Her Christmas Future

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Uncomfortable, Olivia guided her mother quickly toward her white BMW and out of the guy’s sight.

  The last thing either one of them needed at the moment was more man trouble.

  * * *

  “What’s wrong?” Sylvia’s question had a parental note to it.

  Glancing from the view, Olivia turned her attention back to her mother on the other side of the balcony table they were sharing at one of their favorite breakfast spots. They’d determined before Sylvia had left on her trip that they’d breakfast there when Olivia picked her up.

  “Nothing’s wrong.” She looked the older woman in the eye, holding her own, and then glanced back out toward the ocean. She needed Sylvia. Loved her.

  And they were still more like sisters than mother and daughter.

  “A mother knows these things,” Sylvia said, sipping from the tea she’d ordered. And waiting. How this woman could read Olivia so well, know her so well, when for the first eighteen years of her life they’d spent a total of three hours together, Olivia didn’t know.

  But she couldn’t argue.

  “I had unprotected sex with Martin the other night.”

  “And?”

  “What do you mean, and? That’s it. That’s what’s wrong.”

  “Why?”

  The ocean no longer held her in its thrall. Sylvia’s concerned brown gaze did that. And it all spilled out. The sadness over Christine’s joy. The jealousy. Her shame for having the feelings. Drinking too much. Having sex when she was ovulating.

  And Christine’s offer. A solution that she wasn’t going to take, but couldn’t bring herself to turn down yet, either. “I’m going to give this Beth woman the money she needs for her mother’s surgery.” She ended with the one thing she did know for sure. “She’s on hold until I give a definitive no, meaning she won’t be considered by any other couples, and... I can afford to help. I want to help.”

  She’d make something good come out of her stupidity. Turn her selfish recklessness into an act of selfless giving.

  “Why did you go to Christine?”

  “I told you why.” The pill. Why she wanted no one in her circle knowing.

  Shaking her head, Sylvia watched as the table down one from them was served. Dipped her tea bag a time or two. Moved her as-yet-unused silverware a little farther out, as though making room for the plates yet to be brought to their table. They’d opted for blueberry crepes. Olivia wasn’t sure she was going to be able to eat much of hers.

  “You told me the reason you gave yourself.” Sylvia’s words came softly. “And it’s valid. As it would be coming from you. But I’m just wondering if, maybe, a part of you needed to know if you had any other options. If anyone would know, it would be Christine. And if anyone could help you see that it was okay to consider those options, it would be her. After all, look at her, she brought a deceased woman’s baby to life.”

  “Of course I wasn’t looking for options...”

  “Weren’t you?”

  What the hell? She’d needed Sylvia to tell her to grow up. To do what needed to be done. Not to analyze her. It wasn’t like her mother was an expert on parenting.

  “I’m not one of your clients,” she said, embarrassed by the sulky tone in her voice. With a degree in counseling, Sylvia made a better than decent living working with people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

  “No.” Sylvia nodded, her expression as serious as Olivia had ever seen it. “You’re my daughter, and we’re in the middle of a critical life moment here. So let me ask you this. Don’t you find it a bit odd that after nine years of abstaining from unprotected sex and sex period during ovulation, you suddenly engage in both?”

  “Are you seriously accusing me of doing this on purpose?”

  “Of course not.” Sylvia looked shocked. “If you were consciously intending to put yourself in this position, you’d spend weeks researching, another year thinking, and you’d talk to all the key players multiple times before even making a final decision.”

  Yeah, that sounded like her.

  “So, then...”

  “There’s a woman inside you who’s been trapped in there for a really long time.” Sylvia’s tone softened. “I’m thinking she’s tired of all the atrophy and is fighting her way out.”

  “Then perhaps she should have considered consulting me. Suggesting more appropriate alternatives. Like adoption.”

  “Or in vitro fertilization,” Sylvia said. “Odd how you didn’t mention that. Like, even now, you’re trying to shut her up.”

  “Seriously, Sylvia, I’m not one of your clients.”

  “And in response to your earlier statement, I’m guessing she, you, didn’t ‘consult’ you as you say, because you turned off her volume years ago. You took away her voice. And in so doing, lost your chance to spend a year or more making a decision that she’s chosen to make.”

  “I still have that choice.” She always had choices. She could take the pill right then if she wanted to. It was in her purse. And she could think about in vitro fertilization if she ever decided she wanted to do so.

  What she didn’t want to think about was what her mother had just said. Didn’t want to know if there was real truth in the words, or just a guess that fell short.

  “Why are we even having this discussion?” Olivia asked, looking the other woman in the eye, one-on-one, equal to equal, not child to parent. She’d never been this woman’s child. Only her baby. And then her adult offspring. “What does it matter why I did what I did Friday night or Saturday morning? What matters is feeling good about taking the pill. Knowing that it’s the smart choice.”

  She wanted Sylvia to sit there with her while she swallowed it.

