A lifetime ago, deep in the folds of an old Boston hospital, her beautiful face contorted by agonizing pain and joy, my wife gave birth to our son. Thanks to the miraculous advances of medicine, I was permitted to witness this moment in the delivery room. Even more fabulous, I was permitted to believe that I had a useful rôle to play in the delivery proceedings as my wife’s humble assistant. Thanks to the continuing advances of medicine, ever more relentless, yesterday afternoon I found myself in another bleached delivery room. I saw her disfigured face once again: her bloodless mouth stretched wide, tears streaming down her sallow cheeks, her chin thrust toward the high ceiling crawling with instruments, her hair knotted and without lustre… I was truly surprised: her face was very much the same as I remembered it fourteen years ago. Except that this was my second wife-to-be. And except that this was our first and puzzled abortion.

Addendum (March 27, 1994)

Lauren must have conceived just after her return from Hong Kong, where I had joined her for a single weekend in late March on her four-week journey with Janina through Australia and Southeast Asia. Although we made love much of the time I was in Hong Kong, she certainly did not conceive there because she had her period. I remember vividly that morning when we woke up in a bed that looked as though someone was murdered in it. It took us a long time to clean up the place, giggling all the while on account of our absent host.

I returned to Boston by myself. Lauren followed me a week later, but she went via Los Angeles and New York. In Los Angeles she saw her parents and a few friends, and in New York she saw her grandmother. Her grandmother was her only friend in the family at the time. The trip to New York was thus crucial for Lauren because she wanted to share her love for me with her loving grandmother. In some sense, she must have wanted her grandmother’s blessings before she would start her life with me.

To Lauren’s consternation, her grandmother was adamantly against our relationship. Worse, she was appalled by the notion that love would be the basis of a relationship between a man and a woman. She saw marriage as a joint project akin to a joint business venture. Love did not enter into it, for it would only spoil it. In retrospect, it all boiled down to our considerable age difference and the fact that I was not a rich man. If you are rich, it is okay to be old, according to Lauren’s grandmother. After a few very painful days in New York, Lauren finally came to Boston. Our reunion was bittersweet.

She must have conceived the very first day we were back together. She was not protected because we decided in Hong Kong to have a child as soon as possible. Thus she had stopped taking her pills after her period, and we had nothing else we could use for protection. But I wanted our child. She appeared to be in agreement, although she was a bit worried about our future. I felt this was the next “logical” step in our great love. However reluctantly, she accepted my enthusiasm. Every time I came into her I was aware of the potential consequences and I rejoiced in my renewed wish to have a child. For me, that meant that I was propelled forward by a new optimism, a new light, and new wish to live. Ever since Marko was born I was very much against the idea of bringing another life onto this horrible planet, and the change of attitude brought by my love for Lauren was in some sense liberating, exhilarating.

A few weeks afterwards we learned that Lauren was pregnant, and several weeks later she decided to get rid of the baby. Very much in love with her, I supported her in everything she wanted. At the time, I did not think of myself. My trust in Lauren was complete. Her wishes were my commands. And so I followed her into the operating room.

I was holding her hand while her womb was being evacuated with a special vacuum machine. I, too, heard the horrible sound of that machine as it was removing that little bit of life in her. I, too, was horrified by what we were doing. Even now tears come to my eyes when I remember my quiet pain. But only when it was all over, when Lauren was safe, when she was calm and composed again, did I feel a sudden burst of rage because she had killed our child, my child, given to her as a gift at the time I was willing to die for her. Only when it was all over did I feel betrayed. And I cried, sobbed, raged for a few minutes. I ended up by pushing the whole thing out of my mind.

My anger was partly directed toward Lauren’s grandmother. I felt she must have contributed to Lauren’s unwillingness to keep our child. Although I was surprised that her grandmother would have such an influence over Lauren, I did not doubt it at the time. Again, Lauren had no other friend in her family, and she clearly needed one given all the miseries of her childhood.

But now I know that there was something else behind that abortion. Lauren’s love for Janina now looms much larger than ever before. While she was making love with me in Hong Kong, Lauren was pining for Janina, who had left Hong Kong a few hours before I arrived there. Their love for each other was most likely “consummated” in Hong Kong. After several years of gradual development in Boston, and a few weeks of flowering in Australia and Thailand, Lauren’s lust for Janina must have been rewarded at last. While Lauren was conceiving in my arms upon her return to Boston, she was pining for Janina. While the abortion was in the air, Lauren was pining for Janina. And she continued pining for her for years—perhaps until this very day. From a note written on November 8, 1989, I know that Lauren was painfully missing Janina at the time when she was deciding whether or not to follow me to England—another crucial decision in our relationship.

I now feel that my entire world has been invaded by Janina and by Lauren’s betrayal. At the very time I was completely open to her, at the very time my love for her was so salutary, so ennobling, there was someone else in Lauren heart and mind. The lesbian character of Lauren’s love and her suffering is irrelevant here, of course. With the exception of their partner’s gender, as well as their sexual appetites, the way my two wives had cheated me turns out to have been pretty much the same, as well.