The Desire (11 page)

M
ichele and Allan drove out of the church parking lot and turned right toward River Oaks. “Do you need to go home first,” Allan asked, “or can we go straight to your folks'?”

“I'm okay, let's just go straight there.” Michele was doing a little better since that awful experience with the children's ministry teacher. Hearing Julie's strong reaction definitely helped. That wasn't how God felt about her, and it didn't have anything to do with why he hadn't allowed her to get pregnant yet.

“What's wrong?”

“I'm okay,” Michele said.

“Did your meeting with Julie go well? You seem a little upset.”

“The Julie part of the meeting was fine. It's what happened before that.”

Allan stopped at the light. “You mean during the service?”

“No. When I first got to the classroom, before Julie got there.”

Allan looked confused.

She didn't really want to tell him; it was so upsetting. But
she knew their relationship wouldn't get back on track if she didn't start communicating more, right when things happened. So she told him everything: what the teacher said, the way she said it, and Julie's reaction.

His eyes became angrier than she'd ever seen them. “What's this lady's name?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because . . . that is the most ridiculous, horrible, thoughtless thing I've ever heard anyone say. I want to know who this lady is.”

“Julie said it, but I don't remember. Mrs. Hardy, I think. Or Harding. But Allan, I don't want you to confront her.”

“Why not? Someone has to. Someone that heartless needs to be confronted.” He glared straight ahead, but he obviously wasn't seeing the road.

“The light turned green,” she said. “Julie's going to talk to her, or else Ray will.”

“Did she say she would?”

“Pretty much. Please tell me you'll talk with Ray before you say anything to the teacher. If they're willing to handle it, I think you should let them.”

Allan took a deep breath. His eyes softened a little. He looked at Michele. “I'm so sorry she said that to you. You know that's completely not true, right? There's no way that's why you haven't gotten pregnant yet.”

“I know.”

“It's like she was born without a tact gene,” Allan said. “I know a guy like that at work. He just says whatever he thinks, regardless of how ignorant it sounds or who might be hurt by it. You can tell by the look on his face, he's clueless. He has absolutely no idea how inappropriate and offensive his comments are.”

They turned into the entrance of River Oaks. “Well,” Michele said, “what that teacher said may be an extreme example of insensitivity, but I think a lot of people, even people in our church, don't really understand how painful this thing is. The whole reason this incident happened illustrates the point.”

“What do you mean?”

“This lady apparently overheard something I said a few weeks ago at a prayer meeting. That's why she knew I was struggling with infertility. The thing is, I wasn't asking for prayer about our infertility problem. I was asking for prayer for your trip to Africa, that God would keep you safe and bring you home safe.”

“How did the conversation get from there to infertility?” Allan asked.

“Insensitivity,” she said. “A lack of discernment. Take your pick. Do you realize how many times I've asked for prayer for something, and someone in the group inevitably starts praying for me to get pregnant? Half the time, I'm not even thinking about it until they bring it up. Then for the next several minutes, everyone's focusing on me and my inability to get pregnant. Some of the women will come up after we stop praying and ask me how I'm doing, or tell me some story about someone they know that has the same problem.”

Allan smiled. “I think they're just trying to be caring when that happens.”

“I'm sure they are,” she said. “But that doesn't help me at the time. It makes me not want to pray in a group anymore. I mean, if I was struggling with this specifically and I asked for prayer, that would be different. But I've had people praying for me to get pregnant when I had that bronchial infection a few months ago and couldn't shake it.”

Allan laughed. “I'm sorry. That's not funny.”

Michele sighed. “It just seems like Christians don't know what to do with this, or how to treat people dealing with this problem.” They were driving through the cute downtown area of River Oaks now. Elderberry Lane was just a few blocks away. “I got another one of these today.” She pulled a small white envelope out of her purse.

“What is it?” he asked.

“An invitation . . . to a baby shower. It's like torture, going to those. Pretending to be so happy as they open all the gifts. Listening to all the moms talk about their delivery stories. All the while I just sit there, smiling, nodding.”