  “It matters because it has bearing on what you do from here,” Sylvia said softly, leaning forward. “If your inner self is crying out, Liv, you might need to give her this chance. It could be the only way you’re ever going to know real joy again—if she forces you.”

  “You make me sound like I have multiple personalities.”

  “Nope, just one. But we all have different sides of ourselves. It seems like you live all on one side. And you can go on living half-alive. Nothing or no one is going to stop you if that’s your choice. But I think your other half is trying hard to give you a shot at more. Even if you go ahead with this plan, and it doesn’t work out, at least you’ve walked through the door she forced open.”

  And if she took the pill...was she stepping back out and closing that door forever? Because of what the choice said about her inability to open her heart to wild chances?

  “You think I should do it. I should see the doctor, have the procedure and see if anything transpires from it?”

  The shake of Sylvia’s head was the only response she got as a young man approached their table with a tray bearing two plates. He set them down, asked if they wanted anything else and left, seemingly oblivious to the life-changing conversation taking place right in front of him.

  Olivia could hardly breathe as she waited for him to leave. For her mother to explain why she’d just shaken her head. Like if Olivia called Christine and actually tried to move forward with this off-the-wall scheme, she’d be doing something wrong.

  “I think you need to be honest with yourself,” Sylvia said as soon as the waiter was out of earshot. “You need to admit that you really want this chance. Or you need to face the fact that you don’t. This isn’t about making a choice, Liv. Or listing pros and cons. It’s about listening. Inside. On some level you know what you really want, and you’re also fighting it. Stop fighting. Listen to your heart. Let it speak to you. And then do what you need to do, what you can do, to give it what it needs.”

  In that moment, with those words, Olivia felt like she and her mother had just found home.

  Chapter Four

  Martin spent the entire flight to Italy
on the phone with lawyers and investors, doing what he could to save a deal with the city of Philadelphia for an abandoned apartment building that would allow Fishnet to open up a branch in a spot where it was so critically needed. If he didn’t get things ironed out before Monday, the whole thing was going to fall apart.

  He wasn’t about to let that happen. And by the time he landed, he had achieved his goal. He’d saved the deal.

  Before he deplaned, he did one more thing.

  He texted Olivia and let her know that they could talk when he got home. Less than twenty-four hours from when her message had come in and it had sat there, feeling like a lifetime to him. Ignoring her took that much effort.

  He was back in LA on Thursday. They could talk when he got back.

  She’d be in his life until then.

  And then he was done. Had to be. He didn’t want to spend his life alone, traveling alone, returning to a home he shared with no one. He didn’t want to be set up with interesting women he didn’t know, or dance with beautiful strangers as partners for the rest of his life.

  He knew what he wanted. What he needed. A wife. Someone who wanted to share his world. To want him to share hers. And Olivia, with her career and small-town life, just didn’t fit.

  Truth was, he didn’t fit her, either. He really never had. He’d wanted the small-town life when he’d thought he’d be raising a family, but at forty-one, neither appealed anymore. And while she’d adored Lily, had wanted Lily, Olivia would really have been happier finishing her degree before starting a family. Maybe, if he hadn’t forced things, the pregnancy would have been more successful. He’d done his own studying in the years since they’d lost Lily. Women with unicornuate uteruses could have normal pregnancies, birthing children without defects. Maybe if Olivia had been just a little bit older, if her uterus had had more time to grow into itself, to strengthen...

  And those maybes...he couldn’t do anything about them. But he could move on.

  He’d lost more than ten years of his life loving the wrong woman. He couldn’t afford to waste any more.

  * * *

  Sundays were supposed to be a day of rest. At least when she wasn’t on call. Instead, there she sat in a room with comfortable, pale yellow couches, two windows, a coffee table, her mother, Christine and Dr. Rose Morrisette, the expert conducting the procedure. They were all looking at her.

  Were all there because of her.

  Hardly able to wrap her mind around everything rushing through it, Olivia recognized preliminary signs of emotional shock.

  And was having some clear thoughts, too.

  “So what did you think?” Christine, seated across from her with Dr. Morrisette beside her, asked the question. All three pairs of eyes, Sylvia’s from right beside her, were focused on her.

  Being the star of the show wasn’t a place she usually occupied. Or wanted. And yet, there she was.

  And a picture came to mind of the athletic-looking blonde woman who’d just left the room with her husband. Brian Applegate, an EMT, had completely supported his wife’s choice to help her aunt by using her body to give someone else a chance at life.

  “I liked them,” Olivia said. If she’d met them in another time or place, she might not have noticed them, but had felt instantly drawn to them. To Beth.

  Because she’d needed to be?

  “I just feel bad, getting their hopes up, taking up all of your time when I’m still not...”

  She’d heard from Martin. He was in Italy. Said they’d talk when he got back on Thursday. By then it would be too late. Too late to take the pill. Too late to get an embryo out of her body and into one where it could have a chance of survival.

  If she waited until Thursday, and was pregnant, she’d have no option but termination.

  The thought of that made her want to curl up and die.

