“Just overwhelmed,” he said. It came out strained. “It’s… it’s a lot.”
Amanda laughed and leaned against his shoulder. “He’s been like this for a week. Ever since I told him. He keeps staring at me like I’m going to break.”
“I’m just happy,” Andrew said. “I’m happy.”
We believed him.
Why wouldn’t we? After everything Amanda had survived, a baby felt almost too much to hope for. Of course he was overwhelmed. We all were.
But the look on his face worried me.
He looked like a man trying very hard not to fall apart.
After dinner, I went to the kitchen to wash the dishes. I needed a minute to myself. I was so happy I was shaking.
I’d just put the roasting pan in the sink when Andrew came into the kitchen.
He didn’t say anything. He just reached out and gently took hold of my wrist.
“Andrew? What—”
He put a finger to his lips. He led me out of the kitchen, down the back hallway toward the laundry room, away from the living room where Amanda and Tom were laughing.
He looked behind us. Then he looked again.
“We need to talk,” he said quietly. “Nobody can hear us.”
His chin was trembling. He couldn’t meet my eyes.
My heart stopped.
“Is she sick again?” I whispered. “Andrew, tell me. Is my daughter getting worse?”
He shook his head.
“No,” he said. “Not yet.”
“Not yet?“
He closed his eyes.
“I should have told you years ago,” he said. “I hid a terrible truth from all of you. And now I can’t let Amanda make this horrible mistake.”
I made him tell me right there. In the laundry room, with the door closed, standing between the washing machine and the shelf of paper towels.
It took him a long time to start. He kept pushing his glasses up his nose, even though they weren’t slipping.
“The medicine,” he said finally. “The pill she takes every morning.”
“What about it?”
“It’s not a cure, Linda. It never was.”
I stared at him.
“It keeps the disease asleep,” he said. “That’s all it does. As long as she takes it, every single day, the disease stays quiet. Her kidneys can heal a little. Her lungs stay stable. But if she stops taking it…” He shook his head. “It wakes up. Usually within weeks. And when it comes back, it comes back hard. Harder than before.”
“How long does she have to take it?”
He looked at me.
“Forever,” he said. “For the rest of her life.”
I put my hand on the washing machine. It was cold.
“She knows that,” I said slowly. “Doesn’t she? You told her.”
Andrew didn’t answer right away.
“I told her it was long-term,” he said. “When we started. I said ‘long-term maintenance.’ I said we’d ‘reassess as we go.’” He swallowed. “I never said the word ‘forever.’ Not once. Not to her. Not to you.”
“Why not?”
“Because she was so happy.” His voice broke. “Do you understand? She’d been sick for fourteen years. Every doctor she’d ever had told her bad news. And she was finally getting better, and she’d look at me with this hope in her face, and she’d say, ‘When I’m off all this stuff, I’m going to…’ and I just… I couldn’t. I couldn’t be one more doctor taking something away from her.”
“So you let her believe she’d stop taking it someday.”
“Yes.”
“Andrew.”
“I know.” He pressed his hands against his eyes. “I know. It was wrong. I was her doctor, and I was falling in love with her, and I let that get in the way. I told myself I’d tell her later. When she was stronger. When she’d had a little time to just be happy. And then I wasn’t her doctor anymore, and then we were dating, and then we were married. And every month it got harder to say.”
He lowered his hands.
“And there’s something else,” he said. “Something I never told anyone.”
I waited.
“That pill can cause terrible birth defects,” Andrew said. “It’s one of the worst drugs there is for a pregnancy. Every patient on the trial had to sign a form agreeing not to get pregnant while taking it. Amanda signed it too. Three years ago. She was so sick she barely read it.”
I couldn’t feel my legs.
“So what happens now?” I whispered. “Now that she’s pregnant?”
Andrew looked at me. And the look on his face was the worst thing I’d ever seen. Worse than Dr. Kessler in that hallway when she was twelve.
“Linda,” he said. “She already stopped taking it.”
He’d found out three days earlier.
He’d gone to get a bottle of aspirin out of their bathroom cabinet. Her pill bottle was there. Same as always.
It was full.
Not mostly full. All the way full. He counted. She’d picked it up from the pharmacy three weeks ago. She hadn’t taken a single pill.
He’d gone through the trash. He’d found the pregnancy test. And her phone was on the counter, and he knew he shouldn’t, but he looked at her search history. He’d never done that before in his life.
Is [drug name] safe during pregnancy.
Birth defects [drug name] first trimester.
Can I stop [drug name] if I’m in remission.
How long does remission last off [drug name].
“She thinks she’s in remission,” Andrew said. “She thinks she’s better. She thinks if she stops for nine months, she’ll be fine, and she’ll start again after the baby’s born.” He shook his head. “And it’s my fault she thinks that. Because I never told her the truth.”
“How long has she been off it?”
“Three weeks. Maybe a little more.”
“And what happens? Tell me straight. No soft words. What happens if she doesn’t take it for nine months?”
Andrew looked at the floor.
“It comes back,” he said. “Probably by the second trimester. Her kidneys first. Then maybe her lungs. Pregnancy is already hard on kidneys. Even healthy ones. With her disease awake…” He stopped.
“Say it.”
“She could die, Linda. Her and the baby. Both.”
The laundry room was so quiet I could hear the clock ticking in the kitchen.