“I'm sorry, Michele. Who's the shower for?”

She opened the invitation and read aloud. “The friends and family of Mrs. Samantha Durbin are happy to announce . . . I'm not even sure I know who that is.”

“I think I know the Durbins,” Allan said. “Not very well. But you don't have to go to that one, Michele. It's their first baby. I think the church has a policy to invite all the women when it's the first baby. But they know not everyone's going to go.”

Michele looked out the window. They were in her parents' neighborhood now. “I don't think I will. Maybe I'll send a small gift along.”

They drove in silence a few moments. Michele spoke first. “Jean said something interesting the other day.”

“What's that?”

“She read that one in eight couples struggle with infertility. She wanted me to know I'm not alone.”

“
We're
not alone,” he said.

She wanted to believe him, that they were going through this together. She'd felt all alone in this for so many months now. At least he was trying. He reached his hand toward her. She took it and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“If that statistic is for the country as a whole,” Allan said, “I'd say it's much higher than one in eight within the church. I think church people are trying to have kids more aggressively than the culture at large. It might be more like one in five.”

“Either way,” Michele said, “seems like a lot more people struggle with this than you would think. For some reason, we tend to suffer alone. I can think of two other women I know in the church who can't seem to get pregnant. Both have been trying longer than me. We don't even talk to each other. Not very often, anyway.”

They turned onto Elderberry Lane. “Maybe you should.”

“Should what?”

“Talk to these other women. There's probably a bunch of other women in the church who are dealing with this. We're up to about three hundred people now. Based on that statistic, even with the one in eight number, that's almost twenty women in a church our size. If it's one in five, you're talking almost thirty.”

Could that be possible? “I don't know. I'm not sure I want to do something like that.”

“Like what?”

“Start some kind of women's ministry or support group. I don't even like to think about it.” Talking about it openly would make it feel more real, or like she was giving in to defeat or giving up hope.

“I was just thinking of you talking with those two.” Allan pulled up to the curb near her parents' house. “Looks like everyone's here. Wow, even Doug. Three weekends in a row. Wonder what's going on.”

Michele recognized all the cars. All except one.

I
t was like being in a movie.

That's what it felt like to Christina. Sitting around the Anderson Sunday dinner table. Everybody talking, several conversations going at once. People passing food; people asking other people to pass food. Listening to family jokes, being the only one who didn't get them. The dad, Jim, sitting at one end of the table; the mom, Marilyn, to his left. None of them seemed to realize how unusual this was. Didn't people stop doing this, like, decades ago?

But she loved it. Every bit of it.

She especially liked that no one made her feel strange. Marilyn had introduced her before they'd sat down, though it seemed everyone already knew who she was. They all said hi, some other nice welcoming thing, then life went on as usual and Christina was allowed to be a part of it.

There were two empty seats in the middle. Christina understood they belonged to Michele and Allan. She had met Allan at church. Marilyn said they should be here any minute. Doug sat next to Allan's empty chair. He had been polite to Christina, but that was about all. It was hard to stop looking at him, but she had been relatively successful. Of course,
they had only been sitting for ten minutes. In any case, no one seemed to notice her looking at him, especially Doug. She knew this because every time she did look, his eyes were somewhere else.

“When are you heading back to St. Augustine, Doug?” his brother Tom asked.

Doug took a roll and passed the basket down. “About an hour after dinner. I got my stuff together in a couple of boxes by the apartment stairs. Once I'm gone, the place is all yours, Christina.” He smiled at her.

“Can't wait,” she said. “I mean, till it's mine. Not can't wait till you're gone.”

“I know.”

“Did you strip the bed?” Marilyn asked Doug. “And scrub that bathroom real good? The way I taught you when you first moved in?”

“I did better than that. I not only stripped the bed, I put the dirty sheets and pillowcases in the washer and put fresh ones back on the bed. And the bathroom is so clean, you'd never know a guy had been there.”

