Nesting

by Renee Mackenzie

  Macy put a stack of brochures on the table. When Kenny and Dori both raised eyebrows, Macy shyly said, “A friend of Michael’s gave me the information.”

  “Michael knows?” Kenny asked.

  “I told him y’all were thinking about your options, but I didn’t say anything about my involvement… or possible involvement. I thought it would be premature to say anything else.”

  Well, at least Macy didn’t act like it was a done deal, Kenny thought. As he was thinking about how much he appreciated that, he started checking out Macy’s kitchen table. It was oak—good—but wasn’t put together too well. He figured he could secure the legs better if—

  “Kenny?”

  “Huh?” He didn’t know why they were both staring at him.

  Then Dori whispered, “Pay attention, please.”

  Oh, I’ll pay attention all right. “How much is this gonna cost?”

  “Kenny,” Dori started to say.

  “Anywhere from six to ten thousand a cycle,” Macy answered.

  “What cycle?” Already he didn’t like the sound of it.

  Macy rummaged through a few brochures. “Here.” She slid one closer to Kenny. He pulled away when he saw a drawing of a female’s insides. Macy kept on. “A cycle is the whole process of hormone treatments, egg retrieval, and transfer.”

  “Damn,” he interrupted. “It’ll cost a fortune.”

  “Michael says some specialists and clinics offer financing.”

  Kenny looked at Macy. “Yeah? So what about Michael?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I mean, what’s he gonna say about all this? No man I know would want to put up with something like this. What if he says you can’t?”

  Things got way too quiet, and he realized right away he’d committed a big sin. It was one thing to say something like that in front of one stubborn woman, but two?

  Dori’s expression shifted from “almost mad” to something different. She looked smug, like when she got the answer right to a question on Jeopardy.

  A secret girl-smile passed between them, and Macy politely said, “This isn’t about Michael. He’ll accept it or he won’t. Either way, it’s not an issue.”

  There was no way Kenny was going to argue with that.

  Dori turned to Macy. “While I take hormones for egg production, you take them to build up your uterine wall?”

  Macy leaned forward and put her elbows on the table as she answered. “Yeah. If we synchronize our cycles, they won’t have to freeze the eggs.”

  “Great,” Dori said, like she knew all about that stuff.

  Kenny sat back as the women talked about hormone injections and embryos. He looked at them and thought, Wow. If he focused hard enough, blocked out the table of brochures and the wedding band on Dori’s hand, he could swear they were all in the ninth grade, sitting in the library. Well, Dori and Macy would be sitting, Kenny would be standing just out of sight. He’d spied on them one day in particular, sitting next to each other at a big, smooth, library table. They leaned into each other every now and again while they talked. It was so different for girls. Boys didn’t sit huddled like that, not unless they were sneaking a peek at a titty magazine or comparing notes on which friends had the hottest sister or mother.

  It seemed like no time had gone by since high school, and Kenny thought maybe things wouldn’t get messed up again, maybe Dori wouldn’t unforgive Macy after all.

  He stared at a chart on the table and wondered about their chances of pulling it off. He knew him and Dori would need to pay for everything. Maybe they could get a loan from Martin. Or Uncle Russ.

  “You okay, Kenny?” Dori asked.

  He looked from one of them to the other, and it hit him like a ton of pressboard. It really was a done deal.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mama Bear

  Macy stood at her front door and stared at her uninvited guests—her mother and Jack. She took mental notes on her ex. He was still good-looking but getting a little thick around the middle. Ironically, Kenny seemed to have gotten better with age, but Jack was just a diluted version of the old Jack.

  It had only been two days since Macy told her mother of her plans to carry Dori and Kenny’s baby, and there she was already bringing in Jack for battle.

  They steamrolled into Macy’s living room. She was too mad to even worry about her mother noticing she still wasn’t the best housekeeper in town. At least things were picked up, and she had vacuumed sometime in the not too distant past.

