My son put down his glass and asked his father why he was telling that story as though he had been the one who had been hurt. His father looked surprised and said he was only remembering a difficult time in their marriage. My son shook his head and said that wasn’t how he remembered the years afterward. He remembered his mother apologizing whenever the subject came up, even though his father had been the one who had asked for the abortion. Then he looked at me and asked whether I had ever been allowed to grieve.
I told him I hadn’t. I said that after the procedure, I had spent nineteen years listening to my husband describe his sadness while convincing myself that my own feelings were somehow less legitimate. My son asked why I had apologized to his father that day, and I told him I was twenty-eight and believed that if I could make him feel better, maybe the marriage would feel normal again. His father interrupted and said he had never meant to make me feel guilty. My son looked at him and said that intention didn’t change what had happened.
The table had gone completely quiet by then. My son told his father that he had spent years hearing the story from one side and had never once heard what his mother had felt. He said it was strange to hear his father talk about an experience he had wanted as though it had been something done to him. His father became emotional and said he had always regretted it. I told him that he was allowed to regret it, but he didn’t get to turn his regret into something I had to carry for him.
After the party, my son walked me to the car and apologized for hearing the story so many times without questioning it. I told him he had been a child and that none of it had been his responsibility. He asked me whether I wished I had told him earlier, and I said I wished I had told myself earlier that my grief mattered too. He hugged me and said he finally understood why I had gone quiet whenever his father told that story. Then he asked me what I wanted to do now. I told him I didn’t know yet, but for the first time in nineteen years, I was going to let the answer belong entirely to me.
