by Jodi Picoult
“Zoe—”
“This is my last chance. I’m too old to go through in vitro again to harvest more eggs with an anonymous sperm donor.” With a shaking hand I pull the form from the clinic out of my purse. “Please, Max? I’m begging you.”
He takes the piece of paper but doesn’t look at it. He doesn’t look at me. “I . . . I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”
You do, I realize. You just won’t say it.
“Think about it?” I ask.
He nods, and I stand up. “I really appreciate this, Max. I know this wasn’t what you expected.” I take a step back. “I, um, guess I’ll call you. Or you call me.”
He nods, then folds the paper in half and half again, and tucks it into his back pocket. I wonder if he will even look at it. If he’ll tear it up in little pieces and rake it into the dirt. If he’ll send it through the wash in his jeans so that he cannot read the words anymore.
I start walking down to the curb, where I’ve left my car, but I am stopped by Max’s voice. “Zoe,” he calls out. “I still pray for you, you know.”
I face him. “I don’t need your prayers, Max,” I say. “Just your consent.”
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Faith (4:01)
MAX
Sometimes God just plain pisses me off.
I am the first to tell you that I’m not always the brightest crayon in the box, and that I would never assume I could know what the Lord has up His sleeve, but there are situations where it’s really hard to figure out what He’s thinking at all.
Like when you hear about a bunch of kids being killed in a school shooting.
Or when there’s a hurricane that wipes out an entire community.
Or when Alison Gerhart, a sweet twenty-something who went to Bob Jones University and who had the prettiest soprano in the church choir and who never smoked a day in her life was diagnosed with lung cancer and dead in a month.
Or when Ed Emmerly, a deacon at Eternal Glory, lost his job just when his son needed a pricey spinal surgery.
Since Zoe’s unexpected visit, I’ve been praying over what’s the right thing to do here, but it’s not a matter of black or white. We’re in agreement about one thing: to us, those are not just frozen cells in that clinic; they’re potential children. Maybe we both believe this for very different reasons—mine religious and hers personal—but either way, we don’t want to see those embryos flushed down a drain. I’ve been putting off the inevitable by agreeing to keep them frozen, suspended in limbo. Zoe wants to give them the chance at life every baby deserves.
Even Pastor Clive would side with her on that.
But he’d probably go ballistic if I told him that this future baby was going to spend its life with two lesbian mothers.
On the one hand, I have God reminding me that I can’t destroy a potential life. But what kind of life is it to subject an innocent child to a gay household? I mean, I’ve read the literature that Pastor Clive’s given me, and it’s clear to me (and to the scientists who are quoted) that being gay is not biological but environmental. You know how gays reproduce, don’t you? Since they can’t very well do it the biblical way, they recruit. It’s why the Eternal Glory Church fights so hard against allowing gay teachers in schools—those poor kids don’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell at not being corrupted.
“Afternoon, Max,” I hear, and I look up to see Pastor Clive coming in from the parking lot, carrying a bakery box. He doesn’t smoke or drink, but he has a real weakness for cannoli. “Care to share a piece of gustatory paradise from Federal Hill?”
“No thanks.” The sun, behind his head, gives him a halo. “Pastor Clive, have you got a minute?”
“Sure. Come on inside,” he says.
I follow him past the church secretary, who offers me a Hershey’s Kiss from a bowl on her desk, and into his office. Pastor Clive cuts the strings tied around the bakery box with a hunting knife he keeps on a loop of his belt and lifts one of the pastries. “Still can’t be tempted?” he asks, and, when I shake my head, he licks the cream from one end. “This,” he says, his mouth full, “is how I know there’s a God.”
“But God didn’t make those cannoli. Big Mike did, down at Scialo Brothers.”
“And God made Big Mike. It’s all a matter of perspective.” Pastor Clive wipes his mouth with a napkin. “What’s weighing you down today, Max?”
