by Robin Wells
Quinn’s face is the shade of a bleached sheet. Her eyes, frightened as a startled bunny, cut toward me. “Uh . . .”
There was something else the man said, something that pulls on my thoughts, but right now, Lily’s question is at the forefront of my mind. Why keep such a wonderful thing a secret? “Yes, Lily, he is,” I say.
The child’s face—well, it reminds me of the way my daughter looked when she was three, and Henry turned on the Christmas tree lights for the first time. It was as if her face were wired to the electrical cord and it, too, suddenly lit up. “Really?” Lily whips toward Zack and bounces on her toes. “You’re my donor daddy?” You can practically hear her hold her breath.
“Yes, honey, I am.”
“Oh! Oh, I’m so glad!” Lily throws herself at him. He bends down and hugs her back. Everyone chuckles and murmurs. A couple of people clap.
I put my hand on my heart, which overflows with joy. “You got a gift on my birthday,” I tell Lily.
“The bestest gift ever!” Lily says. “I got my daddy!”
Zack picks her up and holds her, beaming. It’s one of those rare, shining moments in life, where everything seems bathed in light.
“Wait,” Jessica says. She touches the older man’s arm. “What did you say about Quinn’s baby?”
She’s ruining the moment, and it irritates me. “Quinn doesn’t have a baby,” I say.
“She’s going to,” Mac says. “She used the same donor as Brooke.”
All of the hubbub in the room hushes in a heartbeat.
Jessica looks as if she witnessed a shooting. Zack seems stunned. Everyone else is frozen into place or guiltily exchanging glances, as if they’d conspired to keep a cat in the bag, and it’s just sprung out.
“Uh-oh.” Mac’s brows pull together. “Did I say something I wasn’t supposed to?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Quinn
OH MY GOD—I want to melt into the floor. There’s no point in denying it—my baby’s heartbeat is recorded on my phone, so there’s solid proof this is really happening—but I don’t know what to say.
Zack is still holding Lily, but he’s turned into a statue.
“You’re pregnant?” Jessica sounds horrified. “With Zack’s baby?” She turns stunned eyes to Zack, then back to me. “How the hell did this happen?”
Zack’s face is ashen. His eyes are astonished and locked on me. I see his Adam’s apple bob.
I turn back to Margaret. Her mouth is agape, her eyes wide.
“I, uh, was waiting until I got through the first trimester to say anything outside the single parent group,” I tell her.
“What’s goin’ on, Donor Daddy?” Lily pats Zack’s face. “I don’ understand.”
“I don’t, either,” Jessica says.
Annie steps forward and holds out her arms to Lily. “This is a grown-up conversation, Lily. Why don’t you come with me?”
“But I jus’ learned he’s my donor daddy, an’ we haven’ even had cake!”
“We need to go find some ice cream to go with it,” Annie says.
“That’s right, Lily,” I manage.
Lily looks at Zack. “Will you go with me?”
“He needs to be here for the grown-up talk,” Annie says.
Zack gently places Lily on the floor. “Go with her, Lily-kins. I’ll be here when you come back.”
“An’ you’ll still be my daddy?”
“Yes.”
“Crotch your heart?”
Her mangled phrasing used to make Brooke and me collapse with laughter. Brooke had declared it too adorable to correct.
Zack gives Lily a little smile. “Yeah.”
“You have to say it.”
“I cross my heart.” He makes an X on his chest.
“Okay.” Lily takes Annie’s extended hand.
“Thank you,” I whisper as Annie leads Lily from the room.
The door closes with a soft click behind them. There’s a moment of breath-holding silence.
“So what’s going on?” Jessica asks. She gives a tremulous smile, as if she’s trying to keep it together, but there’s a razor-like edge to her voice. She looks at Zack.
“I—I honestly don’t know,” he says.
He and everyone else are staring at me. “You’re pregnant?” Margaret asks.
I sink down on the chair beside her bed. It’s easier to talk to her than to Zack or his tightly wound wife. Besides, Margaret has more of a right to know; she didn’t sign any papers with a fertility center surrendering all claim to any donation-created children.
“Yes, I’m pregnant. It’s very early, though.”
“Did—did Brooke know?” Margaret asks.
I nod. “It was kind of her idea.” I pluck at Margaret’s blanket, because it’s easier than looking at anyone’s face. “I told Brooke that I’d consider being a single parent myself if I knew I’d have a child as wonderful as Lily, and she said, ‘You can. I bought the entire supply from Lily’s donor, and the cryobank is keeping it frozen for me for another five years. I’ll give it to you.’”
I draw in a deep breath. Margaret’s gaze is riveted on me. Her mouth is no longer hanging open, but her face is pale and her eyes are enormous. I figure the best thing to do is to keep talking. “Brooke checked it out with the cryobank and verified that the contract allowed for a transfer. The only requirement was that reporting procedures had to be followed. I needed to be artificially inseminated at a doctor’s office, and the doctor needed to comply with the reporting requirements. So Brooke signed over the remaining donation, and I arranged for it to be sent to my ob-gyn. I was inseminated a couple of days before Brooke died.”
