Page 34 of Sassy Surrogate
“Oh wow. That must have devastated your dad.”
“Yeah, it did. But it wasn’t too long after that he met my mother. A mutual friend introduced them, and being the money-grubbing gold digger she is, the bitch set her sights on my dad.
“My father was so blinded by the illusion of her she sucked him in pretty easily by all accounts. She was quite a bit younger than him and beautiful. It stroked his battered ego that someone like her would want him after the sting of his first wife’s rejection.
“He and his first wife didn’t have kids, and he wanted children. It was the perfect means to trap my dad, so she fell pregnant with me. After they’d been married a while, my father wanted a second child. By this point, they were fighting constantly and, more than once, my father had threatened to kick her out and cut her off.
“In a last-ditch effort to hang on to my father’s money, she gave him what he wanted. Another child – my brother. But she couldn’t sustain it. She hated everything about motherhood. To be honest, I sincerely believe she hated us too. Resented us. We had nannies, au pairs, other people to take care of us while she got on with her life. One day, after meeting someone wealthier than my dad, we later learned, she packed her bags and left.”
At some point in the telling of my story, Danica must have slipped her hand in mine. I’d been so wrapped up in the memories of the past, I missed it. As my words grind to a halt, she gives it a squeeze. I hesitate a moment before lifting my head to look at her. I fear the distaste I’ll see in her eyes. Now that she knows I’m so flawed my own mother didn’t want me, how can I expect her to?
With reluctance, I look up, and my heart stutters at what I see. Tears stream down Danica’s face, but it’s the soft look in her eyes that has it beating faster. Not used to having a woman look at me that way, I can’t hold her gaze. As my eyes drop, I notice her holding a hand over her stomach, as if protecting the baby within.
A moment of clarity hits right as she speaks, the heartfelt words enforcing the thought.
“I’m so sorry, Heath. No child should ever have to go through what you and your brother did. Children deserve to be loved unconditionally, protected by all, but especially their parents.Bothparents.” Her voice breaks on the last sentence.
“Your mother’s selfish greed blinded her to the magnificence of what she could have had. The family, the love, the bond. Instead, she chose to throw it all away – throwall of youaway - for self-gratification.
“I’m willing to bet she’s a deeply disillusioned, bitter, unhappy woman without a clue as to the treasures she’s missed out on. In my eyes, for the way she’s treated your family, she doesn’t deserve any of that.
“You are a wonderful man with a beautiful heart. Any child would be blessed to have you as a father. I know this one is. And any woman would be equally as blessed to have you by her side. So don’t cut yourself off from the opportunity to have a woman love you for who you are just because your mother was too blind and stupid to appreciate what she had.”
Once again, her words are choked off as her emotions get the better of her. Her passion hits me right in the solar plexus. I’ve never, ever had a woman stand up for me the way she just has, and I can feel my heart crack open, spilling messy feelings all over the place. And for the first time in my life, I’m okay with it.
This woman shakes me to my very core and challenges every belief I’ve ever held about myself.
As we sit there, each lost in our own thoughts, snippets of the conversation echo in my head.Answer me honestly, Danica. I didn’twantto leave. I thought it’s whatyouwanted. You’re a wonderful man. Any woman would be blessed to have you by her side. Don’t cut yourself off from the opportunity to have a woman love you.
Is it possible? Is there any chance that the “woman” Danica is talking about could be her? If there’s any way for us to make a life together, I guess I’m going to have to man up and ask the difficult questions I’m not sure either of us are ready, or perhaps willing, to answer.
What the hell? I’m in this deep already; may as well go all in. At least I’ll know for sure, one way or another.
Cupping her cheeks in my hands, I urge her to look at me. When she does, I take a deep breath and dive in, headfirst. No safety net. “I need to tell you something about this morning and why I reacted the way that I did, but I want you to understand that there is no pressure on you to reciprocate. Okay?”
Danica frowns. “I don’t understand. No pressure to reciprocate what?”
“Just listen, and it’ll all become clear. No pressure. Remember that. Yeah?” She nods. “This morning was one of the greatest experiences of my life. When I got to see our baby on that monitor and listen to their heartbeat, I felt – to be honest, I can’t accurately verbalise what I felt. Other than to say it was big, it was scary and, despite thinking I was, I was in no way ready or equipped to deal with what I felt in that moment.
“Without thought, I looked to you to anchor me. And you did. You calmed my raging fear and uncertainty. But right then, an even scarier, more unexpected thing happened, and instead of you being able to ease my turmoil, I found you right at the heart of it.”
“Heath, I don’t understand. Did I do something to upset you at some point?”
Shaking my head, I continue. “No. You didn’t do anything wrong. Not one single thing. I’m doing a poor job of explaining this.” I blow out a frustrated breath. Time to stop beating around the bush and just spit it out. “What I’m doing a piss poor job of telling you, is that this morning, in that exam room, I realised I’m in love with you, Danica. Deeply, irrevocably, wholeheartedly in love with you. And it scares the fuck out of me. I panicked and I ran.”
If the moment wasn’t so intense, the look on her face would be funny. But nothing about this situation is funny. I’ve put my heart and pride on the line, and I’m praying she won’t stomp all over them.
“You– I’m sorry, I’m sure I didn’t– could you please repeat that?”
“Which part? The part where I said I loved you? Or the part where I admitted it scares the bejesus out of me?”
“Yes.”
Tipping my head back, I laugh. Even in highly charged moments, she can make me feel better. “I realised this morning that you hold my heart in your hands. You own it completely. I wasn’t ready for that, and it terrified me. So instead of manning up and facing it, I ran away. Because of my mother, my childhood, I don’t deal well with emotions; I run away from them. With you, I don’t want to do that anymore. I saw how much it hurt you.
“You are my angel, sent to save me from myself. But you are also the person who has the greatest power to hurt me. That’s why I was so angry earlier. I thought you, like my mother – and Felicia for that matter – were rejecting me by leaving.”
“I didn’t want to leave. It’s what I though you wanted. When you ran out of that exam room, I thought you’d changed your mind and wanted nothing more to do with me or the situation. But I would never have just disappeared.