  “I need to get going. I have to pick up Jeremiah,” Macy said.

  “Don’t worry, I already told my mom you’d be late.”

  “Who do you think you are?” she asked.

  “Jeremiah’s father, for starters.”

  “When it’s convenient.” She noticed then that she’d picked up a throw pillow and was squeezing the imaginary life out of it. She fluffed it before setting it back on the sofa.

  “That ain’t what this is about. This is about you going around telling people you’re going to have a baby for Kenny.”

  “For Kenny and Dori.”

  Jack made a snorting sound. “You’re crazy.”

  Her mother just stood behind him with her hand covering her mouth. Macy was so mad, she couldn’t even look at her.

  “This ain’t natural, Macy. It ain’t moral,” Jack said.

  She’d heard enough. “Who are you to talk about morals?”

  “I’m moral enough to know God doesn’t intend this crap.”

  “How do you know what God intends?”

  Jack’s face turned crimson. “I know well enough that God would say don’t fuck around where you ain’t got no business fucking around.”

  Her mother cringed. “God wouldn’t say that word.”

  “Oh, she could drive even Him to say it.” Jack glared at Macy. “This cheapens your pregnancy with Jeremiah.”

  “They are in no way connected.”

  “Are you charging them rent?”

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  Jack paced the length of the living room. “And what kind of message do you think this will send to Jeremiah?”

  “A message of doing for others. A message of love.”

  “Even if that wasn’t a load of crap, he’s not going to understand it.”

  “He does understand.”

  “Does? You told him without my permission?” He puffed up like a wild turkey putting on a display.

  “Your permission? Whoa, back up, buddy. Since when do I need your permission for anything?”

  “Since he’s my son.”

  “Again, when it’s convenient.” The air tasted stale. She knew her home wasn’t the culprit, mediocre housekeeping or not. Jack and her mother were depleting its quality, robbing Macy of the security and solace she should have felt.

  “You just want the attention that goes with being pregnant.”

  “Thank God this time I won’t have a husband obsessed with my swollen breasts. That was the only attention you gave me when I was pregnant. Your interest deflated right along with them.”

  “Hey,” her mother said, “don’t talk like that. I don’t need to know what—”

  “You’re right. You don’t need to know what went on between us. It’s not your business. And neither is me being a gestational carrier for Dori and Kenny.”

  Jack blew air out from between closed lips, making that adolescent noise he’d always been fond of producing when he didn’t get his way. “Big words, Macy. But big words won’t change you being Kenny’s whore.”

  She reached to slap him, but his reflexes were better than hers, and he grabbed her arm.

  “Oh dear,” her mother murmured.

  Still grasping her arm, Jack spoke through clenched teeth. “Listen up.” He squeezed tighter. “If you do this, I’ll see you in court, and you can kiss Jeremiah’s ass goodbye.”

  She twice tried pulling away before Jack released her arm. Then she stepped closer, close enough
to see the pores of his skin, where he’d obviously just shaved. “Go to hell,” she said. “Now I want you both out of my house.”

  Jack laughed and stomped out the door.

  Her mother didn’t move. “Macy, I—”

  “Please leave.”

  “Don’t be mad at me. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “You didn’t have any right to be talking to Jack about this.” Macy started to shake. She hadn’t been that angry at, or hurt by, her mother in a long time. Not since the incident in the fifth grade, when her mother got her several pair of dark-tinted sunglasses for Christmas that year.

  “Wear these every chance you get,” her mama had said. “They’ll help hide how unnatural your eyes look.” Then she’d shaken her head and muttered, “Where you got those black eyes is beyond me.”

  Macy had learned two very important lessons that year. First, not to hold eye contact with anyone long enough for them to see how unnatural her eyes were, and second, she’d never be good enough for her mother.

  “Macy, don’t be mad. Jack has a point about this, you know.”

  “Look, I need to think about a couple of things. I’ll call you in a few days.”

