Work Text:
Today
The silence in the house is instantly palpable, and I feel goosebumps pimpling across the bare skin on my forearms. I tell myself that it is an overreaction, Nick is probably in the back garden hanging out the washing, but still I feel uneasy.
Sure enough, when I walk into the kitchen at the back of the house, none of the usual post-work signs are there – mess strewn across the counter from where Nick is preparing dinner, or homeworks for marking spread out on the table. The warmth and essence that accompanies the mere presence of my husband are wholly absent. If it weren’t for his car parked in the driveway, I would assume that he had been pulled into covering afterschool rugby or football again, and wasn’t home yet.
Not so long ago, I wouldn’t have felt tightness in my chest and shortness of breath just because Nick wasn’t immediately locatable where he usually was. Back then, he was a bundle of sunshine and I didn’t need to worry about a thing. Maybe that’s rose-tinted spectacles speaking, or maybe it is that I wear dark grey lenses now, actually, who’s to say? All I know is that now we are both like sad spectres, haunting our own home, and anxiety and sadness are our constant companions.
“Nick!” My cracked voice shatters the silence. “Nick, are you home?” I run back to the hallway to shout upstairs as loudly as I can manage with cortisol pumping through my body. I don’t hear a verbal response, but the muffled noises coming from our bedroom triggers me to bolt up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
Pushing through the door, I am surprised to still see no one. The noise though. That is unmistakable.
Wracked sobs punctuate the stale air from inside the walk-in wardrobes. Nick is curled up in the foetal position on the floor, with his back facing me. I approach carefully, not wanting to alarm him further when he is clearly so distressed.
“Darling. I am here, love. Can you hear me?” Crouching down beside him, I gently press one hand against his side, steadying his shaking momentarily and try to process what is going on. I peer around and Nick’s face is wet, red and puffy, so clearly he has been up here crying for a while. His breaths are short and laboured between sobs. Although he places one hand over mine on his side, the other is gripping Pingu tightly to his chest, his knuckles white from pressing into their squishy fur.
I encourage him to sit up, pulling his heavy head onto my shoulder as we both sit with our backs to the wardrobe wall. His heartbreaking weeping escalates initially, before gradually becoming less intense and slower as I hold him and whisper “sssssssh” into his hair. Nick, Pingu and I remain there, one tight bundle of grief, until the Autumn light filtering through the bedroom window turns yellow, orange and finally darkens to deep grey.
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Six Months Ago
I can’t get into the house fast enough, arms laden with shopping bags which I have to chuck onto the doorstep to find my keys in my jeans pocket. I shove the front door open with my shoulder and am greeted with the warm smell of sweet baking – probably muffins, Nick’s favourite thing to bake, and a sure-fire sign that he is in a great mood.
“Honey, I’m home!” My gleeful sing-song delivery impersonates a Stepford wife.
Nick calls back to me from the kitchen immediately, “In here, love.”
I rummage through my shopping bags until I find what I am looking for, feeling its thick plush before I see it under the other items stashed from my spending spree. I poke little Pingu through the kitchen door ahead of me and they ‘cheep!’ a greeting to Nick, breaking his focus from the hob, where he is stirring something which smells promising.
“Aww, who is this little one?” Nick coos as he approaches me. We share a tender peck on the lips and I treat myself to a feel of his firm pec as I steady myself with my free hand.
“This is Pingu! I saw them when I was out shopping today and I couldn’t resist. It will be nice to have a little penguin around until our baby penguin arrives. Then once they do, I thought we could give them Pingu as their first teddy for the hospital.”
Predictably, Nick’s eyes are glassy with unshed tears and his full, pink lips are wobbly. He wraps his big oak-branch arms around me and grips me so tightly the wind is forced out of chest.
“I love this little Pingu so much, and I love you, Charlie!”
I know of course that it is daft to be shopping for the baby already, when they aren’t due to come home to us for another six months, but when I saw a little fluffy penguin, I couldn’t resist. Besides, I think Nick and I have earned the right to get a little excited, even if it is just in secret for now.
We have put the time in, seven years of wishing and hoping and dreaming to be parents, and soon our dream will finally come true.
