20
Shocked, deeply saddened, and shedding tears, he said, "What do you mean?"
"Ivan..."
"First, you tell me that you still love me and you still want me, you and Preston to be a family, but at the same time, you tell me we can't be together. My mother was the reason back then. What's the reason now, Natasha? Tell me!"
"The reason is that I have the HPV, Ivan!" she replied, with thick tears going down her
eyes.
"You can get treatment for this disease, can't you?"
"You mean you don't care?"
"No, I don't care. That's not a reason for us not to be together," he replied.
"What about the fact that we can't have kids?"
"I don't care about any of that. Do you know why? I know that I'm to blame for all of the heartache that you've had in your love life. I was the reason why your love life couldn't have been more horrible. I'm the reason why you got HPV. You know why? ...Because if I hadn't broken up with you way back in 1999, we'd still be together and you would never have gotten HPV. We'd be happily married and our child wouldn't be a bastard in the eyes of the law."
She was with his words. "Oh, Ivan..."
"I'm not saying it to put me down; I'm saying it because I know it's true. Rather than leaving you or turning against my mother for not accepting you, I should've done everything in my power to convince her that you were the right woman for me; that she was wrong about you."
"I agree with you, Ivan, but bringing back the past and all of our suffering with it won't make things right. What will make things right is if we try to start over? Stop thinking about what would've happened if you had behaved like a real man would've in our situation, and the things you should've done in the past; do them now. That is the only way you, Preston and I will ever be happy together."
They hugged again. Suddenly, Ivan's mobile phone rang. It was his mother, Sara. Sara would never call Ivan on his mobile phone unless she had an emergency with her health or another member of their family. She would only call him on his home phone once a day. They'd talk on the phone for the next fifteen or twenty minutes and then hang up. He was surprised when he saw his mother's number on the screen of his flip phone. "Hello, Mom. How are you doing? What do you need?" he said.
"I don't have an emergency this time. I just want to tell you how sorry I am for destroying your love life the way that I did, and to confess how wrong I was about Natasha Hoffman."
"Speaking of Natasha Hoffman," Ivan said, smiling, "I'm calling from her house. She's right here, sitting beside me. Would you like to talk to her?"
"I don't think I can confront her right now."
"Come on, Mom, it's no big deal. We talked about it intensely and passionately and I sincerely don't think that she's holding resentment for you or for me right now."
"I think it's better if we talk face to face."
"I think she would like that."
"You seem to know her so well, son."
"I do. I really do. If I didn't, there would've been no use in coming back to her and trying to work things out."
"I agree with you. Would you please put her on the phone so we can set a date and time to meet at her house?"