“My ex-wife just told me that she’s married to a woman and she wants to use our embryos to have a baby.” I want to rinse my mouth out. Shame tastes bitter.
Pastor Clive slowly puts down his cannoli. “I see,” he says.
“I’ve been praying. I know the baby deserves to live. But not . . . not like that.” I look down at the ground. “I may not be able to keep Zoe from going to Hell on Judgment Day, but I’m not going to let my kid be dragged down with her.”
“Your kid,” Pastor Clive repeats. “Max, don’t you see? You said it yourself—this is your baby. This may be Jesus’s way of telling you it’s time for you to take responsibility for those embryos, lest they wind up in your ex-wife’s control.”
“Pastor Clive,” I say, panicking. “I’m not cut out to be a father. Look at me. I’m a work in progress.”
“We’re all works in progress. But being responsible for that baby’s life doesn’t necessarily mean what you think. What would you wish most for that child?”
“To grow up with a mom and a dad who love him, I guess. And who can give him everything he needs . . .”
“And who are good Christians,” Pastor Clive adds.
“Well, yeah.” I look up at him. “A couple like Reid and Liddy.”
Pastor Clive comes around the desk and sits on the edge of it. “Who have been trying for years to be blessed with a child of their own. You’ve been praying for your brother and sister-in-law, haven’t you?”
“Of course I have—”
“You’ve been asking God to bless them with a baby.” I nod. “Well, Max. When God closes a door, it’s only because He’s opened a window.”
Only once in my life have I had the same kind of parting-of-the-clouds-so-the-sun-shines-through moment as I have right now—and that was when I was in the hospital and Pastor Clive helped me clear away the smoke and bullshit to see Jesus, close enough for me to touch if I reached out. But now I see that the reason Zoe came to me today was because God has a plan for me. If I am not capable of raising this baby on my own, at least I know he’ll be cared for by my own flesh and blood.
This baby is my family, and that’s where he belongs.
“There’s something I need to talk to you two about,” I say at dinner that night, as Reid passes me a platter of scalloped potatoes. “I want to give you something.”
Reid shakes his head. “Max, I’ve told you. You don’t owe us anything.”
“I do. I owe you my life, if you want to get technical about it, but that’s not what I’m talking about,” I say.
I turn to Liddy. Weeks after the miscarriage, she still looks like a ghost. Just the other day I found her sitting in her parked car in the garage, staring out the windshield at a row of shelves that held power tools and paint. I asked her where she was going, and she jumped a foot, she was so surprised to see me. I have no idea, she said, and she looked down at herself as if she was wondering how she got there in the first place.
“You can’t have a baby,” I state.
Liddy’s eyes fill with tears, and Reid is quick to interrupt. “We can, and we will, have a baby. We’ve just been expecting it to happen on our timeline instead of God’s. Isn’t that right, honey?”
“And I’ve got a baby I can’t have,” I continue. “When Zoe and I got divorced, there were still three frozen embryos left at the clinic. Zoe wants to use them. But I think . . . I think they should go to you two.”
“What?” Liddy breathes.
“I’
m not father material. I can barely take care of myself, much less someone else. But you guys—you deserve to have a family. I can’t imagine a better life for a kid than living here with you.” I hesitate. “In fact, I’ve experienced it.”
Reid shakes his head. “No. Five years from now, you’ll be back on your feet. Maybe even married—”
“You wouldn’t be taking my kid away from me,” I say. “I’d still be Uncle Max. I’d still get to take him out surfing. Teach him how to drive. All that stuff.”
“Max, this is crazy—”
“No it’s not. You’re already looking into adoption,” I say. “I saw the brochures on the kitchen counter. This is the same thing—Pastor Clive says that embryo adoption happens all the time. But this embryo, it’s related to you.”
I can tell, that gets to my brother. We both look at Liddy at the same time.