Mostly, the journey to parenthood has been pretty brutal.
There have been positive moments, like when we found our surrogate three years ago. Lina, who works with our friend Elle, has three children of her own. She mentioned to Elle one day that she would love to be a surrogate, to give some couple the gift of a child that otherwise might not be able to have one. When Elle told Nick and I about her, and that she was keen to meet us to see if she could help us, we cried for hours. It felt as if the dark night sky had opened up and shone a special starlight directly onto our unworthy heads.
That was before we fully realised just how impossible it is for two men to have a baby, even if they have a wonderful surrogate.
First we had to decide which of us would be the biological father. That stage alone saw Nick and I crying a lot more as we each tried to convince the other that they would be the best genetic option for a child, if we were lucky enough to have one.
Once we settled on that big decision, Nick, Lina and I began a process of IVF treatment using donor eggs. Three unsuccessful cycles across almost three years broke our hearts, with the agony of unrealised hope each time poor Lina had to phone us and say, “I’m so sorry, guys, it didn’t happen this time”.
We have spent over £50,000 so far. We had agreed that this fourth cycle was going to be our last. Nick and I were broken shells, our minds tattered, our hearts stone-clad and our bank balance teetering on the edge of no return.
Fertility treatment had become a numb routine for us by the fourth try. Nick and I clutched hands and stared at whitewashed clinic walls, trying to be present for Lina, who was bearing the physical brunt, but also to be absent from our own minds, as we cemented over cracks lest treacherous hope could seep in again. Now we were fully aware that having hope was simply too dangerous to allow to happen.
But, eight weeks ago,a fortnight after supporting Lina through embryo implantation once again, my phone rang. I tried to keep my voice steady as I answered, not wanting to add to the crippling pressure that Lina was already undoubtedly under after giving us this unmatched gift of selflessness over and over and over again. I failed miserably, and croaked, “hello” down the line while Nick loitered a foot away.
“Good afternoon, Papa,” Lina answered, a glowing smile in her voice evident from just those three little words. “The test is positive, Charlie. I am pregnant.”
I tried to reply but my body had gone into convulsions, years of longing, hope, anticipation, and paralysing disappointment all making their legacy felt through shuddering muscle spasms. Poor Nick, who had only heard the news through second-hand muffling, and therefore wasn’t sure what he had heard, tried to support my limp body while grabbing the phone.
He panted into its speaker, “Did you say it has worked, Lina? Are we going to have a baby?”
“You are, Daddy. Congratulations.”
I was grateful that we invested in the thick pile carpet for our bedroom, because Nick’s body crumbled like a biscuit and he took me down with him as he fell to the floor crying. We lay with the phone between us, trying to have a telecommunications cuddle puddle while we all wept. We shared how much we loved each other, and thanked Lina profusely in French and Spanish and in so many different ways in English, until she told us that she was a pregnant woman and needed to rest so, kindly, shut the fuck up and go celebrate now.
Once Nick and I gathered ourselves, we popped open a bottle of champagne that had dusted over since our engagement. We had never spoken of it, but I think we both knew that until our family was complete, there wasn’t really any cause for popping a cork in our house.
The Wednesday before last we went for an early scan and finally got to see our beautiful baby for the first time ever. They were just a tiny little bean, still clinging onto their yolk sac, but their heartbeat was the most beautiful music I have ever heard in my life, and I’m a professional percussionist. In a café after, over steaming bowls of hot soup and thick crusty bread, Nick named the baby “our little penguin, Pingu”.
So, now we have a fluffy Pingu to keep us company until we finally, finally get to meet our real Pingu. I can’t wait.
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Today
Nick and I are sitting at the kitchen table. The spotlights that I lovingly picked when we decorated, seem harsh and mocking in our heartache, and I don’t know how I ever thought that that oversized Ikea wall-clock was a good idea. It’s ticking could easily be used as a form of torture.
I am relieved that I have managed to manoeuver my husband up from the bedroom floor, but honestly I have no plan as to what happens next.
