Robert, Her Billionaire Widower

“True,” said Robert, “but writing is not all about the book itself, is it? There are interviews you will have to give, reading sessions, book signing tours, all of the public appearances that would become difficult for you if you were pregnant. That’s what I’m talking about when I mean you’re not ready.”

“I can do all of that while I’m pregnant,” said Marie. “I can focus on my writing and I can go to interviews and I can do all of that. Why do you think it would be so difficult for me? I really don’t get it. It sounds like you’re just looking for excuses not to have kids. It’s fine if you just don’t want kids right now, it’s fine to simply choose not to have kids but can you please stop pretending to be some kind of martyr that is forsaking his children so that his wife can focus on her writing career?”

“Why are you getting so angry?” said Robert, getting annoyed by all of this hostility. “It’s my company as well, I said that I want to focus on work right now and making my company grow as much as I can. I’ve already told you all of this.”

“You don’t want kids!” said Marie. “Just say it!”

Robert was starting to get nervous. Marie had a point. He didn’t want kids right now, whether he had a lot of work to do or not. If he had wanted kids he would have been able to get time off from work quite easily, he would have been able to talk to someone or the other about hiring somebody to handle at least some of the duties for him so that he could take paternity leave. However, the fact remained that Robert did not feel like he could bring himself to do that. He did not think that he could put a child before his company, and that made him not want to have kids.

“Fine!” said Robert. “I don’t want to have kids. Are you happy now?”

“Happy?” said Marie. “Do you really think that makes me happy? Do you really think I want to be this hostile? You’re the one that was keeping this from me, who was hiding behind the pretense of not wanting to harm my writing career. You were the one that was pretending you wanted kids, just not right now. The truth is, you just don’t want kids, and you don’t even want to think of it right now.

“Before we got married, when we discussed kids, it was always you who said that we’d figure it out, that it wouldn’t be a huge problem. It was you who said that we could reach a compromise. I think you were just trying to avoid the subject altogether. I think you never wanted kids in the first place but you didn’t want to disappoint me. Is this true, Robert?”

Robert didn’t know what to say. He cursed Marie’s observational skills and her intellect. It was true that the thought of never having any children appealed to him quite a bit. It was true that he wanted to live his life without having to think about a child that depended on him for pretty much everything. It was true that Robert was, in all things, very much against the idea of having children at all because he simply looked at them as inconveniences, things that would stop him from doing the things that he truly loved doing. How could he tell his wife that?

Robert had thought that perhaps after a little while he would warm up to the idea of having children. He thought that he might not be so against the idea after being with Marie for a while. When he realized that this was not happening, he had started to panic and now Marie was confronting him about it.

“Look,” said Robert, “we don’t have to talk about this right now. We don’t have to discuss something like having children so early on in our marriage. How about we wait until after our first anniversary? Do you think that would work for you? We can think about it long and hard until then and then we can decide what we want to do, when we want kids, how many kids we want. What do you say?”

“Why do I feel like you are trying to postpone this so that you don’t have to deal with this right now?” asked Marie. “Are you trying to get time to think about it because you feel, maybe, that it would help you get used to the idea so that you can say yes just to make me happy? Is that it, Robert? Are you buying time for yourself so that you can say yes to me later on? That’s not how it works, Robert.”

Robert did not know how to respond. How was Marie so utterly accurate every single time? How did she managed to know just what was behind Robert’s words, what he was trying to say, what he was really trying to do? She knew him too well, that was the only reasonable explanation. She knew him too well and this meant that Robert could give her nothing except pure honesty.

“Yes,” said Robert, deciding to own up completely. “Yes, I think that I’m just trying to buy myself some time. I think I’m just trying to make myself believe that I would want kids at some point in the future. I… I honestly don’t know if I would ever want kids, Marie. I don’t think I would like the idea of having kids at all. I don’t think that idea attracts me in the slightest, because I don’t like the idea of being tied down.”

Marie looked at Robert with an incredulous expression. “Robert, what the fu*k is that supposed to mean? First of all, did you not think that the fact that you would never want kids would be an important thing to tell someone that you were planning on marrying? Didn’t you think that I would want to take that into consideration before marrying you? You know I’ve always wanted kids, that kids are one of the most important things in my life. You know that I have always dreamed of having a proper little family, one that I can make dinner for, go out to the movies with. I feel like you have betrayed me, Robert, by not telling me something like this. Also, you don’t want to be tied down? What does that mean, Robert? What do you mean you don’t want to be tied down? You’re married to me, is that tying you down? Is that making you feel like you are trapped somewhere you don’t want to be?”

“No, not at all!” said Robert, “Calm down Marie!”

He knew at once that he had made a terrible mistake. Nobody likes to be told to calm down when they are angry. Nobody likes to be made to feel like what they are feeling is somehow invalid or that they are overreacting in some way, and Marie was no different. The fact that Robert had just told her to calm down was just making her angrier than she had been before, and Robert was going to face the brunt of this rage, the full extent of the consequences of the rather stupid thing that he had just said.