  “Their kids are with her sister and they’re getting a minivacation,” Christine said, still speaking about Beth and Brian. “They’re going to the beach this afternoon. I gave them suggestions for dinner downtown.”

  She nodded. Got the message behind Christine’s words. Everyone had choices. Everyone. Christine, her mother, even Rose, were in that room, spending Sunday afternoon with her, because they chose to do so.

  And Olivia had the freedom to make whatever decision she chose, too.

  “I’ll pay for their room, and their meals, too,” she said.

  “They didn’t ask for that, at this point, but if you choose to go through with the embryo transfer, it will all be covered in the legal agreement.”

  The room fell silent then. A silence filled with waiting.

  “They were particularly moved by your story,” Christine finally said softly. “Beth said that of all the profiles she’s read over the past couple of months, she’d choose you to surrogate for first.”

  Clasping her trembling fingers together, Olivia pursed her lips. Nodded.

  “Maybe you don’t really want this, sweetie,” Sylvia said from beside her. Still in the jeans she’d worn off the boat, her suitcase in Olivia’s truck, her mother hadn’t even been home yet.

  And had just pissed her off, too. Sylvia was her parent. She should know what Olivia really wanted and to say that she didn’t want—

  Her brain put a halt on the thought right there. Just as it had been fighting the soul-searching her mother had encouraged her to do over breakfast.

  She needed to think. She needed to talk to Martin. She needed time.

  And didn’t have it.

  “The chance of success, assuming there is a blastocyst when we get there, is still not great,” Rose Morrissette spoke up. While easily in her sixties, the black-haired woman was an imposing figure. She’d made studying fertility her life’s work and knew its history well. Her list of percentages and possibilities would have made Olivia’s head swim, if she even had room for it all.

  Olivia listened. Focused somewhat. And when the other woman fell silent, said, “But there’s still a chance that it would work.”

  “Absolutely. Though if we were to proceed I’d need you to sign a legal document stating that you’re fully aware that the chances aren’t in your favor. Most particularly since this type of thing isn’t generally done anymore. When we, as a medical profession, moved to laboratory fertilization, the success rate rose exponentially, so we’ve never looked back.”

  And if Olivia were planning to have a child, that’s the way she’d go. Laboratory. Petri dishes. Modern science. But she didn’t have that plan.

  She had a possibly fertilized egg inside her, traveling toward a uterus that would hurt it.

  “Although I read on the way over here that it is commonly done that way in cattle and horses with good success,” Sylvia piped up beside her.

  Glancing at her mother, it hit Olivia that Sylvia had a real stake in this. The fact that it was only now fully occurring to her was a testament to her state of mind.

  If she did this, and it worked, her mother would be a grandmother. Sylvia had never met Lily, as only parents had been allowed in to see her. Yet she’d been the one to nurse Olivia through the devastating loss.

  “There’s also no guarantee insurance would cover the procedure.” Christine dropped the words into the room, where sun shone in through the windows and all else seemed surreal to Olivia.

  “Most probably not,” Dr. Morrisette said, adding, “though depending on how we charge it, it might. If you do nothing and end up pregnant, we’d need to go in, anyway.”

  Olivia didn’t care about the insurance. The percentages. Or cows.

  She cared about giving any possible baby inside her the chance to live. Period.

  There.

  Just like that.

  The truth was set free.

  * * *

  Olivia tried to call Martin Sunday night. He didn’t pick up. A few minutes later sh
e had a text from him, asking if there was an emergency.

  It took her another fifteen minutes to decide that there wasn’t. And told him so.

  She’d made up her mind. Talking to him at that point was more formality, decency, than anything else, and not something to be done over the phone across continents. Most particularly not with their history.

  And when he asked if they could talk on Thursday, she demurred.

  If no viable embryo was recovered, if Beth’s body didn’t accept it if there was, there was no reason for Martin to know she’d even tried. No reason to open the huge problematic conversation. Or awaken the hurt and frustration he’d felt when she’d refused to consider other options for having a child nine years before.

  She was currently one year younger than he’d been way back then. Their perspectives would always have that distance between them.

  Not that he’d given her any indication at any time in at least the past five years that he still had an interest in raising a family. His life had broadened since then. The scope of his goals had changed.

  Most of that night, she didn’t let herself think about her ex-husband. Or any baby they’d conceived. Past or present. She thought a lot about Baby V. About the man she’d seen looking at her mother, and Sylvia’s seeming to not really remember what she was talking about when she’d questioned her mother about it.

  She thought about Christine and Jamie. About the son they had, the second one on the way and how, though it was odd that William belonged to Jamie’s deceased wife, they were really making it work.

  Love was making it work.

  And on Monday morning, as she donned a simple gray formfitting tweed skirt, matching T-shirt and flat gray shoes, she made herself go over, again and again, her schedule at the hospital later that day. Sylvia had offered to spend the night with her. To travel with her to Christine’s clinic first thing that morning, where Beth and Dr. Morrisette were meeting her to perform the procedure. She’d declined. She truly had just wanted to be alone.