It has been the longest five months of my life, and I feel like I have aged twenty years in that short time. When we lost our penguin, all the essence of Nick seemed to be lost with them. The joy, the strength, the humour is all but gone, and even on his best days, he is merely a muted and beige imitation. I am trying to gather myself to speak, to work out what the fuck there is to say, when he surprises me by breaking the silence first.
“Charlie, I don’t want to try again.” He doesn’t look at me as he runs his index finger through a knot in the restored wooden tabletop.
“What, sorry? What do you mean, love?”
Inhaling so exaggeratedly that it sounds like this single breath is the only fuel left for his body, Nick continues. His voice is completely flat and devoid of tone, but surprisingly steady. “Charlie, I can’t do another round of treatment. It is killing me.”
I know that I am opening and closing my mouth like a fish, without actually offering any opinion or solace to my husband. This is a full change of direction for us. After agreeing the fourth time to be the last time, Nick and Lina championed one more try. Having seen that the treatment could work, he had lobbied for us to dust ourselves off and give it one last shot even if it meant us selling our home to afford it, so I am lost with the tables turned like this now.
Nick turns his face slightly to look at me, and mercifully recognises that he is going to have to give me more to work with. “I am miserable, Charlie. You are miserable. We have spent almost four years pouring every tiny speck of life and love we have into making a baby, and I can’t remember who we are anymore.” Speaking his truth seems to be giving Nick strength, and he continues, getting louder and faster and more impassioned as he carries on.
“We hardly ever see anyone, for fear that they ask us about it, or even worse that they announce another baby is on the way. I can’t have a simple chat with Mum without getting asked what is happening next and how we are with a fucking head-tilt like a pair of pity cases. We haven’t gone on a night out or a holiday in years, Charlie, because every penny we had has been ploughed into the profits of the fertility clinic. Our house, our home, what we thought was our forever home, is on the market, just to free up some more money to buy the world’s most depressing lottery ticket. Charlie, I just can’t do it. I thought I could, but I can’t do it again.”
With that, my big beautiful man completely disintegrates. I swear I hear the moment his heart caves in, over the sound of that fucking clock. He shrinks into a ball bent over the kitchen table, his head resting on his folded arms and his broad back shaking with heavy sobs.
So is this what rock bottom feels like? I wonder idly, a voice appearing in my mind without permission. Well, fuck rock bottom. I don’t want it.
For the second time in one evening, I rub the back of my husband, and soothe and sssssh and try to communicate the depth of my love from my body to his through the warmth of my palm. I cannot tell you how many times that clock ticks before Nick is breathing evenly again, but it is far too bloody many.
Once Nick does finally sound stable, I stand up and walk away from the table to recover my laptop from the living room, before coming back to my seat beside him. His sad, wet eyes gaze at me in confusion as I snap the computer open and begin to type into a search bar.
“Nick.” I say with determination. “You and I are going on holiday, my darling. You have always wanted to go to the Amalfi Coast, how about it? Some pizza and gelato under the sun?”
“What? What are you talking about, Charlie?”
I place my hand firmly onto the forearm of my love and try to fake enough strength for us both. “You are absolutely right, Nick. We have had quite enough. We married each other for better or worse. And we married each other, unconditionally, without anyone else, just us. If there is no baby, now or ever, you are my family. And I will be damned if my family is going to be broken into tiny pieces for one more second.”
I interlock our fingers and stare into Nick’s eyes, daring him to disagree but desperately needing him to know how much that I need rescuing too. “So, you and I are going to Italy. We’ll take the little money we’ve left, and take a break from all of this. Maybe for now, maybe for a while, or maybe forever. But no more treatment. No selling our home. No sitting in here in shame, away from everyone who loves us. No more.”
Looking at Nick’s hopeful but confused face, I plead, “Please, Nick.”
He presses three firm squeezes onto our interlocked hands. “Yeah, OK.”
As Nick reaches over and drags the laptop towards himself and types ‘Sorrento’ into booking.com, I feel like I take my first full breath in longer than I can remember.
I look over to Pingu on the kitchen worktop, where we set them earlier. Such is my emotional exhaustion, my first thought is that we should bring them with us on this trip. But then I decide that we will find something else, something that is just for us.
Or maybe we actually don’t need anything or anyone else at all. Maybe Nick and I will be enough.