Untamed

One night after dinner, Abby, Craig, my sister, her husband John, and I sat around the kitchen table for hours. Music played in the background, the kids chased Honey around the family room, and all of us sipped tea or wine and laughed until it hurt.

I pulled Honey into my lap, turned toward Craig, and said, “I want to tell you something.”

Everyone at the table fell quiet.

“Do you remember that day, eighteen years ago, when we sat side by side on my front porch—me nauseous from morning sickness and you nauseous from shock—trying to decide what to do?

“Do you remember how you broke the silence?

“You said, ‘I’ve been thinking. What if we don’t get married? What if we just live separately and raise the baby side by side?’

“You knew.

“A week before I found out I was pregnant, my friend Christy asked me how it was going with you. I said, ‘We have to break up. We can’t connect. Not physically, not emotionally. It’s just not there.’

“I knew.

“But I had this idea—a vision of what a family should look like, what you should want, who you should become. My imagination became a dangerous thing when we let it eclipse our Knowing.

“We were so young and afraid back then. We hadn’t yet learned that Knowing never goes away. It just stays there inside, solid and unmoving. It just waits as long as it takes for the snow to settle.

“I am sorry that I ignored our Knowing. We didn’t fit together. We tried, because it was the right thing to do, because we thought we should. Because I thought we should. But right is not real, and should is a cage. What’s wild is what is.

“Our Knowing was right all along. What is lasted. Because here we are: trying your idea. Being two people who were not made for each other but who are a hell of a team at raising kids side by side.

“I hope that whatever you do next is born from you and not imposed on you. I hope the rest of your life is your idea. For what it’s worth, I hope you trust yourself. You know what you know. You have good ideas, Craig.”