Chapter 2 - THE SON WHO COULDN’T HAVE CHILDREN
Jason and Megan had been trying to have a baby for seven years.
Everyone in the family knew.
Nobody understood how badly it had consumed them until later.
At first, there were doctor appointments.
Then procedures.
Then losses nobody discussed because Richard believed grief should be private.
Megan withdrew from baby showers.
Jason stopped holding his friends’ children.
My mother-in-law, Carol, began referring to their situation as “the family tragedy.”
When Michael and I announced my pregnancy, Jason hugged us.
Megan cried.
I thought they were happy tears mixed with pain.
Then the first ultrasound showed twins.
At ten weeks, the doctor found a third heartbeat.
Triplets.
Richard called Michael that evening.
I heard the conversation because Michael had him on speaker.
“Well,” Richard said, laughing, “looks like your family got greedy.”
Michael frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. Just saying nature has a strange sense of balance.”
I remembered that sentence now.
Balance.
Over the following months, Richard became unusually interested in my pregnancy.
Not in me.
In the babies.
He asked whether they were identical.
Whether the hospital would issue separate birth certificates immediately.
Whether multiples could legally have different guardians.
Once, during Thanksgiving dinner, he joked:
“Jason and Megan should just take one. Rachel won’t notice with three.”
Everyone laughed except me.
I said:
“That isn’t funny.”
Richard smiled.
“Relax. You’re too sensitive.”
Jason looked down at his plate.
Megan said nothing.
Michael squeezed my hand beneath the table.
Later, he told me:
“My dad has always used jokes to say things he knows he shouldn’t.”
“I don’t like it.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
Apparently he did.
Richard stopped joking around me.
But he did not stop planning.
Two weeks before my scheduled C-section, Megan came to my house carrying baby clothes.
Some were newborn size.
Pink.
Expensive.
I assumed they were gifts.
She touched one of the tiny dresses and said:
“I always imagined this would be mine.”
I didn’t know what to say.
Then she quickly smiled.
“I mean a daughter.”
I hugged her.
I actually felt guilty for having what she wanted.
That guilt became useful to them.
After the birth, I learned Richard had spent months telling Jason and Megan that Michael and I were overwhelmed.
That I had secretly admitted I could not raise three babies.
That one child might be “placed within the family.”
None of that was true.
But if you tell desperate people the same lie often enough, hope begins sanding down their skepticism.
The folder on the hospital floor proved Richard had gone further.
He had spoken to someone about custody.
Forms had been prepared.
Names entered.
Dates left blank.
One of my unborn daughters described only as:
Female Infant B.
I looked at that phrase and felt sick.
May you like
Emma had existed to me for months.
To Richard, she was apparently a blank line waiting to be reassigned.
