Maybe It's Better This Way

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Sorry for the wait. I suddenly wrote more! Some of this gets quite, not graphic (because it's the long awaited abortion storyline and that would be weird), but I don't know…detailed, personal. Just so you know.

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Chapter 13: Nineteen-Eighty-Eight

Kirsten took a long breath, gulping air as though she was about to be sick. 'I was pregnant a long time ago,' she spoke into the still night air once she had regained control. 'But…I couldn't go through with it. I took a life so a life was taken from me. I feel – I feel as though I deserved it. I didn't give the other baby a chance and so…I didn't deserve another one; we're lucky to have Seth.'

'When?' Sandy asked hoarsely, unable to stop himself despite the anguish he could see on his wife's face.

'Nineteen-eighty-eight,' she whispered.

'What? But…we were married; we'd had Seth by then.'

Kirsten could only nod, silently pressing her eyelids closed to try and stop further tears.

'But…you, we…that means…' Sandy stumbled, his words failing to keep up with his scattered thoughts. 'You've said things before, almost nothing but something. I let them go; didn't believe…didn't think it was... All this time I thought, if there was anything, it was something to do with Jimmy. Seventeen, scared, alone, not married, not with me and Seth.' He gave a dry sob that was filled with bitter, disbelieving laughter. 'It was my child. Our child. And you killed it.'

Kirsten thought she had spent all her tears but two new rivers forced their way under her eyelids and down her face as she recoiled at the harsh truth and the venom in her husband's tone.

'Why Kirsten? Why did you do it?' he was asking, tilting her chin to face him without the usually gentleness in his touch. She struggled to meet his eyes, her heart lurching at the hurt in their stormy blue depths.

'I-I,' she stuttered before breaking contact and taking deep shuddering breaths. But Sandy, never patient at the best of times was getting angry. 'Come on Kirsten,' he snapped. 'It's taken seventeen years to get to this; I'm not waiting any longer. Seventeen years, that's a hell of a long time. You've lied to me almost our entire marriage. What else have lied about? What other secrets have you kept? Does this marriage mean anything to you Kirsten?'

His wife's head jerked up at that, an angry light in her previously blank, teary eyes. 'This marriage? Does it mean anything to me? I didn't tell you because I didn't want to lose everything. This marriage is everything. Remember the fights we had back then? Tell me, do you honestly think we could have got past this?'

There was no answer.

'See? I couldn't risk it. What was I to do? Should I tell you and risk losing the best thing that ever happened to me, risk losing you? Or keep quiet; keep a potentially devastating secret, keep suffering for the rest of my life? There wasn't any choice Sandy.'

'I still don't understand why?' he spat. 'Why you had to do that. Why you couldn't tell me before.'

Kirsten looked at her husband like he was a fool. He was a bleeding lawyer for God's sake yet he couldn't see the defence facts staring him in the face. He had a selective memory or something, nostalgia sugar-coating the early years of their marriage.

'I was twenty one,' she began to remind him; 'still trying to finish college with a three-month old baby I could hardly cope with. We were mortgaged over our heads, living in that tumbledown excuse for a house…'

'You loved that house.'

'It was damp, the plumbing was bad, the roof leaked, the doors didn't shut properly, we had an infestation of termites…I think 'love' is rather a strong word.'

'Point taken.'

'You were always working, you had to; I know that. But we were just scraping a living off the pittance of a salary you earned for twelve hours hard graft at the PD's office, all day, everyday, weekends, holidays… There was no way we could raise another child.'

Sandy hung his head. That was true; they'd struggled enough just the three of them, another baby would have toppled the entire equation. 'Why didn't you tell me?' he asked, knowing at the time he would have probably put his head in his hands and cried. Twenty-six and in more debt than let him sleep at night. As much as he hated Kirsten's decision and heartbreaking as it was, he was beginning to understand why she did it. He would like to pretend there would have been a magical solution with the four of them living happily ever after but the reality would have been very different; more debt, longer hours, smaller, more tumbledown house, worry, stress, fights and, God forbid, Kirsten eventually high-tailing it back to Newport; his wife and children gone, his life in tatters.