There’s a piece of me that’s selfish here, I’ve got to admit. A woman like Liddy—pretty, smart, religious—she’s everything a guy could want, everything I’ll probably never have. She’s stuck by me throughout the years, even when Reid got frustrated with me for not living up to my potential, or for just plain ruining my life. If Liddy gets pregnant after the embryos are transferred, it will be her baby—hers and Reid’s—but I have to confess that I like the thought of being the one who can bring a smile back to her face.
God knows I wasn’t able to do that with my own wife.
Liddy, though, doesn’t look happy. She looks terrified. “What if I lose this one, too?”
It’s a possibility; it always is when you are doing in vitro. But there are no guarantees in life, period. The baby who’s born completely healthy could sleep the wrong way and suffocate. The triathlete could drop dead because of a congenital heart defect he never knew about. The girl you thought you loved could fall in love with someone else. Yeah, Liddy might miscarry. But what are the alternatives here? That the baby remains an ice cube for the next decade or two? That it’s born to two women who choose to live in sin?
Reid looks at Liddy with so much hope in his eyes that I turn away, embarrassed. “What if you don’t?” he says.
Suddenly I’m on the outside of a window looking in. A Peeping Tom, an observer instead of a player.
But that baby. That baby, he won’t be.
That night I am brushing my teeth in the guest bathroom when Reid comes to stand in the doorway. “You can change your mind,” he says, and I don’t pretend to not know what he’s talking about.
I spit out the toothpaste, wipe my mouth. “I’m not going to.”
Reid looks uncomfortable, shifting from one foot to the other. His hands are in his trouser pockets. He barely even looks like the man I know—the one who is always in control of a situation, the one whose charm is matched only by his brains. I realize, with a start, that, although Reid is a golden boy who seems to do everything right the first time around, I’ve just found something he’s not good at.
Gratitude.
He’ll give you the shirt off his back, but when it comes to accepting some good old-fashioned assistance for himself, he is at a loss.
“I don’t know what to say,” Reid admits.
When we were little, Reid made up a secret language, with a vocabulary book and everything. Then he taught it to me. At the dinner table, he’d say, Mumu rabba wollabang, and I would burst out laughing. My mother and father would just look at each other, baffled, because they didn’t know that Reid had just said that the meat loaf smelled like monkey butt. It drove my parents crazy, the way we could communicate outside the boundaries of normal conversation.
“You don’t have to say anything,” I tell him. “I already know.”
Reid nods, and pulls me into an embrace. He’s fighting tears, I can tell by his breathing. “I love you, little brother,” he murmurs.
I close my eyes. I believe in you. I’m praying for you. I want to help you. Reid has said many things to me over the years, but it’s only now that I realize how long I’ve waited to hear him say this.
“I already know that, too,” I reply.
Mrs. O’Connor’s made doughnuts. She does it the old-fashioned way, frying them up, and sprinkling a little bit of sugar over them. I always look for her name on the church office bulletin board sign-up sheet, to see when she’s bringing a snack to the fellowship coffee after the service. You can bet I’m the first one out of the auditorium sanctuary, so that I get to that platter before the Sunday School kids do.
I’ve loaded up my plate with more than is my fair share when I hear Pastor Clive’s voice. “Max,” he says, “I should have known we’d find you here.”
I turn around, a doughnut already stuffing my mouth. The pastor is standing next to a newcomer, or at least I think he is a newcomer. He’s taller than Pastor Clive and has black hair slicked back with some kind of oil or mousse. His tie is the same color as his pocket square—pinkish, like smoked salmon. I have never seen teeth so white in my life.
“Ah,” he says, reaching for my hand. “The infamous Max Baxter.”
Infamous? What have I done now?
“Max,” the pastor says, “this is Wade Preston. Maybe you recognize him from TV?”
I shake my head. “Sorry.”
Wade laughs big and loud. “Gotta get me a better publicist! I’m an old friend of Clive’s. We went to seminary together.”
He has a Southern accent that makes his words sound like they’re swimming underwater. “So you’re a pastor, too?”
“I’m a lawyer and a good Christian,” Wade says. “As much as that sounds like an oxymoron.”
