Prodigal Son (18 page)

And now it was too late. Or close enough as made no difference. She’d missed the boat. Waited too long. And no amount of temper tantrums on the racquetball court was going to change that fact. She was simply going to have to suck it up and get on with playing the hand she’d been dealt. And if that hand meant no children…well, so be it.

Chapter Two

A
lex’s mood of grim resignation held sway until she stepped out of the shower later that evening. She’d made herself dinner when she arrived home from the gym and eaten it mechanically, then she’d settled on the couch and determinedly worked her way through the contracts she’d brought with her. She didn’t let herself think. She was good at that—it was one of her most successful survival techniques. It wasn’t until she’d showered and was toweling herself dry that she caught sight of her naked body in the bathroom mirror and stilled. She let the towel fall to the floor and pressed her hands against her belly, spreading her fingers wide, feeling the resilience of her own skin.

How many times had she imagined what it would be like to grow big with her child? To smooth her hands over her swollen belly? How many times had she tried to imagine what it would feel like to have a small, new life fluttering inside her?

Time to put that dream away.

She let her hands drop, but unlike earlier when she’d first confronted her brutal reality, a small voice piped up in the back of her mind.

A voice of defiance. A voice of hope.

You could still meet someone. You’ve got a few years. And it’s not like you’ve been knocking yourself out trying to meet anyone. If you really put your mind to it, you could still have a chance.

For example, hadn’t she flicked past three whole pages of singles ads in the back section of the daily newspaper this morning? She’d always turned her nose up at the idea of advertising for a partner, no matter that she’d heard plenty of first-and second-hand accounts of how people had met their husbands and wives via dating sites. She’d been convinced that someone would come along through the normal routes—friends, or work or some other social event. But maybe it was time to make things happen instead of waiting.

She shrugged into her dressing gown and headed for the kitchen, her mind teeming with plans. She’d join every dating website she could find. She’d place her own singles ad. She’d date her ass off, make it an absolute priority in her life until she met the right man. Surely, if she committed herself to the task of finding a partner, treated it like a project, she’d be successful. After all, when hadn’t she achieved what she wanted once she put her mind to it?

She’d held the household together after her mother’s accident through sheer grit. And after her mother’s death she’d bulldozed her way through law school, then put her head down and bulldozed some more until she’d made partner in one of Melbourne’s top law firms a mere seven years after graduating. When she wanted something in her professional life, she was formidable. So why couldn’t she transfer that ethos to her personal life?

Her jaw was tense with purpose as she rescued this morning’s paper from the top of the pile in the recycle bin. She crossed to the kitchen table and spread the paper wide, thumbing through until she found the classifieds section. She stared at the columns of small print, aware of her heart beating a determined tattoo against her rib cage. Then she ran her finger down the page until she found the Male Seeks Female section and began to read.

After a few minutes she grabbed a pen from the caddy on her kitchen counter and started to circle the likely suspects.

Male, mid-forties, good sense of humor, professional, seeks woman in mid-to late-thirties, attractive, good sense of humor. Enjoys movies, hiking, reading biographies…

Man, 30s, seeks woman for potential relationship. Should enjoy outdoor sports and overseas travel…

Successful professional male seeks mature, attractive woman no older than 40 with strong sense of self and independence. You should enjoy dining out, weekends away and the theater…

By the time she’d finished she had a list of eight possible prospects. Response was via email so she hauled out her laptop and fired it up. There was no reason she couldn’t send the same response to all eight men. Coming up with that response, however, that might take some time.

She called up a document program on her computer and sat with her fingers hovering over the keyboard. How to best describe herself? She needed to sound appealing but not desperate. She’d never considered herself a great beauty—her jaw-length dark hair was thick and healthy but nothing spectacular, and her mouth was too wide and her eyes too large for conventional standards—but she was attractive enough and Jacob had always said that he loved her plush mouth and full breasts. But she could hardly put that in an ad. She typed a few lines, then immediately deleted them. How to get the essence of herself across in a few short paragraphs? How to cut through all the other responses these men might receive and stand out from the pack? Because the more men she met, the higher the chance of finding someone compatible and the sooner she could sound him out on the subject of children.

