I’d been to their tournament last week. Aiden was crunching numbers and redesigning King Oil, so he’d missed it. He’d promised the boys he’d catch the next one, and he’d never made a promise like that. It’d be after the board meeting so perhaps he thought either way, he’d have time to get away.

I hoped so. I understood the rationale behind the extra work from the last two months, and that made it easier. I’d also needed the space. I didn’t want him to see me grieving.

He wanted to wait for kids, but I’d seen the reality. His life wasn’t changing. If I wanted to be with him, this was how it would be. No kids, him dedicated to his job. Some women might end the relationship and find someone else to have a family with.

I’d made my decision. When we’d discussed it again that night on the couch, and he’d said he wanted to wait, I knew that it’d never happen. And that I had a decision to make.

Aiden was it for me. I wanted my life with him. I had thought that life included trying to grow a family, but it didn’t. No matter what Aiden thought, it didn’t.

I had the urge to call Bisa. To sit on the phone with her while we each ate ice cream in our separate homes in our separate states, but her parents were visiting from Ghana. I wasn’t going to intrude on her time with them. It wasn’t like she could take regular international trips on a children’s librarian’s wage.

So I sucked it up. Truthfully, I’d had four years to come to the realization that it wasn’t going to happen. After learning why Aiden was the way he was, how critical it was for him to fulfill his responsibilities, I understood.

Letting go of one dream in order to live another wasn’t easy, but I had so much. Trying not to dwell on what I didn’t have would get easier. Some day.

Aiden

The last of my slides was on the smart screen mounted to the wall. The board considered my talk. Kendall gave me an encouraging smile.

My data had been all-encompassing. I’d interviewed the CEO and three VPs from a Canadian oil company, two more leadership teams from E&P companies in Texas, and even one in Saudi Arabia. I’d compiled data from three thesis papers about leadership styles in oil companies, and I’d interviewed the authors as well. I had data from publicly traded companies and from private firms like King Oil.