The Offering (30 page)

“I didn't say you had. But you need to calm down, get some therapy, and work through the issues that have confused you. I'm sorry you lost your husband, truly I am, but making trouble for the Amblours is not going to bring your soldier back. If you pursue this matter you're going to rattle a happy family, you could cause serious disruption in a marriage, and you'll probably introduce serious trouble to your own house. How is your daughter going to feel about this?”

“I don't want to make trouble for anyone.” I struggled to keep my voice steady. “I only want to know if that child is my biological son, so I'm going to speak to my reproductive endocrinologist
about my pregnancy. If you throw up a single roadblock, I'll hire a lawyer. I'll do whatever I have to do to get an answer, and as soon as I get it, I'll make things right and then go away.”

“You don't realize—”

“I've realized a lot of things, Natasha. I'm not out to disparage your agency, and I don't mean to make a public example out of anyone. I only want to know—I
need
to know—if Julien Amblour should be living in my home. It's as simple as that.”

“What you're describing is hardly simple.” Natasha gave me a bland look, but a wary twitch of her eye told me she knew I was leading her toward potential disaster. A scowl darkened her brow. “I have to wonder . . . Why did you wait two years to confront me about this alleged problem?”

“I never saw Julien until last week.” I met her accusing gaze without flinching. “I came to see you as a courtesy because I thought I should tell you what I'm about to do. I thought you might have a procedure for situations like this—”

“We don't
have
situations like the one you're describing.”

I folded my hands. “Since you don't have a procedure, I'm going to investigate as quietly as possible. But don't doubt me—I
am
going to investigate. If you don't cooperate, I'll have to make a lot of noise.”

“You're about to make a fool of yourself.” The friendliness in her eyes had frozen into a blue as cold as ice. “We don't make mistakes at the Surrogacy Center. We have far too many safeguards in place.”

“Gideon always said every system was failproof only until it failed.”

Natasha ignored my comment. “You'll regret ever mentioning this. Have you considered the cost? Lawyers and genetic testing aren't cheap. Wouldn't that money be better spent on your daughter's future?”

“Money's not a problem for us anymore.”

“Isn't it?” Her eyes softened with seriousness. “Then think about how people will talk. Surrogate mothers have a hard enough
time explaining themselves, but you're about to make things worse. If you claim that child and this case gets any publicity, you'll be about as popular as Marybeth Whitehead. You'll be shredded in the blogosphere.”

I shook my head. “I don't care what other people think of me. If Julien is my son, he needs me and he needs to know about his father.”

“So your motive boils down to what—maternal feelings?” Her eyes narrowed. “You didn't seem to have many maternal feelings when he was born. You didn't even want to look at that boy.”

The back of my neck burned. “I had just lost my husband. I didn't think I could stand to see something else I was about to lose.”

“In your preliminary interview, you said you wouldn't be attached to the baby. You sat right in that chair and said you wanted to be a surrogate for financial reasons, pure and simple. You have your money, so why make a fuss? Unless this is some kind of blackmail—”

“I don't want a penny from those people.”

“You only want to destroy their lives.” Natasha's voice dripped with sarcasm. “The woman who earnestly wanted to help a childless couple is about to undo everything she did for them. Which will only make people wonder why you're
really
doing this—and why you waited two years to make your move.”

Heat—pure rage—scalded my lungs. Why couldn't she see that if Julien was my child, I had every legal and ethical right to raise him?

“Let people wonder about my motives; any mother would understand. If Julien Amblour is my son, he's all I have left of Gideon. And that's reason enough for me to pursue this.”

I stood and turned to walk out of the office, but Natasha hadn't finished. “I still say you could use some therapy,” she called as I strode over the carpet. “Clearly, you're lacking psychological closure.”

I stormed past the softly focused wall art featuring smiling couples and babies and pretended not to hear the pretty blonde receptionist who wished me a very merry Christmas.

