The Friendship Pact

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  It was a good point. And it looked like my attempt to dislodge the tension from our car might be working.

  “I’d say any guy who’s willing to go through an interview for the same sperm donation money he’d get without putting himself through that has already passed a test,” Danny continued.

  On the one hand, I was thrilled. Danny and Bailey were discussing something of personal relevance! On the other hand, I squirmed in my seat. With every word they spoke, Bailey was getting closer to locking herself into adecision that was going to last her a lifeti

  “When’s your first interview?”

  “Tuesday morning.” That soon. The tension was back.

  “How many are there?”

  “Six.”

  Wow. That sounded serious. And my panic was back, too.

  Before I could reel myself in and make an appropriate response, Danny said, “I can’t believe that many guys are willing to go through a personal interview for this kind of thing when they could make the same money doing it anonymously.”

  “The clinic has a division for men who are only in it for the money. But there are men out there who understand that for various reasons women would like to have children alone, but also feel the need to know something about their child’s biological Y component. The clinic has a program to find those men and make them available to women who’d like to use their services. You pay a little more, but not much.”

  We’d heard about the program that day at the clinic. As determined as I’d been to save Bailey from herself, from making what I really believed was, for her, a mistake, I hadn’t paid a lot of attention to the donor programs.

  “How long do you have after the interviews to make a decision?” I’d run the question by my mental checkpoint a couple of times before speaking.

  “As long as I choose to take. I’m under no obligation to any of them.”

  Bailey’s words eased my distress a bit. But not enough.

  “At the same time, I have to understand that if I wait too long, the man I choose might no longer be available and I’d have to start the process all over again.”

  “Maybe a better candidate would have come on the market by then.” I mean, we were talking what-ifs.

  Complete silence followed my remark. We were still about twenty minutes outside Pittsburgh. Thirty away from our suburb.

  Way too much time for me to be trapped in a car with nothing to do but think. And worry.

  I told myself to let it go. Bailey’s life was her own. She was an adult. Her choices were not mine and did not have anything to do with my life.

  It was what a counselor would have said. What I probably would have told anyone who came to me with a similar problem. But Bailey and I...we weren’t just two women who were friends.

  We’d made a promise to stand by each other for life. To have each other’s back. If she was anyone else, I could do as my internal counselor suggested and let it go. If I understood and just didn’t like it, as was the case with her choice to let Jake marry someone else, then I’d support her decision.

  This baby thing...it was different. Bailey had specifically asked me not to simply agree with her. She’d wanted me to challenge her decisions, to question them, to make her look at what she herself might not be able to see.

  I believed that part of her was trusting that I couldn’t just drop this.

  The car’s interior was quiet. My mind was like a loudspeaker.

  “When’s the last interview?” I asked ten minutes from the city.

  “Friday.”

  “You’ve got all six in one week?”

  “Yes.”

  Sounds like you’re in a hurry. I managed to bite my tongue before the words actually slipped out.

  I turned and studied Bailey again wishing for a second that we were alone so I could be certain I was speaking to her heart, to her innermost self. I didn’t tell her how worried I was about a decision that could change her life, that could limit her life, her choices, so drastically. “Are you asking me just to accept your decision at this point?”

  “No.”

  That was unequivocal enough for me. I nodded. Turned around. But wondered if we were outgrowing our childhood promises to each other, just as we’d outgrown the whole live-next-door idea, sharing dinners and Saturday afternoons while our husbands golfed.

  Bailey wasn’t backing down on single parenthood. And I couldn’t lie to her and tell her I supported the choice. I kept trying. But I couldn’t. No matter how much I wished I felt differently.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When Diane buzzed to say that a Mr. Brown was in the front office asking for her, Bailey thought she’d misunderstood. Mrs. Brown, not Mr. She wasn’t expecting Kora. Her friend hadn’t said anything about stopping by after school when they’d dropped her off the afternoon before, on their return from the drama-laden Wesley weekend.

  But she wasn’t really surprised, either.

  Bailey’s first interview was Tuesday morning. Kora would need a “check-in” before then. Truth be told, Bailey needed it, too. Even if Kora didn’t think she was doing the right thing, Bailey still needed her around. Involved. She needed to hear what Kora saw so that she could run everything by her internal radar and know she was doing the right thing.

  As twisted as that might seem, it worked. Kora was showing her another view and giving her the chance to analyze it.

  In case she really was making a mistake, she’d have a chance to change her mind before it was too late.

  It wasn’t as if she was preparing to change jobs or buy a house here. She was making a choice that would change everything irrevocably. Forever.

  She opened the glass door to the front office with a smile on her face, only to stand there shocked.

  “Danny?”

  With his hands clasped together, he looked awkward as hell.

  Diane hadn’t been wrong about her visitor.