  “A few days?”

  “Mama, please, I’m begging you.”

  †

  Macy walked across Michael’s front yard and into Sharon’s. She studied the bruise on her arm. She should never have taken a swing at Jack. What was she thinking? Oh, yeah, she was thinking, Don’t mess with the mama bear. Maybe she needed a different approach with Jack, maybe teeth and claws were not the answer. She could be a killdeer, the noisy bird that creates a ruckus, faking a broken wing to lead predators away from its young. Of course she’d learned that from Emma. Her face grew warm at the thought of Emma and then caught on fire with renewed anger toward Jack.

  As she took the three steps up to Sharon’s front door, a courthouse scene flashed through her mind. Did Jack really think he could win custody of Jeremiah? Then little Timmy Jones came to mind. Maybe the speculation was right—maybe his father had decided to skirt the legal system and just snatch his son after all. But Jack wouldn’t consider that route. Would he?

  Macy knocked on Sharon’s door. Michael had suggested she talk to Sharon right away. Macy knew Michael was right, but the idea of airing her past to the woman she admired so much, no matter how good a lawyer she was, made Macy uncomfortable.

  Sharon opened the door and smiled as she let Macy in. “I’m glad you’re letting me help you.”

  Macy picked at a rough edge on her thumbnail. She didn’t want to tell her friend how weak she’d been. She didn’t want Sharon to know the things she’d done in the past and what a wreck she was. “Thanks,” she murmured.

  Sharon led the way into her living room. They sat on the sofa, and Macy told her how she planned to be a gestational carrier for Dorianne and Kenny, and how Jack had taken a sudden interest in their son because of it.

  “I need to know anything Jack might use against you in court.”

  Macy hesitated. “I’ve slept around a bit.” She waited, but lightning did not strike and no look of disgust transformed Sharon’s face.

  “Anyone Jack knows?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe.”

  “Okay, we’ll just have to be prepared for the possibility of that coming up. Anything else?”

  She hesitated again but knew if Sharon was to help her she’d need to know everything. “I kissed a woman once.”

  Sharon raised an eyebrow. “Does Jack know this woman?”

  “No.” The idea of him corrupting her friendship with Emma was intolerable.

  “Would she have talked to anyone who knows Jack?”

  “Absolutely not.” Macy couldn’t have been surer of that.

  “Okay, then that shouldn’t be an issue.” She smiled. “At least not in a legal sense.”

  Macy sat back and tried to relax a little but knew she wouldn’t until things were fixed.

  “Look, I can’t imagine Jack having a leg to stand on based solely on your decision to carry the baby. I’ll look up some cases and try to see if any precedents have been set.”

  “Thank you, Sharon.” She nodded and Macy went on. “About that woman, Emma…”

  Sharon pushed her hair behind her ears. “I won’t say anything.”

  “I know. I just wondered if I ever needed someone to talk to about her if I—if I could talk to you?”

  She gave Macy’s hand a squeeze. “Yes, of course.”

  “Thanks again.” Macy exhaled long and hard and went on. “You know, every time the four of us got together, I was sure that would be the night you and Jess would see through me. I kept waiting for y’all to see I was some kind of fraud with Michael.” She fiddled more with her thumbnail, picking at it until it peeled painfully close to the quick. “Your gaydar didn’t go off when you met me?”

  “No. But it’s interesting that you would use that term.” She pulled one leg up under her on the sofa.

  “Emma taught me that. She taught me a lot of things.” At Sharon’s raised eyebrow, Macy quickly added, “About poetry, but mostly about birds. She called herself a bird-geek.”

  Sharon laughed.

  “What?”

  “You’re blushing.” She pulled her other leg under her. “Emma sounds wonderful.”

  Macy wanted to tell her yes, wonderful and unobtainable, but she didn’t have the energy to say any more.