“Wade’s being modest,” Pastor Clive explains. “He’s a voice for the pre-born. In fact, he’s made it his life’s mission to ensure their rights and to protect them. He’s very interested in your case, Max.”
What case?
I don’t realize I’ve said that out loud until Wade Preston answers. “Clive tells me you’re going to file to keep your lesbian ex-wife from getting her hands on your child.”
I look at Pastor Clive, and then around the room to see if Reid and Liddy have entered yet, but I’m on my own here.
“What you need to know, Max, is that you’re not alone,” Wade says. “It’s the gay-by boom: homosexuals are trying to pervert the notion of a family as being anything other than a mother and a father in a loving Christian household. My goal is to do for adoptions what the Defense of Marriage Act does for the sanctity of that sacrament—namely, to keep innocent children from being victimized.” He puts his arm around my shoulders, steering me away from a clot of church hens who have come to the coffee urn. “You know how I found Jesus, Max? I was ten years old and stuck in summer school because I failed fourth grade. And my teacher, Mrs. Percival, asked if anyone wanted to stay with her during recess to pray. Well, let me tell you, I couldn’t have cared less about religion at the time. All I wanted was to be the teacher’s pet so that I could be the first one in line for snack that day, because we got served cookies, and there were never enough chocolate ones to go around, and the vanilla ones tasted like—pardon my French—ass. I figured I’d say a few silly prayers with her and I’d cut to the front of that snack line.
“Sure enough, I listened to her Jesus-this and Jesus-that. I pretended to go along with it, but the whole time I was thinking of those cookies. When it came time for snack, Mrs. Percival let me be the line leader. I raced to the snack table, but I might as well have been flying there, I was so light on my feet. And I looked at the tray, and there wasn’t a single chocolate cookie on it.”
I glance down at my plate of doughnuts.
“Here’s the incredible part, Max. I picked up one of those vanilla cookies, which were probably baked out of cardboard and donkey crap, and I took a big ol’ bite, and it was the most delicious thing I’d ever eaten. It tasted like chocolate and Christmas morning and winning the World Series, all wrapped up into one little dollop of dough. And that’s the moment I realized that Jesus was with me, even when I didn’
t expect it.”
“You got saved over a cookie?” I ask.
“Yes, I did. And you know how I know for sure? Because since that moment in Mrs. Percival’s remedial summer class, I have been in a car accident that killed every other passenger but myself. I’ve survived spinal meningitis. I’ve graduated at the top of my law school class at Ole Miss. I’ve sailed through life, Max, and I am smart enough to know I’m not the captain of my own ship, if you get my drift. And because God’s been looking out for me, I believe it’s my Christian duty to look out for those who can’t look out for themselves. I’ve been admitted to practice law in nineteen states,” Wade says. “I’m active with the Snowflakes Frozen Embryo Adoption program—you’ve heard of it?”
Only because Pastor Clive told Reid and Liddy about it, after the last miscarriage. It’s a Christian adoption agency that starts before the baby is born and lets people who’ve been through IVF match their extra embryos with families who need them.
“What I’m trying to tell you,” he says smoothly, “is that I’ve got the experience local counsel might not have. There are men all over the country—men like you—who try to do everything right and who still find themselves in this horrible situation. You’ve been saved. Now it’s up to you to save your children.” He looks directly into my eyes. “And I’m here to help.”
I don’t know what to say. I got a voice mail on my phone from Zoe yesterday. She just wanted to know if I’d signed the paper yet. If I wanted to talk more, meet for coffee, ask her any questions.
I kept her message. Not because of what she was asking but because of her voice. She wasn’t singing, but there was a rise and fall to her words that made me think of music.
The thing is, I’ve already fucked up again. I don’t really want to tell Zoe I’ve come to a decision, but I have to. And something tells me she’ll be about as thrilled to have her babies raised by Liddy and Reid as I am to have mine raised by two dykes.
