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And words escape me then. What is Nana saying? What is she hinting at?
Patty can tell I’m confused, and continues.
“Back to you, honey,” she says candidly. “It’s not as if the Morgans lied. They were honest with Heather about the terms of the relationship, and about what they needed from her.”
Again, I’m dumbstruck.
“What?” I exclaim. “They left her for not being able to have a child. She has nothing now. The woman’s like death warmed over.”
Patty pulls her expression into a wry look, lips twisting slightly.
“I don’t know about that,” she says slowly. “I’ve lived a long time, seen a lot of things in this world, and through it all, I’ve learned that nothing is black and white. Nothing is totally right or totally wrong, because there are always shades of grey. Those men have all agreed that they want to share the responsibility of parenting one child, of loving one woman. It’s non-traditional, to be sure, but it’s their choice to make for their own lives. And that young woman knew what they wanted when she embarked on that particular journey.”
I sit back in my seat, laying my head against the couch and closing my eyes to keep from crying.
“They mutilated her with all those treatments,” I cry desperately. “She’s a skeleton. There isn’t much left of her, all because of what they did.”
A slight giggle escapes from my grandma, and I bolt up straight on the lumpy couch.
“It’s not funny,” comes my voice tightly. “If you saw what I saw, you’d have second thoughts too.”
But Nana is unperturbed.
“Oh honey, don’t be so dramatic,” she admonishes. “Mutilated? That seems a little far out. After all, Heather did it willingly, yes? She wasn’t tied down and forced to go through the fertility treatments, right? No one told her to stop living altogether.”
“I gu- guess not,” comes my stammer.
Patty clucks then.
“See? She had a choice. And so did they. They tried and tried and when they found out that what they wanted was impossible, the men moved on. Furthermore, it sou
nds like they tried to do right by her.”
“No, that’s not it,” I say slowly. “What the Morgans did to her was wrong. They left her with nothing.”
“Nothing by whose standards?” Patty asks sharply. I open my eyes to see her raising an eyebrow at me. “They bought her a house, a nice one at that, and furnished it. The men pay her bills, her bank account’s overflowing. How many women have all that? Not many. If you ask me, I think this Heather woman needs to suck it up and move on.”
What? That’s some straight talk and my head whirls.
“I’m not sure,” comes my stammer. Could my grandma be right? “I’m not sure,” come my weak words once more.
But Patty is adamant.
“They couldn’t give themselves anymore,” Patty says. “So they gave what they could. They tried, and that’s what counts.”
I sit, stunned and silent. My grandmother has seen a world war. She was on the front lines for women’s rights in the workplace. To hear her take the Morgans’ side is flabbergasting and downright strange.
“Nana,” I try again, taking a deep breath. “Even if I can get past this, what if I can’t give them the baby they want? Will I end up banished somewhere? Wasting away? Forgetting who I was before they came along?”
Patty gives me a keen, eagle-eyed appraisal. “I’m pretty sure that’s not going to be an issue, now is it?”
I turn sharply, sucking in a shocked breath.
“What?”
But Patty nods knowingly.
“I’d say you’re a couple of months along, sweetheart, so it seems like your fears are unfounded. Am I right?”