“Have you talked to her?” I asked.
“I’ve tried. Three times. I open my mouth and nothing comes out.” He was crying now. Openly. “Every time I start, she looks at me with that face. That happy face. The same face she had when she danced at the wedding. And I think, I’m going to be the one who takes this away from her too.”
“So you came to me.”
“I came to you because I’m a coward,” Andrew said. “And because I didn’t know what else to do.”
I want to tell you I was kind to him right then.
I wasn’t.
I slapped him.
Not hard. I’ve never hit anyone in my life. My hand just flew out and hit his cheek, and the sound was loud in that little room, and we both stood there shocked.
“You lied to us,” I said. My whole body was shaking. “You stood in that hospital hallway and told us how honest you were. You said you’d never go behind our backs. And you let her believe she was getting well. For three years. You let me believe it.”
“I know.”
“You let her get pregnant without telling her it could kill her!”
“I didn’t know she’d stopped the pill. We didn’t plan this, Linda. I swear. She told me she was still on birth control. She must have…” He stopped. “I don’t know. I don’t know what she was thinking. I think she wanted it so badly she just decided.”
“Because she thought she was better. Because you let her think it.”
“Yes.”
I turned away from him. I put both hands on the washing machine and leaned on it, because I thought I might fall down.
And then, standing there in the laundry room, I remembered something.
A hallway. Fluorescent lights. Dr. Kessler’s tired voice.
Most children don’t reach adulthood.
And my own voice, eleven years ago. Don’t tell her. Let her be twelve.
I stood very still.
Andrew didn’t know about that. Nobody knew except Tom and me. We’d never told anyone.
I’d done exactly the same thing.
I’d stood in a hallway and decided my daughter couldn’t handle the truth about her own body. I’d decided for her. And I’d called it love.
“Linda?” Andrew said behind me. “Are you okay?”
I didn’t answer for a long time.
“We have to tell her,” I said finally. “Tonight. Both of us.”
We told her at the kitchen table. Tom sat next to me. Andrew sat next to Amanda.
I’d asked Tom to take the dog out so I could tell him first. He came back in looking like he’d been hit by a truck. He didn’t say a word. He just sat down and took my hand under the table.
Amanda looked around at the three of us.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “What’s going on? Everybody looks like somebody died.”
Andrew couldn’t start. I watched him try. His mouth opened and closed.
So I did.
“Honey,” I said. “Andrew told me something tonight. About your medicine. And I think you need to hear it from him. All of it. And I’m going to sit here while he tells you.”
Amanda’s face changed. She looked at Andrew.
“What about my medicine?”
He told her.
He told her everything. Not softly this time. Not with careful words. He told her the pill was forever. He told her it was keeping the disease asleep. He told her about the form she’d signed three years ago. He told her he’d found the full bottle. He told her what would happen if she didn’t start taking it again.
He didn’t look away from her once. I’ll give him that.
When he was done, Amanda sat there very still. Her hand was resting on her stomach.
“Forever,” she said.
“Yes.”
“You told me ‘long-term.’”
“I know.”
“You let me think I’d be off it someday. You let me plan for it. I told you last summer, ‘When I’m off the pills, I want to go to Italy.’ And you said, ‘We’ll go.’” She stared at him. “You knew.”
“I know, Mandy. I’m so sorry.”
She turned and looked at me.
“And you two talked about this. In the hallway. Tonight. While I was in the living room showing Dad the ultrasound.” Her voice was getting higher. “You took Mom into the laundry room and told her first. Before me. About my body.”
“I was scared,” Andrew said.
“Of me?”
“Of hurting you.”
“So you went to my mother.” Amanda stood up. Her chair fell backward. “I’m twenty-three years old, Andrew. I’m married. I’m pregnant. And you went to my mother like I’m a little kid.”
“Amanda,” I said. “He was trying to—”
“Don’t.” She held up her hand. Her eyes were blazing. “Don’t, Mom. Don’t you dare. You’ve been doing this my whole life.”
The kitchen went silent.
“Every doctor,” Amanda said. Her voice was shaking. “Every single doctor I’ve ever had. They’d come in and talk to me for five minutes. Then they’d say, ‘Can I speak to your parents in the hallway?’ And you’d go out. And you’d come back with that smile. That everything’s-fine smile. And I’d know. I always knew. I just never said anything.”
“Honey—”
“I was twelve,” Amanda said, “the night Dr. Kessler told you I probably wouldn’t make it to eighteen.”
I stopped breathing.
Tom’s hand went tight around mine.
“I heard him,” Amanda said. Tears were running down her face now. “The door wasn’t closed all the way. I was supposed to be asleep. I heard every word. Most children don’t reach adulthood.” She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “And then I heard you say, ‘Don’t tell her.’”
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move.
“And then you came back in and painted my toenails purple,” Amanda said. “And Dad read me Harry Potter. And you both smiled at me. And I lay there pretending I didn’t know I was going to die.”
“Oh, God,” Tom whispered. “Oh, God, baby.”
“I carried that by myself for six years,” Amanda said. “Every birthday, I thought, maybe this is the last one. When I turned eighteen, I cried in the hospital bathroom for an hour. Not because I was happy. Because I didn’t know what to do with myself. I’d planned to be dead by then.”
She looked at the three of us.
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