanted. Now that I’m finally living just for me, I can’t imagine going back to being responsible for getting little people to school, and doctor’s appointments, and all that shit.”
I feel so many things at once; Disappointment – because it’s another reminder of how discordant our pairing is. Admiration – that he not only survived an absent mother, but made sure his brothers did, too. But most strongly, I feel a sense of nostalgia.
“I used to not want kids,” I admit.
“I guess you got over that?” Stone says and I don’t begrudge him the teasing quirk of his lips. I often laugh at the irony of it myself.
“Getting pregnant kind of forced me too.” wince at how that sounds. “I love my children, desperately. Having them is without any doubt the most selfish thing I’ve done.”
He narrows one eye and frowns. “Selfish?”
“Yes. It’s selfish. They don’t ask to be born. It was purely for me. But I’ll admit, when I found out I was pregnant, I thought my life was over.”
“Why?”
“My mother is brilliant. From what I heard; she could run circles around my father in intellect. When they met, she was working the concession at the basketball stand, waiting for her moment. She found it when my grandfather offered her a job. Then she fell in love with my father. She forgot her goals, forgot her ambition and got pregnant.”
“With you and Remi,” he reminds me.
I roll my eyes. “I mean, I’m just saying. I love my mother, but I spent most of my childhood thinking she didn’t love me. And, from my great grandmother on down, they’ve all fallen in love with a man who left them - whether by death, divorce, or prison – they spent their whole lives alone and brokenhearted. And even when I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life professionally. I knew that I didn’t want to repeat that cycle.”
“So, you were going to outrun your legacy by making different choices,” he says knowingly.
I slant my eyes his way. “I see you’re familiar with this particular type of self-medication?”
He smiles. “Oh yeah. I think most people who don’t have rosy happy childhoods grow up trying to avoid reliving their nightmare.”
“My life isn’t a nightmare, just very different from what I used to hope for. But I chose it all.” I say.
“Because Marcel swept you off your feet?”
I laugh dryly. “Hardly.”
“So why did you marry him?”
It’s a Pandora’s box of a question. I can’t tell him the sequence of events that flowed from the night in the bakery and how it set the wheels in motion that led me to the altar. So, I settle for the bare bones, but still awful truth.
“To make my grandfather happy.”
“That’s a big decision to make just to please someone else.”
There’s no judgement in his eyes or his voice. But I know what I sound like and no one can hear that without thinking it’s stupid or reckless or pathetic, or all three.
“He raised us after my father died. Well, with my mom, but he was more maternal than she is. And he was such a dynamo.” I smile at the memory of him bounding off to work like he was twenty-five instead of seventy. Every day until his stroke stopped him.
“Old Man Wilde was a legend, man.” His voice is heavy with admiration.
“Really? Even in the Rivers household?” I eye him skeptically.
“I don’t know about that. But I know he toppled the powers that be and upset the social order. That’s why the Rivers hate him.” I remember as a boy he made the distinction between the Rivers and the brothers he considered family. I wonder if that will change now that Hayes is back and in charge.