Kneeling for a Child He Already Had

I knelt on the stone steps less than a hundred yards from the summit. My knees had gone numb long ago.

In the family cloud album, the video was still playing.

In the delivery room, Gideon Tarrant cradled the baby, his face full of a tenderness I had never once seen from him. Mom was blowing on spoonfuls of chicken soup to cool them. Dad had the baby in his arms and refused to hand him over.

My brother, Jordan Dunbar, laughed beside them. "He's got Gideon's nose. He's one of us, no question about it."

Everyone in that frame had a place. Everyone except me.

A moment later, a dozen or so more photos synced to the cloud album. There was the baby's hospital bracelet, the birth registration form, and the first video Gideon had recorded while holding the baby.

The registration form spelled it all out. Under father, it said Gideon Tarrant. Under mother, it said Amanda Crowley. The baby's name was Oscar Tarrant.

They had even picked out a name.

Meanwhile, I was still taking pills and getting injections every day. I had cried and asked Gideon if I was never going to be a mother. He held me tight and said, "Hazel, it's okay. Baby or no baby, I love you."

Looking back now, it was not that he did not care about having a child. He just did not want me to be the one to have it.

My phone suddenly rang. It was Mom.

"Hazel, have you reached the top yet?"

I could faintly hear a baby crying behind her.

I did not call her out. "Almost."

"Then hurry up. After the climb, you still have to fast for three days, and not a single day less. You haven't gotten pregnant in three years. If you don't try harder, Gideon's going to get sick of you sooner or later."

The wind drove snow into my mouth, and my teeth chattered.

"Mom, my knees are bleeding."

She was silent for half a second before she answered impatiently. "So what if you bleed a little? Some women risk their lives to have a baby. If you can't even handle this much, how do you expect to be a mother?"

In the video, she was gently tucking the blanket around Amanda. With Amanda, she could not bear to let her suffer the slightest bit. With me, all she ever said was to put up with it.

I asked quietly, "What if I can never have a baby?"

"Then be sensible and stop dragging Gideon down."

She said it without a second thought, then hung up.

Not far away, the ribbon Gideon had hung on the prayer tree himself snapped and fluttered in the wind. On the front, it read: [May my beloved be kept safe.]

I staggered to my feet and tore the ribbon down. It caught on the branches and ripped open, revealing the words on the back.

[May Mandy have a smooth delivery, and may mother and child both be safe and well.]

It was dated one month earlier.

That was the day Gideon told me he had made a special trip up the mountain ahead of me to pray for a child on my behalf. I had been so moved that I stayed up all night, and I even posted about it on social media.

Amanda had commented under the post: [Hazel, you're so lucky.]

I clutched the ribbon and suddenly laughed out loud.

It turned out Gideon had not tricked me into kneeling my way up this mountain to pray for a child of my own. He had made me, his wife, kneel at every step to pray for the child he had with his mistress.

I let go.

The wind swept the ribbon over the edge of the cliff, and it vanished into the snowstorm.

Right then, a message from Gideon came in: [Hang in there, for our baby.]

I stared at it for a long time before I replied with a single word: [Okay.]

That had not come from forgiveness. It was a promise I was making to myself. Whatever they owed me, I would take back, piece by piece.