  But something was wrong. All the blood drained from Bailey’s face. And neck. She could feel herself going cold.

  Kora. Oh, God.

  “You got a minute?” Pulling his hands apart, he smacked them together again, rubbed them and let them drop to his sides.

  She noticed his movements in minute detail. Because she couldn’t focus on anything else.

  “What?” she croaked.

  “Oh...God...” He took a step forward, leaning toward her, and the look on his face released the paralysis that had taken over her system. “I’m so sorry. This isn’t about Kora or anything. She’s fine. I just got off the phone with her, as a matter of fact. She’s on her way into an after school teachers’ meeting.”

  She took a deep breath. And then, when her brain was fully functioning again, wasn’t sure what to do with herself. Or him.

  “I can come back if this is a bad time.”

  Danny was the only person who didn’t like her whose opinion she gave a rat’s ass about.

  “Ah...yes, I have a minute.” She pretended she was in court. Facing a judge who didn’t usually rule in her favor. “You want to come on back?”

  “Sure.” He raised his hands and let them fall again. That was when she realized that Danny was as uncomfortable as she was, maybe more so, and she started to relax. He’d come to meet her on her turf. Giving her the advantage.

  She prepared herself for the worst.

  “Kora doesn’t know I’m here.” He took the seat she’d indicated, in front of her desk, and she sat behind it, hands folded on top. Mostly so they wouldn’t shake, but he didn’t have to know that.

  With a raised eyebrow her only response to his statement, she waited to see what he had to say. She’d look out for Kora’s happiness, first and foremost. And go from there.

  “I wanted to speak with you about something.” />
  “I’m listening.” Not even a tremor in her voice. Good.

  “You and I...we aren’t...close.”

  He wasn’t normally at a loss for words, either. He’d loosened his tie—as usual. That was something Jake never did.

  “I...since the time I met Kora, I’ve always been on the outside looking in where you two are concerned.”

  Funny, from her perspective the situation was reversed, but whatever.

  “I think I’ve found a way to be on the inside, too.”

  Too. He had her interest.

  “You and Kora...you have a lot of secrets between you.”

  Damn straight. And if he thought she was going to breach even one of them, he was...

  “I’d like you and me to have one, too.”

  She sat back, dropping her hands to her lap. There was no way she was going to...

  “Wait,” he said, lowering his head as he held up one hand. “That didn’t come out right. What I’m asking is for you to keep this conversation just between us. At least for now.”

  She nodded. Now could be the space of one minute.

  “The Jake thing aside—and I gotta tell you I don’t understand that—” He stopped himself, then said, “But I understand your choice to be a single parent.”

  Whew. The air left her lungs a second time. Glad she was sitting back in her chair, Bailey waited.

  “You and I...growing up in broken homes...well, let’s just say I kind of get where you’re coming from. Because of how we grew up, we have a different life experience than Koralynn does. Sometimes it really is better to grow up in a single-parent home.”

  She nodded. On edge as she waited to find out where this was going. Kora trusted Danny with her life. Bailey trusted Danny with Kora’s life.

  “So...” He shifted, placed his ankle on the opposite knee, rested his hand on his ankle, then dropped his foot to the floor again. Sitting forward, elbows on his knees, he glanced up at her.

  “I...well...” He sat up. “I’m offering to be your, uh, donor.”

  The words sent her into shock. Her mind went blank, other than to be in some out-of-body place where she was looking down at herself, as she sat there, unmoving. “I appreciate the fact that you aren’t laughing.” He shrugged. “Or that you didn’t jump up in horror.” He grinned.

  She stared at him.

  “I know this is out there,” he said then, leaning forward again, but the look in his eye as he met her gaze was steady.

  Which, oddly enough, steadied her. That was a first. Danny making her less uncomfortable instead of more so.

  “But I’d like to do this.”

  From up above she continued to watch. Detachment was a great thing. She could see Danny sitting there. Could hear him talking.

  She didn’t have to respond.

  “The only children I want are the ones I have with Kora.” He continued to talk, so she continued to listen.

  “As you asked your questions in the car yesterday, I was trying to figure out what your right answers would be and found myself getting the right answer each time..”

  This was Danny. She had to keep telling herself. And was half expecting a hidden cameraman—probably Jake—to pop out any second. Sort of. Mostly, she knew he was being sincere.

  She just didn’t understand why he was there.

  “I love my wife to distraction, Bailey.”

  “I know you do.”

  “But I’m never going to be fully connected with her unless I can somehow find a way to bridge the distance between you and me.”

  She realized that. And truthfully wasn’t sure she wanted the distance bridged. She liked having a part of Kora to herself. And hated how selfish that made her.

  “Where you’re concerned, there’s a wall between my wife and me.”

  Okay, she didn’t want that. Didn’t want to come between them. She just wanted her own place in Kora’s life. In their lives...