His wife's voice shook him from his exaggeratedly sombre reflections.

'You know why, I know you do. Two years married, two exhausted parents, too much debt, and then two children? You stressed, me with post-natal depression again? I couldn't do that to you, just out of law school with the world before you and then me, with a baby, possibly two. You'd made enough sacrifices as it was.'

'But it was your life too; you made sacrifices, bigger than mine. You gave up an entire life, almost lost your dad over it…'

'No, he lost me. And I was glad to get away from it all. Escape Newport, not be a trust-fund princess. Anyway, it wasn't just about you. I couldn't do it. I couldn't deal with two children under one; I felt incompetent enough with just Seth.'

'You're a wonderful mother.'

'No. I'm not. You were at work Sandy you don't know how hard it was for me. There was this tiny thing that I loved more than I knew was possible but was entirely dependent on me. The idea of another baby; another child to love and worry about that much, to have to care for, was the most terrifying prospect.'

'So you just…'

'No Sandy. I didn't just do anything. I thought about it. I agonized over that decision, I cried the moment I even thought of it. But I didn't see any other option. I know think there would have been but…there wasn't.'

'Maybe you're right.'

Kirsten didn't respond, staring out to sea, eyes glazed, her voice distant. 'I left Seth with our neighbour. It was the first time I'd left him that long. She said he cried the whole time. There was that guilt too. I went right across town, felt sick, travelling all that way on a bus. Or maybe that was the morning sickness or guilt, I don't know.'

'I'm sorry you had to do that, you had to go alone.'

'It was…okay, the place. I had the money my dad sent as a wedding present. The guilt gift you called it, said he was trying to buy my love. I agreed. We put it away, said we wouldn't use it. You never asked about it again. So I used it to go somewhere half decent; the horror stories you hear about those clinics…I guess I am spoilt. I didn't want to go anyplace where it could go wrong or I'd catch anything…I-I didn't want it to hurt any more than it already did.' She paused, the tears drying on her face.

'There were forms…lots of forms and people asking stupid questions and a machine, whining. Whining, like the noise Seth made before he began to breathe. How fucking ironic was that?'

Sandy was jolted by the swear word. It emphasised how everything was wrong with this conversation, not least the fact that they were sat on the sand which he had trudged over so many mornings of their marriage on his way to surf, blissfully unaware of this secret.

'It was uncomfortable. That's all. And humiliating. The looks I got because I still looked pregnant. I think people thought I was there to have some kind of illegally late termination.' Her hysteria broke in a strangled laugh which was hurriedly stifled. 'I was still breastfeeding Seth and I hadn't thought to take anything with me, you know…so there I was, right before and right after I aborted our second child in a bathroom cubicle thinking of our baby. Thinking of his baby smell, his excessive, downy black hair, the feel of his tiny fingernails scraping against my breast, his little mouth pursed, sucking. Thinking of all the things I love about him at this sickeningly inappropriate time so that I could relieve the pressure on my chest.' Kirsten's head was back on her knees again, her voice muffled. 'I don't know why I'm saying all this. It's horrible. You'll hate me.'

He didn't respond and it frightened her.

'Afterwards I was sick. I was sick until there was nothing left. I took the bus home, empty. Seth was still screaming, he was hungry and wanted feeding but it wouldn't come. That was the day I learnt to make formula milk.'

He wondered whether if he thought hard enough he would remember point when he knew Seth would feed from a bottle. It was better not to think about it.

'I sat in the kitchen as Seth fell asleep, rocking him, promising I'd never hurt him. Promising I loved him. Promising myself that things would be okay. I cried until his blanket was soaked. I cried for three days straight. I guess you figured it was the post-natal depression.'

'I should have realised.'

'No. It all happened so early on you couldn't have known.'

'Do you wish…?'