  †

  Cam hung up the phone with Macy and wandered out into Michael’s front yard. No matter how much work Cam did, it would always be Michael’s yard. But that didn’t matter. Macy had invited her to lunch the next day. The invitation inspired confidence, which, although laced with some apprehension, was energizing.

  She looked next door. The shift in color where Michael’s thick, green lawn bordered Sharon’s made Cam feel a little boastful.

  Taking a deep breath, Cam walked into Sharon’s yard. Halfway to her front door, she registered the crunch of the grass under her feet. Sharon needed to water more.

  She rehearsed possible openings to a conversation with Sharon. “Hi, just wanted to say hello.” No, too lame. “Hello, just wanted a chance to talk to you.” Still no good. Before she could come up with something worthy, she was standing on Sharon’s front porch. She knocked before she could chicken out.

  Sharon opened the door, and Cam took her in with a glance. Her eyes rested on Sharon’s bare feet. They were small and pale, and so vulnerable.

  “Hi.” Then Cam had a brain fade and couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  Sharon stared at her.

  “I’d like to talk,” Cam blurted.

  “So talk.”

  Cam tried to look past her, over her shoulder and into her house. “Can I come in?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t.” Her face showed no emotion.

  Cam thought about how Macy had once told her to relax, to give Sharon some time and space. Well, she’d given her plenty of room, and it wasn’t getting her anywhere. The time had come to take a chance. “I’d really like to get to know you.”

  Sharon didn’t say anything.

  Cam’s face grew hot. “Come on, help me out here. I’m trying to—”

  “I’m sorry, really, but I’m just not interested.” She started to shut the door.

  “Why are you so angry?” Cam asked, a little too loudly.

  Sharon stopped. “I’m not angry, I’m indifferent.”

  “And I’m Jess’s niece. If you really cared about her, you’d honor her—”

  “If I cared about her? Who do you think you are? And don’t give me that niece crap, or anything about honor.”

  “I—”

  “She was crushed by how you treated her. She’d done so much for you, just to have you be so hateful and ugly.”

  “It was complicated. You don’t know what it was like for me.”

  “I know exactly what it was like. I was there, I saw how you turned on her.”


  “You were there?”

  “See? You were so self-absorbed. You still are.”

  Confusion clung to Cam like ice crystals on the mile-high bridge. When she was nine, Aunt Jess took her to Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina. Seeing the swinging bridge disappear into the icy fog had scared her, and Aunt Jess had to use the promise of hot chocolate to coax her across.

  “We hid our relationship for years. Anything to spare poor Cam any discomfort. I stayed in the background while you took and took and took from her. Then who was there when she was devastated by having to give you up?”

  “Devastated?” Cam fought off an inappropriate smile at the thought of Aunt Jess being emotional over her.

  “Who was there when you showed your appreciation by calling her names and telling her you never wanted to see her again? I was. And I was there when she got the news about the cancer. I sat up nights with her when she was vomiting and shitting all over herself. Where were you?”

  Sharon’s voice rose with each question, and Cam found herself looking around to see if anyone was listening. Shame chased away her confusion, melting into the sweat of embarrassment, stunning her. Unable to say anything else, she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

  “Of course you are. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got laundry and other grownup things to do.” She turned on her heel, went inside, and closed the door behind her.

  †

  Cam crossed the graveled parking lot of the cabinet shop and saw Macy talking to Kenny between his company truck and Gary’s installer’s van. Cam slowed down, curious about a sense of familiarity that she hadn’t noticed between them before. It made her uneasy, but she didn’t know why.

  Dusty rocks ground together under Cam’s work boots as she approached Macy’s car. She watched Macy inspect Kenny’s right hand and wondered what she knew about the swollen knuckles Kenny had showed up with that morning.

  And Cam wondered what her lunch with Macy was about. Something was up, she just couldn’t figure out what. She hoped Macy wasn’t going to tell her that she and Michael were engaged, or anything horrible like that.