She jotted down some sums in the margin of the newspaper. Say it took her six months to find someone. Then another, say, four months before she felt comfortable broaching the subject of children with him. Or was four months too soon? It was hard to know.

Maybe she’d have to simply play it by ear, see what came up in conversation. But if the man was keen for a family, then they should probably wait another six months before attempting to get pregnant. Just to consolidate the relationship. In the meantime, she could talk to Dr. Ramsay about all the things she needed to do to be in tip-top condition to conceive—folate supplements and whatnot—so that she would be ready to go at the drop of a hat.

So adding the six-month search time to the four-month vetting period, then the six-month double-check time—

What are you doing? Can you hear yourself?

Alex stared at the figures. A formula for desperation—that was what she’d calculated. A formula for a woman who was terrified that she was going to miss out.

Was this what she really wanted? Did she really want a baby this much? Was motherhood so important to her that she was prepared to put it at the forefront of any potential connection she developed with a man?

She was no psychologist, but she didn’t need to be to understand that embarking on a relationship with someone while her biological clock ticked loudly in the background wasn’t exactly the ideal way to go.

But what choice did she have? It was this, or leave it to fate to throw the right man in her path before it was too late. And at the end of the day, she’d never believed in luck. She’d had to fight for every good thing that had ever come her way. Why should this be any different?

What she was planning wasn’t particularly pretty or dignified, but if it helped her reach her end goal, then so be it. Life, as she well knew, was often not pretty or dignified.

She stood and grabbed the scissors from the kitchen drawer then cut the relevant pages from the paper. She’d start a folder to keep track of the ads she’d responded to, in case she doubled up.

She was about to close the paper and return it to the recycle bin when her gaze caught on a small, neat ad in the bottom right-hand corner.

Sperm Donor Wanted

Our client is an independent woman with her own home and business. She has a wide support network and wishes to become a mother. She is seeking a donor with a clean bill of health and no family history of major illness. If you are a male between the ages of 18 and 45, you can help her attain her dream of motherhood by contacting Fertility Australasia at O2 9555 2801. Interstate donors welcome, travel payments available.

Alex stilled. For a moment there was not a single thought in her mind. Then she reached for the newspaper and read the ad again, and again.

A sperm bank.

It simply hadn’t occurred to her before.

She stared at the kitchen wall. Not five minutes ago she’d decided that she didn’t believe in luck and that she was prepared to fight for what she wanted, even if it smacked of desperation and meant loosening the tight grip she’d always held on her pride.

A sperm donor was a dead cert. There would be no equivocating or pussyfooting around worrying about compatibility if she went the route of sourcing frozen sperm, bought from a suitably qualified clinic. There would be no responding to want ads and waiting anxiously in coffee shops for her date to show up, no awkward first, second, third dates. She’d never have to judge when it was appropriate to sound out a man on whether he wanted children. She’d never have to worry about the relationship being based more on a biological imperative than mutual attraction and shared feeling.

It would be clean. Direct. Honest.

Best of all, it meant she was in control of her own destiny—as much as any person could be. Her body might not want to cooperate, of course, but at least she would have tried. Given it her best shot. Several best shots, depending on the costs.

She waited for her conscience to catch up with her, to sound a warning chime. But there was nothing.

This was not the way she’d wanted to have a child. She’d wanted to be one half of a couple, two people working together to bring new life into the world. A family.

But she was thirty-eight years old, staring down the barrel of her thirty-ninth birthday. She didn’t have the luxury of waiting for Mr. Right anymore. Not if she wanted to be a mother.

How much do you want this? Enough to do it alone?

She didn’t have to stretch her imagination to know what it would be like to have to cope with the pressures and stresses of raising a child on her own. She was all too familiar with the sense that there were not enough hours in the day, that she was utterly alone, with no help in sight, and that the only thing that stood between her mother and herself winding up on the street was her determination. She knew what it was like to live with the constant fear that there wouldn’t be enough food for tomorrow or that her mother would do something that would bring the wrath of social services down upon them.

