Page 23 of The Surrogate Mother
Mood: killed.
I lift my head off his chest and stare at him. “What?”
He props himself up on the couch. “Look, Abby, I said I’d think about the… surrogate thing and… I’m not comfortable with it. I want to adopt.”
I don’t know how I can go from post-coital bliss to tears in five seconds, but somehow I make it happen. I can’t stop it. All the pain I had pushed aside after that day Sam burst into my baby shower and told me Janelle had backed out on us comes rushing back to me. Even though Sam has stuffed the bassinet into the closet and shut the door to the would-be nursery, the pain is still there. The baby we almost had. We were so close.
And now it’s never seemed farther away.
“Abby?” Sam wrinkles his brow, plainly shocked by my tears. “Why are you crying?”
“Why am I crying?” Why does he ask me stupid questions? “I’m crying because…” I wipe saltwater from my face. “This is never going to happen for us, Sam. I feel it. The next adoption is going to take forever and then something will go wrong, and… and… by the time we get a kid, we’ll be fifty!”
I can’t talk anymore because I’m crying too hard. A bubble of snot blows out of my left nostril and I don’t even bother to wipe it away.
“Abby,” he says gently, “you know I want this as much as you do…”
“You obviously don’t.” I glare at him. “Because if you did, you’d be willing to take this opportunity right in front of us. Not turn it down because it makes you ‘uncomfortable.’”
He stares down at his hands. It probably wasn’t fair of me to say that. I know how badly Sam wants to be a father. He wants it badly enough that sometimes I’m surprised he hasn’t left me for a woman with two working ovaries. Yes, I know he’s not that kind of man, but he’s got to at least sometimes be tempted.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble. “I just… I got upset. You’re allowed to veto something you don’t feel comfortable with.” I wipe my swollen eyes and put my hand on his. “We’ll try for the adoption again. It’s fine.”
Sam is still looking down at his hands, his brows working together.
“Sam?” I say.
He doesn’t answer me right away. I don’t know what that means. He sometimes gets quiet like this, and I usuallyassume it’s because he’s thinking about something math-related. That’s not what he’s thinking about now. Well, I suppose he could be. But probably not.
“I think we should use Monica as our surrogate,” he finally says.
I suck in a breath. “Sam, you don’t have to—”
“I know I don’t.” He lifts his eyes. “But you’re right. We’ve wanted this for so long. I hate that we can’t open up the door to the second bedroom because it’s too goddamn painful. I can’t even watch a diaper commercial anymore without feeling like shit—I can’t imagine what it’s like for you to have to pitch them.” He sighs. “Maybe it’s not ideal, but I want to be a dad. And I want you to be a mom. We’re readynow.”
He reaches out and gives my hand a squeeze. As he smiles at me and my chest swells with happiness, it hits me:
Mrs. Johnson lives in Indiana. Her phone number was an Indiana area code, and she told me she was “born and raised” in Indianapolis.
I grew up a Red Sox fan—I went to all their games when I was a kid. I could never put on a Yankees cap. They’d never let me come home!
That’s what Monica said at the baby shower when I tried to give her that baby Yankees cap. But the Red Sox is a Boston team. Every Yankees fan knows that. I’d suspect nobody in Indiana is going to give youthata hard time for being a Yankees fan. But maybe they would. It’s not like I’ve ever been there before.
So why is Monica a hardcore Red Sox fan if she’s from Indiana?
It doesn’t make sense.
I turn to Sam, about to tell him what I just realized, but then I shut my mouth. He’s already having reservations. If Itell him I’m worried Monica was lying to me, that will shut everything down for good. And maybe I’m remembering wrong. Maybe someone else made that comment about the Red Sox. Could it have been Lily, from accounting?
It’s such a small thing. It can’t be important.
10
THREE MONTHS LATER
There are five plastic containers of baby food laid out on my desk: apple, pear, peach cobbler, sweet potato, and autumn vegetable turkey.
Recently, Cuddles has decided to branch out into the baby food market. I’m supposed to be writing copy for the website they’re developing to display and sell their baby foods. Specifically, they want a catchy slogan. Considering I have little experience with baby food, I thought I would buy a few containers of them and hopefully it would inspire me.