  “Yesterday, when you were talking, it came to me that this was how we could bridge the gap. You and I would have a connection, too. Not as close as you and Kor, different. If I could do this favor for you, we’d have...I don’t know...”

  “A sense of family.”

  “Yes.”

  “Kora would hate us both.” She’d already rejected the idea outright. But that was from the up above vantage point where she was still watching things unfold.

  “For now, yes, I think she would,” he said. “Which is why I’d like to keep this between the two of us. But once she sees that the choice to have a baby this way was right for you—and she will eventually, we both know that. Kora’s nothing if not open-minded. She’s willing to see where she’s wrong. Anyway, once she sees that it was the right choice, she’ll be glad to know I took care of things for you, just as she’d do if she were biologically capable of it.”

  “I’m not so sure about that. Even Kora and I are beyond sharing husbands.”

  “You don’t want a husband,” he reminded her succinctly. “You want a vetted Y gene. Period.”

  True. Still...

  “I know how protective my wife is of you. She’d much rather know that your, uh, biological partner is someone she knows and trusts, someone she’d choose herself if she wasn’t married and having babies traditionally.”

  He’d thought this through. Which gave him a huge advantage over her.

  “I think you’d agree that, next to you, I know Kora better than anyone.”

  He’d given her first billing. The emotions that had slowly detached themselves started to settle again, making her feel more alive. And more uncomfortable, too.

  “I...” So many words pushed forward. Not a single one of them found a way to escape.

  “Think about it,” Danny said, standing.

  She was. Picturing herself and Kora with their babies, raising them together as they’d always dreamed. An extended family.

  They’d finally be biologically related, through their children who’d be half siblings.

  No. It was too weird. Even for her.

  “You and I have very different ideas about some things,” she began. He thought she should marry Jake because it was the traditional route when you loved someone. “What would happen when I taught my child in ways that were contrary to your beliefs?”

  “The exact same thing that’ll happen no matter who your child’s biological father turns out to be. I’d let my opinion be known, you’d ignore it and that would be that. Get one thing straight, Bailey. I wouldn’t for one second see any child resulting from a sperm donation as mine. I’m trying to be a close friend here. An extension of my wife, if that makes sense. Helping you with something I know she’d do for you if she could. And that’s all.”

  Could it be that simple? She didn’t think so. Life was complicated. And what he suggested...

  “Didn’t you mean what you talked about yesterday?” he asked. “About the man being no more than a biological partner?”

  “Of course.”

  “So why would my donation be any different? Except that you’d be assured that your source met every one of your qualifications. I’d be donating sperm. Not having a child with you.”

  Bailey knew for certain that his offer didn’t come from any personal regard for her. He was there because he honestly thought that helping Bailey would help his marriage.

  The realization was...odd. But convincing.

  Still... “If Kora found out before you or I told her what we’d done, she’d be devastated,” Bailey said.

  “I’m assuming the clinic is under a confidentiality agreement and that means only the two of us would know.”

  Her baby could resemble him—not that anyone would notice if they weren’t looking, but the two of them would know. More importantly, eve
ry time he looked at the child he’d know it was his.

  But then, the clinic’s counselor said that a lot of men were able to donate their sperm without any particular emotional attachment. She’d suggested that Bailey might try to find a friend or acquaintance who’d be willing. She talked about a woman who’d done that a couple of years before and how splendidly it had worked because she’d known every aspect of family medical history...

  When she started to feel tempted, as though she wanted him to convince her, Bailey stood. “I do appreciate the offer, Danny, more than you probably know, but I just can’t do this. It doesn’t feel right to me.”

  He stood, too, hands in his pockets now, facing her with a sense of ease. “Will you at least think about it? Do your interviews, see if something pans out. If it does, great. But if it doesn’t...”

  “I’m not going to go against my better judgment just because something better doesn’t present itself.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” He actually grinned at her. Like she’d seen him do with his real friends. “Believe me, I know how rigid you are when it comes to doing what you think is right....”

  He was still smiling, and the smile took away the sting of his words. That prompted her to say, “So, maybe, we can try to work on our relationship,” but she wasn’t sure how. “For Kora’s sake.”

  It wasn’t any action on either her part or his that stood between Danny and Bailey. It was a lack of feeling between them. A lack of...attachment...just as he said.

  “Sure.” His reply held the same blankness as her suggestion.

  It wasn’t as if they hadn’t already tried to get along. If they’d been able to like each other more, feel closer, they would’ve done that long ago.

  Still, they were getting older. Different things mattered to them now.

  Danny walked to the door. Reached for the handle. And turned back to her. “Please think about my offer. It’s possible that only a biological connection, one we don’t ever have to acknowledge, could give us a real bond with each other.”

  “It would certainly give us something in common....” She’d remained behind her desk.