A mother's love

Chapter 38

Simon and Brenda spent six years trying to get pregnant having put it off for six years before that to focus on getting themselves on sound financial footing to ensure that they were capable of giving their children the best upbringing possible. Simon was responsible for the long delay. As a teacher Brenda had absolute job security but her earning power was limited; Simon had the opposite problem and so it was up to him to make up for Brenda's small income. After leaving college he'd worked at Deloitte for four years before leaving to start his own consulting firm specializing in tax returns, financial planning and small business development. At first it was slow going with Simon running the business by himself out of the home office that they'd converted the garage into and Brenda supporting the two of them on her salary. Brenda was impatient to have a child and while she believed in her husband's ability to make a success of his business she spent almost all of her time in those early years wishing that he would give up and go back to working for a company. Had she actually said as much to him nothing would have changed. Simon had a stubborn streak, he had problems with authority and he never doubted his correctness; Brenda couldn't ask him to go back to his old job any more than she could convince him to have a baby sooner than they'd planned even if it meant their child didn't have the full range of advantages available to it that it was Simon's intention to provide it with. Brenda didn't see the need for all of the things that Simon was adamant were essential. Everything didn't have to be the best for her, in accordance with a plan for the attainment of perfection. Simon was intractable on the issue of private school, the affordability of which was the primary reason for their long delay in starting their family; Brenda taught at a public school and was okay with their child attending public school. He also thought they needed a bigger house with a bigger yard and was unmoved when Brenda said to him that they could upgrade from their two and a half bedroom to something bigger when their child was older and they needed the extra space. Simon had very particular ideas about the path their life was supposed to follow on which he would not compromise, claiming that he just wanted what was best for them.

Brenda knew Simon well enough to know that once control of a situation had been surrendered to him he would increase his control over that situation inexorably until his control over it was absolute. She had missed her chance to circumvent his obstinacy. If she were to stop taking the pill and fall pregnant he would know that she had done it deliberately and he would be furious with her, for deceiving him but mostly for not believing in his plan. The more serious things had gotten between them over the years the more Brenda felt like they weren't building a life together but that he was building a life of which she was no more than a component. She never thought about leaving; her impatience to have a child and her diminished role didn't make her feel desperate enough to consider leaving. In general they both wanted the same things and the delays that he imposed on them was in no way the result of him having second thoughts about starting a family with her, his ambition to provide his family with the best was genuine.

As a married couple they had settled into comfort and familiarity, this worked to soothe much of Brenda's anxiousness to have children, that and the things she overheard the boys at school saying about the lengths to which they'd be willing to go if it meant getting an opportunity to have sex with her in exchange. Brenda liked to have fun with the boys at school by doing things like wearing a skirt that was shorter than what she ordinarily wore or leaving a curly lock of her hair to dangle sexily on the side of her face. The reaction of the boys at school to her reassured her that she still had a long way to go before she needed to start worrying about being on the decline; she could afford to be patient regarding time sensitive matters such as having children.

Brenda's mother could not have been happier with Simon and she made sure Brenda knew how happy it made her to know that she was with someone like him every time they spoke. It made Brenda happy to know that she was making her parents proud; it was part of what made her so willing to allow Simon to arrogate all the control. Years later, when Brenda was in desperate need of help with Kyle, her mother was the only one she could rely on. Brenda would call her and ask her if she could come up and spend a few days with them and Meredith would drive up from San Diego and stay for as long as Brenda asked her to. Brenda loved her mother for being so helpful to her and would never forget how wonderful she had been when she had been going through her worst times with Kyle, though there were times when Brenda was infuriated by her mother's refusal to accept her criticism of Simon for not doing more to help her with Kyle.

They bought the house that Simon deemed appropriate for raising a family after four years and spent two years getting it ready for children and consolidating themselves financially. Three months of trying to get pregnant with no success led them to a fertility specialist, who had very little positive news for them. The problem, he said, was that Brenda's egg wasn't accepting Simon's sperm. He told them that it wasn't impossible for them to have children but that it was unlikely. He put Brenda on a course of fertilization treatments to boost her chances of falling pregnant and said he'd see her again in six months and they'd take it from there. Brenda couldn't imagine feeling any worse than she did after their meeting with the fertility specialist. After resenting Simon for years for making her wait so long to start a family it devastated her to hear that she was the reason they hadn't been able to conceive. Simon made attempts at being consoling but displaying tenderness wasn't one of his strengths. He was emotionally clumsy, and Brenda preferred not to be the subject of his clumsiness. The mood swings that the fertility treatments produced were awful. The failure that she felt as a woman was amplified and the sense of hopelessness that she felt when she contemplated a childless future was crushing. Simon's emotional ineptitude grated on her to no end and serious cracks started to appear in their marriage as they confronted their most serious test as husband and wife. Things that Brenda had always known about Simon that she'd turned a blind eye to became all she could think about and his presence grew increasingly aggravating; Simon, frustrated by his wife being unreceptive to his attempts to provide support, did as she asked and stopped trying to be there for her. When they had sex it was perfunctory and without pleasure, were it not for their need to keep trying to conceive the thought of sleeping with each other wouldn't have crossed their minds. There were times when Brenda called in sick and stayed in bed all day crying. Unable to stand Brenda's rejection Simon pulled further and further away from her, staying later at his office, leaving the house for long hours on the weekend and sometimes sleeping in one of the spare bedrooms.

During her many hours of solitude Brenda asked serious questions about her marriage that she should have asked sooner, before she was thirty six years old and time wasn't as pressing an issue. Her reasons for staying with Simon were greatly diminished without the prospect of raising a family together. Their suitability for each other occupied her thoughts the most. She needed Simon to be there for her during what they were going through and she wished that she could lean on him, which made his emotional unavailability harder for her to live with. Brenda didn't lose hope, she couldn't afford to. She kept giving herself the fertility shots and she and Simon kept trying. Her concerns about their suitability for each other didn't lead her to start having second thoughts about having a child with Simon. Having learned that she was the reason they were having problems conceiving her sense of urgency to have a child increased to a feverish level. The problems that they were having didn't change the fact that the best option available to her for having a family was with Simon. They never talked about what they went through subsequent to Brenda's diagnosis; Brenda adjusted to the effects of the fertility treatments and Simon spent more time at home; they returned to a relatively frictionless co-existence in which their focus on having a child was the only meaningful thing they shared. They weren't labouring under the illusion that if they had a child It would solve all of their problems; they'd resolved to stay together and make it work, even if their life together was a lot bumpier than it used to be.