“But what if this woman decided to keep the baby in the end? I mean, it would be her baby, right?”
“It would,” I said, frowning at the thought. “I don’t think Hannah really thought it all through.”
“Shit, Ben would flip if he knew she had propositioned this woman without telling him.”
“She didn’t exactly ‘proposition’ her,” I said, his choice of words grating on me; my need to defend Hannah boiling up. “It was more curiosity, or a reconnaissance mission, I guess.”
“Still...don’t you think he’d be open to it? He wants a kid as much as she does. But not telling him?” David shook his head again. “That’s a sure way to guarantee he won’t go along with it.”
“Well, she implied he wasn’t on board with the idea anyway.”
“That makes it worse,” David said. “I love Hannah, but she’s playing a dangerous game here.”
I pressed my lips together, pausing for a moment. “She’s desperate, David.”
“Desperate enough to risk her marriage?”
I shrugged. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about Hannah and Ben sticking it out if there was no baby—a relationship could only bend so much under stress before it snapped. And Hannah keeping this from Ben felt like a big crack in their happy marital veneer.
David nudged my shoulder, and I lifted my coffee cup to avoid spilling it on my legs. “For the record, if you ever kept anything big like that from me I’d be beyond pissed.”
“Noted, and ditto.”
* * *
“Are they asleep?” David looked at me from our bed, lying on top of the duvet in his boxers and an old hole-filled T-shirt from his days as a first aid instructor. He had plenty of shirts, including others from his instructor days, but for whatever reason this was the one I couldn’t get him to let go of. I filed it under things-to-ignore-even-though-they-drive-me-crazy-because-I-love-my-husband-more-than-I-hate-what-he’s-wearing.
“They are.” I got into bed beside him. Running my hands over his chest, feeling the softness of the fabric, I remembered back when we were as new as the T-shirt. Pushing it up, the black color now faded to a velvety gray, I planted a row of kisses around his exposed belly button. His abs flexed, and I looked up to see him smiling. “I’m going to lock the door,” I whispered into his stomach, kissing it again. I jumped to my knees and scrambled off the bed, my feet padding softly on the hardwood floor of our bedroom. With a quick twist of my hand, our bedroom door was locked—one of the best tips my hippie mother-in-law, a sex educator, had ever given me, even though I had been horrified at the time—and I was back in bed stretched out beside David.
“Do you think they’ll be okay?” I asked.
“Who?” His voice was low, his lips caressing my ear and whispering that I had too much clothing on. I obliged by lifting my arms over my head so he could do something about that.
“Hannah and Ben,” I replied, only half paying attention to what his hands were doing. “If they can’t have a baby, do you think they’ll stay together?” My heart beat faster, in part from David’s touch and in part from imagining the end of Hannah and Ben, which was unacceptable as far as I was concerned.
David propped himself up on an elbow and rubbed his thumb over my jawline. “They’ll work it out. They love each other. And, yes, they’ve been through hell with all of this. But they are stronger than that. You’ll see. It’ll be okay.”
I smiled, then wriggled out of my underwear with some help from David’s persuasive hands. Our bodies knew each other so well—having done this enough times there was never any doubt of a home run for all. My breathing sped up and a moan formed in the back of my throat as David gently spread my thighs, moving between them. When I wasn’t sure I could hold out much longer, I lay a hand on his head and pulled his hair gently, forcing him to look at me. I gestured under the bed and he smiled, nodding.
“Which one do you want tonight?” he asked, and I heard him rustling through the box under our bed, which held a variety of adult-only toys and, like the door, also had a lock on it.
“You choose,” I replied.
A minute later I was enjoying David’s choice for the evening, no longer caring about hole-filled T-shirts I’d dreamed of tossing out weekly with the trash or the state of Hannah and Ben’s marriage.
HANNAH
Ben was working late, so I said I’d meet him at the restaurant. My mind was still spinning from my coffee date with Lyla, but I had such a good feeling about things. It had been a long time since I’d felt anything but unhappiness and disappointment in the baby-making department, and Lyla had given me something to hope for again.
After we’d polished off another piece of cake and latte each, Lyla basically told me she was in. That she had to chat with her husband, of course, but she couldn’t see a reason for us not to take the next steps, which involved lawyers and contracts and doctors and probably a hundred other things I hadn’t yet considered. I wasn’t expecting her to decide that quickly, picturing many emails, phone calls and meetings between the four of us, and it threw me off. Tears in my eyes, I’d jumped up and hugged her while she was still in her seat. She’d laughed and said I could thank her when she was pregnant.
Though she answered my questions about why she wanted to be a surrogate—with refreshing honesty she said it was a financial decision for her family but also an altruistic one because it meant helping another couple become a family—and gave me some insight into the process, which was about as complicated as I expected, I never got around to asking the most difficult question.
I could lie and say I decided it wasn’t all that important—after all, this wasn’t her first time. She had walked away from a baby before, so there was no reason to think she wouldn’t—couldn’t—do it again. But the truth was I had been too afraid in the moment to do anything to ruin things before they even got started. It was a lot like a first date, where you leave out the baggage and unsavory details, because you really want to go out with this person again.
Thinking about how to tell Ben what I’d done—and that Lyla had chosen me, chosen us—left me light-headed with anxiety on the cab ride over to the restaurant. With every passing minute I became more convinced I should have talked with him first, like Kate said. Of course he would have been fine with it. Ben wanted a baby as badly as I did...
Or at least he used to.
These days I wasn’t sure if he really was willing to do whatever it took, like I was. Would he be okay joining his sperm with another woman’s egg, a stranger for whom this was more a job than anything else? Would he feel awkward about bringing home a baby that wasn’t actually ours? Was he willing to invite another woman into our lives—us using her for her genetic material, her using us for our willingness to hand over tens of thousands of dollars?
Was I prepared for all that, as well?
Suddenly the idea felt all wrong. Too many variables crowded my thoughts. There were so many ways this could go wrong, and only one way it could work out.
But if it worked, I would have a baby.
My phone buzzed, and I looked down to see a new text had arrived. My stomach lurched when I saw it was from Lyla.
So nice meeting you today. Forgot to ask, do you have a picture of you and Ben? I’d love to show Jason. Can’t wait to get started! Chat soon—Lyla
For a moment I did nothing. I read the text a half dozen times, then, fingers shaking, found a great photo of Ben and me, from our last vacation a year earlier in Jamaica for his annual family reunion. When that picture was taken we had been waiting to hear