Dr. Harvey Forrester, my reproductive endocrinologist, appeared surprised to learn that I'd made an appointment to talk about a past pregnancy instead of a future one. “What's this about?” he said, ushering me into his office. “Something worrying you?”

I thought about showing him the photographs of Julien and Marilee, then decided against it. They were a Rorschach test; people saw only what they wanted to see.

“First,” I said, taking a seat in one of his guest chairs, “if you've heard about this from Natasha Bray at the Surrogacy Center—”

“I haven't heard anything.” He frowned. “She might have called and left a message, though.”

“That's not important. I came to see you because I need to know if it'd be possible for a woman to miscarry a transferred IVF embryo and then get pregnant by her husband.”

His mouth twisted in a lopsided smile. “Of course it's possible. Both events occur frequently, but not often within days of each other.” He leaned against his desk. “What's the time frame in your hypothetical situation?”

“Within a month,” I said, pulling the little calendar he'd given me from my purse. “Or a couple of weeks. So close that no one suspects the fetus is actually the carrier's biological offspring until after the baby is born.”

His jaw shifted, bristling the silver stubble on his cheek. “This isn't a hypothetical case, is it?”

“No, it's not. I don't know how much you remember about me, but after the pregnancy test I had in this office—”

“No need to go any further. What you're proposing couldn't be possible in that time frame. The six-week sonogram would have revealed an empty womb—no gestational sac or fetal pole. Even if
a subsequent conception had occurred, it wouldn't show up on an ultrasound until later.”

“But that's the problem—my first ultrasound was canceled and I missed the second one because the doctor's equipment was broken. All the subsequent ultrasounds revealed an unusually small fetus. And when the baby was born, supposedly at forty weeks, he barely weighed six pounds.”

“Six pounds isn't all that unusual for a full-term infant.”

“But my daughter weighed nine pounds. And my labor could have been brought on by stress because I started having contractions right after I learned—after I heard”—I gulped as an unexpected rise of grief choked me—“after I learned my husband had been killed.”

As I struggled to get my emotions under control, the doctor cleared his throat and looked away, probably embarrassed by my tears. It'd be easy for him to dismiss me, to tell me that such things couldn't happen, that I was suggesting a medical impossibility. . . .

“Do you know what you're doing?” he finally said, his voice soft. “And are you sure you want to do it?”

I pulled out a tissue to blow my nose. “I don't care about opening a can of worms.”

“But other people are involved. If you're correct in your assumption, this situation won't be easily resolved. And the costs—physical, financial, and especially emotional—”

“Dr. Forrester”—I steadied my voice—“what if the boy we're talking about was yours?”

He drew a deep breath, then promised to pull my file and review my case with Dr. Hawthorn.

A tremor of mingled fear and dread shot through me when I turned onto Mama Isa's street and saw all the cars. Vehicles filled every inch of the paved front lawn, forcing me to park across the road. My pulse quickened as I strode toward the house. Had
someone died? Had something happened to Yanela or Yaritza? Maybe Mama Isa had called a family meeting to discuss how to deal with my delusions. . . .

I hurried inside, my nerves tight, and found the family scattered throughout the house. Amelia, who wore a dazed and happy expression, stood in the living room and appeared to be the eye of the hurricane.

“What's going on?” I crossed my arms and watched my cousin accept two stuffed garbage bags from Elaine. “Has there been a national disaster?”

“We got the call,” Amelia said, her eyes distracted as she turned and carried her bulky load toward the front door. “We're picking up our baby tonight. Mama called her friends, and they've all donated things. People have been dropping stuff off for the last hour, and thank goodness for that. We're not ready!”

I stepped aside to let her hand the garbage bags to Mario, who had come into the house behind me. “What else, Mama?” he asked Amelia. “I got the playpen into the trunk, but do we need a baby bed?”

“Just put those in the car!” Amelia pushed him with a playful tap and sent him out the door.

