The air was filled with incessant chatter and laughter, and hinted at mouthwatering promises as the barbecue was getting started. The family had met at her in-laws’ place and was enjoying the late afternoon sun out back in the blooming garden. The women set the table and carried out different bowls of salad and bread that everyone had brought along. The men enjoyed a fresh beer and stood debating around the grill.
Kate liked being here. She loved the abundance of sweet-scented flowers, the occasional neigh of the horse grazing in the neighbor’s garden and baaing of the sheep across the street. Irene, her mother-in-law denied having a magical green thumb but somehow that woman could bring any plant or flower to thrive and to bloom, and even those she would sometimes forget out in the frost didn’t wither.
Since the grill needed a little more time, the women decided to walk through the garden, marveling at its beauty and occasionally plucking a twig of rosemary or lavender, while nursing a glass of cool white wine.
Her sister-in-law, Marie came up beside her with her little daughter in her arms, “Can you hold her a moment? I have to pee.”
“Sure,” Kate took the gurgling package with a smile. “Hey there, are you having a nice time?” Of their own accord, her eyes searched her husband. Their gazes met.
They had always thought it would be easy to have a child, but after five years of trying they knew better now. At first the doctor had said not to worry, a bright smile on his lips, and that it was normal after taking the birth control pills for a few years. He said that the body needed time to find its own rhythm again. Then the smile had become forced and less reassuring as he’d told her that her ovulation was irregular and sometimes even absent, but that they might be able to fix that with the help of a hormone therapy.
After endless syringes and doctor’s appointments without improvement, her husband and she had decided to stop the treatment, since their love life, which was supposed to be a way to live and show their love and pleasure and a shelter where words were needless, had become a duty, a timed task. Now she wanted to scream every time she saw her monthly blood flush away another chance of life. She started to hate her failing body, her flat stomach.
Her sister-in-law and her fiancé, Thomas came back, holding hands. When they reached Kate, Marie started making funny faces at her daughter, which the child stared at with big loving eyes. Thomas took his beautiful girl and held her above his head and she giggled in delight while Marie put one arm around his waist. A happy family. Jealousy sparked, unwanted and uncontrollable. She knew the baby hadn’t been planned. And guilt speared her as soon as the thought arose, because Kate knew they loved her and treated her as such.
Watching the mother and father playing with the gurgling child, a fist squeezed her heart tight until it broke, and inside she was screaming and crying.
Kate had heard that some people, scientists even, say that sometimes a child simply wasn’t meant to be between two people. Others said that love was just chemistry, the result of the body searching for and reacting to the most suitable of partners. So then how could it be that, when she loved her husband with all her heart and wanted to carry his baby, it wouldn’t work? They both wanted a child so much, to love and care for it, to see it grow. Could fate, or whatever power responsible, really be so cruel? And bring together two loving souls and deny them their greatest joy to be as one?
“Dinner will be ready soon,” her husband, the master of the grill called out, and pulled her from her dark thoughts without knowing it. The family gathered and sat down at the table. Platters and bowls and bread were passed along without conversation pausing for even a moment.
“Your potato salad is delicious, Kate. So fresh.”
“It’s the capers,” she explained, forcing herself to smile brightly.
Later that night she lay in bed with her husband, naked and out of breath. His arms held her close, and she could hear the strong beating of his heart. A silent tear slipped away and ran down her cheek. For she knew the time of waiting began again. And, even though she tried to stop it, she knew that with each day that passed frustrating hope would eat away at her more and more.