I pause. “I didn’t find out I was pregnant until after she was gone. I shared the news with my single parent group, but I didn’t tell you, Miss Margaret, because I wanted to wait until I was safely through the first trimester. My obstetrician said up to twenty-five percent of pregnancies don’t make it past the first twelve weeks, and I didn’t want you or Lily to have to deal with another loss.”
“You didn’t know?” Jessica is looking at Zack.
“This is the first I’m hearing of it,” he says.
“I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to mention it,” Mac says. He looks utterly miserable. “I’m so sorry. I feel terrible.”
“Don’t feel bad, Mac,” I tell him. “You had no way of knowing. You were out of town when I told the others I wanted to wait before I told Miss Margaret or Lily.” I swallow. “Besides, the news was going to come out eventually.”
“I hope I didn’t spoil Miss Margaret’s birthday celebration,” Mac says.
“You didn’t spoil it.” I try to smile at Margaret, but my lips don’t quite comply. “It’s happy news, isn’t it?”
Margaret blinks several times. “Your child will be Lily’s half brother or sister?”
“Yes.”
“A sibling. A blood relative.” She lies back against her pillow, her expression thoughtful.
I hold my breath.
A large smile blooms on Margaret’s face. “Why, I think that’ll be very good for Lily. Wonderful, in fact.”
“It is wonderful,” Lauren says, clapping her hands.
“It’s fabulous,” Sarah states with conviction.
“We need cake to celebrate!” Teri exclaims.
Mac, Teri, Lauren, and Sarah swarm around, pat my back, and give me hugs.
I avoid looking at Zack or Jessica. I can’t bring myself to face them.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Jessica
I FEEL LIKE I’m about to be sick. I look at Zack. He’s staring at Quinn as if she’s just levitated off the floor or done something equally miraculous.
“Quinn, can I tell them about your visit to the doctor yesterday?” the woman with silver-s
treaked hair asks.
Good Lord—there’s more? I brace my hand against the wall. Please don’t let it be twins!
Quinn nods.
“I went with Quinn to the obstetrician’s office for her first ultrasound and we heard the heartbeat.”
A knife blade of jealousy twists in my gut.
“Oh, how wonderful!” all the women murmur. Everyone, that is, except me.
Even Zack mutters an awestruck wow—which makes my blood boil. I want to slap him. I want to cry. Instead I pinch myself, partly on the off chance I’m having a bad dream and I’ll wake up, and partly because pinch pain is a hurt I can control.
“So you’re going to be a father for the second time,” Margaret says.
“I—I guess that’s what this means,” he says.
I’m angered by his response, although I dimly realize there’s not a single thing he could say or do that would seem right at this moment. I’m so upset, I’m shaking.
“Let’s go,” I murmur to him.
“I can’t. Lily’s coming back,” he says. “I promised her I’d be here.”
“Yeah, well, you made some promises to me, as well,” I whisper fiercely.
Zack takes my elbow. “Excuse us for a moment,” he says to the group.
I let him steer me across the room because I can’t see through the wet haze of tears clouding my eyes. Zack opens the door and I dash through it, then pause in the hallway and turn my back to him.
He closes the door and puts his hand on my shoulder. “Jessica.”
I whip around to face him. “How the hell could you let this happen?” I demand.
“Jessica—be reasonable. You knew when you married me that I’d been a donor. I had no way of knowing about any of this.”
“You should have thought things through before you jacked off into a jar.” Something caustic is boiling inside me. “Or maybe I should have thought things through before I married you.”
“Maybe so,” he says.
What? He’s agreeing I should have had second thoughts about marrying him?
He sighs. “Look, I know how hard this must be for you.”
“Do you? Do you really?” I jerk away from his touch. I point a shaking finger at the door we just exited. “That woman in there has your baby growing inside of her. The very thing I’ve tried and tried to do, the thing that I have the sole right to do, she’s doing without my knowledge or consent.”
“I know it’s not fair, but . . .”
“But what? What are you going to do about it?”
He looks at me as if I’m out of my mind, and maybe I am. No, I definitely am. I’m on the verge of hysteria, asking an unanswerable question.
Because there’s nothing he can do about it. He can’t shoot Quinn or demand she get an abortion. And there’s nothing I can do about it, either. Not a damn thing.
I heave out a hard breath. “I’m freaking out. I know I’m not being reasonable. I’m—I’m just . . . I’m devastated.”
“Jess . . .” He puts his hands on my shoulders again.
Once more, I step back. I can’t stand to have him touch me right now. “I’m having a hard time with this.” I rub my forehead, where a headache is building. “I’m going home.”
“I’ll be along in a bit.”
“Yeah, right—take care of your priorities first,” I say. Be there for the daughter you had by another woman and the woman you knocked up before you take care your wife. I manage to keep the words inside, but I’m sure the ugliness of my thoughts shows on my face.
I hate the way I’m feeling, hate the way I’m thinking, hate the person I am right now.
I start down the hallway, wanting to make it out of the building without seeing Lily again.
“Are you okay to drive?” Zack calls. “Maybe you should call an Uber.”