'Do I wish I hadn't had to?' Kirsten was back in control now, breathing forced into a steady rhythm, eyes red-rimmed but no longer filled with falling tears. 'Yes, but I did have to and I did it. I don't regret the decision I made, I've lived with it, but…can you?'

Sandy looked away, one hand absently cupping handfuls of sand and letting it trickle through his fingers. 'I don't know,' he said at last. 'I don't exactly blame you. I mean, I understand why but I can't…forgive you, not just yet, I don't even know when. Not when I think how much we wanted a brother or sister for Seth. I'm sorry Kirsten but right now it feels like you cheated me out of a child.'

Kirsten swallowed, 'Do you hate me?' she asked, her voice very small.

'No, and I still love you so there's no need to ask. I'll always love you.'

She gave an almost smile but knew with a sickening certainty that she'd really hurt Sandy this time, both with the abortion and not telling him. He felt very distant sat next to her on that wide strip of sand, staring out across the water. But he didn't shift away when her head sank onto his shoulder and sometime that night he must have carried her home and put her to bed.
Somehow he still loved her.

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Sandy was sat at the counter when the boys came in, his eyes heavy from lack of sleep, a cold mug of coffee in his hands. He'd been sat like this most of the night. 'How's mom this morning?' Seth posed the now familiar question. His father paused for a moment, expertly schmearing a bagel with cream cheese before answering, 'She's sleeping; we were up pretty late last night,

'Ugh, too much information dad,' Seth cut in at this point.

Sandy gave a rueful smile, 'Not like that Seth.'

'Phew.'

'It was an…interesting night, but I think perhaps, we might have turned the corner.'

'Why's that?'

'She cried last night.'

'For the first time?' Ryan asked, looking up from his textbook in surprise.

'Yeah.'

'Oh.'

'And are you ok?' Seth was studying his dad, suddenly realising it was eight forty-five and his dad was still sat in his robe.

'Uh what? Yeah…just tired, been up thinking.'

'About?'

He shouldn't just say it, he knew he shouldn't. Kirsten would probably kill him, but even as he thought that the words were tumbling out of his mouth. 'Your mom had an abortion.' The boys looked shocked and confused and he realised what that sounded like. 'When Seth was only little.'

'Kirsten never told you?'

Sandy shook his head, 'I shouldn't have said anything so I'd better be the one to tell her you know. We'll talk about it later ok?'

His sons nodded and the topic was closed abruptly when Kirsten arrived in the kitchen.

'I have a bitch of a history paper to write,' Seth declared into the silence.

'Uh, yeah,' Ryan agreed, a little too slowly, causing Kirsten to eye both boys closely as they headed out and then turn to her husband. 'What did you say?'

'The boys know.'

'What? Sandy, how could you?'

'Contrary to you I don't like lying to people.'

'No, you call it attorney-client privilege.'

'Don't bring Rebecca into this,' Sandy said grouchily, the lack of sleep not improving his perspective on last night's revelation.

'Or Lindsay or the Heights case?' Kirsten questioned.

Her husband glared, 'Can we please not go over old ground?'

Kirsten sighed. They could do this forever. Go round in circles, fighting over the same old ground, or they could try and get past this, together.

'You're right,' she said wearily, sitting down at the table. 'I'm sorry, for everything.'

'I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have told the boys like that…'

She shook her head and rested it on her hands, 'They had to know and I don't think I could say it again.' His wife looked very small and fragile again Sandy noted and he stretched an arm round her shoulder, subconsciously doing the thing she wanted most.

'Do you feel any better after last night?'

'I guess talking about what happened and crying kinda helped,' she admitted.

But there were many more tears to shed. That night had simply opened the floodgates.

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AN. Ok, I admit it, I sensationalised the early years of the Kandy marriage…I don't suppose they were quite that poor but whatever; maybe there was a depression or a recession or whatever its called lol, or Caleb was so mad he didn't let Kirsten have any money ever, or the PD's office paid new employees like… nothing. I don't know, I'm taking artistic liberties here, just embrace them!

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If you review I'll be eternally grateful.

(Is this positive blackmail?)

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