"You know what your problem is?" He asked.

"I'm sure you're about to tell me,” she said.

He was flossing his teeth, something he did obsessively. He pulled the string back and forth one more time and dropped the floss in the bathroom wastebasket. "You only care about yourself."
She wasn't expecting that. "That can't be true. I just took Marci for a walk and I did a load of laundry. Most of it was your stuff."

He gave her an exasperated look. "No, Baby. It's not about what you do for your dog. You cooked dinner tonight too. Very good by the way." She'd made chicken breast in cranberry sauce. 

"And?"

"And I want you to have a baby. We should have a family."

"Again? I don't want children, you know that." She was putting lipstick, a pale red on, which she knew Brad liked.    

"But I do. That's the problem."

She started brushing her hair. They were going to Wednesday evening church services. "Brad, we've been married eleven years. I'll be 35 in two weeks and you just turned 37. It's too late for us."

They drove to church in silence. Theirs was an old argument. Just days before they married, they'd had a terrible row, one that nearly caused them to cancel their wedding. But the next day Brad relented. He called her. "Janelle, I really want a couple of kids, but I'm not about to spend my life without you. We're both young. Maybe one of us will change our minds. Can we just agree to think about it and decide on children a few years from now?"

Janelle, who was very bright, placed her cell phone on the counter for a few seconds, wanting to think through her response. Brad didn’t know the real reason she didn’t want children, and she couldn’t bring herself to tell him and have to re-live the experience again. She picked up the phone. "I agree one of us might change, but it probably won't be me. Don't marry me if you think I'll change my mind. I won't. "

Brad had given it a lot of thought. He was crazy about Janelle. He knew he was temporarily defeated, but he also believed he had time to work on her. And, he loved her too much to let her go. 

They enjoyed a good marriage and both were finding success in the business world. Janelle was on the partner track with a law firm and Brad owned a small, but popular, craft brewery. 

On their fifth anniversary, he had raised the question again about parenthood. "Now seems like the right time for us to start a family," he said over dinner at Fleming's Steak House.

"We are a family," she said. She sipped her wine. "A family of two." She took another sip. "To be honest, Baby, I can't imagine giving up wine for nine months." She smiled and squeezed his hand. She touched the necklace she was wearing. "I love my anniversary gift. It's beautiful."

"Are you trying to change the subject?" He asked.

"Which one? The wine or the necklace?"

He let the matter drop, but when they got home that night, he said he was too tired to get together, very unusual, if not unheard of, for him. 

He waited two years before mentioning it again. His birthday was coming up and she asked him what he wanted.

"To start a family," he said. "What do you think?"

"How about a new Mustang?" she said. “Don’t men who are going bald prematurely, like that sort of thing?” She laughed and rubbed his head, lovingly.   

Still, Brad was convinced they would make great parents. "We can share the responsibility. I own my own business. My hours are flexible.” He was watching the Tennessee Titans game. He turned the sound off. “We both have a lot to offer a child. With your genes and my good looks, our kid would take the planet by storm."

"That's a selling point? Your looks?" Janelle laughed. She turned the sound on again and walked into the kitchen.

He had to admit they got along really well. They were lovers and best friends. By any measure, theirs was a successful marriage.  Friends who had started families often showed signs of stress, and in some cases, financial strain. Janelle pointed out that her best friend. Shannon, who had two children, complained frequently. "Don works long hours. He's always tired and he doesn't help much with the kids."  Her husband, Don, was a successful real estate broker. 

But now, married eleven years, just as Janelle had told him, her mind had not changed. 

When they left Bible study that night, walking to the Mustang Brad had settled for, he said, "I'm going to pack a few things tonight and leave for a while. I respect your right not to have children, but I want to experience parenthood."

Janelle was shocked. "You would leave me?"

"I need some time to think, Janelle. That's all."

"Think about what?"

He took a deep breath. "Whether I can live the rest of my life and never be a father."
Janelle helped him pack when they got home. Tears rolled down her cheeks and it upset her that he didn't show any emotion. "I'll call you in a couple of days," he said.

"A couple of days? Listen, Bradley, you are not going to blackmail me into having a child. If you want out of our marriage, just say so. I'll recommend a lawyer for you." 
He put his duffle bag in the Mustang’s trunk and said, "I don't want a divorce, Janelle. I just need to figure out some things."

They talked every day that week. He never brought up the subject of parenthood. Never asked her if her feelings about having a baby had changed. Instead, they talked about their jobs. He reminded her to pay some bills that were due. And every night, they texted for a while just before bedtime, always ending the session sweetly. Finally, she asked him, "Are you coming home?"

"No," he said. "I think we should talk about filing for divorce. I'm sorry. You know I love you. I just have this itch and it won't go away.

That week, while he was gone, Janelle had spent time talking to her sister and friends on her commute to and from work. One friend thought she should have a baby, saying Janelle would regret not having a child later in life. "You aren't going to love having some lazy nurse taking care of you when you're old,"
she said. “You’ll want your kids with you.”

Another friend suggested they compromise and get a dog. "I have to admit, though, a dog can be more trouble than twins."

An old boyfriend from law school, with whom she'd remained friendly, said, "Have the kid and write a post-nup that requires him to take custody if you get divorced."

Her sister, Kara, though, had a different take. "You can't have a baby for Brad. It has to be what you want too. Do you feel that maternal instinct stirring inside you?"

Janelle thought about it. "I might. But I read somewhere there's no such thing."

Her sister let out a heavy sigh. "I can't believe Mom and Dad liked you better than me." The sisters laughed. Then, after a bit of silence, Kara said, "Don't be afraid, Janelle. Don't let Lana's death keep you from trying. It will be all right." 

Lana was their baby sister, who died tragically of crib death when Janelle was 14. She had agreed to sit with her nine-month-old sister, while her parents took Kara, who was 7 years old to see a Disney movie. When they got home, her mother left and found that her youngest had died. Janelle blamed herself. A year of counseling didn’t help.

"How do you know?" Janelle asked.

"I don't.  I just know I didn't let it stop me." Kara had four children. 

Two nights after Brad mentioned divorce, she showed up at his hotel. She knocked on his door. When he opened it, he saw her standing there, wearing a raincoat, an overnight bag in one hand.
He laughed, guessing correctly, that she wasn't wearing anything under the coat.

"I'll make you a deal," she said. "We'll try to make a baby for one month every year. If I get pregnant, your dream will come true. If I don't, we don't discuss it for the rest of the year." She paused. "We'll do it for three years. After that we stop trying."

It was, to say the least, an unorthodox proposition, but he liked it. "Will you be able to handle it if you do get pregnant?" Brad decided it wasn’t the time to mention that Kara had called him that afternoon.

"I never doubted we'd be great parents. I just didn't want a child. Not being with you for only a week, I missed you terribly. And it gave me time to think. I've been selfish and afraid."

Brad said he understood. “We will take the very best care of our child.  

They had a wonderful night together. One month later they got the news. The three year plan wouldn’t be necessary.