I followed Amelia into the family room, where Yanela, Marilee, and Yaritza sat on the sofa, sorting items of children's clothing from a large heap on the floor. “How old is this child?” I asked. “And is it a boy or girl?”

Amelia blinked, then focused on me. “He's a boy, about six weeks old. Do babies that small sleep in a baby bed?”

I recognized the look of mad happiness on her face—I'd worn that look many times when Gideon was alive. That expression, coupled with the earnestness in her eyes, touched something inside me and turned my stubborn sentimentality to mush. Why should I cling to something that might do her a world of good?

“Babies that age
can
sleep in a baby bed,” I told her as Mario came back into the house, “but you might prefer something smaller
for a while. I happen to have a beautiful cradle in Marilee's room, but you'll have to dump out all the stuffed animals before you put it in your car.”

She stared at me, her eyes abstracted, but they cleared as understanding dawned. “Mario”—she smiled, her gaze not leaving my face—“go get the cradle in Marilee's room. But put the stuffed animals on the bed; don't leave them on the floor.”

Mario hurried off to haul out the cradle while Amelia wrapped me in an embrace. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for being here because I don't have a clue about what to do.”

“You'll do fine.” I smoothed her hair and then stepped back. “Now, do you have sheets? You don't need a special sheet for the cradle, you can fold a flat sheet to cover the mattress. Later, when you put up a crib, you'll need special sheets to fit.” I turned, trying to remember what I'd done with Marilee's baby linens. “I have some, somewhere. Probably up in the attic. Or in our storage unit.”

Amelia shook her head. “We can look for sheets later. Right now I want to be sure the kid has something to wear.”

I heard the patter of quick steps and turned to see Elaine enter the room, her face flushed and her arms filled with flannel baby blankets—something the baby probably wouldn't need in Florida unless he slept under an air-conditioning vent. Her gaze moved into mine. “Mandy, what else will she need? It's been so long since we had a baby around here.”

“Bottles?” I suggested. “Formula? Diapers? All babies do at that age is eat, sleep, and poop.”

“I think we've got those bases covered.” Amelia actually
beamed
at me, her face glowing as if she'd never known an unhappy day. “Our social worker called about an hour ago, so I left Jenna in charge of the grocery and came straight over. Everything's fallen into place since then.”

I grinned, impressed with the efficiency of the family grapevine. “What did the social worker tell you?”

“We have a little boy,” Amelia said, “Latino, probably one of the migrant workers' babies. He was abandoned in south Florida, but when they heard a heart murmur, they flew him up here for an exam at All Children's Hospital. He's fine, so he can come home with us. We'll take care of him, and if no one claims him in the next six months, we can move forward with the adoption. He'll be legally ours. Forever.”

Her stipulation—
if no one claims him
—tripped a warning flag in my head, but I knew Amelia wanted to remain positive. She was desperate to believe that God had reserved this little boy for her and Mario.

“That's wonderful,” I told her, “and I'm thrilled for you. You're going to love him every bit as much as you'd love your own flesh and blood.”

I don't know why I uttered such a cliché—maybe I simply didn't know what else to say. But Amelia didn't hold my lack of originality against me.

“Thanks, cuz. I love him already.” She turned to Mario, who'd come back into the house. “Is that it? Do we have everything we need for now?”

His eyes were wild with panic, but he nodded. “I think so.”

“Then let's go pick up our baby.”

Amelia gave me another hug, Mario kissed Mama Isa on the cheek, then together they practically ran out of the room. “We'll be back soon,” Mario called.
“Hasta luego!”

Mama Isa, Elaine, and I stood in the doorway as Mario started the car and backed out of the driveway. A familiar tightness gripped my stomach and I recognized it as parental anxiety. Amelia would soon learn about this feeling, if she hadn't already.

I leaned against the doorframe, imagining the scene at the hospital. I could almost see the smile on Amelia's face as she opened her arms for the baby, I could almost hear the hoarseness in Mario's voice as he struggled to find the right first words to whisper to his son.