As she rolled it down, she said, “It was too bad Sarah and the others came down with ’flu this week. They were looking forward to coming over for the party today.”
“You’re so lucky to have Sarah. And Gigi,” she added, referring to Felicity’s other sister, both of whom lived on Vancouver Island. “I miss Alice terribly. She was more than a wonderful older sister, she was like a mother to me—brought me up, as you know, after Mom died. And she was also my best friend.”
“Dermid’s best friend, too—I don’t think I’ve ever seen two people so devoted to each other.” She sighed. “Which brings me to what I have to tell you.” She crossed the patio and sat down on one of the lawn chairs.
But when she gestured to Lacey to do the same, Lacey shook her head. She felt too restless to sit down. “Before you start, Fliss, I have to confess that I may not be totally in the dark about what you’re going to say. This morning, I accidentally eavesdropped while Dermid and Jordan were talking and I heard Dermid refer to a family matter and a decision Dermid had to make, and he asked Jordan for his support.”
“Poor Dermid. With his Scottish pride, and his fierce independence, it couldn’t have been easy for him to ask Jordan for anything! As for eavesdropping, I’m afraid I’ve been guilty of it, too. You see, after I set up the baby monitor at the pool, while I was giving Todd his lemonade I heard Jordan and Dermid talking. They were in the nursery, Jordan apparently checking on Verity—and he and Dermid were talking quietly…although it obviously didn’t occur to either of them that they could be overheard.”
“I should tell you, Fliss, Dermid made it clear to Jordan that he didn’t want me involved in the situation.”
“He may not want you involved, but I do think you ought to know. Alice would want you to know.”
“Fliss, if you don’t come to the point—”
“Sorry. Okay, here goes. You know that Dermid had a bout with cancer a long while ago, just after he and Alice were married, and that before he underwent radiation treatment, on the oncologist’s advice he had some of his sperm frozen because it was possible the treatment would render him infertile…which, unhappily, it did.”
“Yes, of course. And I know that later on, Jack was born from a frozen embryo.”
“Do you remember, Lacey, that Dermid and Alice had a second embryo, cryogenically frozen, and stored at that same clinic in Toronto—the embryo of a girl baby—and that Alice and Dermid looked forward to one day having that child—”
“But Alice died before they could.” Lacey’s throat felt suddenly tight. “I often think of that little baby who’ll never be born…I find it so sad, and it would have broken Alice’s heart…” Her voice trailed into silence.
All around, the rain was lashing down now. Lacey hadn’t even noticed it getting heavier, and the afternoon had become bleak and cool and very dark.
She blinked away threatening tears, and saw Felicity rise from her seat. Her sister-in-law crossed over to her, took her hands and held them tight.
“Lacey, Dermid’s been having nightmares. Alice has been coming to him, begging him to let her rest in peace. She wants closure. He wants closure, too. So…he’s finally going to do the thing he’s been putting off doing ever since Alice died. He’s going to contact the fertility clinic in Toronto this week, and tell them he no longer wants the remaining embryo preserved.”
CHAPTER THREE
“HE SHOULD have told me!” Lacey glared at her brother. “Alice was my sister, too, I had every right to know what he was planning to do. He had no right to shut me out!”
Jordan made a placating gesture. “Honey, this has been very difficult for Dermid—”
“Of course it has, I’m not denying that. It must be breaking his heart, knowing that Alice’s baby is there, just waiting for a chance to be born. But now she never will be!” Lacey felt her anger dissipating as sorrow took over. “Oh, Jordan, why does life have to be so cruel?”
He had nothing to say that would comfort her. He looked helplessly at Felicity, who looked back equally helplessly at him.
Lacey paced the sitting room. She crossed to the window, looked out in the pitch-dark night. Jordan had been very late getting home, but she couldn’t settle until she’d had it out with him, had vented all the resentment she felt toward Dermid McTaggart.
Impatient, she whirled around now. “I still can’t forgive him for not including me in his decision-making. I know he thinks I’m an airhead—”
“If he does,” Jordan said, “you have only yourself to blame. You’ve deliberately led him to believe you’re a bit spacey—”
“Only because from the moment we met, he made it clear that he thought anyone who made a living the way I did must have the IQ of a gnat!”
“Let’s not get sidetracked, Lace.” Her brother’s expression had become somber. “No matter how smart you are, what could you have contributed to our conversation? After all, the matter was simple. Dermid had already made his decision, and what he wanted from me, as Alice’s brother, was my support…and that was all there was to it.”
“No, I won’t accept that!” Lacey’s silver bracelets flashed in the light as she stuck her fists on her hips. “Three heads are better than two—and if you’d included me in your furtive little get-together, I might have come up with some other option.”
“It wasn’t furtive. It was private. Besides, what other option could you have come up with? All you could have suggested was that he delay the inevitable. The man’s been having nightmares, Lace, for months! Leaving the situation the way it is, is not an option.”
“So what’s his next step?” Felicity asked.
“He’s going to Toronto on Friday, to talk with the people at the clinic, tell them not to preserve the embryo any longer.”
Felicity tsked. “Won’t that be terribly hard on him—going back there, where he and Alice…?”
“Yeah, it’ll be hard. But Dermid feels it’s something he can’t do by phone. He wants to do it in person—”
“There is another option.” Lacey’s voice had been quiet, but it stopped Jordan in his tracks.
He looked warily at her. “There is?”
“Yes.” Excitement welled up inside her. “Dermid can hire a surrogate mother—she’d be a gestational carrier, actually, since she wouldn’t have any genetic link to the child—to bear the baby for him!”
“I already suggested that to Dermid,” Jordan said. “This morning.”
“And?” Lacey demanded. “What did he say?”
“Emphatically ‘No!’. He won’t even consider it.”
“Is it the money issue?” Felicity asked. “He wouldn’t feel comfortable paying someone to act as a host uterus?”
“It’s nothing to do with money. I don’t remember his exact words, but the gist of it was that making a baby was a family affair, and not something an outsider should ever be part of.” Jordan shrugged. “It is not an option.”
“He’s a stubborn man, is the McTaggart.” Lacey’s excitement died. ‘Well, that’s that, then.” She sat on the arm of her brother’s chair. “You were right, Jordan. I couldn’t have contributed anything useful to your conversation. And now that the decision is made, sad as it is, we’ll all just have to accept it.”
“It’s particularly sad for Dermid,” Felicity said. “He won’t ever be able to have another child, should he decide to remarry.”
There