Page 45 of The Surrogate Mother
And I do. I trust her.
But maybe I’ll change the password on my phone. My birthday isn’t very secure.
“But still,” she says. “It’s an emotional situation for everyone. Monica is pregnant, so she’s got all these hormones. And then Sam—he’s wanted a baby for a long time, and now here’s a woman who’s pregnant with his child, but she’s not his wife. That’s got to be messing with his head.”
“Yeah,” I mumble. “We should have adopted. This was a mistake.”
Shelley is silent.
I sigh. “Go ahead. Say it.”
“Say what?”
“You know what.”
“What?”
“Tell me you told me so. You said this was a mistake before we even got started.”
“I’m not going to say ‘I told you so’ when you look like something the cat dragged in.” She shakes her head. “What kind of friend do you think I am?”
The kind who tells me I look like something the cat dragged in? Never mind.
“Anyway,” I say, “Monica will be leaving work soon, so I’ll probably hardly see her until the baby comes. Just at the appointments. And then in less than five months, we’ll have the baby.”
She grins. “And I promise—no baby showers this time.”
“Please no,” I say. “I can’t imagine anything worse.”
Except that’s not true. Icanimagine something worse.
_____
Sam is sittingacross from me on the couch, quietly working on his computer. That’s something we do—sit next to each other in the living room, both of us working. Sometimes we don’t say a word for an hour or more, but it still makes me feel close to him. Especially when I put my legs up on the couch, and he puts his hand on my calf, absently stroking it. And whenever I look up at him, he smiles.
Sam’s phone breaks the silence by buzzing with a text message. He picks it up and grins at the screen.
“Who’s texting you?” I ask, as casually as I possibly can.
“Monica.”
Of course. Prior to Monica entering our lives, Sam only got texts from me and from work. Now she’s his new text buddy.
He nudges me. “She found out the gender of the baby.”
“Oh.” I slide my laptop off my lap. “I thought we decided to wait until the birth to find out.”
He frowns. “We did?”
“Yes! We did!”
“Uh…” He looks down at his phone, then back at me. “So… she already sort of… told me.”
My mouth falls open. “Shetoldyou?”
“Well, I didn’t realize we were waiting to find out!”
I shake my head. “You knew I wanted it to be a surprise.”