“Maybe you should keep your dick in your pants,” I say, although it makes no sense. I know he didn’t cheat on me, but it feels like he did.
I keep walking until I hit the stairwell. I duck in, race down four flights of stairs, and then go through the lobby to the parking garage. It takes me a moment to find my car. It seems like I parked it two days ago, so much has changed. I locate it on the second level and climb inside, then sit there, my heart hammering.
I need to talk. I pull out my phone, then face the dilemma of who I can call. I don’t have any girlfriends I’ve stayed close to since I married Zack; I’ve been completely caught up in the in vitro hell of trying to make a baby. There’s no way I can talk to my mother. I think about calling my sister, but she’ll flip out and go on a rant that will wend its way back to I can’t believe you didn’t tell me Zack was a sperm donor. I don’t need to be scolded about keeping private things private.
I call Brett.
“Hey there, Jess,” he says. He sounds glad to hear from me. “How are things going?”
“You won’t believe it when I tell you.”
“Try me.”
“Can you talk?”
“Yeah. I’m alone in the car, and I’ve got the phone on Bluetooth. What’s going on?”
“The woman who has custody of Zack’s kid—she’s pregnant.” I pause. “With Zack’s baby.”
“What?”
I relate what just happened in the hospital room.
“Jesus, Jess. That’s insane!”
“Good word for it. I feel completely certifiable,” I agree.
He laughs. “I can’t believe you’re joking about this.”
“Oh, I’m not. I feel like I’m about to explode or go postal or something. I wasn’t very nice to Zack before I left. In fact, when we went out in the hall to talk, I was a total bitch.”
“Well, no one can blame you.”
“Oh, I think they can.” I tell him what I said.
Brett chortles. “That’s not so bad. Hell, Jess—you’re human, and this is a huge shock. It’s normal to be emotional.”
The kind words make tears run down my face. “Thanks for being so nice,” I say. I watch a woman with a young child and a baby in a stroller cross the parking garage, and feel a familiar jab of pain. Other women’s babies are everywhere.
“You have every right to be upset,” Brett says. “Where are you right now?”
“In my car at the hospital. I wanted to calm down before I drove. I thought that talking might help, but I didn’t know who to call.” I reach in the console, grab a tissue, and wipe my tears.
“I’m glad you called me,” he says.
“Yeah. Me, too.”
“It’s a lot to process.”
“It is,” I agree. “Do you think my life is completely screwed?”
“I think you have an amazing life ahead of you. I have no doubt that you’ll handle this.”
“Well, then, you believe in me more right now than I believe in myself.”
“That’s because you’re in the middle of the situation and you’re overwhelmed. You’ll figure this out.”
“Thanks, Brett.” We’re silent for a moment. I hear a siren wail loudly through the phone, and I welcome the distraction. “Where are you going?”
“To look at a house in Issaquah.”
I like picturing him in his Porsche, going to a destination I know. It’s way better than reliving the hell that just happened in that hospital room. “Is it a house I’d like?”
“Nah. It’s too traditional for you. It’s also a couple million over your price range.”
“Send me a photo when you get there.”
“Why?”
“To remind me that life is happening elsewhere.”
He laughs. “Okay.”
“What are you doing this evening?” I ask.
“Well, Sue Anne has Petey, so I’m going to the gym.”
“The gym, huh?” I turn the rearview m
irror, look into it, and blot my face.
“Yeah. Gotta stay lean and mean.”
“I don’t think you have a mean bone in your body.”
“That’s because I take out all my aggressions on weight machines.”
“Maybe I should do that,” I say.
“Can’t hurt. Might help.”
I smile. “I like that. When in doubt, go with the ‘can’t hurt, might help’ option.”
“I recommend it.”
“Well, then, maybe I’ll go home and hit the gym. There’s one in our building.”
“Sounds like a plan. You’re always at your best when you’re following a plan.”
“You’re right.” I straighten the mirror and buckle my seat belt. “How did you know that about me?”
“You told me the other day.”
“And you listened. I’m impressed.”
“Are you okay to drive now?”
“Yeah. I feel a lot calmer.”
“Good. Go slow—with the driving, and with everything else. And call me later and let me know how you’re doing, okay?”
“All right.”
“And, Jess? You’ll get to the other side of this, and things will be great.”
I don’t know that I believe him, but I believe that he believes that about me. I hang up and start my car, comforted to have a plan for the immediate future—but even more comforted to have someone in my corner who makes me feel supported.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Zack
I STEP BACK into the hospital room, feeling conspicuous without Jessica. Everyone looks at me, then glances away, as if trying to help me save face.
“My wife was a little thrown by the news,” I say, shoving my hands in my pockets.
“I imagine so,” says the woman with a little gray in her dark hair—Sarah, I think.
I glance at Quinn. Her face is flushed. She looks embarrassed.
I pull my hands out of my pockets and rub my chin. “It’s a lot to take in.”
Sarah pulls a card out of her purse and crosses the room to hand it to me. “I can recommend some really fine counselors if you and your wife want some help working through this.”
