The Boy Toy - Nicola Marsh Page 0,75
keen on.”
“Why not? There are many ways to have a child.”
“I know, but I think the infertility thing is wearing him down. He’s never said it, but I know he feels guilty . . .” Pia trailed off, her voice barely above a whisper and filled with so much sadness. “He said to me once that this entire process is emasculating, having to use donor sperm to father a child. I reassured him, but there’s a palpable distance between us now, and it feels like nothing I say or do can reach him.”
Samira was the last person qualified to give advice, considering her own marriage had imploded under the weight of infertility, but she wanted to do whatever she could to support Pia. She’d thought it strange that in all the time she’d been back in Melbourne, she hadn’t seen Dev once. She knew he’d been traveling for work, but the fact Pia hadn’t tried to arrange a get-together meant they were probably struggling and Dev wanted to avoid her family.
“Pia, I’m going to ask you something, and know it’s coming from the right place.” Samira pressed a hand over her heart. “If IVF doesn’t work and Dev doesn’t want to adopt, would you be happy with just him? The two of you together for the rest of your lives?”
Samira’s stomach went into free fall, because she saw the answer written all over Pia’s face before she answered.
“I used to think it would be okay, just him and me, but lately I’m not so sure.” Tears filled her eyes. “I know he wouldn’t cheat on me like Avi did with you, he’s not that kind of guy, but . . .” She shook her head, sadness evident in her posture, shoulders slumped in defeat. “I love him, but our marriage is suffering because I want a baby so damn badly and I’m not sure he does anymore.”
Crap. Samira’s heart ached for her beautiful cousin. She knew all too well what it felt like to feel helpless in a marriage, unsure what to do to save it. For her, she doubted she’d ever really loved Avi. She’d loved being in love, and once that had worn off and he’d started to show his true narcissistic side, she’d grown indifferent.
In that moment, she realized something. All these years she’d been blaming him for ruining their marriage. He’d cheated. He’d got some teenager pregnant. He’d left her and divorced her and made her a laughingstock within the close-knit Indian community. And while there was no excuse for him straying rather than trying to work on their marriage, she had to admit she might have contributed to the distance that had opened up between them the longer it took for her to fall pregnant.
They’d had sex to procreate, but there’d been no intimacy in their marriage, not from the start. She’d played the role of the dutiful young wife, establishing her physical therapy career, attending many family functions, parading her suave Indian husband with pride. But behind closed doors, their marriage had been shallow. All gloss and no substance. She hoped Pia’s marriage could survive the battle with infertility in a way hers couldn’t.
“This retreat is a last-ditch effort to see if we can relax and have some fun with this baby stuff rather than it being a chore all the time.”
Samira read between the lines. “Last-ditch effort for your marriage, you mean?”
Pia bit her bottom lip and nodded. “We’re in trouble, Sam, and the kicker is, I don’t know what to do. I want to fight for us because we love each other, but I need Dev to make an effort too. It seems like he’s filled with self-recrimination, even though we worked through the initial shock when we discovered he’s sterile, and I think it’s consuming him.”
“Oh, sweetie.” She clasped Pia’s hand and squeezed. “Is that why I haven’t seen him since I got back? Because you two aren’t in a good place?”
“Yeah. He hasn’t been around to Mom’s or any family dos, because he says he can’t pretend.”
“I get it. Avi started avoiding my folks at least two months before he broke the news about his affair.” She snorted. “I should’ve known there was something wrong, but I was too busy playing the perfect bride to worry about it.”
“Avi was an asshole, end of story.”
Samira paused. The last thing she wanted to do was bring up more baby talk around her cousin, but she couldn’t very well ask her mom what