At first, Grant acted supportive.
“We’ll figure it out, Bec.”
Then months became years.
Doctors.
Blood tests.
Hormone injections.
Procedures that left me bruised, nauseated, exhausted, and terrified of hoping.
Grant never volunteered to be tested.
Whenever a specialist suggested checking both partners, he
found an excuse.
His schedule was impossible.
The appointment conflicted with a board meeting.
The clinic was inconvenient.
Eventually, somehow, the focus became entirely me.
My body.
My age.
My stress.
My supposed failure.
And every time another pregnancy test came back negative, Grant became colder.
I still remember sitting on our bathroom floor one January morning holding another single-line test.
Grant stood in the doorway wearing his suit.
He stared at me for a few seconds.
Then he sighed.
Not sadly.
Impatiently.
“Maybe we need to accept that some women just aren’t meant to be mothers.”
I spent years believing that sentence.
Sloane Bennett was the person who helped me survive it.
She had been my closest friend since college.
She came with me to appointments when Grant was “too busy.”
She brought soup after procedures.
She slept beside me on the sofa after my second failed implantation.
Once,
while I was crying into her shoulder, she whispered, “Whatever happens, you still have me.”
Apparently, Grant had her too.
I discovered them in the guest room of my own lake house.
Not because I was suspicious.
Because I came home early.
Sloane was wearing my robe.
Grant didn’t even bother pretending.
He sat on the edge of the bed, looked at me, and said something I will never forget.
“With her, I don’t feel like I’m constantly failing at being a man.”
Sloane cried.
Beautifully.
Strategically.
She told me they never meant to hurt me.
Grant said our marriage had already been dead.
I remember staring at both of them and thinking how strange it was that the two people who had spent years convincing me I was defective suddenly looked frightened of me.
I didn’t scream.
I hired a lawyer.
Six months later, we were divorced.
Four months
after that, Grant and Sloane got engaged.
And ten months after my divorce became final, she announced she was pregnant.
The Whitmores celebrated as if God himself had personally approved their family tree.
Richard hosted a dinner.
Grant’s mother, Eleanor, ordered a custom crib from Italy.
Sloane posted photographs every week.
