Between Lust and Lies

Call it what it is

My world seemed to tilt because I held onto the table beside me to avoid falling.

Dave tried to hold me, but I jerked my arm away from him.

My heart ached so bad that I found it difficult to breathe.

“Dr. Palmer said your eggs weren't viable, and the quality was too poor…” Patricia began.

“So you used hers.” I looked at Teyana, at her guilty face. “You used her eggs with your sperm. That's not a surrogate, that's just…” I couldn't breathe. “That's just your baby. You and hers.”

“Rhea, we could raise the baby together,” he said. “It doesn't matter whose eggs were used.”

“Of course it matters!” I backed away from all of them. “When did you all sit down and decide to replace me?”

“We're not replacing you!” Dave's voice rose in frustration. “You're still my wife. This baby will still be ours…”

“That baby is NOT mine!” Ugly tears streamed down my face. “That baby has nothing to do with me! That's your baby with your ex-girlfriend, you just don't want to call it what it is!”

“Rhea, you're being hysterical…” Patricia started.

“Of course, I'm being hysterical! My husband secretly had a baby with another woman!”

“I didn’t sleep with her. It was a medical procedure. Artificial insemination.”

I stared at him. “You think that makes it better? You think because you didn't have s*x with her, this betrayal is somehow less?”

“It's not a betrayal!” He was getting angry now. I could see it in his jaw, the way his eyes darkened. “I've watched you cry every month for six years. I've held you through every failed treatment, every negative pregnancy test, every doctor's appointment where they tell us it's not going to happen. I can't take it anymore, Rhea! I can't keep watching you break apart!”

“So you ruined me instead.” My voice went quiet. “You couldn't watch me suffer through infertility, so you just replaced me with someone whose eggs work better.”

Teyana stepped forward. "Rhea, I know this is hard, but Dave and Patricia explained everything to me. They love you. They just want to give you the family you've always wanted…"

“I don't even know you!” My voice rose at her. “You don't get to stand in my living room, pregnant with his baby, and lecture me about love!”

“Rhea, calm down…” Patricia tried.

“Get out.” I looked at my mother-in-law. “Get out of my house!”

“This is my son's house…”

“I said GET OUT!”

Something in my voice must have convinced her, because she grabbed her purse. Teyana followed, pausing at the door with an apology that felt too small for what she was carrying inside her.

The door clicked shut.

I stood there facing my husband in our living room. The room where we'd made love on the couch, where we'd talked about baby names, where I'd cried in his arms after every failed pregnancy test.

“Did you choose her? Or did your mother?”

He hesitated too long.

“Both,” I said. “You both chose her. Because she's everything I'm not. Fertile. Connected to your past. Your mother's favorite.”

“That's not why.”

I walked to the couch, picked up my purse. "I need to leave."

“Where are you going?”

“Away from here. Away from you.”

“Rhea, don't be ridiculous. This is your home…”

"Is it?" I looked around the living room. "Because it feels like your mother's house. And soon it'll be Teyana's house. Where exactly do I fit in this new family you're building?"

“You're my wife!”

“Am I? Or am I just the broken woman you keep around out of pity while you build a real family with someone whose body actually works?”

“I never said that.”

“You didn't have to!” I yelled. “You showed me! You went to your ex-girlfriend because I couldn't give you a baby! You and your mother decided I was defective, so you found a replacement!”

“If you would just calm down and think rationally…”

“Rationally? You want me to be rational about this?” I headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” His voice was hard now. The voice he used in boardrooms.

I stopped at the door, turned to look at him one last time. My husband. The man I'd loved for seven years. The man who told me he’d love me in sickness and health. “I don't know,” I said honestly. “But I know I can't stay here and watch you play happy family with her.”

“Rhea, if you walk out that door…”

“What? You'll divorce me? Replace me officially instead of just biologically?” I opened the door. “Don't worry, Dave. I'll save you the trouble.”