She’d survived eight years of loving, nursing, corralling and policing her brain-injured mother after the accident. She could be a single parent. Absolutely she could.

She had money—more than enough to ensure she and her child would never want for anything. Years of obsessive saving had seen to that. She could easily afford to take a year off work, two years, even. She was resourceful and determined. And she wanted this. She wanted this with every fiber of her being.

Picking up the scissors, she sliced the ad neatly from the page.

* * *

Ethan leaned on the doorbell of his brother’s Blackburn home and waited. Sure enough, a small face appeared in the window beside the door, grinning like crazy.

“Uncle Ethan!”

“Hey, matey.”

There was the sound of fumbling from behind the door, then it was open and his eldest nephew, Jamie, was sticking out his tongue and making fake fart noises.

Ethan waited patiently for Jamie to get it out of his system. He could only blame himself, after all, that the first thing his nephews did when they saw him was to break out the noisiest, wettest raspberry they could come up with. His sister-in-law, Kay, had warned Ethan when he’d started teasing the kids with raspberries.

“You’re making a rod for your own back, Uncle Ethan,” she’d said. “You know you’re going to be Uncle Raspberry for the next ten years, don’t you?”

She’d been spot on, but he figured there were worse things in the world.

Stepping over the threshold, he grabbed Jamie around the waist and tucked him under his arm.

“Now, where’s your mom and dad?” he asked as Jamie bellowed a delighted protest.

He hefted his nephew up the hallway to the kitchen, where Kay was stacking dishes in the dishwasher. Her dark blond hair was pulled back in a tie and she was wearing her tailored work shirt over a pair of seen-better-days tracksuit pants.

“You just missed dinner. You should have called, I would have saved you some.”

“I’ve got stuff at home for dinner, but thanks anyway. I thought I’d drop in and see if Derek had finished with that boxed set of
The Wire
yet.”

“He’s finishing up some end-of-quarter figures for one of his clients in the study.” Kay wiped her hands on a tea towel and gave him an amused look. “Let me guess what’s on the menu tonight—wagyu beef, fresh green beans, potato dauphin, maybe some red wine jus. For dessert, vanilla semi-freddo with poached seasonal fruit.” She cocked her pinky finger in the air as though she was having high tea with the queen.

His love of good food and wine had always been a source of amusement for his family. He set Jamie on his feet.

“As a matter of fact, it’s chicken stir-fry. What did you guys have? Fish fingers? Mac and cheese? Beans on toast?” Two could play at that game, after all.

Kay laughed and threw the towel at him. “Walking a fine line there, buddy.”

“Uncle Ethan, come and see the new trick I can do on my bike,” Jamie said, tugging on his hand to drag him toward the door to the patio.

“Hold on there, mister. Didn’t I ask you to put on your jim-jams? It’s too cold and dark out there for you to show Uncle Ethan anything,” Kay said.

“But—”

Kay put her fingers in her ears. “Nope. Can’t hear it. We don’t have that word in this house.”

Jamie’s sigh was heavy with resignation. “All right. But you are one tough customer, lady.”

Kay and Ethan exchanged amused glances as Jamie slouched off to his room.

“Apparently I’m a tough customer,” Kay said. “And a lady.”

“Who would have thunk it? Where’s Tim?”

“In the bath. You can go wrangle him if you want.”

It wasn’t until he was helping his wriggling five-year-old nephew into his pajamas that Ethan understood why he’d come to his brother’s house instead of going home after racquetball. It had shaken him, hearing the longing and yearning in Alex’s voice tonight. Reminded him of his former life.

Because once, a long time ago, he’d wanted kids, too. He’d wanted to hold his sons or daughters in his arms. He’d wanted to dry them like this after the nightly bath. He’d wanted to teach them to read and kick a footy or ferry them to ballet classes. He’d wanted to guide them and help equip them with the skills they’d need to grapple with the challenges life would throw their way. He’d been so bloody certain that children would be a part of his life…