Christina smiled. The bathroom was probably cleaner than the one in her old apartment. “That's very kind of you, Doug.”

“No problem.”

“Think you can help her get her stuff up the stairs after we eat?” Marilyn asked.

“I was planning on it.”

The front door opened. Everyone turned and started greeting Allan and Michele. A few of them stood, so Christina did too. But she stayed back by the table.

Michele . . . she looked way too familiar. She seemed to look at Christina the same way.

Marilyn walked Allan and Michele toward her. “Allan,
you met Christina at church. But you weren't with us at the time, Michele. Well, this is Christina.”

Michele stuck out her hand. “We've actually met before, Mom. In a way.” She looked at Christina. “Remember, that day at the playground?”

“That's where it was. I knew you looked familiar.” Oh my, Christina thought. She's the woman who was crying as she watched the kids play, because she can't have kids of her own.

“What playground?” Allan asked.

“Just one in River Oaks,” Michele said. “Well, let's get seated. I'm starving.”

“We haven't started eating,” Marilyn said. “We're just yakking and dishing out food.” She took her place at the end of the table.

After everyone sat again, Doug said, “Any chance we could say the blessing before Michele and Allan get their food?”

“Yeah, go ahead,” Allan said.

“All right,” Jim said. “Let's pray.”

Everyone reached for each other's hands and closed their eyes. Before she closed hers, Christina saw Tommy stretch and reach for his sister's hand. So cute. Then Jim prayed a nice, short prayer. She didn't remember all of it, but she felt especially blessed when he spent a few moments talking about her. It was hard to fathom. He was thanking God for
her
, for God bringing
her
into
their
lives? Everyone said amen and started eating. She wished she could have been a little bolder. If anything, she was the one who should be thanking God for them.

When she opened her eyes and looked around the table, three people were looking back at her: Doug, Marilyn, and Michele. Michele's look was the only one that troubled her, and only a little. The other glances were light and friendly.

Michele definitely had something going on behind those eyes.

Michele wasn't really starving. She had just said that to change the subject. She still hadn't told Allan about her trips to the playground. It wasn't as though she'd been doing anything wrong. So why hadn't she told him?

Christina certainly looked a little different than she did that day. She looked better. Cleaner, happier, and definitely more . . . pregnant.

“How much more time before your baby is due?” Jean asked.

“Six or seven weeks,” Christina said.

Michele wondered if she'd made a decision about whether to keep the baby or not. This wasn't the right time or place to ask such a thing. And really, it was none of Michele's business.

Allan passed her the plate of roast beef. “So you two met at the playground? Was that while I was on my trip?”

“What trip?” Christina said.

“A mission trip to Africa.”

“Yes,” Michele said. She took one slice of beef and set the plate down in front of her.

“Which playground was it?”

Why did he care? “The big one. The one closest to the downtown area.” She didn't look at him, thinking he might get the hint and drop it.

“I was there trying to think through a pretty big decision,” Christina said.

“Which decision is that?” Doug asked.

“Doug, don't be nosy,” Marilyn said.

“I don't mind. Whether or not to keep my baby and raise
her as a single parent or put her up for adoption, let a married couple be her mom and dad.”

“Wow,” Doug said. “That's a biggie.”

“It is. Biggest decision I ever made.”

“Sounds like you've already made it.”

“I have.”

“Well?”

“Christina, you don't have to get into all that here,” Marilyn said. “Doug, don't be so curious.”

Michele wanted to know the answer too. She couldn't tell if her mom was trying to protect Christina's privacy or to signal her not to discuss the situation over the dinner table. She got her answer quickly, when her mother's eyes instantly shifted to Tommy and Carly. Probably wasn't the best dinner conversation for little ears.

Christina leaned toward Doug and said quietly, “I'll tell you later if you really want to know.” She looked up at Michele and smiled, then back at Doug. “But talking with your sister that day at the playground really helped me.”

Michele quickly looked at Allan. He had definitely heard this exchange.